21 June 2019

Domain and email change

Please be aware that due to the upcoming domain name change our school website address is now:

This domain name will also affect email addresses so please ensure that the following email addresses are updated in your contact lists:

principal@gracevilless.eq.edu.au
admin@gracevilless.eq.edu.au
newsletter@gracevilless.eq.edu.au
pandc@gracevilless.eq.edu.au
bsm@gracevilless.eq.edu.au
prepyear@gracevilless.eq.edu.au

From the Principal

Zoe Smith

Hello,

One week to go!

This week was a busy one with the Lap-a-thon and NAIDOC day. I would like to thank Mrs Payne and Ms Byrne for the huge effort they put into preparing for NAIDOC day.

As you may be aware, I will be taking long service leave week 10 Term 2 and week 1 Term 3. I will be heading off to spend time in Denmark with my husband’s side of the family and then we will fly to England to watch the Formula One British Grandprix. I am really looking forward to a long and relaxing holiday! Ms Hass will be the Acting Principal in my absence and Ms Cousins the Acting Deputy Principal.

As you may know, Ms Simms, one of our prep teachers, is getting married very soon and then heading off on her honeymoon. I am sure you will join with me in sharing best wishes to Ms Simms for her big day!

As I won’t be here next week, I would like to wish Ms Bailey the best of luck and enjoyment as she heads off on a yearlong holiday. Ms Bailey is going to travel and teach overseas for a year and will then return to us after an amazing experience. I would also like to wish Mrs Elliot the best of luck with the coming arrival of her baby. As you may know, Mrs Elliot will be taking maternity leave for a year from these holidays. I am sure she will pop in to see us once she settles into a routine when the baby is home.

We are lucky to have our inquiry expert Kath Murdoch with us in the school next Thursday and Friday. Our teachers are looking forward to working with Kath as each time she comes, she affirms aspects of our progress and we always learn something new!

I hope you have a great final week of the term and I look forward to seeing you all in Term 3.

Zoe Smith

Newsletter Articles

Deputy Principal

Maree Hass

Our final junior assembly for term 2 will be on next Tuesday at 2:15pm in the hall. As there won’t be a class item, we will be having an author’s chair and some children sharing their writing from term 2 with the audience. Please come along and join in this celebration of writing.

Inbound Study Tour 2019 – Still calling for homestay families who might be able to host a boy Taiwanese student please?!

We have now been informed that 12 students and 2 staff members will be visiting us from Wenhua Elementary School in July. This is a reduced number to past tours and we have more than enough Graceville families who have volunteered to host a girl, however we now require more families who might be able to host a boy please. EQI’s rule is that a boy needs to be hosted by a family who has other boys present in the home. If you have any questions or might be able to help us please let me know as soon as possible please. The visiting group from Taiwan will be at our school from July 26 through to August 10. If you have a family profile please send them into school or require a blue card application sent away, please complete as soon as possible.

Date Claimers:

Prep 2020 Information evening will be held in our school hall on Wednesday July 24 at 7pm. All welcome to attend to hear more about our school, programs in Prep and the enrolment process in preparation for next year.

Get Set for Prep session 1: Tuesday October 22, 9 – 10:30am. Focus on Fine Motor Skills

Get Set for Prep session 2: Monday October 28, 9 – 10:30am. Introduction to Speech and Language Development by School Speech Language Pathologist

Get Set for Prep session 3: Tuesday November 12, 9 - 10:30am, Focus on Reading

Prep Orientation meetings: Thursday November 28

Waiting List for Prep 2020 – opened at the beginning of this term.

The waiting list for 2020 is now open. Please let any interested people know that forms and information can be obtained from our school office. Families from within our catchment area we also invite you to obtain enrolment forms to begin the process. For in catchment families a birth certificate and proof of residency in our catchment is required along with the completed enrolment form.

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.

