Barkly Highway State School - Term 1 Week 6

Principal's Welcome

This week, the North Queensland Region has scheduled Professional Learning Days for Middle Leaders and Principals to attend in Townsville. On Thursday, the State Principal Conference Virtual event will be part of the program. These days provide leaders with opportunities to engage in collaborative professional learning to support their critical role as leaders of learning. 

Cheryl Gallagher (Deputy Principal) and Yvette Wehlow (HOD:C) have attended the Middle Leaders Conference on Wednesday, while Cheryl and I are attending the Principal Professional Learning Days on Thursday and Friday. Effective Teaching and Learning, and the great work happening in the region are the focus of the conference. Our Assistant Regional Director, Lesley Pecchiar, is presenting the region’s work in the area of Effective Teaching and Learning which she discussed with the Leadership team on her last visit to the school.  

During my absence, Kamrynn Roberts will be the Officer-in-Charge. 

I thank Kamrynn and the staff, especially on these occasions, for continuing to work together and support each other ensuring our school can continue to run smoothly in our absence. 

READING  

Last week, Yvette, Bec Cremona and I, attended a two-day workshop at the Centre for Learning and Wellbeing (CLaW) in Mount Isa for principals and school leaders to further develop our 12 month reading improvement plan using the model of know your curriculum, know your students, know your next steps and know your teaching practices. The purpose of the workshop focused on actioning aspects of our school’s AIP into a term by term action plan. These planning days had input and guidance from the Reading and Writing Centre to assist building teacher capability to: 

· teach reading and writing in the curriculum 

· track and monitor students’ progress 

· differentiate effectively 

· improve student outcomes. 

Next term, we have committed to further build the capability of our classroom teachers by developing in-depth knowledge and understanding of teaching and supporting students to read and write by attending the 3-day Reading and Writing Workshop that 6 teachers attended in 2020.  

SWIMMING CARNIVAL 

Everyone who attended the swimming carnival, would agree that it was a fantastic occasion during which our students’ swimming skills were on display – whether in the kickboard races, the 25 metre or championship races. While Mrs Wilcox and Miss Appelkamp took out the butterfly demonstration event, I’m not that sure this will be the same in 2022 as some of our talented club swimmers were very close to their heels.  

Thank you Mr Benson, for the organisation behind the swimming block and twilight carnival. The support from all staff, including those “back at school”, ensures that events like these can be available for students to participate in, if they wish. Thank you to our families who also were able to support their children at this time. A great celebration for our students and school! 

We always welcome feedback from our school community. While we are bound by guidelines and may not be able to action some responses, if you wish to provide this, we will accept it as the “gift” it is. Email admin@barklyhighwayss.eq.edu.au

Kind Regards,
Fiona Kropp

Deputy's Report

SCHOOL PHOTOS  

With 2021 school photos timetabled on Thursday March 11 & Friday March 12, 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. Envelopes with individual student details have been sent home and if you have not received this yet then contact the Office for another envelope. Money and envelopes are to be returned on the day of the photo being taken, however, with a number of money and envelopes being sent to school already, these have been collected at the Office and will be given to the photographer on the day.  

What day are photos being taken?  

Thursday – Staff, Prep/1, Prep, Year 1, 2, 4, 5/6, Captains/Vice Captains (School /Sports), Year 6 co-hort, Whole School, Sibling photos (also during lunch breaks) 

Friday – Year 3, Sibling photos 

Any questions about the photo days, please contact the Office. 

SAFETY FIRST – Keep our footpaths outside the school free of parked cars. 

We ask that you, our parents/caregivers, take the extra few minutes to park or drop off/pick up students in the appropriate areas around the school as this will improve the safety of our students. 

Please do not park on the footpaths outside Staff Carpark near the Supervised Crossing on Buka Street. 

Kind Regards,

Cheryl Gallagher

1 Blue - Science

The students in 1 Blue are currently learning about animal habitats and their features in science. The grade ones had animal visitors to their classroom and had to create natural habitats so that their animals could survive. They researched the different animals and used their knowledge of animal features and needs to create the perfect habitat for each animal! Well done 1 Blue, your scientific knowledge and understanding is growing everyday!

Prep - Green Sheep

Where is the Green Sheep?

Each Friday Prep Blue, Prep Gold and Prep/1 Green have been learning about different colours. On Green Day, we read the story “Where is the Green Sheep?” and had to follow some clues around the school to find the Green Sheep. The classes checked near the tuckshop, in the library and even in Mrs Kropp’s office!

Library News

The year has started and the library is a hive of activity yet again. 

We had our first Book Club and all orders have been sent home with students. Thank you so much for supporting these events. 

Book Club Issue #2 will go home on Monday (8 March) and orders are due back Friday (12 March). The school’s preferred way of ordering and payment would be the secure and easy LOOP option, where orders and payment is online (instructions are on the brochure) and no money order paperwork has to be taken to school.  Cash payments are accepted and have to be taken to the office. 

We also have our first Book Fair for the year coming. 

Monday 15 - Thursday 18 March 2021 from 8:00 - 03:00.

Friday 19 March from 08:00 - 11:00

We look forward to seeing you all there! 

Please be aware that during the Book Fair, we will have to adhere to Covid guidelines and keep 1.5 m distance between each other and use provided hand sanitiser. 

For borrowing purposes, our students in Year Prep - 2 need a library bag in order to borrow and borrow 1 book per week, while the Years 3 - 6 are not required to have a bag and can borrow 2 books per week. If a book is overdue, the student cannot borrow until the book is returned, or if lost, paid for. 

As always, please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or queries you may have. 

Kind Regards, 

Svenja Spitzner-Lewis

Swimming Carnival

We had a fantastic afternoon of competition and participation at our twilight swimming carnival last Friday. A big thanks must go out to all our great teachers for helping make the event run smoothly. Well done to all the students who competed throughout and we had many exciting races. Also many thanks to all of the parents and carers who came down to cheer and spectate as the students competed in kick-board, freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke events. The night ended in spectacular fashion with our 25m butterfly demonstration race between teachers and students.

Congratulations to Bowen House who were the winners on the night, beating Kent by 1 point in an amazingly close competition.

Final standings were:
Bowen 200      Kent 199       Abel Smith 146       Athlone 135

Congratulations to our Age Champions:

Year 6  William Usher and Mikayla Wilson

Year 5 Chase Madden and Sophie Liu

Year 4 Kobie Gibson and Olivia Wilcox

Year 3 Toby Scotney and Imogen Grosser

On Monday, March 8 we will be having a swimming presentation on parade, to acknowledge our winning house and age champions will be presented with their medals.

Thanks again to everyone

Yours in Sport,
Mr Benson

PCYC

Expressions of Interest: PCYC Before School Care service opening at Barkly Highway State School.

Please scan the QR Code or click the link below.

Scooters

A friendly reminder that students are to walk there scooters safely through the school grounds and place them in the scooter cage sensibly. If these rules can not be followed scooters will be moved to the bike racks.