20 October 2016

From the Principal

Zoe Smith

I hope you were able to enjoy the long weekend! The Graceville Staff had a big day of learning.

Much conversation was generated on the piece I wrote in last week’s newsletter about sharing of belongings and clothing at school. It seems opinion is divided on the subject. Most parents support that hats and clothing should not be shared at school however also comment that from time to time they or their children do not remember to pack hats or swimming items such as googles or caps and therefore their children cannot participate. This can lead to children feeling excluded. It seems, at the moment, this affects lower primary swimming the most as it is a user pay system where parents expect their child will receive the lesson they have paid for. The swimming coach approached me this week to discuss an idea which he believes he can implement to help rectify the situation. I shared this with the P&C President, who intern had a conversation with the P&C executive. We have agreed to the following:

• The swimming coach will keep a range of sizes of spare swim caps and goggles to share
• Only one child per day will be able to use these spare items
• The swim coach will take any used items home, sterilise them and bring them back for use
• The swimming coach is prepared to guarantee this approach to the school community
• Note: this only applies to caps and googles and not swimming togs

The No Hat, No P.E policy (if in the sun) and No Swim Togs, No Swim, policy will remain at this stage. Children cannot access the lost property for these items.

Please remember, if you have a child who nominated for the Enhancement Classes, it is important to note the release date of the classes has been postponed until Friday in Week 4. We are still finalising overall enrolment numbers to ascertain how many children are likely to be in each year level. This impacts on the number of children we can have in each Enhancement class.

Unfortunately, we are still chasing 11 families for Class Placement forms which include the information we need to know if children are returning to the school in 2017. The office staff will continue to call the remaining families this week.

A few reminders for next week:

• The school disco is next Wednesday night (26th)
• The Book Fair starts on Wednesday 26th
• School Captain and Vice-Captain nominees will be announced at assembly on Thursday (27th)
• Day for Daniel is Friday 28th, all children can wear a red shirt to school that day
• World Teachers Day is next Friday. We have great teachers at our school and it is an opportunity to make our teachers feel valued and special!

Have a great week.

Newsletter Articles

From the Deputy Principal

Maree Hass

Remembrance Day Commemoration – our school will be holding its annual service on Friday November 11, at 10.15 in our school hall. Poppies will shortly go on sale at our school entrances before school, so watch out for this. All families and community members are invited to attend our school assembly.

Prep 2017 – please enrol your child now!

Please see the office if you would like to book a meeting with me. If you are a school family and are happy without a meeting please ensure that you bring into the office your child’s Prep Profile as this contains important information that I use in putting the prep classes together for next year.

Date Claimer: Prep Orientation visit – Tuesday November 15th

A letter will come home in the next few weeks with exact times and information for this visit to school and prep with your child.

Please visit the following link which details our school enrolment management plan and also provides a link to the catchment area for Graceville State School for more information about the process for placing your child’s name on our waiting list if you reside outside of our catchment area:

Below is the calendar for Term 4 Junior assemblies – every second Tuesday commencing at 2.15pm.

From the Deputy Principal

Lisa McKeaten

Sports and Music Photos

Sports and Music photos will be held next Tuesday, 25th of October in the hall. Students are asked to come along with their musical instruments for photos.

Groups of Photos

During last term, a letter was sent home to families regarding the school’s implementation of SMS notification system and asking for updated mobile phone details. If you have not returned this form to the office already, please do so as soon as possible. It is important that the school office has the correct contact details for parents in case of emergencies.

Money Matters

Roberta Harycki

Welcome to Term 4 of excursions. Your child’s permission proforma and family statement has been distributed. Families will only receive a statement if year levels have newly added excursions and if your account is in arrears.

Please note: Year 3/4BC have an additional excursion ($8) to the Sensitivity Unit at Craigslea State School. Further information will be provided by the class teacher along with a separate invoice for payment.

There has been a credit to the Water Polo students of $65.This credit was raised by Mr Daunt due to less transport being used during this draw.

