10 August 2018

From the Principal

Zoe Smith

Hello,

I hope you enjoyed the wonderful weather on the weekend!

It has been a big week for us at the school with a visit from Kath Murdoch. Kath was with us for three days, working with teachers in classrooms and in planning sessions. A highlight of the week was the parent evening Kath hosted on Wednesday night. We had around 60 parents in attendance. The feedback so far has been excellent and we greatly appreciate the support of our community as we move the school forward to incorporate more 21st Century learning practices and skills. Kath has very kindly offered to make most of her slide show available to the school and so we will find a way to share it with you. The week ended with 100 leaders and teachers from schools in the South East corner attending a professional learning day hosted by Kath at our school.

As you know our school is currently hosing a Study Tour from Taiwan. The children and teachers have settled in and feel very welcomed by our school community. It is lovely to the see the children from both Taiwan and Australia, enjoying an amazing cultural experience and authentically learning to be global citizens! The Study Tour ends on Saturday 11th but we will host a farewell assembly on Friday 10 August at 11.30am.

The Fete is fast approaching! It is wonderful to see so many families chipping in to help out. The Fete brings out some of the best community spirit I have seen in any community and provides such a wonderful example of volunteering for our children. Thankyou for volunteering your time to help raise funds for the school.

Finally, a local resident has asked us to pass on a message about parking on Acacia Avenue. It would be greatly appreciated, especially at peak times of the day, that parents do not park across driveways or even slightly across a drive way. Local residents find it very difficult to enter and exit their homes in peak times and your help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great week,
Zoe Smith

Newsletter Articles

From the Deputy Principal

Maree Hass

Study Tour 2018 – Minzu and Wenhua Schools July 27 – August 11

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Our study tour draws to a close at school tomorrow and the group leaves on the bus on Saturday morning.

Thank you to our homestay families who have made the tour run so smoothly, for their care and attention to our visiting students for two weeks. Thank you to our students who have been home and school buddies and made many new friends during the time here at Graceville. Thank you to the teachers at Graceville who have welcomed the visiting students and teachers into their classrooms and learning experiences.

Everyone is invited to attend our farewell assembly on Friday August 10 at 11.30am in our school hall.

Prep Enrolments for 2019

Throughout term 3 I will be conducting interviews with families of our new preppies and there is also a brochure available in the office regarding ‘Get set for Prep’ sessions and orientation information.

If you are an in-catchment new family or current school family with a preppie for 2019 I encourage you to now start the process by obtaining enrolment forms if you haven’t done so already from the school office.

Waiting List for Prep for 2019 – opened at the beginning of last term.

The waiting list for 2019 is now open. Please let any interested people know that forms and information can be obtained from our school office.

Graceville State School recognises as its prime obligation the provision of access to an appropriate educational service for students resident within this community as defined by its local catchment area.

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:

This site also outlines 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 3 Junior assemblies. Everyone welcome, we are on from 2.15pm on these Tuesdays in the hall.

Lisa McKeaten

Deputy Principal

School Photos – Monday 20th August 2018

This year we will be having our School Photo Day on Monday 20th August. Envelopes with the online ordering information will be coming home soon. Envelopes for the sibling photos, which will be taken before school on that day, will be placed in the office as of next week. Online ordering for all photos needs to be prior to 20/8/18. Sibling photo ordering will close at midnight on Thursday 16th August. On Friday 17th they will inform me about how many sibling photos have been ordered and I will let everyone know via a text message – what time they will start before school on Monday 20th. Sibling photos will be in the hall, the same as the class photos and they need to be completed by 8.40am. Starting time for sibling photos will probably be fairly early, depending on the number of orders.

2018 UNSW (University Of New South Wales) competitions:

• Mathematics 14 August $8.00 (Yr 2-6) Yr 3-6 7.30am; Yr 2 11.30am

Students who have been entered in any of these competitions need to make sure that they are present on the appropriate day.

Money Matters

Anne Nixon

Thank you for your payments for excursions and resources to date.

All excursions and events require payment and a permission form to be returned by the due date or your child will not be permitted to attend.

Student Resource Schemes (SRS) for 2018 are:

• Prep Requirements ($70)
• Instrumental Music Programs – Instrument Hire ($100), Percussion Maintenance ($50), Music Participation ($80) & Choir ($30)
• Religious Education Program ($10)
• Mathletics On-line registration (Years 1 - 6) ($12)
• Origo Maths (years 3, 4 and 5) ($6)
• Year 4/5 maths levy ($17.50)
• ESmart Digital Licence Yr 5 ($10)

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

VOLUNTARY PARENT CONTRIBUTIONS

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

$100 single student.