Deputy Principal

Lisa McKeaten

Yet again a busy week for our school:

• Tuesday (25th) night 6-7pm in the Waratah Room is our Parent Information night for Years 4, 5 & 6 parents for our Relationships and Sexuality Education Program. Please return your RSVP before the event.
• Wednesday (26th) – Staff and 54 students will be attending a STEM Program at Corinda State School. Our school is to be a part of this unique national program that engages 9-11 year old girls and boys and provide them with exposure to STEM professionals, encourage an interest in STEM careers and give insight into future STEM employment. This event is fully funded by industry so not a cost to us!

Religious Instruction:

RI finishes next week for Years 1, 2 & 6. Years 3, 4 & 5 will have RI in Semester 2 starting on Friday 19th July. All families had the opportunity to update the permissions for their children for Religious Instruction so we are planning and organising the classes according to all updates from earlier this year. Class lists and teacher supervisions need to be organised prior to the holidays ready for next term.

Business Manager

Anne Nixon

Student Resource Schemes (SRS) for 2019 are:

• Prep Requirements ($70)
• Reading Eggs for Prep ($25)
• 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 2, 3 and 4) ($6)
• Year 4/5 maths levy ($17.50)
• ESmart Digital Licence Yr 5 ($10)

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. Please note that there are a few Term 3 excursions that need to be paid before the end of Term 2.

We will be sending statements home next week. If you have a credit on your account and would like to apply it to any outstanding invoices please contact the office. We cannot automatically apply any credits to invoices without parent authorisation.

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

This is a busy week for the music department and many of our music students, with the St Peters Sing Together Day and evening concert, Beginner Strings workshop and afternoon concert and the NAIDOC assembly with a performance from our Junior Choir. I would like to thank our students, conductors, families and school administration and staff for their support and assistance with making these exciting events possible for our students. I will give a report on these events in next week’s Newsletter.

The Junior Choir will be singing at our special NAIDOC assembly on Thursday 20 June. Please note that this assembly begins at 9:00am and will go for approximately 45 minutes.

Please contact your child's instrumental or choral conductor if they are not able to attend a rehearsal (email contacts are listed below) or if they are experiencing any issues with their lessons.

Thank you to our students and families for your participation in the exciting events we have had this week!

2019 Rehearsals Venue - Music Room

Monday 7:45am - 8:30am Senior Choir (year 4,5 and 6 students) Ms West
Tuesday 7:30 - 8:30am - Junior Band - Mr Kukulies
Wednesday 7:45am - 8:30am - Junior Choir (year 2 and 3 students) Mrs Lindh
Wednesday 10:45am - 11:25am - Beginner/Junior Strings (starting in term 2 with junior string students only on 1 May, then beginner strings will join these rehearsals later in the term) - Mrs Prout
Wednesday 2:50pm - 4:00pm - Senior Band - Mr Stiller
Thursday 7:45am - 8:30am Senior Strings - Mrs Prout

Music teacher contact details...

Alex Grodecki - agrod3@eq.edu.au (at Graceville Thursdays)
Ruth Prout - rprou5@eq.edu.au (at Graceville Wednesdays and Thursdays)
James Kukulies - jkuku2@eq.edu.au (at Graceville Tuesdays)
Steve Stiller - sstil2@eq.edu.au (at Graceville Wednesdays)
Julie West - jwest269@eq.edu.au (at Graceville Monday/Tuesday)
Naomi Lindh - nclos1@eq.edu.au (at Graceville Wednesday/Thursday/Friday)

Important dates to note...

20 June - Junior Choir singing at the NAIDOC Assembly - 9am
24 August - Fete performances - Junior Band, Senior Band, Junior Choir and Senior Choir
28/29 August - Instrumental Music Workshop
29 August - Instrumental music concert at 2pm involving all IM students (no choir performances at this concert but all students who learn an instrument at school will perform at this concert with their ensemble)
13 November - Annual Music Concert 6pm - all choral and instrumental music students will be performing at his concert
27 November - Grandparents' Concert - students in the Junior Choir, Senior Choir and Senior Strings will perform at this concert for their grandparents'/special guests

Naomi Lindh
Music Teacher and IM Coordinator (Wednesday - Friday)

Library News

Melanie Hutchinson

LIBRARY NEWS
REGIONAL READER’S CUP COMPETITIONS 2019

OUTSTANDING SUCCESS FOR GRACEVILLE SS!