Helpful hints for payment - BPoint instructions are attached; Also note, Permissions and Payments by the “Last day of Payment” is a must for your child’s inclusion.

Credit in Account: (eg -$10) - Please let office staff know how you wish to use your credit and to nominate which excursions are to be paid.

Our financial system does not automatically match to other payments.

Request for Refund form for an excursion paid and not attended is available from the front office. Prepaid ticketing excursions, curriculum programs and prepaid competition entries are non-refundable.

Payment of account days:

8am - 3pm - Monday to Wednesday
8am - 12pm - Thursday and Friday

BPoint is the preferred method of payment.

Eftpos, Debit Cards: Visa/Mastercard, cheque or cash payments are accepted.

BPOINT User Information

For payment of multiple items on your statement/invoice, you will need to do a separate entry for each item, entering the invoice number and the corresponding payment amount for that item only e.g.

Separate Entries for each line must be done to ensure the payment is allocated to the correct Excursion/Resource Fee.

BPOINT payments must be processed in time to clear (usually 2-3 business days) before the Due Date for payment.

Music News

Naomi Lindh

We are currently finalising recruitment for the IM program next year for current year 2 and 3 students. Please ensure your child has met with Mr Grodecki (for band instruments) or Mrs Prout (for string instruments) if they are interested in joining the program.

If your child has expressed an interest and has not met with either/both of these teachers please contact me as soon as possible as offers will be made and sent out in the coming week/s. (nclos1@eq.edu.au).

The Year 2/3 Choir will continue to rehearse on Fridays mornings together from 7:45am in the music room this term and rehearsals will continue until week 9 of this term.

Term 4 performance schedule:

Please note that there has been a date change to the Oxley Senior Citizen’s Concert.

Wednesday 16th of November – Evening Concert 6pm - all Choir and Instrumental students will be performing
Tuesday 22nd of November - Oxley Senior Citizens' Concert - Senior Choir (during school day, bus to be paid for by instrumental/choral program); concert 10:30am
Wednesday 23rd of November – Grandparent’s Concert 10am - all Choir students and the Senior Strings

We look forward to sharing our music with you at our upcoming concerts!

Library News

Melanie Hutchinson

Annual Book Fair

A love of reading is the greatest educational gift you can give your children.

Our school’s BOOK FAIR, which starts next Wednesday, 26th is a great way to give this gift to our children. Every student gets to visit the Fair and we hope you and other family members will stop by as well. The Book Fair is open to everyone! You will find a great selection of the best books available for all children.

We look forward to seeing you at the BOOK FAIR!

When: Wednesday 26th of October until Wednesday 4th of November
Times: Begins at 3-4pm on the Wednesday and then each day from 8–9am & 3–4pm
Family Event: Wednesday 26th of October from 5.30pm – 7.30pm (same night as the School Disco)

Remember all Book Fair purchases benefit our school and more importantly, our school library. Keep an eye out for the information flyers that will be sent home with each student.

Active School Travel

TACO TUESDAY!

(Travel Actively Coming-to-school On)

Melbourne Cup
Decorate your School Hats

To celebrate Melbourne Cup Day on Tuesday 1st November (which also happens to be TACO Tuesday) decorate your school hats for the hat parade!

There will be lots of great prizes to be won so get busy decorating! Breakfast will be provided by Cr Nicole Johnston from 8:15am in the Quadrangle. Judging of the hats will commence at 8:30am also in the Quadrangle. We look forward to seeing you there……don’t forget to bring along your passports to get your active travel stamps!

If you have a few spare hours a month to help us run this fantastic program we are looking for volunteers to join our Active Travel Committee. Please contact Jo Richards via email sajrichards@iinet.net.au for more information.

Chappy’s Chat

John Erichsen

Parents of Year 5 students are possibly finding the house a little quieter this week, as those students are enjoying the adventure of school camp. There will be many exciting tales shared upon their return so enjoy that quiet time while you can. Of course, the staff attending camp do their best to organise many activities during the three days, so there could be one or two weary bodies dragging themselves off the bus by the end of the week.