You can either pay the Voluntary Contribution in the office, or by direct deposit into the school bank account referencing the payment “VC” with your child’s name. Our bank account details are:

BSB: 064-111
Account Number: 00090051
Account Name: Graceville State School

Credit in Account: Credits from 2017 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 instrumental teachers who attended the West Cent music camp last week! All of our IM teachers were involved with tutoring/conducting students and their efforts are appreciated by the attending students, including a number of students from our school who were successful with their auditions earlier this year. It is a fabulous experience for them focusing on music with specialist teachers and their peers for a week. We hope they enjoyed their time at camp and concert and the opportunity to further develop their musical and performance skills.

It is a busy time for our music students and we have a number of letters which have been given/emailed out recently regarding upcoming events. If you have not received these please find them in links below. The Milpera SHS and Uniting Church Arts Fest performances will need permission slips returned to ensure students are able to attend so please either download these or ask your child to come to the music room for note and slip. There is also an information note regarding the instrumental music workshop which involves all instrumental students, however we do not require a permission slip for this activity as it is part of our school music program and held on our school grounds within the normal school times.

Upcoming dates for music events:

• 17 August - Junior Choir and selected year 6 students performing at Milpera SHS (Yuggera Djarra-na song) - permission slip required
• Fete performances - Junior Band, Senior Band, Junior Choir and Senior Choir
• 28 August Junior Choir singing at Junior Assembly (songs from the fete performance)
• 29/30 August IM workshop for all instrumental students - performance 2pm on Thursday 30 August involving all instrumental students (no permission slip required)
• 7 September - Year 6 Senior Choir students to perform at the Graceville Uniting Church "Our World Art Fest" (please note only year 6 choir students are attending this due to the limited performance area) - permission slip required
• 30 October - school music photos (students can bring their instrument in for the photo but this is not essential)
• 14 November - Annual Music Concert 6pm (all choirs and instrumental ensembles performing)
• 28 November - Grandparents' Concert - Junior Choir, Senior Choir and Senior Strings performing for their grandparents'/special guests

2018 Rehearsal schedule

Monday 7:45am Senior Choir (year 4/5/6 students) - Ms Julie West
Tuesday 7:45am Junior Choir (year 2/3 students) - Mrs Naomi Lindh
Wednesday 7:30am Junior Band (year 4 band students) - Mr James Kukulies (please note this will not begin until 9 May at 7:30am in the music room)
Wednesday - first break - Junior/Beginner Strings - Mrs Ruth Prout (All Beginner String students should now be attending these rehearsals)
Wednesday 3:00-4:00pm Senior Band (year 5/6 band students) - Mr Steve Stiller
Thursday 7:45am Senior Strings

Please contact your child's teacher if you have any questions or concerns about your child's involvement in the music program or if they are unable to attend a rehearsal.

Alex Grodecki - agrod3@eq.edu.au
Ruth Prout - rprou5@eq.edu.au
James Kukulies - jkuku2@eq.edu.au
Steve Stiller - sstil2@eq.edu.au
Julie West - jwest269@eq.edu.au
Naomi Lindh - nclos1@eq.edu.au

Naomi Lindh
Music Teacher and IM Coordinator

Library News

Melanie Hutchinson

Hopefully everyone is enjoying reading their favourite books for the Premier’s Reading Challenge!

This year in Queensland more than 900 schools and individual readers have registered for the challenge and are busily trying to read 20 books between 14 May until 24 August.

If you are planning to participate please make sure that you have a reading record sheet (available from the Library) and are recording the titles that you have read.

All forms MUST be returned to the Library before 24 August. More information can be found at the link below

Melanie Hutchinson
Premier’s Reading Challenge Coordinator
Teacher Librarian

Fete Update

2 Weeks to go !!!

Final Class Rep Meeting on Thursday, 9 August. 7pm in the Waratah Room. Bring all your questions about your Class Stall including any about GSS Fete Cash Cards. Please contact gracevillefetestall@gmail.com if you are unable to make it.

Second free dress day for Lob-O-Choc donations on Friday, 10 August. This time bring your favourite chocolate block to school to donate to the Lob-O-Choc Stall. You can then try your best to win it back on fete day. Chocolate tastes even better when you win it at Lob-O-Choc!

Raffle tickets MUST be returned by Monday, 13 August. Have you sold yours to families and friends? All tickets MUST be returned, sold or unsold. Please help class 1H get this done.

