Barkly Highway State School - Term 1 Week 10
Principal's Welcome
End of a fantastic term!
With the end of our first school term for 2021, our holidays which start with public holidays attached to our Easter break are here. Before we get excited about the holidays, I want to acknowledge and thank all our teaching and non-teaching staff for the tremendous efforts to assist our students achieve their goals for the term.
"It takes a village to raise a child", is an African proverb that means that an entire community of people must interact with children for those children to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment. This is evident at Barkly Highway State School, with the passion for learning witnessed each day.
I acknowledge the growth in the learning of our students and the great first teaching happening in our classrooms every day. Staff are looking forward to the last day of the term with their students and all the culminating end of term/ Easter activities that are enjoyed by everyone.
Parent-Student-Teacher Discussions
With the end of term COVID 19 disruption, some of our cohorts/classes have postponed these discussions to the first week of Term 2. Please ensure you take up this opportunity with your child and teacher, so that you know of the goals and activities achieved this term, and identify the next steps and how these will occur for your child in Term 2.
Week 1 – Term 2 Classroom Overviews
At the beginning of each term, each class sends home an overview outlining the curriculum and assessment tasks, important events and scheduled specialist lessons for the term. By being a member of your class communication platform – Dojo, Seesaw or an email account you will keep in touch more regularly. If you do not know about your class platform for each of students’ classes, speak to your teachers who can assist with joining the group.
Year 6 Boys Group
This term, our Guidance Officer, Lana Lehmann, has worked with Transition Pathways Officer, Chappie Les, and HPE teacher, Ash Benson, to provide guidance and support for cohorts of our grade 6 boys. The students have been given the opportunity to challenge themselves with teamwork skills to be future team players to have the best chance to face a world full of rewarding opportunities and experiences.
Kind regards,
Fiona Kropp
Deputy's Report
LIFE EDUCATION VAN Visit
Last year the school hosted a Life Education Educator Visit towards the end of Term 3. The cost of this program is covered so every child is able to attend. After the feedback from our community – teachers, students and parents – the school has booked the Life Education Van to visit the school again in weeks 7 & 8 of Term 2 – 31 May to 7 June.
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS AND ASSESSMENTS FOR SCHOOLS (ICAS)
Every year students in Years 3 - 6 (Writing Year 3 – 6) are given the opportunity to nominate for the external testing provided by ICAS in the areas of English, Mathematics, Science, Spelling and Writing.
We are using their fully automated Parent Payment System again this year, where parents can pay for the ICAS assessments you want your children to participate in directly to UNSW Global. Their website says parents can pay until the dates listed in the table below for each individual test. More information about the Parent Payment System will be provided soon. After the school’s registration to participate has been confirmed, a letter will be sent home to all year 3-6 students with more detailed information at the start of Term 2.
ATTENDANCE – at Barkly Highway State School Every Day Counts!
This week the attendance for ALL our students was 91.5% for the term. Our school target is 95% attendance for all students.
Congratulations to the 244 students with 95%+ attendance for term 1.
To acknowledge the importance of attendance over a term, students enjoyed Free Time Activities from 1:40 – 2:00 on Wednesday.
As we are nearing the end of term, our teachers are planning activities to ensure that the learning in the classrooms and playground continues until 2:30pm Thursday 1st April, the last day of Term 1. This week, classroom learning will be based on the curriculum knowledge and understanding from this term’s class work that may require consolidation or extension.
We continue to promote the message to our students and families that “every day, every student is learning” and we expect to see every student at school enjoying the learning until Thursday 2:30pm. Thank you to everyone for supporting the school in this regard.
Parents we ask for your support with encouraging our students to follow our Positive Behaviour for Learning Plan by speaking with your children about:
1. Being Responsible and eating their own lunch. We discourage sharing of food or drink items as some students may have an allergy to a food or drink. We encourage eating healthy foods while at school. We discourage children bringing soft drinks and lollies to school. These ‘sometimes’ foods are best keep for eating at home.
