2 March 2017

From the Principal

Zoe Smith

Hello,

The term is flying! On Thursday and Friday I will be attending the Biennial QLD Principals Conference which is organised and hosted by DET. The conference is the opportunity for the Director General to share key messages for all State Schools in QLD and provide professional development to all principals to ensure some levels of consistency around the state. Mrs McKeaten will be in charge in my absence.

Last week we held our first P&C meeting in school time. We had a great roll up of parents! The meeting went a little longer than usual as I talked parents through the school documents and budget. It was an eye opener for most parents who attended. I am also very grateful to the many families who then went to the office and paid the Voluntary Contribution and or have advocated on the school’s behalf to other families to contribute as well. Since the P&C meeting the Voluntary Contributions have increased by $5000! We are now sitting at $22,000! This is an amazing show of support from our school community! We have put in our first order for computers already and the teachers are excited to know they will be getting updated technology very soon! Thankyou! The more money we get through the Voluntary Contributions the more computers, laptops and iPads we can purchase for classroom use! There is still time to pay. Although the fee is set at $100 per child, we welcome all contributions.

It is important to note that I will be on long service leave from the 13th of March until the end of the Term. My family have a 3 week holiday, travelling from Adelaide to Melbourne. We are meeting up with some of my husband’s family who are holidaying from Denmark. As part of our holiday we will also attend the Formula One Grandprix! Please understand this is just a family holiday and I will be returning to start Term 2. Mrs McKeaten will be the Acting Principal in my absence and Mrs Freeman will step up to take on an Acting Deputy Principal role.

Next Tuesday we are running an information session to explain the Enhancement Class Expression of Interest process for the 2018 school year. At the meeting, we will explain how the classes operate and what makes them different from a straight class. We will make parents aware of the timelines associated with Expressions of Interest for 2018. It is important to note, we ask for Expressions of Interest early in the year so we can observe the students throughout the year. We usually have around 40 expressions of interest for only 10-14 class placements. I suggest you place an Expression of Interest, even if still just considering the class as an option, as we do not accept Expressions of Interest for the class beyond 29th March. You can always withdraw your Expression of Interest as the year progresses. If you do not express interest by March 29 your child will not be considered for a placement in 2018. If you cannot make the meeting, Expression of Interest forms can be collected at the office until 28 March. All forms need to be returned to the office by 29 March. An adult must return the form and sign and date a register which will be co-signed by an office staff member.

The Spell-a-thon is fast approaching. We are hoping to raise $18,000 to support the purchase of resources to develop our Inquiry approach. This year the funds will help build resourcing to support Inquiry in Science and The Humanities and Social Sciences. The funds may also be used to support resourcing of the Learning Assets. Please do your best to ask family and friends to sponsor your children in the Spell-a-thon. Grandparents, Aunties, Uncles, neighbours - every cent makes a difference!

Finally, there have been some changes to ANZAC day services in our local area this year. There will no longer be a march at Graceville or any sites on the western side of the river. Unfortunately the number of volunteers required to run so many services on ANZAC day are also dwindling. To ensure our Graceville service is still able to take place, I have agreed that the school will take on some extra responsibility to help the RSL on ANZAC day itself. I will be calling for volunteers early next term to help set up and pack up chairs, shade structures etc. for our community ANZAC service. Any support you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your continued support of the school! Together we are doing some exciting things for the children in our community!

Zoe Smith

Newsletter Articles

From the Deputy Principal

Maree Hass

Study Tour Proposal – From Minzu Elementary School in Taiwan to Graceville State School

Thank you to those who have replied that they are available to host a student – we do need more families – please read below.

Our school has again been approached by Education Queensland International to host a Study Tour of approx. 20 students from Taiwan beginning July 11 for 2 weeks. Graceville has hosted a few study tours now from Taiwan in past years. This year we will host Minzu School’s visit and do a return visit by Graceville to this same school in September this year. We have 22 students who will be participating in this outbound study tour.

All experiences have been wonderful for our staff and students as two very different cultures met and while our students had greater exposure to native Mandarin speakers the students from Taiwan were immersed in the English language daily here in Australia.

In order for Graceville to be able to host these students, we need to provide homestay accommodation. You may have more than one student if desired with most students preferring to stay with another student.

