15 August 2019

Principal

Zoe Smith

Hi,

I would like to officially welcome and introduce you to Mrs Marian Mitchell, our new front counter administrator. I am sure you understand Marian will take some time to get to know our students, parents and practices. Marian is excited to be part of the Graceville team and is looking forward to getting to know you all.

The Networks of Inquiry, Innovation and Indigenous Education Symposium was a great success! Our school hosted over 120 educators from both QLD and interstate. An event such as this would not be possible without the support of our teachers. The majority of our teachers opened their classrooms for close to an hour, hosting groups of up to 7 teachers at a time. Twelve of our teachers also volunteered to speak to groups of up to 21 guests at a time about their reflections on particular aspects of our journey so far. Our teachers and students blew the minds of our guests with their ability to articulate their thinking and learning and their generosity and kindness in sharing their learning. The performances of the choir and Acknowledgment of County group in particular had a profound impact upon our guests. Our guests were humbled by the deep thinking and respect displayed by our students through the Acknowledgement of Country presentation. Due to popular demand by our own staff and students, the choir and Acknowledgment of Country Inquiry group will repeat their performances at assembly on Thursday. Representatives from the Regional Indigenous Education team will also be attending after hearing such positive feedback from those who attended the Symposium. An SMS was sent out on Tuesday to make parents aware of this assembly. I am very proud of our staff and students who are continuously learning and leading the way in shifting the thinking of educators in QLD and beyond, more towards an education that caters for learning, living and working in the 21st Century. We are only halfway through our proposed journey and are excited about the next phases to come!

The Fete is fast approaching! Only a week to go! I am really looking forward to a great day and my favourite part of the day, the fireworks! This year the school has a stall in the Quad market. We will display some reflections of our teachers and students from the feedback of our celebration, have diagrams of the new Wonder Garden which will be built in the September holidays and of course be available to chat with parents and community members if they have questions about the school in general. We will also be making parents aware that after the September holidays, we will be collecting feedback on how to move the school forward.

In a few weeks I will be sending out the annual Class Placement letter. The Class Placement letter gives parents the opportunity to inform us if they are remaining at the school in 2020 AND provides parents the opportunity to provide any information which they would like taken into consideration in the class placement process for 2020. The kinds of information we are interested in are related to social and emotional aspects of schooling as well as updating us on any other relevant family information. It is important to note we do not accept nominations for the class teacher they would like for their child.

Don’t forget Friday is a free dress day. The cost for coming in free dress is a block of chocolate which will be used at the Fete Lob-o-choc stall. We hope you can support this free dress day.

Finally, next Wednesday night is the next P&C meeting. All parents are welcome to attend P&C meetings which are held from 7.30pm in the Oxley room.

Have a great week,

Zoe Smith

Newsletter Articles

Deputy Principal

Maree Hass

Remember we are now on Instagram, please join us at graceville_state_school to keep informed on what are the latest happenings in and around the school.

Inbound Study Tour 2019 – Wenhua School

The Wenhua students have now returned to Taipei after having a wonderful experience here at Graceville. Our host families played an integral role in the care and support of these students during their stay, thank you very much to you all and our home and school buddies who also contributed fantastically as well.

Outbound Study Tour

We met on Tuesday last week together for the first time and Teacher Susan from Wenhua gave us an introduction to Taiwan and the school. We will now meet every Tuesday at first break to prepare for our exciting adventure to Taiwan in just 5 weeks’ time!

Final parent meeting for the tour will be held on Wednesday August 28 at 7pm in the Waratah room (upstairs admin block). Packing lists, spending money and other details will be discussed.

Cybersafety – more information for parents from our recent EQ presenters:

Being proactive for parents!

