Barkly Highway State School - Term 2 Week 2
Principal's Welcome
Welcome to Term 2!
Returning to school after our Easter school break was very heart-warming! While each of us might be a little sad that our holiday is over, to return to school routines and our next stage of our lives is a stepping zone to our future. I was able to be in the playground before school, the first day of term, with our students when they saw and welcomed friends and staff who they may not have seen during the 2-week break. Their greetings and reactions to each other highlighted the valuable friendships that our students create and maintain throughout the term and years at our school. Moments like these confirm the importance of the work we, our families and school community, do together, developing our young people into wonderful caring human beings.
With a very busy start to Term 2, all classrooms have had a focused start to student attendance, engagement and learning. English and Mathematic Learning Walls are being built collaboratively by teachers and students and with Reading as a school priority, every classroom has also attended to reading achievement with reading goals established. Teacher aides are allocated to each classroom to assist with the learning of reading (P-2) and reading for learning (year 3-6), or with targeted support for differentiation to ensure “the potential of every student” is realised. We continue our very specific focus on “student voice” – listening to our students through our Student Council and Barkly Highway Think Tank. This term, additional support for students, will come through our weekly visits from therapy dog, Joy. Joy and Pauline will initially visit every classroom to say hello to ensure all Barkly Highway students have an understanding of the important expectations when working with Joy. “Puppy Patting Passes” will next be introduced for use by students identified by staff.
As we continue to ensure our work is shared with our families, communication between classrooms and families is extremely important and this is done in a variety of ways. Already Term Overviews which have been released and sent home for families. This informs the curriculum being learned during the following 10 weeks, important school and class events. If you have not seen your students’ Term Overview at this time of the week please check school bag, class dojo and if necessary, contact individual classroom teachers. Always look out for Term Overviews at the beginning of each term.
Are you a member of each your student’s Class Dojo accounts? A great way of showing your teacher that you have seen and read a post is by clicking on “Like” and /or make a comment.
Don’t forget our School Review is on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of Week 6 (23-25 May). A schedule is currently being created to include meeting timeslots with the 3 reviewers to enable all staff and parent / student / community representatives. Thank you to families who have indicated their availability to participate. The reviewers also may use their time on Tuesday or Wednesday to talk to families in the playground before and after school.
The National School Improvement Tool (NSIT) which is used to guide the school review has 9 domains and it is the relationships and activities like ensuring families are kept informed as discussed above that fits into the domain – School-Community Partnerships.
Attached to our school newsletter is our Advancing Partnerships - Parent and School Engagement Framework for your information. This guides our current work in this area ensuring our focus is clear and aligned. The rewriting of the Framework will occur after the School Review Report is available aligned to the feedback from the review.
I encourage you to be involved as this will influence the future direction of our school.
Please contact the school office by email – use SUBJECT “School Review” so we can include you in our future planning (admin@barklyhighwayss.eq.edu.au). Parent feedback is an important part of every school review, so I encourage you to consider having your say.
Thank you for your continuing support
Fiona Kropp
Deputy's Report
LIFE EDUCATION EDUCATOR Visit
Our Life Ed Educator Visit has started this week. Thank you to all our parents and carers for completing the Data Consent Forms so our children can attend these sessions. For more information, please see the Life Education flier at end of newsletter with information on how to access the Life Education Queensland resources and information.
Queensland Engagement and Wellbeing Survey:
This term, in week 4 from 8 - 12 May, students in years 4-6 will be asked to take part in the Queensland Engagement and Wellbeing (QEW) Survey.
We know that wellbeing and engagement are important parts of your child’s life at school. The QEW Survey is designed to measure how students view their wellbeing and engagement across different topics. The information we get from the survey helps us better understand and support our students.
An information letter has been sent out to parents and carers soon. If you have any questions, please contact the school. More information, including FAQs, can be found on the Education website: (https://qed.qld.gov.au/publications/reports/statistics/schooling/students/queensland-engagement-wellbeing-survey).