A homestay family must provide:

• A bed – own bedroom is desirable but not necessary
• All meals – send lunch each day, if your child has tuckshop, then provide homestay student with tuckshop also
• Travel to and from school

Each Saturday, the students will go on an all-day excursion so must also be dropped at school at 9:00am and picked up at approximately 5pm (this is negotiable if your family was to go away for the weekend).

We cannot undertake this study tour without the support of our school families. Students from Taiwan will be 10-12 years of age. School families with younger children can be a homestay family as all students will be assigned a school buddy as well. Could you please indicate on the form attached if you would be interested in hosting a student for this upcoming study tour. Please return the form to the admin office ASAP or email me at mhass10@eq.edu.au I will arrange an information session for all families who indicate interest to go through in detail what would be involved. Families who host a student will be funded $200 to assist in covering the costs in providing for a visiting student.

There are many benefits in participating in a study tour including:

• Our students get to experience other cultures
• Friendships are formed which last for many years
• Learning is enriched for all students
• Students enjoy sharing their daily lives with students from another country
• The school benefits financially.

If there are any questions that you may have about being a homestay family please email me or call the office to speak with me.

I look forward to hearing from interested families.

Mathletics Reminder

Mathletics Online has commenced for this year. The cost for Mathletics is $12 per student and invoices have been sent home. Your class teacher can inform you more fully about Mathletics and how your class will be using the program this year. Each student will then receive their own personal log on and password to access the program for both at school and at home.

Payment needs to be made by Friday March 10 if you haven’t done so by now.

Date Claimer: next school Technology Community Committee meeting – Friday May 5 at 7:50am in the school library. All welcome.

Junior Assemblies

Parents and care givers are invited to join us for Junior Assemblies which will be held every second Tuesday afternoon from 2.15 in the hall.

Below is the calendar for term 1 assemblies.

From the Deputy Principal

Lisa McKeaten

Let’s ‘stand together’ against bullying and violence!

Our school is proud to say ‘Bullying. No Way!’ On Friday 17 March we will stand united with schools across Australia for the 2017 National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence.

Taking a stand together will deliver a powerful message that bullying and violence is never okay.

We strongly encourage parents and carers to have open and honest conversations with their children about bullying in all forms.

To get the discussion started with helpful information and tips visit the Bullying. No Way! website

ALLERGIES – everyone’s issue!

We have quite a large number of students in our school who have food allergies. A large proportion of these allergies are to nuts. Increasingly, we have a number of students who also have allergies to eggs. In some cases, particularly with nut allergies, this is a life threatening situation for these children. We need everyone’s help to avoid any contact with nuts, nut products and eggs to ensure the safety of students with these severe allergies. What all members in school community need to do:

1. Not send any nuts, nut products or eggs to school including:
2. baked goods using any nuts, health/museli bars, nutella, peanut paste, etc. Baked goods which include eggs are acceptable.
3. Encourage your children to follow ‘no sharing of food or drinks’ policy
4. Name all drink and lunch containers clearly
5. Promote hand washing before and after eating

Be considerate of all members of our community & their needs. If there are particular allergies that students have, especially in your child’s class, please consider their needs.

For more information please check:

2017 International competitions

All students in Years 2 - 6 will be invited to participate in the International competitions run by the University of New South Wales.

Any students in Years 2 or 4 whose parents are intending to apply for the Enhancement classes are required to enter their child in the English, Maths & Science competitions.

In 2017 we will be participating in the following competitions:

• Digital Technologies 23 May $8.00 (Yr 3-6)
• Science 30 May $8.00 (Yr 2-6)
• Spelling 14 June $11.00 (Yr 2-6)
• Writing 13 June $17.00 (Yr 3-6)
• English 1 August $8.00 (Yr 2-6)
• Mathematics 15 August $8.00 (Yr 2-6)

All participating students will need to indicate if they are entering by later in the term. Payment for these competitions will be included in your Term 2 account. All competitions will be non-refundable as they are pre-paid.

