Barkly Highway State School - Term 4 Week 8
Principal's Welcome
Welcome to our Week 8 Newsletter!
What a great end for our P&C Association! Regular monthly meetings see dedicated parents and interested staff meet to discuss what is happening in the school and how additional events can be included to provide opportunities for our school community. The Slip & Splash was a fun family event which was extremely well attended and I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of our P&C Committee and members. Thank you!
The year, 2022, will be remembered for its unusual start to the school year which was delayed by 2 weeks due to the ongoing concerns in the community of COVID 19. For the majority of families, everyday routines of life were interrupted and this included the school’s cancellation of our now traditional Meet ‘n Greet Barbeque held on Friday before school officially commences. Our Meet ‘n Greet Barbeque has been again scheduled and will be held on Friday 20 January, 8:30-10:30. For returning and new families, we encourage families to take the opportunity to reduce the busyness of first day back at school, to meet classroom teachers who will be in classrooms ready to greet families and students, deliver book packs, grab a sausage, meet support staff and P&C members. This is a time for children to connect with their friends, many they may not have seen during the 7-week summer holiday.
As we enter the very busy, festive time of the term and year, the excitement for the holidays is building. Year 6 students are ready for their final transition days to high school. Our traditional end of year activities are scheduled and our students continue to enjoy participating in these activities at school. For many of our teachers, the end of the year will see movement of classrooms and the preparation for leaving the school ready for contractors to complete scheduled jobs which at this time of year includes carpet cleaning and pest control. Due to the recent security concerns in the school after hours, all at-risk external doors are being replaced. If you ever see trespassers in the school grounds at any time, I urge you to please report immediately to State Security 3224 6666.
At the end of this school term, we will say farewell to several of our teaching staff – Kate Connolly, Nicole Brebner and Catherine van Moolenbroek who are transferring from the school. We wish them well in their new schools. This week we welcomed to the school, 2 of our 3 new teachers for 2023, Zaara Feeney and Kirra Sodhi on Tuesday and Wednesday as they had attended the 5-day “Welcome to the North West” program run by the Centre for Learning and Wellbeing (CLaW) which commenced on Saturday.
FAREWELL
As this is our last newsletter for 2022, we say goodbye to all of our current year 6 students and other students leaving our school. Many of these students have attended Barkly Highway State School for all of their 7 primary school years and some are the last child of their family to attend primary school. Thank you for all the memories and good luck for your future.
We are looking forward to catching up with everyone at our end of year activities. Please see the calendar for these events.
Have a safe and happy holiday,
Fiona Kropp
Deputy's Report
We have much to celebrate as we end our 2022 school year, on Friday 2 December.
At this time of the year, we farewell our year 6 students as they transition to high school. I wish all students and families leaving our school community success with future learning experiences. Next Tuesday evening, we celebrate their academic achievement, citizenship and listen to our Year 6 Student Leaders’ reflections on 2022 at our Year 6 Farewell.
Next Monday morning from 8:30, we are holding our Prep to Year 5 Awards Parade. We will be celebrating our students’ achievements, recognising citizenship and announcing our 2023 school captains.
Next Monday evening from 6:00, we are holding our End of Year Concert, led by our Arts Teacher – Miss Maddie de Rooy Jones. We are looking forward to all our students’ performances. Please come along and join in our end of year celebrations.
Next Wednesday, we plan to email to families our students’ semester 2 report cards. This is a time to celebrate a year of learning and progress with our students.
Along with our end of year celebrations, we wish our families, students and teachers, who are leaving the school, all the best for the future. We also welcome our 3 new teachers for 2023:
Zaara Feeney, Kirra Sodhi and Sarah Tanielu-Smith. Zaara and Kirra have been visiting Mount Isa this week. Both teachers have visited the school this week on Tuesday and Wednesday to participate in professional development activities to both welcome and introduce them to our school and meet with our staff and students. We all look forward to meeting Sarah when she arrives in January for the Student Free Days.
Cameron Alley (Year 4 Blue) and I also had the pleasure of attending a North West Welcome dinner on Sunday evening to meet Kirra and re-connect with Zaara. Zaara is already familiar with our school as she completed her preservice teaching sessions with Rebecca Samios (Year 1 Blue) this year. Cameron attended as an ambassador for our school and was able to chat the new teachers to Mount Isa about all that living and working in our North West communities has to offer.
Thank you all for the wonderful memories created in 2022. Please enjoy a safe and happy holiday. I look forward to celebrating our students’ growth in their learning with you all in 2023.
Cheryl Gallagher
CLASSROOM FURNITURE - HELP!! NEXT WEEK!
During week 9, classroom furniture is being moved to create 2023 class set-up. Can you help? With many hands, this is generally completed in less than 2 hours. This year we have been offered support from the Bunnngs’ Team to also assist so I can see it being completed in an hour.
On Wednesday at 8:30 please meet on the stage to assist with moving classroom furniture. All welcome! (If you know in advance of your availability, please let the Office know.)
Activities within the School
1 Gold News
On Tuesday we had a very special visit from Qld NRL! We absolutely loved getting to play lots of different games to test our skills!
Library News
Just like that this busy year comes to an end! With this, we ask students to please return all student borrowing.
We still have quite a number of outstanding loans at this stage. Overdue notices are sent out regularly and we would greatly appreciate, if you could help your child locate any missing books.
Thank you to all Barkly families for your ongoing support throughout the year.
A farewell to our Year 6 students and we wish you all the success on your new adventures at high school!
We wish you all peaceful and safe holidays and look forward to seeing you next year.
Kind Regards,
Svenja Spitzner-Lewis
2023 Booklist
Events & Flyers
Want to know what's happening within the school? Check out our School Calendar to keep up to date.
https://barklyhighwayss.schoolzineplus.com/calendar/1
Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/barklyhighwaystateschool