• Encourage your child to be open with you about being online. Often, the fear of losing access to social media is why children are hesitant about talking with their parents about online issues.
• Teach your child how to take a screen shot on their device, so they can capture evidence of cyberbullying/inappropriate use.
• Take a proactive approach and establish clear and agreed rules for your child’s internet use. This may include, at any given moment, your child is required to hand you the device for you to view.
• Establishing a clear agreement with your child ensures you all understand the rules/arrangements for use.
• If you child thinks they are being bullied, or encounters offensive online content, encourage them to find someone they feel safe talking to, such as yourself, a relative, a teacher or a trusted adult.
• Adults can help their child ignore, report and block the other person.
• Encourage your child to never bully back.
• Promote positive bystander behaviour. Work with your child ahead of time to come up with safe ways to stand up to any online abuse they may witness.
• Remember, if you wouldn’t say it out loud or in front of an adult, don’t say it online.

For further information please go to the following websites:

Prep 2020

Exciting times ahead, please see important dates below about upcoming events to help provide a smooth transition to school for our future young students. If you haven’t done so, now is the time to book a meeting with me to discuss your child and complete the enrolment part of the process. The office staff have available times to choose from, please get in touch with them.

Date Claimers:

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
Prep uniform selling morning: Thursday November 28, 8:15 – 12:00 and Wednesday January 22nd 2020 3-6pm

The waiting list for 2020 for out of catchment enrolments 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. In catchment families you may now contact the office to arrange an interview time for this term.

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 Junior Assemblies in Term 3. Everyone welcome, we are on from 2.15pm on these Tuesdays in the hall.

Deputy Principal

Lisa McKeaten

School Opinion Survey

The School Opinion Survey is undertaken each year at this time, to obtain the opinions of parents, staff and students about important aspects of schooling. The survey is designed to help schools identify what they do well and what they can improve.

The Parent survey has been distributed to all families in the school. These will come home to the eldest in each family in the next few days. The eldest should receive a blue online access letter. Please complete the online survey for us. Your feedback is important.

University of New South Wales ICAS assessments for Maths and Science

Students whose parents have entered them in the Maths and Science assessments last term will be involved – Thursday 5th September (Science) & Tuesday 17th September (Maths). There will be no more applications taken as we have already enrolled for the assessments for a specific number and we will not be putting in any late entries.

This year the testing is online so they will only be given one opportunity on those days to complete the assessments. In the coming weeks I will develop a schedule for the groups involved. Some year levels may need to be before school as there is a limit to the number of devices we have to use for these assessments.

For the students who will sit these assessments in September, I will be running a practice session to introduce the students to the new online format and processes. I will be releasing the participating students from classes on Tuesday 27th August to do some practice questions and show them what the process will involve and what they will need to do on the actual days of the assessments.

Students will need to bring their own headphones with them for the practice sessions as well.

Life Education – this term

This term all classes will participate in Life Education sessions. These sessions are different for each year level and they cover certain aspects of the Australian Curriculum, specifically in Health. The Life Education Van will arrive later in the term and classes will be scheduled to attend lessons during the last couple of weeks of this term (6/9/19-20/9/19). A permission slip and invoice will be sent home in the coming weeks.

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.

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

We had a number of students who attended the WestCent IM camps earlier this term. Here are some reflections from our Band Captain, Liam T:

“Two weeks ago I attended WestCent Honours Music Camp, at QCCC Brookfield with a group of top musicians from schools around the region. I discovered and learnt some awesome music pieces and as the week went on our skills soared to new heights. I had the privilege of playing for the first time in a symphony orchestra, it was an amazing experience and the sounds were fantastic. My favourite pieces were 'Jump Street Boogie' by Steve Hodges and 'Disney Blockbusters'. The campus was excellent, with great food and cabins and even though we worked hard, I had one of the best camps ever and will never forget the experience. I would like to thank the teachers and students that helped make this possible.”

On Friday the Junior Choir and a number of students in the Senior Choir and Inquiry to develop a School Acknowledgment performed at the symposium. I would like to acknowledge all of the students and families involved for supporting this event and the significant contribution Jacki Marshall has made, accompanying us and attending our rehearsals. It was a privilege for our students to be representing the school at such a special event and to be able to share songs which include Yuggera language on Yuggera country. They sang beautifully and I hope all they enjoyed learning and sharing these songs at the symposium. We have been asked to share the songs at a special assembly on Thursday afternoon which we invite families to attend.

