16 August 2018

From the Principal

Zoe Smith

Hello

I hope you enjoyed the EKKA public holiday! I am currently on Year 4 camp at Thunderbird Park, Mt Tambourine. We are having a great time and I look forward to sharing more about the camp next week.

Early next week I will be sending home the Class Placement letters for 2019. Each year around this time, we allow parents the opportunity to share their thoughts with us about anything they would like considered as part of the class placement process for the following year. This process always evokes discussion, which is natural as parents consider the needs of their children. It is important however to ensure all discussions are held with positive regard and intent. The following saying is an oldie but goodie – treat others how you would like to be treated! If you find yourself entering into a conversation where you would not like to be talked about in that manner (face to face or on social media), it is a good time to end the conversation! I would also suggest that social media is not a forum for discussion about others including teachers. We have amazing and dedicated teachers at Graceville who have good relationships with the school community and we would like to maintain those relationships.

It is important to note:

• Please make us aware if you are not returning to Graceville in 2019
• If you are returning, you cannot request specific teachers
• You can describe the type of traits you believe best suit your child’s learning needs
• You can make us aware of any personal circumstances that may affect your child and their class placement in 2019

Once we know how many children are intending to return to Graceville in 2019, we can start assigning teachers to year levels and forming classes. The Class Placement form needs to be returned to the school by Monday 10 September at 3pm. This gives us time to read and collate any important information and start the planning process for 2019 classes in early Term 4.

Don’t forget school photos are Monday! It is always nice for the children to come in a clean and tidy uniform with hair brushed and ready to go!

Finally, the Fete is next weekend! I am sure it will be a great day! Don’t forget to buy your cash cards in the lead up to the day.

Have a great weekend,
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!

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. The Study Tour has been hugely successful due to all of your efforts!

Prep Enrolments for 2019

If you are an in-catchment new family or current school family with a preppie for 2019 I encourage you to now start the enrolment process now 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.

Deputy Principal

Lisa McKeaten

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 have been sent previously. Envelopes for the sibling photos, which will be taken before school on the 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 early, depending on the number of orders.

Life Education 2018

The Life Education Program for Prep to year 6 commences on Monday 3rd September and finishes on Wednesday 19th September. Attached is an overview of all of the modules on offer. A detailed program of which module certain year levels will be doing will be included next week. This just gives you an idea of the program.

Father’s Day celebrations

Similar to our ‘flower giveaway’ that we had for Mother’s Day in May, we will be giving away chocolates to our Dads & grandfathers on Friday 31 August before school. Members of the Student Council will be around the school & stationed at gates/entrances on that morning to give away chocolates.

Annual Maths Tournament Monday 3 September

On Monday 3rd September, we will have 20 of our Year 5 & 6 students participating in our Annual Maths tournament. We usually have around 20-25 teams from various schools coming here to participate.

Interschool Sport – Softball, Girls Basketball, Water Polo, Boys touch

Interschool Sport starts on Friday 31st August. We are in the process of finalising the teams and will be sending home invoices for students this week. The last day for payment for the first half of the bus costs will be due by Friday 24th August. Teachers are collecting the permission slips for the various sports. These also need to be returned ASAP.

Swimming for Term 4

Prep, Year 1 & 2 students will be involved in a paid intensive swimming program in Term 4. This program is run by paid coaches in small group lessons. The information about this program will come home in the next few weeks. Payment for the program will be due prior to the holidays.

Year 3-6 students will also be participating in a swimming program with Mr Daunt in their regular HPE lessons, with no cost to parents.

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:

Melanie Hutchinson
Premier’s Reading Challenge Coordinator
Teacher Librarian

Fete Update

1 week to go!!!

School24 Closes 17/8 at 10pm - No extensions!

Last chance to buy discounted Ride Bands and GSS Fete Cash Cards and Art Show Canvases. Have you checked your confirmatory email? It's the only way to verify your crucial fete purchases. Here's the link to buy now:

Raffle Tickets

If you still have them, we need them, or if you've lost them, we need to know. This is a legal audit requirement - all tickets MUST be accounted for. So return them, sold or unsold please or email us at gracevillefetestalls@gmail.com to tell us about the lost ones.

Weekend POD Opening

That's right! The POD will be open for deliveries this weekend.

Sunday, 19/8
9am - 11am

General Info

Jams - please deliver to the Tuckshop with an ingredients list.

Books, Toys and small Garage Sale items - please deliver to the boxes in front of the office.

Sweets and Cakes - please deliver to the School Hall on Friday, 24 August from 7am - 5.30pm. We will wrap them for you, just bring your goodies to us and we'll take care of the rest.

What time does it all begin? Glad you asked.............

6am

Grand Bazaar - Books, Toys, Garage Sale
Breakfast BBQ
Coffee

9am

Jams
Sweets
Cakes

11am

Food Stalls
Quad Market

11.30am

Class Performances and Entertainment Commence

12.30pm

Rides

2.15pm and 3.15pm

Cent Sale Prize Draws

3pm

Live Auction

6.15pm

Raffle Drawn

7pm

Fireworks

7.30pm

Time to go home!

It will be a FANTASTIC day.

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.

Don't forget school photos Monday next week, we have plenty of gold shirts!!!

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.

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 24th of August 2018

Thank you to all our volunteers!

Like to 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. Discounted online price ends after Friday 17th of August.

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

or

Active School Travel

BE IN IT TO WIN IT !!!!!! 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

School Banking

Graceville SS’s school banking day is MONDAY and deposits can be made from 8:20 to 8:40 at the hall kitchen and then via the grey classroom pouches.

There will be no banking Week 6, 20 August 2018. Banking will return Week 7.

Rewards currently available are:

• Twister Power Handball
• Sparkle Glitter Pens
• Glow Light
• Mighty Boom Handball
• Heat Reactor Pencils

Please remember to write your name and class on the rewards redemption flyer as recently we have received some blank ones and have been unable to order the rewards.

School banking is desperate for new volunteers, and as it stands there will be no school banking in weeks 6 and 10 (20 August and 17 September) as there are no volunteers to help. If you have a spare hour after drop off on Mondays please drop by and give us a hand.

Entries close at the end of this term for the Major Prize (a Trip for 4 to Hawaii, USA). You need to make 15 deposits before the end of Term 3 to be in the draw. Terms and conditions are found on the Commbank website:

If your child is not already involved, and you would like your child to participate in the school banking program it is now easier than ever. All that is required is a Youthsaver account with the Commonwealth Bank. Accounts can now be opened either online or at a branch. Once you have an account, the yellow Dollarmite wallet will be posted to you or you can visit us at the hall kitchen to pick one up before school Monday mornings.

Happy Saving!

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

Term 3 has been flying by! This week at School Plus the children had another exciting and jam-packed fun week. We celebrated International Day for World Indigenous Peoples, with a yarning circle outside in the Quadrangle. The children enjoyed making music using traditional indigenous instruments. Inside we did some beautiful indigenous, dot work colour in sheets. This week’s programmed sensory activity Rainbow Noodles was highly enjoyed by the children and was voted for again during afternoon chat time the following day. Slime has been another ongoing popular request that has now been added to next week’s program. There has also been much excitement regarding the fete as the children are anticipating the day! With the Fete only two weeks away, School Plus Graceville has proudly delivered prizes! Watch this space for more exciting news and see what the children have been up to during the weeks!

Community Notices