Barkly Highway State School - Term 4 Week 6
Principal's Welcome
MOUNT ISA STATE SCHOOLS’ PRECINCT
The Mount Isa State Schools’ Precinct is seeking to maximise the impact of collective and collaborative cross-agency approaches in responding to community issues.
All state school principals Primary / Secondary / Special Schools in Mount Isa met this week with the North Queensland Regional Director, Joseba Larrazabel, at the Mount Isa CLaW to review the Precinct Planning Document drawn from information gathered at the previous October meeting. After focused discussion, feedback was given to inform the next steps for the Precinct.
NEXT FEW WEEKS!
Over the next few weeks, the staff will be involved in the preparation of important school documents which will form the platform for our improvement journey in 2024.
- 2024 Annual Implementation Plan (Draft vsn) (AIP) will provide clarity, direction and focus for the school, to shape everyday actions and to foster ongoing improvement over the 12-month period. The AIP is linked to the School Strategic Plan and includes the School Data Plan as an appendix.
- 2024 Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Plan (CARP) will ensure we have considered 3 levels of planning (Provision, Year and Class Levels)
- Other important work involves class and teacher allocation, Academic Reporting, class location and year book.
- We will also be preparing to acknowledge and recognise students for academic achievement at our Awards Parade (Prep - year 5) and Year 6 Farewell and our End of Year Class Concert.
FINISH STRONG
At this time of year, it is easy for everyone to be distracted with competing thoughts and or actions. The challenge is set for staff to continue the work together, keeping attention on the core business – our students. The challenge for the next 3 weeks is to focus on the teaching and learning opportunities outlined in our current AIP, engaging the pedagogical strategies and our school’s key signature practices. For our students this includes-:
- engagement and wellbeing through student voices
- teaching and learning of focused reading
- mathematical problem-solving
Opportunities for students to learn will continue through to 2:30 Friday 1 December.
Next week we will welcome some of 2024 new staff who will be visiting Mount Isa. In our next newsletter we will farewell the staff who are leaving Barkly Highway State School at the end of the year.
Looking forward to all the fun on the oval, Friday afternoon. The P&C are again hosting the “Slip and Splash”.
See you there!
Kind regards,
Fiona Kropp
Deputy's Report
Preparation for our 2024 School Captains is underway!
Yesterday, Mr Benson and I held interviews with 11 Year 5 candidates for the 2024 School Captains and Vice Captains positions.
Six boys and five girls applied for the positions. Next Wednesday these students will deliver their speeches to Year 4 and 5 cohorts, who will then vote for their preferred leader.
Teachers will also receive a voting slip and our successful candidates will be announced at our 2023 Prep to Year 5 Awards Parade on Monday 27 November which starts at 8:30.
Remember to Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek and Slide
In recent weeks, through student notices, I have been sharing the daily Max UV index and when sun protection is recommended.
The Max UV index has been recording between 11 and 12 (Extreme) and averaging between 8:30 and 4:00 that sun protection is recommended. After consultation with our P&C president we chose to cancel last weeks evacuation drill that was due to happen at 12:50 due to the heat. It is important that we play a key role in helping our students have a wise sun protection attitude. We are a Sun Safety School and have a ‘No hat, no play’ policy. The resource centre is available for students to use during first break. Students are continuously reminded to keep themselves hydrated and encouraged to wear sunscreen.
Breakfast Club
Last Friday, Mishca Grummitt (P&C President) and I built 3 new tables which were. purchased by our very own Student Council. Well done! Their fundraising efforts have paid off and the tables are now a wonderful addition to our breakfast club.
Engagement & Wellbeing
Hello families!
Week 6 is nearly done and dusted! We are beyond proud of how resilient our students are being.
Our social skill this week is about being respectful in the playground by using appropriate touch. We arrived at the social skill for Week 6 because we have students with amazing imaginations and play fighting is sometimes turning into people being hurt by accident. The same goes for soccer. Soccer and all sports are non-contact at our school to prevent accidental injuries. Some of our students are ankle tapping, tripping and barging each other because they are so competitive. That, in itself, can be a useful trait if it can be harnessed appropriately but is not acceptable play at school.
I just want to extend a thank you to our families for your support in encouraging our children to finish the year strong. We know that family and school relationships are critical for success at school.
I hope everyone has a great weekend and see you all next week, for another week of learning.
Ms Freestone
HPE News
It has been a busy year as always and I can’t believe the school year is coming to an end so quickly. In recent weeks the P-2 swimming lesson block was run over 5 days. It was a great success and thoroughly enjoyed by all students. I would like to thank all teachers, students and families for their efforts in helping the program run smoothly.
On my return from my week at the pool, I have continued health lessons. These units of work are an important part of the HPE program and also a perfect way to beat the 40-degree heat outside. The current health unit topics are listed below:
Prep: Being safe, especially around medicines, poisons, water and fire
Year 1: Road safety, home safety and sun safety
Year 2: Exploring safe and unsafe situations
Year 3: Positive communication and respectful social skills
Year 4: Cyber safety
Year 5 and 6: Role Models and how they can influence healthy decisions
The health lessons mentioned will continue for P-4 for the next two weeks. While the year 5 and 6 classes have completed their health and started their soccer skills unit. This unit allows the students to practise and refine their passing, trapping and dribbling skills. The students have been able to use these skills to learn and play a great game called “four-sided” soccer. To say the students have loved this game, is an understatement. I have included some action shots from our recent 5/6 practical lesson yesterday.
Prep Play Area
This semester our Prep Team have been working hard to design a creative play space to reduce the risk of lead consumption in our playground! The kids helped the teachers to complete Stage 1 which was to create the bases of the tyres which were kindly donated by Beaurepaire's Mount Isa. Thank you to MSS Security for the donation which allowed us to fill the first 6 tyres and cover them with safety netting. In Stage 2 we decided on some small world play themes using our student voice and set the work. Thank you Mrs Kropp for fulfilling our shopping wish list to create these magical playscapes. Our Children have loved designing, creating and playing in this area. Stay tuned for Stage 3 of our Prep play area!
Library News
Book Fair
We had a wonderful time recently with our second Book Fair this year. Students and families enjoyed browsing our Bookshop from Scholastic. Thank you to our school community who support these events, as they help raise funds for our school to purchase resources for our students. Even though we were down on sales from our previous Book Fairs we still earned approx. $900 in commission for new resources.
Our popular guessing game was won by Kaiatia, who guessed the correct number of 190 lollies in the jar. He won $20 worth of books from the Book Fair and the lollies were shared with his class. Congratulations, Kaiatia!
Book Club
Our last Book Club for this year, Issue #8, was handed out on Monday. All orders are due back this Friday, 10 November by 2:30. This includes cash orders as well as the Loop online orders, to ensure the arrival of goods before the end of term.
With the approaching end of term, please ensure that all student borrowing is returned by the end of Week 7.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any queries you may have.
Kind Regards,
Svenja Spitzner-Lewis
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
Keep recycling your plastic lids and bring them in to school!