These competitions are valued by us and parents but they do take a considerable amount of time out of class, for often the same groups of children, so this year we will be conducting the competitions before school, as much as possible. Running these comps at another time, eg. lunchtime, is not in the best interests of the students. This may mean that for that week your child may have to miss eg. Senior choir or an Instrumental practice, but it would only be very infrequently. We do have to run the tests on the day indicated above, unless children are sick or absent. If this occurs we try to make-up the tests in the day or 2 after, if possible. We will confirm the times as the comps get closer. We would probably expect students at school ready to start at 7.45am.

NAPLAN testing – Term 2

On Tuesday 9, Wednesday 10 and Thursday 11 May, students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will take part in the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy, or NAPLAN, as it is commonly known.

Skills that will be tested include: reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy.

These tests are done here at school and are considered just another part of the curriculum.

It is important for you and your child to know that NAPLAN is not a pass/fail test. It simply looks at what level students are achieving in literacy and numeracy against National Standards and compared with student peers throughout Australia.

NAPLAN cannot be studied for and students are not expected to do so. The best way you can help your child prepare for NAPLAN is to let them know that it is just a routine part of their school program, and to urge them to do the best they can on the day.

All students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are expected to participate in NAPLAN testing. Please ensure that if you have a child in Years 3 or 5 that they are in attendance during that week in May. Please avoid booking holidays or appointments during those days. If you can’t avoid those days eg. specialist appointment, please try to make it in the afternoon. All testing will be completed by 12.45 on those days.

Later in the year we will send you an individual student NAPLAN report that you can use to view and monitor how your child is progressing.

More information is available on the NAP website (available via the link below)

If you have any concerns, please contact the class teacher or myself.

Money Matters

Anne Nixon

Last week Interschool Sport Invoices were sent home for Year 5-6. Deposits need to be paid before Friday 3rd March.

Student Resource Schemes (SRS) for 2017 are:

• Prep Requirements ($60)
• Instrumental Music Programs – Instrument Hire ($100), Percussion Maintenance ($50), Music Participation ($30) & Choir ($30)
• Religious Education Program ($10)
• Mathletics On-line registration (Years Prep - 6) ($12)
• Origo Maths (years 3, 4 and 5) ($6)

All students involved in these programs must return a completed SRS form.

VOLUNTARY PARENT CONTRIBUTIONS

Your valuable contribution to this school’s Learning Targets are most welcome.

$100 single student.

Credit in Account: Credits from 2016 rolled over to this year can be applied to current invoices at the parent’s request.

Request for Refund form for an excursion paid and not attended is available from the front office. Prepaid ticketed excursions are non-refundable.

Payment of account days:

8am-3.00pm - 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

Thank you to our students and families for attending lessons and rehearsals regularly. Our upcoming performances are listed below:

• Thursday 16 March - Junior Choir (Year 2/3 students) - singing at the Harmony Day assembly - time TBC
• Saturday 18 March - Senior Choir (Year 4-6 students) - Voices from the Trenches Concert starting at 6pm. Please note audience members will need to purchase tickets to attend. Further information is available from Ms West (see email details below) - Senior Choir members need to return permission slip if attending
• Senior Choir performing at the ANZAC Day ceremony on 24 April at 10:15am

Please contact your child's conductor/teacher if they are unable to attend a rehearsal or if you have any concerns about their progress. Next term the Junior Band will rehearse before school on Wednesdays at 7:45am and Beginner/Junior Strings will rehearse on Wednesdays at first break.

Music staff email contacts

Alex Grodecki - agrod3@eq.edu.au
James Kukulies - jkuku2@eq.edu.au
Ruth Prout - rprou5@eq.edu.au
Steve Stiller - sstil2@eq.edu.au
Julie West - jwest269@eq.edu.au

Thank you for supporting our music program.

ICT News

How Cybersmart are you?

This fortnight all of our year 5 and 6 classes are having a visit for a cybersafety lesson. Together, we complete the ‘How Cybersmart are you?’ quiz from the Australian Government’s eSafety website, available via the link below. This fun and interactive quiz helps to reinforce key online safety messages to children such as online security, sharing passwords, online friends, cyberbullying and free downloads.

Our 5W students were very engaged with this activity and the discussions that arose were highly valuable. They now realise the importance of being safe online and have learnt how to make good choices. Click on the gallery to view our cybersmart 5W students.