Wednesday next week is School Disco night, which will be an absolute buzz for everyone present. The student council will be selling chips and drinks and the chaplaincy committee will fire up the barbecue and provide an easy dinner option for interested families. The disco evening is a fun night for students and a great chance for parents to enjoy catching up for a chat while waiting for their dance champions to finish busting a move or two.

On Friday afternoons, our Year 5 and 6 students participate in Interschool Sports and midway through the season there have been many reports of great victories, nail-biting defeats and excellent sportsmanship. Competitive sport can be a wonderful arena for seeing the best and worst of human nature. Sadly some of our elite sportsmen and women don’t provide our children with the best role models regarding how they conduct themselves on the field. Thankfully, most do and we can point our students to their examples in how to embrace victory with respect and defeat with grace. Sport is about far more than just the score on the board. It’s about how you respond to a challenge, how you add something to the team and how you lift others up. It’s an opportunity to do your very best and feel pleased with your efforts, regardless of the result. It’s a chance to learn new skills and grow as an athlete and as a person. Interschool sport is about proudly representing your school and growing a culture of acceptance, teamwork and friendship. It is also about being active and having fun. Good luck for the rest of the season!

Have a wonderful week!

Uniform & Stationery

Opening Hours: Monday, Tuesday and Friday - 8.15am to 9.00am.

Swimming has started and most of your swimming gear is available from the uniform store. Attached is a form to order long sleeve rashies, swim caps, bags and quick dry towels in your house colours. Rashies are not kept in stock and can only be ordered through this form.

Email address for school uniform store is: uniformstore@gracevilss.eq.edu.au

Tuckshop News

Anne, Amanda and Ally

Volunteers for week commencing Monday, 24th of October are:

Be sure to thank them when you see them; they are wonderful to volunteer their time to make lunches for your children.

Of course, any questions or concerns, please come see us at the Tuckshop or drop us a line at tuckshop.gss@gmail.com.

P&C News

School Banking

We urgently need some help with our school banking. Please call in to the school hall canteen after drop off on MONDAY mornings to see if Julie, our School Banking Co-ordinator, needs a hand. Banking takes about an hour (depending on number of helpers). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Technology

We had a long discussion at the P&C meeting last week. Mrs Smith presented an up to date audit of the computers and electronic white boards in our school. The audit and an explanation of the school technology budget showed a pretty compelling argument that something needs to be done so that our children have appropriate technology for their learning.

The school is to undergo an urgent planning process to determine what this appropriate technology will be (computers in class rooms vs use of class sets of Ipads and laptops vs computer labs vs status quo vs other ideas etc.) and to develop a plan of how to go about delivering this. It is likely that a levy in the form of a voluntary contribution will be needed to stem the flow of the aging technology in our school. Please feel free to join the discussion. We are working on the premise that we want our children to have ready access to appropriate technology for their learning.

Parents Disco

The last P&C event of the year is set to be a cracker! An Old School disco break up party. This is just a few weeks before the end of school it will be a great break up party for you! Tickets are available via the Tuckshop ordering system School24, under Tickets.

Major Projects – Solar and Ventilation of the Hall

We have had fantastic news that the grant application to the Gambling Community Benefit Fund has been successful. This is for a 35KW solar system for the roof of the hall. We are planning that work will be done over the holidays and we will be making a sustainable contribution to reduce the massive electricity bill of the school.

Works on the ventilation of the hall are underway and approval was given at the meeting for the tender process to be developed and commenced in the coming weeks. We are hopeful again to use the downtime of the holidays to make some real progress on this.

Building Fund

The P&C, like most other P&Cs, offers parents an opportunity to take part in a Tax Deductible Voluntary Contribution Scheme. If you wish to contribute to the P&C building work projects for the school, please contact the P&C Executive at the email below and we will send you the details. The building fund is going towards climate controlling the school, continuing to air condition the class rooms and the major project of fixing the ventilation of the hall.