ANZAC Day Commemoration:
Thank you to our students, student leaders, school staff and community for supporting our school as we commemorated ANZAC Day through the school parade held on Monday morning and the community commemorations at both, the dawn service and march to the service at the Civic Centre.
SCHOOL PHOTOS
With 2023 school photos timetabled on Thursday May 18 next term, students are asked to ensure they are wearing school uniform on the day of their photo. (Only House Captains will have their special group photo wearing house colour shirts.) Again, this year, along with a whole class photo, the opportunity for individual and sibling photos are also available. Online ordering and payment are preferred. The online order portal is now ready to accept the orders for the School photos. Please find attached a flier (at the end of the newsletter) explaining the online order process.
Please note that the sibling photos can ONLY be ordered up until the time outlined on the flyer. The ordering of sibling photos will be deactivated after this time.
What day are photos being taken?
Thursday 18 May
Morning session: Staff, Prep, Year 1 & 2,
Middle session: 3, 4 & 5/6,
Afternoon session: Captains/Vice Captains (School & Sports), Sibling photos (as well as during both lunch breaks)
Any questions about the photo days, please contact the Office.
P&C News
Welcome to Engela!! Barkly Highway SS P&C would like to welcome and introduce our new Tuckshop Convenor, Engela Botha. She has a wealth of experience in both tuckshop and admin, and we are very excited about the future of our tuckshop in her hands. You will hopefully have noticed that Tuckshop was available today and tomorrow Friday, 28 April and we are pleased to announce that Tuckshop will run every school day starting next week Tuesday, 02 May. Flexischools will be up and running, and over the next term, look out for new items to be added to the menu and advertised on the Facebook page. Thank-you to Shellea and Candice for keeping the tuckshop running, and also to Shellea for continuing to be a most-reliable casual source to help the tuckshop run smoothly.
Only other thing to advertise is our next P&C Meeting to be held on Tuesday, 09 May at 6:00 in the Schools Resource Centre. Our P&C is very strong, and we are really trying to get grant approvals & fundraising events happening to purchase more equipment, out-of-the-box ideas and the more people we have at these meetings the better it can be. The better our P&C is means the better education, resources and enjoyment our kids will get out of their time at Barkly Highway SS. Hope to see you there!
Instrumental Music - Strings
Instrumental Music Strings lessons and ensemble are happening on Friday mornings with Mrs Liyanage in the PCYC room. This term, all of the new beginners are now part of Barkly Highway State School String Ensemble! Could parents please have your child arrive by 7:45am with their instrument, folder and book ready for ensemble. Lesson times remain the same as term one timetable.
Library News
Library borrowing has recommenced and we have many new books in all areas for our students to enjoy.
Please ensure that students have their library bag (Prep-Year 2), to be able to borrow and that overdue books have to be returned before they can borrow their next book.
Our Book Club Issue #3 has been handed out with orders being due back this Friday, if you wish to place an order. Cash orders can be handed into the office, while credit card orders are handled electronically through the LOOP (please refer to your Book Club brochure for more information).
Book Club is a great fundraiser throughout the year for our school, as we are receiving a commission from the sales. Every commission contributes and thus enables the school to purchase fantastic new resources from Scholastic, which in turn directly benefit our students.
As always, please see us with any queries you may have.
Kind Regards,
Svenja Spitzner-Lewis
✈️Travel Marketing with 5/6 Blue
This term 5/6 Blue has put their travel marketer hats on. We have been exploring the world of travel and how to persuade others to visit a destination. We have established our own travel marketing brand and are learning all we can to be able to put together some fantastic destination packages for prospective travellers. Students have been busy examining what is used currently in persuasive travel texts ready to be travel marketing experts.
Construction Crew 2 Gold
Students in 2 Gold have been busy working at their construction site to create a 'fairytale land'. The first fairytale we have focused on is the Three Little Pigs and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.
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