On Tuesday 11th June, five students from Year 6 competed in the annual Regional Readers’ Cup organised by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. It was held at St Augustine’s College at Augustine Heights. These students were required to read five books in preparation for the competition and on the day answered six rounds of challenging questions about each of these books. Students worked brilliantly as a team and had just 30 seconds to answer each question. The team had studied continuously for over eight weeks always working extremely well together.

This year 25 teams from 16 other schools participated, and despite the tough competition Graceville SS came FIRST and were the WINNERS of the Brisbane West Region! Well done team! This outstanding team was made up of five fantastic students: Tom, Tara, Indie, Jasper and Maria. The team will now compete in the State finals in September.

In addition, on Thursday 13th June, the Corinda Teacher Librarian Network held their annual Readers Cup Competition. This year it took place at Brookfield State School. The scores were close the entire competition, however our Graceville SS team competed at an outstanding level ending up in FOURTH PLACE. This fabulous team was made up of five fantastic students: Zoe, Sandy, Sarah, Hugh and Jude.

Congratulations to both teams – we are very proud of you for your commitment, hard work, great teamwork and sportsmanship. Thank you for representing our school at these amazing reading competitions!

CONTACT CLUB VOLUNTEERS

A great big THANK YOU goes out to those volunteers who supported our Contact Club Book Covering Blitz in the library this week and throughout the term.

Thanks to these fantastic volunteers, the library once again has several new books ready for classes to use as well as student borrowing. They include popular fiction, graphic novels, non-fiction and picture books. These books will be on display in the library, and students will be provided with the opportunity to borrow them for the holidays during library lessons. There is also a great selection of books to read for those students involved in the Premier’s Reading Challenge.

HOLIDAY BORROWING

The library is open before and after school, and at both lunch times for borrowing. Students are reminded to bring their library bags for holiday borrowing, which takes place throughout the last week of term with children given the opportunity to increase their borrowing limit.

Lap-a-thon

LAP-A-THON Thank you

Thank you for your wonderful support of the Lap-a-thon. It was a beautiful day for running! There were also lots of smiles with the very popular warm popcorn! Thank you to those who were able to come and cheer on their runners. Thank you also to all those families who have already begun returning their envelopes before the holidays. All donations are tax deductible.

Evonne Beruldsen on behalf of the Chaplaincy Committee

P & C Update

P&C meeting

Thank you to everyone who attended the P&C meeting last week.

We were pleased to welcome a group of Year 6 students who attended as part of their Rotary Junior Community Award program. It’s great our students have the opportunity to participate in a program like this. Best of luck to those participating in completing all of the elements of the program over the remaining weeks.

Highlights from the meeting this week include the P&C agreeing to:

• purchase a replacement BBQ for use at school and P&C events
• transfer the $6,100 raised through the Voluntary Contribution to the school for purchasing i-Pads, laptops and desktops
• transfer the $13,879 raised through the Spellathon to the school for resources to support the writing improvement program.

Can you help?

• The P&C is looking for a new volunteer to lead the organisation of Spellathon next year. If you are interested, please contact the P&C at pandc@gracevilless.eq.edu.au or the previous organiser at gracevillespellathon@gmail.com.
• We will also be looking for a new Uniform Shop Convenor for next year. This is a paid position and ideally the person who takes on the role would be able to learn the ropes while the current convenor is still at the school this year. If you are interested, please contact the P&C at pandc@gracevilless.eq.edu.au for more information.