School24 sales close on Friday, 17 August at 10pm. Get online and buy Art Show canvases for those children in Prep, Year 1 and Year 2. Discounted Ridebands and GSS Fete Cash Cards can also be purchased online by Friday, 17 August. No extensions are possible so do it NOW!

Thanks.
Fete Committee

Uniform Shop

Fiona Fryer

Size 10 trackpants are out of stock. The supplier won't have more in until the end of August.

Polar fleece jackets and rugby shirts are available now in store.

As of 1st July stores stopped providing free single use bags therefore the uniform store will no longer provide plastic bags so please make sure you bring your own if required.

Donations of 2nd hand uniforms are always appreciated, so please keep them coming but can you please make sure that all items are in a good, clean and saleable condition.

Please be advised that refunds will ONLY be given if you have the original receipt and items should not have been washed or worn. Also please be aware that if you paid by credit card you will need that card for the refund.

Order forms are available on the school website and can be emailed to the uniform shop at the below address, the items will be sent to the classroom via the teachers pigeon hole in the main office.

Email address for school uniform store is:

uniformstore@gracevilss.eq.edu.au

WE NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS, PLEASE!!!! The uniform store lost some valuable volunteers at the beginning of this term and will be losing more at the end of this year so we really need more people to help out. At the moment it would require you to be there from 8.15-9.00am on Monday, Tuesday or Friday each week, if there are more people willing to lend a hand then it wouldn't have to be every week. So, if you think you could spare some time and help out that would be great, just send an email to the address below or come to the store and have a chat, thank you.

Tuckshop News

Tuckshop Roster for week ending 17th of August 2018

Thank you to all our volunteers! We are experiencing a shortage of volunteers on some days so if you can help for just three hours from 8.30am-11.30am once a month, please let us know. Even if you can only do a one-of-shift every now and then, please contact the Tuckshop, we will gratefully have your help! Please email your availability to tuckshop.gss@gmail.com You will love seeing the smiling faces of all the kids!

FETE Ordering

Use School24 for your Fete purchases of ride bands, children’s artworks, and the new cashless GSS Fete Cash Cards.

Please order and pay for Fete orders separately from Tuckshop food orders.

See the Fete newsletters for further information or visit the links below:

Any enquiries please email gracevillefete@gmail.com

Active School Travel

WIN CHOCOLATE and RIDE BANDS!!!!!!!!!

…..now we have your attention

The Active School Travel committee would like to remind you that there are two amazing competitions running for the next month, combining actively travelling to school and our fete!

Win one of seven free ride bands by actively travelling to school on Footloose Friday, and filling in a ticket with your name and class, to be put into a box either at the stamping station or in the office. The more times you actively travel the more times you can enter the competition and the better chance you have of winning a ride band. Pre-purchased ride bands will be refunded if you have already ordered a ride band and win!

Win a free toss at the lob-o-choc stall for your whole class!!!!. The class with the highest percentage of students actively travelling to school for the next month will win a free toss to try and win a block of chocolate!

But today we have even more exciting news…..if that is even possible?

Do you find coming to school in your own car, all by yourself boring? Do you fight with your brother or sister? Does your Mum hate sitting in that endlessly long line in the 2 minute zone? Does your Dad hate having to drive around the block when you haven’t arrived and their time is up? Well we have the solution for you.

CARPOOLING!!

For the month of August Brisbane City Council are promoting Carpooling as a great way to actively travel to school. Here at Graceville we would love to see more families carpool. Carpooling can mean you can safely get to school, but Mum or Dad doesn’t have to drive you every day! By sharing the travelling with another family, you get to travel to school with friends, reduce the number of cars on the road and have some fun. If you carpool to school with another family, make a short video of yourselves and you could win some amazing prizes. This competition is called The Candid Carpool Camera Moments competition, and we hope you might have some fun showing us how much fun you can have carpooling to school and promote carpooling to the rest of the school. To give you some idea of just how much fun carpooling is, some of our teachers and admin team have been carpooling too.

So keep an eye out for posters telling you what to do. You will need to collect an official entry form from the office from the end of July and the competition ends on the 5th of September. And it looks like so much fun I am sure you will all want to have a go at making your own Candid Carpooling Camera Moments.

Keep Actively Travelling to School!

We need you!!!!!

We are very lucky to have the year 5 students involved in Active Travel this year and Mrs Hornstra who does an amazing job each week with organising the students to ensure that passports are stamped and the AST messages are delivered on assembly (and many other tasks too numerous to list). Without their support this program would not be the success that it is.