Elisa Chudasko – ICT Mentor

Tuckshop News

Volunteers for week commencing Monday, 6 March 2017 -

Tuckshop is operated as an online ordering system. If you need to open a Tuckshop account, please visit school24.net.au and use Graceville’s School Registration ID: 25314963 and follow the prompts.

Last Friday was extremely busy in Tuckshop with order numbers exceptionally high for so early in the year – 178 orders! We can only think you are finding School24 easy to order or you just love our food!

If you are ordering tuckshop for a Friday, it’s a great idea to pre-order at least the day before you are ordering. Some Friday mornings you can experience slow processing of your order on School24 due to the high volume of people trying to order. Save the frustration and time and order the night before!

Make sure to check you have received an email confirming you have ordered for the correct day and date; it’s so sad to see the student’s worried faces when their tuckshop order hasn’t turned up due to an ordering error. We will always feed them but it saves the student a lot of worry and a trip to the office/teacher to phone parents to confirm we can make the student a lunch order.

If you have any questions or concerns, please see us at the Tuckshop or drop us an email at tuckshop.gss@gmail.com

ACTIVE SCHOOL TRAVEL:

TACO TUESDAY!

(Travel Actively Coming-to-school On)
Launching 7th March 2017

We will be commencing our passport stamping on Tuesday 7th March! If you have your passports from last year you can continue to use these as you work towards your prizes. For those students new to the school please go to the stamping stations (located at the Quadrangle and gate near before/after school care) to collect your passport and get your stamp. The prep students will receive passports in their KIT folders very soon!

National Ride2School Day – Decorate your bike helmets

National Ride2School Day is the perfect opportunity for Australian students and school communities to embrace a healthier start and to try walking and riding to school.

National Ride2School Day 2015 will be on Friday 17th March.

The purpose of National Ride2School Day is to show school communities that riding to school is an easy and fun activity. It is a chance to celebrate and prove it can be done. All Children who actively travel to school on this day will receive a stamp in their passport. Decorate your helmet to be in the running for some great prizes. We will be giving each student with a decorated helmet a raffle ticket in the prize draw. Don’t worry if you can’t ride your bike or scooter, so long as you actively travel with your helmet you will go in the draw.

Join other kids across Australia to actively travel on 17th March. It's a great way to get fit and healthy. Your child will also arrive alert, more attentive and ready to learn. Remember that when riding a bike you are required by law to wear an approved helmet securely fitted and fastened.

We need you!!!!!!!

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. We meet once a term and plan one key event a term. Parents run our committee with three staff members so we are in much need of additional support. Can you help? We are in need of someone to undertake a data entry task for us which would take about 20 mins a week…..even if you can’t make it to meetings, it is a great way to be involved in the school community.

Please contact Jo Richards at sajrichards@iinet.net.au for more information. Alternatively please join us, Thursday 20th April at 10:45am in the waratah room– details will be available in the school newsletter.

SPELLATHON

It’s SPELLATHON time! Spellathon is a fundraising event designed to be both a fun and educational activity for our children. SPELLATHON 2017 word lists and sponsorship forms were given to the children to take home last week. A copy of documents for each year level is attached to this newsletter.

Spellathon is a literacy based way for our children to help fundraise for our school. The spelling words that your child will be asked to learn are all from the current curriculum. The teachers in the school have selected the words and all the children will benefit academically from their participation.

There will be lots of fun prizes awarded. Prizes will be based on sponsorship collected and also every child who spells all their words correctly will be entered into a prize draw where they could win one of two fun prizes in each year level. As well as individual prizes, there will be whole class prizes for the class that raises the most money in each year level.

This fundraising event is second only to the Fete in terms of revenue raised for the school. In 2016 we raised over $18,000 - an amazing effort! Last year funds raised by the Spellathon contributed to refreshing the school’s technology equipment (laptops and some desktops). This year funds will go towards resources focusing on Humanities and Science. Projects like these are of great benefit to all students in the school. Please encourage your friends, relatives and neighbours to sponsor your child and help us make Spellathon 2017 a great success.