Voluntary Contributions

Payments have now been received for about 30% of students at Graceville State School.

If you haven’t already, please consider making a Voluntary Contribution of $100 per student (or your preferred amount). Seventy-five percent of this money contributes to purchasing technology resources for our children to use at school.

More information about the Voluntary Contribution Scheme is available in the letter attached.

Active School Travel

Thank you to everyone from Prep to year 2 who brought their bikes along on Friday to be checked over by Mike and Mark from Useful Bike People.

This Friday June 21 is the upper school’s turn. Please join us under Q block from 8am with your bike and helmet if you would like to have them checked over.

Please remember to walk your bike inside the school grounds.

Thank you

AST team
Supported by Nicole Johnston BCC

Tuckshop News

Tuckshop Roster for week ending 28th of June 2019

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR VOLUNTEERS!.

Would you like to help in Tuckshop? Please contact us by email to tuckshop.gss@gmail.com and we will find you the perfect spot on our roster.

THANKS YOU ALL FOR YOUR PATIENCE WITH THE DOWNTIME EXPERIENCED THIS WEEK WITH S24.

As you know, all systems fail at some time and it seemed to be our turn last week. By now, all S24 users should have seen the email from S24 Admin explaining what the problems were and how they have been corrected and will be managed from now on.

Two important lessons for all S24 users:

1. Use the Chat Button to alert S24 to any problems. If you can’t get back to the Chat Button from the error screen, log-on again and it will come up. The Chat facility is operated 24 hours a day, so any issue will be raised straight away. This Chat facility can be used to make suggestions for a better system too, not just for trouble shooting.
2. Where possible, order the night before. S24 system problems seem to occur in the morning. We know life gets crazy and it won’t be an option every time, but it’s just a suggestion to help manage the crazy.

S24 has made some new changes to our user home screens. Have you noticed? We now have an Events Module, and a Volunteer Module.

The Events Module will allow us to manage fund raising events such as Spellathon, Voluntary Contribution and Fete separately from the Tuckshop system.

The Volunteer Module will allow any new Tuckshop volunteers to register online. To our wonderful existing volunteers, we will continue with our current roster system as a first step but we may ask you to put your names down in the online system as well, once we have agreed the manual roster. This will become clearer for all of us.

Both systems are new and we are still working with S24 Admin to fine tune them but we are confident that they will make life easier for all of us. Please continue to be patient.

Fete News

Everyone is welcome to join us on Wednesday 26th June at 7pm in the Oxley Room for our second fete committee meeting.

We will find a fun and fabulous job for everyone and the more people who help out the easier each job will be.

See you there!!!

Uniform Shop

Fiona Fryer

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

Uniform Store Roster

Stock Update

We have new girl’s long pants in royal blue in stock for $30, perfect for winter.

Size 8 dresses are out of stock until the end of the year.

We have all sizes of house shirts in stock.

School colour hair accessories are available; there are headbands, hair ties, bows and clips.

As of 1st July 2018, 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, please keep them coming in but can you please make sure that all items are washed and in a good 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

School Plus

Week 8 of School Plus has passed us with flying colours! The children are excited to finish another term of school and are ready for our exciting Vacation Care program and a little break, but first, an update of this week’s activities!

Rainbow Noodles was Tuesday’s Sensory activity. The children loved the colours and texture of the activity and surprisingly, they didn’t make too much mess! Waffle Blocks was another activity enjoyed by the children along with marble paintings inside for craft. This week’s most enjoyed menu item was Sushi Slices, that was brought back due to popular demand! With the last two weeks of term 2 approaching fast, be sure to secure your days for Vacation Care or pop in to School Plus and enquire about enrolling!

Community Notices

Metro South Oral Health has available FREE dental appointments right now and over the school holidays.

We have attached a file for your next school newsletter to inform parents.

Please feel free to post this on little toothbrushing song produced by Queensland Health on your school Facebook page:

If you do please tag us at Metro South Health.