Barkly Highway State School - Term 2 Week 4
Principal's Welcome
SAVE THE DATES Tuesday 23 May, Wednesday 24 May and Thursday 25 May – SCHOOL REVIEW
I have received further details for our School Review. Our three-day review team attending is -
- Review Chair – Keith Graham (Internal Reviewers)
- Peer Reviewer – Anne Walsh, Head of Campus Northern Peninsula Area State College
- External Reviewer – Lesley Vogan
School Reviews are conducted in an appreciative inquiry mode, celebrating with the school what is being done well and looking for the next steps in the school’s journey of improvement.
First morning of the review
The review will commence on Tuesday morning with the review team to conduct a short, initial briefing with staff. This is before school starts, allowing staff to meet the review team and to ask questions about the review process.
Meetings and discussions
The staff briefing is followed by an initial meeting with the school leadership team. In this meeting, after a reflection of the 2019 School Review findings and subsequent actions, the review team is seeking information on the school’s recent improvement agenda and how it is being implemented across the school.
During the following days, the review team will speak with a wide range of staff, students, parents and community members to gain a deeper understanding of the school, its performance and context.
Daily check ins and exit briefings
Each afternoon of the review, the review team will meet with the leadership team to outline a synopsis of the review findings and potential improvement strategies. This is an opportunity for the leadership team to seek clarification or further information. On the final afternoon of the review, the review team meets with the principal, the leadership team and assistant regional director to provide a detailed summary that outlines the key findings and improvement strategies.
On Thursday afternoon, the review team will then meet with all staff to deliver a staff exit briefing which is an abridged version of the leadership team exit presentation.
Review report
The review team drafts a report, which provides a detailed analysis of the school’s performance against the 9 domains of the National School Improvement Tool. After a quality control process, the final version will be emailed to the principal, assistant regional director and regional director in approximately 2 weeks. The review findings will be shared with the school community, including publishing the executive summary on the school website.
Don’t forget ... on Tuesday and Wednesday if you see our school reviewers in the school, make them welcome by sharing the great things that you like about our wonderful school.
TEACHING AND LEARNING EVERYDAY IN EVERY CLASSROOM
We continue to reflect on the State Education’s strategy and vision EQUITY and EXCELLENCE Realising the potential of every student. In classrooms every day, we are challenged to ensure that we have a sharp focus on:
“the actual experience of students in classrooms & how we all impact that experience”. During our drilling down into our school data we are focusing on -
- Improved English A-C/ A-B data and reduction of “N”
- Improved engagement, wellbeing and attendance at school to maximise learning days and successful completion of assessment.
Wishing our year 5 campers a great time on Magnetic Island in Week 6 and thank our staff Ash Benson, Kirra Sodhi and Wendy Knight for their supervision and care of our students at this time.
Kind regards,
Fiona Kropp
Deputy's Report
CELEBRATING MATHEMATICS LEARNING in our classrooms
Our staff’s Maths Professional Learning Community this year, is focused on building our capabilities to teach using Open-ended and Inquiry based learning activities to improve the mathematical problem-solving ability of our students.
Highlighted below is some of the Open-ended Inquiry based Mathematics learning that’s been happening in years 3 Blue, 3 Gold, 4 Gold and 2 Gold this week:
Eve Wall (2 Gold’s class teacher – see photos below) has had her students answering open-ended questions about Money this week, for example, “What are all the ways we make $5?”
Alisa Wheeler (3 Blue’s class teacher – see photos below) has had her students answering open-ended questions about Number, for example, “How many number sentences can you make to equal 20?”
Emma Perkin (3 Gold’s class teacher – see photos below) has had her students answering open-ended questions about Number, for example, “How many different number sentences can you make for the target number 25. You can write addition, subtraction or multiplication number sentences.”
Jodie Wright (4 Gold’s class teacher – see photos below) has had her students solving problems using their knowledge and understanding of the language of mapping to create pathways to get from one location to another on a simple map.
I plan to continue to share more of the effective research-based practices that our teachers use to improve our students’ learning outcomes.
ATTENDANCE- Everyday Counts!
Did you know? Research shows that in Queensland, higher student attendance at school is associated, on average, with higher student achievement.
Why is regular attendance at school important? Regular school attendance will mean that your child has a better chance in life. Your child will achieve better when they go to school all day, every school day.
- they learn better
- they make friends
- they are happier
- they have a brighter future.
Our school’s attendance data is regularly analysed and discussed with students. The ‘Every Day Counts’ strategy is integrated into discussions so that our students are aware of the importance of being at school every day. The school, classroom and students track attendance data each week.
The first weeks of Term 2 has seen our attendance data achieving the school target of 90%. Individual classes have been celebrating and acknowledging 100% attendance each day this occurs this year. For more information, please see the flier at the end of the newsletter: Every day counts parent fact sheet
SCHOOL PHOTOS Thursday 18 May
With 2023 school photos timetabled next week on Thursday May 18, students are asked to ensure they are wearing school uniform on the day of their photo. (Only our Sports House Captains & Vice-Captains will have their special group photo wearing house colour shirts.)
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.
Kind regards,
Cheryl Gallagher
Maths in 4 Gold
Students in 4 Gold have been busy exploring and creating in Maths. They have enjoyed learning to interpret maps by understanding how to use scale, compass points, directions and angles to find features and locations. Their favourite part was using the B-Bots to explore maps further by creating pathways and programming them to follow the directions to different locations on a large floor map.
Library News
The annual Premier’s Reading Challenge has commenced this Monday. During the challenge students are encouraged to read a set number of books until the 25 August, when the challenge closes.
Prep-Year 2 will be reading 20 books as a class during this time. Year 3 students will record 20 books on their Reading Record Form and Year 4-6 will record 15 books.
Students will receive certificates of completion by early November, signed by the Premier.
As an additional bonus, our school will be handing out a raffle ticket to each student who returns their completed form to go in a draw for some prizes.
This year, students also need to have a consent form signed to receive a certificate. These forms were sent home last week, to be returned signed at your earliest convenience.
Book Club orders have arrived and will be sent home over the coming days.
As always as, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any queries you may have.
Kind Regards,
Svenja Spitzner-Lewis
Admin Notices
YEAR 6 CAMP INVOICES
Over the coming days our Business Manager will be emailing out Year 6 Camp invoices. The total cost of the camp is $1330 with a deposit of $200 already paid that leaves a final amount of $1130 that will be invoiced via email. Final invoice payments will be due by 04 August 2023 and are non-refundable after this date due to airfare and camp payments being made.
ABSENCES
Know your child is going to be away from school for an extended amount of time? Has your child become ill and needs to have a day off to recover?
There are a few different ways of letting the office know your child will be away.
Phone: 07 4437 3633 (speak to someone in the office or leave a message on the Student Absence line)
Email: admin@barklyhighwayss.eq.edu.au
QParents: Enter an absence in QParents (If you don't have QParents but would like to sign up please let the office know)
If for some reason you can't contact the office you will recieve an SMS to explain your child's absence, this message costs you nothing to reply.
When informing the office of your child's absence please give a brief reason of why and how many days the absence will extend over.
LATE SLIPS
If your child/ren arrives to class after the 08:25 school bell they will need to attend the office to get a late slip.
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