Respecting and Caring for Belongings:
To prevent theft, if your child brings a bike to school please provide a lock so that it can be locked up in the bike area. Unfortunately 2 bikes were taken from our bike area last week.
PBL Team Leader News
PBL Focus
Our PBL social skill focus this week is Be Respectful: Toilets and Bubblers. Following our school procedures, keeping the areas clean, wait patiently and minimise use during learning time.
In Week 1 next term our focus is Be Responsible & Respectful: Eating Areas. Sitting down until dismissed back to class. Eating our own lunch. Raising our hands to get duty teachers attention and keeping the area clean.
Student Council say THANK YOU!
To all our wonderful families who were super generous and flooded the office with chocolate eggs for our annual Easter Raffle. The Student Council are very appreciative. We had so many eggs donated that we were able to have 3 draws per class, a draw for HPE and The Arts AND a parent raffle. Our parent’s received a ticket if they had put their name down for a Parent/Teacher/Student discussion.
On the 19 March the Student Council held their first Pizza Day. Another big thankyou to the families who participated. Our Student Council fundraised over $900 to go towards new oval equipment. We hope to hold a pizza day each term this year.
NAPLAN 2021
This year our Year 3 and Year 5 students will be participating in NAPLAN online for the first time. Both year levels will complete the Reading, Conventions of Language and Numeracy tests online in Weeks 4 and 5 of Term 2. Year 5 will also complete the Writing test online while Year 3 will do the paper-based version. The literacy and numeracy content assessed through NAPLAN is taught through the Australian Curriculum in our classrooms every day. This means there is no need to study separately for the NAPLAN tests, however, the online platform is brand new to our students and we want them to be comfortable navigating it. Because of this, our classroom teachers have, and continue to, provide many opportunities for students to practice and build their confidence in the online platform. Below is a link to the public demonstration site that is accessible from home. This site allows students to familiarise themselves with the type of questions and related functionalities available in the NAPLAN Online assessment. Follow the link below and scroll to the bottom of the page to click on the relevant year level for your child. Students are encouraged to try all the tests for their year level to practise the complete range of question formats available in the online assessment. If you have any further questions regarding NAPLAN and how you can best support your child please contact your child’s classroom teacher.
https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site
Library News
And just like that we reached the end of Term 1! With this happening, we are asking to have all student borrowing returned. Overdue notices have gone out to affected students during this last week.
We had a fantastic response to our first Book Fair for this year and we would like to say a big thankyou to our school community for supporting these events. We are now able to buy approximately $1500 worth of resources for our school. These resources will directly benefit and support our students.
Isabella in Year 6 won our guessing game. She shared the lollies with her excited class and got to choose $20 worth of books from the Book Fair for herself. Congratulations!
Unfortunately, we have not received the Book Fair orders or book orders from Book Club Issue #2 yet. We are hoping they will be here straight after the holidays for distribution.
Chaplain's Message
Hi Everyone,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all parents, carers, students and teaching staff for supporting the “Bullying, No Way” day which was held on Friday 19th March.
We had a great response dressing in orange, doing activities, posters and pledges to get the message across that bullying is never okay.
Please enjoy some of the great activities on display for that event.
There is an African proverb that says “It takes a village to raise a child”. I am sure you would agree we all have a part to play.
I wish everyone safe holidays and see you again in term 2.
Chaplain
Sue Hinds
Tuckshop Convenor Required
We have put out ads to replace the irreplaceable Amanda as our Tuckshop convenor. After an amazing 3 years transforming our Tuckshop to what it is today, Amanda has decided it’s time for a break, and so we are searching for anyone who might be wanting to jump on board!! If interested, please email pandc@barklyhighwayss.eq.edu.au for more information/position description.
The ARTS
Arts class party reward - Congratulations to 3 Red! They won the arts pizza and iceblock party for collecting the most amount of Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) tokens for their class this term - well deserved!
Up and Coming: Choir - The choir students will have a very exciting up and coming opportunity to work with Opera Queensland for their production they are bringing to Mount Isa! Look out for the note that will be sent home to all choir students about this event.