Next P&C Meeting

The next meeting is Wednesday 30th of November at 7.30pm in the Waratah Room (which is beside the staff room in the main reception block). Everyone is very welcome.

Please feel free to contact the P&C executive via email: pandc@gracevilss.eq.edu.au

School Banking News

School banking will back for Term 4 next Monday morning, 24th of October at the Hall canteen area. If you do have spare time after drop off on Monday mornings, please pop in if you can lend a hand.

Student Disco News

Parent’s Disco News

The last P&C event of the year is set to be a cracker! An Old School disco break up party. Dust off your 80s gear from the trivia night and come along for a great night. Saturday 19th of November from 6.30pm.

Tickets are $20 and available for purchase on the Tuckshop ordering system under 'Tickets'.

Swimming News

Group lessons are on offer before and after school on weekdays. To enter group lessons students must be in Year One or older and able to swim 25 meters freestyle non-stop.

All other students may book a private one on one lesson after school on Fridays or Saturday mornings. Students in after school care may also join the program as staff can take the children to the pool and pick them up after their lesson.

Please direct all inquiries to Pete Geraghty via email: petegeraghty@hotmail.com or phone 0432407442

Chess Club

School Plus

Community Notices

Staverton Kindergarten

Staverton Kindergarten has places available for age appropriate children for 2017 (children born 1/7/12 to 30/6/13). Please call 3379 1511 or visit our website below for further information.

Catholic Sacramental Program

We are pleased to advise that expressions of interest are now open for those parents who are considering enrolling their children in the local Catholic Sacramental Program (Confirmation, First Eucharist and Penance).

An information night will be held on Thursday, October 27th, for parents who would like to find out more about our new Sacramental program and the process for enrolling their children in the same.

The 2017-19 program, run by the Catholic Parish of Corinda Graceville, is for all children who are baptised and have turned 8 years of age by January 1, 2017 (usually Year 3 children and above), regardless of which school they attend.

The parent information night will be held from 7.30pm at Christ the King Church, Churchill Street, Graceville on Thursday, October 27th. To express your interest in attending the information night simply email the Sacramental Program Coordinator: sc.corindagraceville@bne.catholic.edu.au

Your correspondence will be acknowledged with a confirmation and a copy of the agenda for the evening. Enrolments for the Sacramental program will officially open following the October information session.

Australian Girls’ Choir Open Day

The sound of music will be alive on Sunday October 23rd as the Australian Girls’ Choir (AGC) is having their Open Day. All school aged girls are invited to come along, join a trial class, attend an information session and find out more about the AGC.

For more information, phone 1800 338 142 or visit:

Sherwood Community Festival

The Sherwood Community Festival is a free family event, sponsored by Brisbane City Council, which each year keeps getting bigger and better. This year it will be held on Friday, 11th November, from 5.30 pm to 9.30 pm. There will be a section dedicated to a huge variety of food stalls, plus other market stalls, rides and live entertainment!

Attractions include:

• Free rides for the children
• Petting farm
• Market and Food stalls
• Live entertainment including bands, choirs, dance troupes
• Nativity play – complete with live camels
• Raffle with some amazing prizes. Tickets are on sale outside Sherwood Woolworths on Saturday 22/10, Saturday 29/10 and Saturday 5/11, plus they can be purchased on the night from the information desk.

For more information, please log on to the event website:

Craft Market and Car Boot Sale

WHEN: Sunday October 30th 2016
TIME: 7:00am – 12noon
WHERE: Oxley State School Oval, Cnr of Oxley Road and Colwel Street Oxley
FREE ENTRY for shoppers!

Contact Narelle on 0412 240 503 for further details.

This event features a wide range of stalls offering arts and crafts, trash and treasure, furniture, collectables, plants, fruit and veg, new and used toys, books, clothes, shoes and lots more. Hot and cold food and drinks available. Toilet access available.

Graceville Railway Station Upgrade

New information regarding the current Graceville Station Upgrade which impact the surrounding areas on the train line at night and on weekends. Please read attached notification from Queensland Rail.