Barkly Highway State School - Term 1 Week 2
Principal's Welcome
Welcome back to all our existing and new families to 2023. I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas holiday period with family and friends. We are pleased to welcome 3 new faces to our teaching staff – Sarah T-Smith (Prep Gold), Zaara Feeney (1 Gold) and Kirra Sodhi (5/6 Gold). We welcome Brett Jeffrey, our new Guidance Officer, who replaces Lana Lehmann who is on leave this year. Please say hello as you see them in our school. It was wonderful to enrol and welcome 20 families to Mount Isa and to our school.
We are looking forward to a productive year and ensuring that all students receive a year’s growth of learning for a years’ worth of teaching. This year will be busy as usual; a highlight will be our school review which will be held in Term 2 or 3. Looking forward to chatting and catching up with everyone throughout the year.
Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)
“At Barkly Highway State School, we believe in supporting strong relationships to provide a positive, inclusive and professional approach to learning and behaviour”.
Positive Behaviour is a whole school wide approach to promote positive relationships and interactions with our students. There are seven essential features and we know that effective classroom practices that support students and teacher wellbeing, increase engagement and maximise learning time. Our whole school PBL approach is directly linked to our school values known as the Barkly Bs. Signage around the inside of school and outside on each boundary fence ensures that everybody in our school community can work together with a common understanding of our school’s expectation. Shortly all new families will receive a fridge magnet to promote the school expectations at home and remind children when preparing for the school day.
On parade this week, we welcomed our newest member of our PBL Team, student Barkly Bee! You will see Barkly Bee in the future when available to attend.
Meet and Greet – Book Drop Off
In closure this week, I would like to acknowledge the huge success of our meet and greet sausage sizzle morning, Friday 20 January. This event is a tradition in our school and the feedback from parents and families, again this year, was extremely positive. The morning provided an opportunity to welcome new and existing parents and families to the school, children to chat with their new teacher and/ or classroom members, drop off all the school supplies and of course taste a delicious sausage. Thank you, Mr Kel, who always is available to man the barbeque on these occasions and Donna Freestone for preparing us all for the day. A great event to start the school year. Have a fantastic fortnight. I am looking forward to sharing all the news and the important work and learning happening in our school.
ClassDojo
ClassDojo is a communication platform that Barkly Highway State School uses to share school and classroom related information. This will include photos and videos to keep families informed of the learning occurring in classrooms, along with special events details such as parades, school and class notices. Many of these will also be posted on our school newsletter and/or Facebook.
All conversations between a teacher and parent will occur through email only.
Staff have agreed for their own wellbeing and to separate home and school life, teachers will only use ClassDojo between 7:30 and 4:30 school days.
You may see uploading of posts to ClassDojo outside of these hours, however, staff are not interacting with families.
Chappy News
Hi Families,
I would like to introduce myself again to everyone to let you know who I am and what I do here at Barkly Highway State School.
My name is Suzan Hinds, or Chappy Sue. I live in Cloncurry and I have been a Chappy since 2019, starting in Julia Creek then in August 2020, I came to Barkly Highway State School.
I have the absolute privilege of being able to work at this amazing school, and travel is not an issue when you look forward to seeing and being with staff and students in this school environment.
My goal for every student is to feel safe, supported, valued, encouraged and have a positive self-image of who they are.
Every Thursday and Friday from 8.05 until 8.20 we provide a breakfast program from the science room. If you would like to volunteer your time on either of these days I would love to hear from you. Please see Courtney or Jess, our lovely ladies in the office, with your details if you are happy for me to contact you. That’s a bit about me.
Thank you to the Gupta family who have donated cereal and condiments to start off our breakfast clubs this term.
If you happen to see me at school please come and say hello with your child/ren.
Let’s connect.reflect.protect by celebrating Safer Internet Day 2023 on Feb 7 Join free webinars for parents and carers hosted by eSafety. These live webinars give parents and carers the knowledge, skills and tools to support their children to have safe online experiences. Visit www.esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars to sign up and learn more.
See you soon,
Chappy Sue
Diving into Data with 5/6 Green
Students in Year 5/6 have hit the ground running this year. We are all feeling a bit more settled and back into routine. Lots of things have been happening in our classrooms over the last week. 5/6 Green have been lucky enough to have their very first Math themed day, ‘diving into data’. They got a hands on and fun filled day of games and activities related to their current Math unit, data. Some students were enjoying themselves so much they forgot they were doing Math! We look forward to sharing our future Math themed days with our Barkly Highway SS community this year.
P&C News
Welcome back to all our parents for Term 1, 2023!