The Active School Travel committee is very “Active’ in our community. We have great support from Councillor Nicole Johnston and Leesa Munro, who is the Project Manager for AST in the BCC. Mrs Hornstra and Mrs McKeaten from the school and Paul Rueberry (Prep parent who has come on board this year) as well as myself. We would like to adopt the P&C model of having someone “Learning the role” from me this year. This person would attend our once or twice a term meetings and do the newsletter article each week as well as attend any school events, if possible. You would be very well supported in the committee if you were interested. We are always after fresh ideas. If you are interested in talking to me about this please email Jo at sajrichards@iinet.net.au

SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB

Scholastic Book Club is up and running again for this term.

This term’s flyer (Issue 5) has been handed out to the classes – to order, just look over the flyer with your child/children, select the books you would like and mark them on the order form on the back of the flyer.

Then ORDER ONLINE WITH THE CORRECT PAYMENT, by the closing date FRIDAY 10th August.

Preferred method of payment:

CREDIT CARD payments online, or through the LOOP APP [LOOP: Linked Online Ordering and Payment available at the link below, or download the LOOP Apple or Android app]. The order forms do not need to be returned to school.

If paying by credit card on the phone or with a cheque made to Scholastic Australia, return the order form to the school library by FRIDAY 10th August.

NO CASH ORDERS PLEASE – GRACEVILLE STATE SCHOOL IS RUNNING A CASHLESS BOOK CLUB.

School Plus

Week three of the school term was filled with many fun and exciting activities. This week the grade 2/3s were in charge of planning future afternoon tea food ideas. The children have been suggesting some great ideas for both food and activities, and we are finding the children’s choice and planning to be quite effective.

Our new Karaoke Machine has been one of the week’s major highlights, as the 5:30pm wind down activities. The staff were impressed with the great taste in music the children had! Who would have thought the children knew all of the words to “Eye of the Tiger” and “We Built This City”! We had one of our parents join in with a beautiful mother/daughter duet! We also had a wonderful audience of a few parents that stayed back to watch.

A sneak peak of next week’s program includes celebrating International Day for World Indigenous People. The before school care program will incorporate themed activities and further educate the children about the day.

Community Notices

Council Pedestrian Survey

In response to several recent pedestrian deaths around the City, sadly including Chelmer, Brisbane City Council is undertaking a review of pedestrian and cycling safety hot spots.

You can click on the link below and add your suggestion. It is an interactive map where you click and drop a suggestion link. If someone has made a suggestion you support, please add another one in the same location. Let's make it very clear yet again what our community priorities are.

You can add your suggestions to the interactive map until midnight on 28 August 2018.

In particular, please consider adding the following suggestions around schools and rail stations to the map - all projects our community has long requested:

• pedestrian refuge cnr Acacia St and Richardson St, Graceville near Graceville State School and Kindy
• pedestrian refuge cnr White St and Park Rd, Graceville at the rear of Graceville State School
• pedestrian refuge cnr Verney Rd E and Park Rd, Graceville leading to Graceville State School
• zebra crossing/refuge and build outs cnr of Verney Rd E and Appel St at Graceville Rail Station
• pedestrian refuge at the southern entrance to Chelmer Rail Station on Honour Ave, Chelmer
• removal of the stairs on the footpath at 69 Wharf St near Queenscroft St, Chelmer, which prevent bike, disability and pram use and access to the Jack Pesch Bridge.

Holiday Cricket Clinic

Boys and girls, aged 6 to 17, are welcome to attend Holiday Cricket Clinics conducted by Henschell Cricket Academy Pty Ltd.

These Clinics concentrate on skills and activities for the beginner to the representative player whilst having fun.

Where: Fig Tree Pocket State School, Cubberla Street, Fig Tree Pocket
When: Monday 24 September 2018 to Thursday 27 September 2018 inclusive (4 days)
Times: 8:30am to 12:00pm daily
Cost: $199.00 (GST incl.) (family rates available)
Contact: email – henschellcricket@bigpond.com or
phone – Brett Henschell 0458 026 224

Details for our next meeting are:

Date: Thursday August 23rd
Time: 7pm - 9pm ( Please arrive ready to start the meeting at 7pm)
Venue: St Matthew’s Church Hall ( cnr. Oxley and Sherwood Rds. Sherwood)
Speaker: Coffee Night
Cost: $5 per person / couple

We look forward to seeing you.

Jane Leonforte
ASA Group Coordinator
0448 909 863