Barkly Highway State School - Term 4 Week 6
Principal's Welcome
SCHOOL SUPERVISOR VISIT
As we are now reaching the final weeks of Project 1000 for 2024, Mrs Helen McCullough was interested in hearing how the school will not only maintain but scale-up the strong curriculum, pedagogy and quality assurance processes across the P-2 area of the school. During her visit we shared the analysis of school performance data (system and school based including Level of Achievement, School Disciplinary Absences (SDA), Attendance, NAPLAN) including year level marker students. We also had visits to P-2 and year 5-6 classrooms to speak with students. The students always enjoy sharing their learning and writing on every occasion.
YEAR 6 CAMP
Next week, will be a little quieter around the school, as we will farewell 42 of our year 6 cohort along with supervising staff Miss Sodhi, Miss Wheeler and Miss Ainsley at the airport on Sunday evening. Our year 6 camp has traditionally been at Tallebudgera on the Gold Coast, however, in the near future with the increasing costs of airfares impacting on the cost of this camp, we will be reviewing our current camp program which currently is year 5 students attend Magnetic Island and year 6 Tallebudgera.
Possible camp locations and future timing has been discussed at recent P&C Meetings, so let us know of your thoughts if you would like to provide feedback to the school directly or to our P&C President, Mischa Grummitt.
2024 YEAR BOOK
Our school year book is now in its final draft, orders have been taken and we anticipate these arriving for family orders before the end of the school year. Mrs Usher has led this year’s publication and introduced the opportunity for students to be involved in the back and front cover of the year book. Congratulations to the students who participated in this competition.
RESPECTFUL RELATIONSHIPS EDUCATION (RRE)
In 2023 and 2024, key staff have been preparing for the delivery of RRE in 2025. Respectful relationships education (RRE) builds student skills and knowledge to establish and maintain safe, respectful relationships using a whole-school approach. The RRE whole-school approach checklist will be used to develop a list of actions and recent School Opinion Survey data and feedback from families, staff and students to identify actions to increase respect and gender equality.
P&C MEETING
Come along to the next general meeting on Tuesday 12 November, starting at 6:00. Meetings are held in the Resource Centre / Library.
Kind regards,
Fiona Kropp
Mrs Roberts Report
Hot Weather Conditions
Remember to Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek and Slide.
During the month of November, it is forecast to be warmer than average days and nights and unusually high minimum temperatures across much of northern and eastern Australia, with expected heatwave warnings being issued for areas of our region.
During the hot weather, we encourage our students and staff to wear a sun safe hat, drink plenty of water, stay in the shade where possible and limit physical activity. In recent weeks our school has opened the library at 2nd break to provide a cool space for the students to spend their lunch break.
Students are informed of weather conditions daily through student notices: maximum temperature of the day, the maximum UV index and recommended sun protection hours. 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. 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.
2025 School Leader Process
On Tuesday, Miss Wheeler and I held interviews with 12 Year 5 candidates for the 2025 School Captains and Vice Captains positions.
Six boys and six girls applied for the positions. Next Monday at 11:30 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 2024 Prep to Year 5 Awards Parade on Monday 25 November which starts at 8:30.
2025 ENROLMENT NUMBERS
It is important that we know the expected enrolment numbers, so we ask that families who are not returning to the school in 2025 inform the school, as soon as possible. If you know of families who are still to enrol, especially with Prep aged students, turning 5 by 30 June 2025, please encourage them to contact the school for enrolment packages immediately.
Spinifex Transition Days
Over the past few weeks many of our year six students have been involved in a range of transition activities in preparation for them to attend high school. Barkly Highway students attended a full day experience at Spinifex State Junior Campus (SSJC), to get a sense of what a day at high school will be like. Students learnt all about the high school routines, reading time tables and how to navigate the campus.
Throughout the day many wonderful SSJC teachers gave their time to lead students through a lesson. Students were able to sample a variety of subjects and high school lessons and activities such as; visual art, robotics, volleyball, testing minerals in the science lab, business and economics. At lunch times students roamed the campus to meet up with friends and to experience the tuckshop and playground areas of the school.
Several year six students have been making extra trips to the campus to help them adjust to the high school transition for next year. The students expressed how much they liked visiting SSJC and getting to try new things at the high school. Many students are eagerly looking forward to the Tools 4 Change program days later this term (26-27 November) over at Spinifex State Junior Campus to give them more insight into high school.
ATSIAP
This term our ATSIAP team spent a lot of lunch times researching and discussing the importance of a range of topics which included the 2024 NAIDOC theme: Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud, MABO Day, Harmony Week theme: ‘Everyone Belongs’ and the 2024 National Reconciliation Week theme: “Now More Than Ever”.
The students enjoyed learning about these different cultural responses and through an inquiry-based approach were able to research and discuss as a group the things that were important to them as an Indigenous Australian.
These tasks lead towards a competition where the ATSIAP team would compete against other schools in the region for the 2024 Junior Student Challenge.
Unfortunately, ATSIAP this year was cancelled and although our team was disappointed, they had the privilege of sharing their Oral persuasive speech and artwork with our School Supervisor Helen McCullough.
1 Blue's Barkly Bs Bubble Party
At the end of Week 3, 1 Blue officially filled their classroom token jar. Across the semester the students have been earning tokens by demonstrating our Barkly Bs. To celebrate, the class held a bubble party on the oval complete with music and dancing. It has been so amazing to see all of the hard work the class has put into being respectful, resilient, and responsible learners.
Library News
Our recent Book Fair was a great success and we are awaiting delivery of a couple of orders to arrive.
We are also still awaiting some backorders from Book Club #7. Thank you for your patience.
Our last Book Club Issue #8 will be handed out Friday and will be due back no later than 2:30, Friday 15 November. No late orders will be able to be accepted, due to time constraints with the end of term.
With temperatures rising, the library is now open at second break instead of first break and students certainly enjoy spending time out of the heat.
Library borrowing for students will finish in Week 7, with all books and resources to be returned from Week 8.
Kind Regards,
Svenja Spitzner-Lewis
Parenting and Climate Change Survey
Are You A Parent of a Child Between 0 to 12 Years Old?
Researchers from the University of Southern Queensland and The University of Queensland, are conducting research into parents’ opinions about parenting and climate change.
If you are a parent (18+ years) of a child aged 0 to 12 years and live in Australia, we would love to hear your views. You will need to complete a short online survey. To find out more or to participate, please visit https://tinyurl.com/4e3mmrjc
This research has been approved by the UniSQ Human Research Ethics Committee (ETH2024-0126)
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
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