The Barkly Highway SS P&C would like to invite anyone who is interested in coming to our first meeting for 2023! The meeting will be held on the Tuesday, 14 February (yes we know it's Valentines Day but we will make it quick & might even have some chocolates), at 6:00 in the Resource Centre. This will be our first meeting, so it would be a great opportunity to come along and support the P&C, find out our plans for the year and prepare for a another great year! All are welcome, so we hope to see all the old & new faces there.
The P&C would like to say a huge thanks to all those who have helped transform the garden area at Prep to what it is today, Lehmanns Legacy Garden. It is mostly finished, with a few touching points but we all believe it is an amazing area and we couldn't have done it without all your help! Thanks to Luke Turner and co for volunteering their time and machines to dig out the area to prepare for the artificial turf laying, and then to Alastair Grubb, Jason Wernowski and Mischa Grummitt (& kids) for delivering, spreading and compacting the sand, and then laying the turf and putting the edging down over the holiday break. We believe it looks great, and I know the Prep teachers and aides are excited to see what they can do with the area now! Check out the before, during and after photos to see the transformation!
Once again, these sorts of school improvements are all what the Barkly Highway SS P&C are about, with new areas to play/educate in, new sound systems and new sand pit toys all happening within the school in the last 6 months because of fundraisers and volunteers wanting to better our school. Thanks for your support and we look forward to seeing you at our meeting on Tuesday 14 February at 6:00 to continue the good work!
Meet our New Guidance Officer
Dear Parents/ Guardians,
My name is Brett Jeffrey and I would like to introduce myself and give you a brief description of the role of a Guidance Officer. A quick description of my history. I have resided in Mount Isa for the past seven and half years. In that time I have taught special education at Spinifex Junior, Senior classes at Mount Isa Special School as well as working in a leadership capacity. Previously I have worked in high schools and primary schools teaching a variety of subjects, therefore, I have knowledge and experience in all educational settings.
My role at Barkly Highway State School is to -
- Provide expertise and support to the school community in the development and implementation of plans and programs to assist students in achieving positive educational outcomes.
- Provide support for students both emotional and educational as there needs change.
- Provide counselling to a limited degree, psychoeducational assessment and individual support.
- Advise parents to students , teachers and parents concerning educational, behavioural, mental health and family issues.
If you wish to consult with me please contact your childs classroom teacher to make an appointment. I am more than happy to converse with you on issues of concern within my scope.
Sincerely,
Brett Jeffrey
Library News
A warm welcome to all Barkly families old and new! We are excited to see everyone back and we are ready for a great year. During the year we will have some wonderful events in and around the library.
Our library routine is that students are borrowing once a week with their class. Prep –Year 3 require a library bag to take their book home and they borrow 1 book. Students in Year 4-6 do not need a library bag for their books to go home and may choose 2 books. These are usually a fiction and a non-fiction book. All books are due back every week and may be re-borrowed. Students who have an overdue book cannot borrow until the book is returned. Overdue notes are sent home regularly. We know that accidents can and will happen and we ask that you kindly send the damaged book back to school. If your student has lost a book, please notify the library and the school asks kindly that you help financially with the replacement cost.
Students can access the library during first break at playtime. From Prep (who are joining us a little later in the term) to year 2, students can read books, play games and draw. Additionally, our older students from Year 2 have access to the desktop computer which they can use to play games online, check e-mails or work on assignments.
We offer 7-8 Book Club issues through Scholastic a year. Your student will bring a catalogue home from which you may order. There are 2 ways to do this. You can either fill in the order form in the catalogue and send it together with your cash payment to the school office, or use the convenient online LOOP ordering option, with no forms or payment needing to be send to school. All orders are coming to school and are distributed as soon as they arrive. Generally those brochures are handed out on a Monday and all orders are due back at school by Friday the same week. Late orders may be held over until the next order. Our first brochure went home on Monday and all orders were due back this Friday.
Twice a year we have a Book Fair, also through Scholastic, which is a shop for our students to browse. Our first Book Fair is coming shortly. It is planned for Week 7 from the 6-10 of March. A second Book Fair will be later in the year.
While we do earn a commission for sales which helps us to purchase resources for the school and in return will benefit our students, there is no obligation to purchase.
We also will celebrate Book Week in August and usually have a Dress up Day where students may come dressed up as their favourite Book Character. So put a note in your calendar!
Please feel free to contact us in the library with any question or queries you may have.
Kind Regards,
Svenja Spitzner-Lewis
Maths in Prep Blue
Prep Blue has been busy learning how to sort objects by catergory for our Term 1 Maths unit. We have had so much fun sorting animals, buttons, laundry and house hold items. Miss Samios has been blown away by her students knowledge. I wonder what we will sort next!