Important Spellathon Dates:

Tuesday 14 March: SPELLATHON Test Day
Tuesday 28 March: Return of sponsorship forms and money

Our sponsors for 2017 are Peter May and Brad Robson from Place Real Estate, Oxley Rd Discount Drug Store and Superior Fruit & Wendy’s Kitchen.

If you need help buying or selling your home, Peter & Brad from Place are the ones to help you. Please contact Peter on 0409543546 or Brad on 0414773437.

For all your pharmacy needs go to Oxley Road Discount Drug Store where you get more than just low prices. They are located right next to the Post Office in Graceville.

Superior Fruit & Wendy’s Kitchen is our local family-run business which provides Brisbane with the widest range of the BEST fruit, vegetables, small goods, cheeses, vinegars, oils, ice creams and more. Bank Road, Graceville.

We thank our sponsors for their support of our school and ask that you support them with your business.

If you have any queries please get in touch by emailing: gracevillespellathon@gmail.com

The Spellathon Committee

Proudly sponsored by:

Chappy’s Chat

Swimming lessons with Mr Daunt are in full swing and our swimming pool looks pristine. Children are certainly enjoying getting into the water on warm summer days but are finding the freshly painted lining is quite a slippery surface. This is, apparently, removing any temptation to try and swim with feet on the bottom of the pool. With swimming lessons for PE it is important for students to remember their swim gear, including swim shirt and swim cap. Implementing whichever reminder system works best for your child will help ensure nobody misses out on a cooling dip.

It was great to see so many parents attend the first P & C meeting of 2017, last Wednesday. One thing to result from this meeting was the continued financial support for chaplaincy via the P & C. This means chaplaincy can be maintained until the end of June at the existing 4.5 days/week. From the start of Term 3, the chaplaincy service will need to reduce operating hours to 3 days/week, so as not to place too high a financial burden on this incredibly generous school community. This also allows me opportunity to find a 2 day/week chaplaincy position or other casual employment to supplement my income from July as less than 4.5 days/week isn’t sustainable for me. I would personally like to thank all who have supported me in this role over the past 10 years. I look forward to continuing to support the Graceville State School community and will advise which days I will be in the school in semester 2, once those details have been sorted. Due to the significant cost increases passed on to schools to cover all aspects of operating a chaplaincy service, the difference between financing 3 days/week and 4.5 days/week is over $21000. For this reason, the school and P&C have had to consider what the service at Graceville will look like as we move forward.

Several parents have contacted me this year to “keep an eye” on their child, for a variety of reasons. Teachers also will ask me to monitor students during break times. Often this can be done informally, from a distance at break times by maintaining a presence near an activity and monitoring how the student interaction is occurring. Often, this observation provides a positive confirmation which can be extremely reassuring to a parent or teacher. Children can at times, wear lenses clouded by emotion and see small things as insurmountable obstacles.

Recent Chaplaincy snapshot-

Before school presence, Reading groups in Junior school, swimming lesson supervision, P&C meeting, facilitate hall games at first break, referee 2nd break soccer, set up for assembly, train audio/visual crew, cook staff BBQ lunch, front gate duty, attend SU QLD professional development day.

Have a brilliant week!

John Erichsen
(Chappy)

Uniform & Stationery

uniformstore@gracevilss.eq.edu.au

Your teacher should have advised you if you had not ordered your child's Stars Plus Textbook online through Campion (all years except Prep and Year 1). You are now required to purchase it through the uniform store. The books have been delivered directly to the school for all students and will be available in the classroom when paid. An order form is attached.

Year 6 Commemorative Shirts and "House Captain" forms need to be returned by Friday 3rd March or you will miss out. Copy of forms attached.

New stocks of house shirts are due in next week. You can pre order and the shirts can go straight to the classroom.

We sell swim bags, silicon and fabric caps, quick dry towels and a limited selection of goggles and short sleeve rashies (size 16 blue). New colours of swim bags and caps have arrived.

I have in stock 1 size 10 long sleeve gold shirts and 1 size 8. $35 each. These are specially ordered so be quick as no more will be ordered until later in the year.

Donations of 2nd hand uniforms are always appreciated. Good stocks are available for sale now, including shirts, culottes, bags and jumpers.

Order forms are available on the School website. If you email the order, the items will be sent to the classroom.

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