Junior Choir students and families, please note that due to the instrumental music workshop on 28 August, there will be no Junior Choir rehearsal as I will be greeting our tutors as they arrive and showing them to their rooms before school. This is the week immediately after the fete. Next week, 21 August is still an important rehearsal to attend to prepare for our fete performance.

This year at the fete we have the Senior Band, Junior Choir and Senior Choir performing. Performances will start at 11:50am with the Senior Band, then 12:20pm for the Junior Choir and 12:30 for the Senior Choir. Senior Band students are requested to meet Mr Stiller in the music room at 11:15am. Senior Choir students need to meet Ms West in the Oxley room between 12:00 - 12:15pm, then can go to the hall once they have the props/direction they need. Junior Choir students are requested to meet Mrs Lindh in the hall at approximately 12:00pm (all being there by 12:10pm) and sit on the floor near the stage.

The instrumental music workshop will be held at school on 28/29 August. During these two days all of our students who learn an instrument at school will alternate between full ensemble rehearsals and working in small groups with a tutor. This is a fabulous way for them to build and develop their music skills. It culminates with a concert in the hall at 2pm on Thursday 29 August. Please note that instrumental music students are able to wear free dress to the 2 workshop days. They will need to bring their instrument, music folder, music stand if they have one, lunch and snack for second break, water bottle and a pencil. Please find a link to the note regarding the workshop. No permission slip is required as it is an incursion and part of the school music program.

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.

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...

24 August - Fete performances - Senior Band 11:50am; Junior Choir 12:20pm and Senior Choir 12:30pm
28/29 August - Instrumental Music Workshop - all instrumental students (BYO lunch, instrument and music, free dress)
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

Thank you for supporting our music program!

Library News

Melanie Hutchinson

BOOK WEEK CELEBRATION DRESS UP DAY

Our annual Book Week Dress Up Day will take place in the LAST WEEK of this term - THURSDAY 19TH SEPTEMBER. The theme this year is ‘Reading is my Secret Power’. More details around the dress up day will be heading your way after the Fete.

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE 2019

The Premier’s Reading Challenge concludes shortly on Friday 23 August 2019. If you are participating please make sure that you have your reading record sheet returned to the Library before August 23. If you are interested in getting involved, there are still reading record sheets available for collection in the library. More information can be found at this web address:

SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB : TERM 3

Scholastic Book Club is up and running again this term. This term’s issue’s flyer (Issue 3) has been handed out to the classes – to order, just look over the flyer with your child, select the books you want 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 9th AUGUST.

Preferred method of payment:

CREDIT CARD payments online, or through the LOOP APP [LOOP : Linked Online Ordering and Payment available on 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 17th of May.

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

SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB 2019 PROMOTION:

Scholastic is offering a FREE BAG and a PRINTABLE PERSONALISED CERTIFICATE via email to each child on their second order for the year, regardless of the Issue. On their third order for the year (regardless of the Issue) each child will receive a FREE POSTER and BOOKMARK with their order. On their fourth order for the year (regardless of the Issue) each child will have the OPTION TO SELECT A FREE BOOK. There is no minimum spend on this promotion program.

Melanie Hutchinson
Teacher Librarian

Active School Travel

Fete competitions

The Fete Committee has generously donated one ride band per grade and free “tosses” for one lucky class…..want to know how you can be in the running to win these fantastic prizes?

To win the lob o choc free toss:

• Actively travel to school on the 9th and 16th of August (walk, ride, roll, public transport, or park and stride)
• Your Teacher will collect stats each Friday
• We will work out the class with the highest average percentage of active travellers for these three weeks – this class will be the winner!

To win the ride bands (one per grade):

• Individuals who have ACTIVELY TRAVELLED will need to collect stamps and paper slips from the stamping stations on the 9th and 16th of August.
• Entry Slips must be put into the box at the office

Your teacher will receive further information about the competition. You have to be active to win it! So get out your bikes, scooters and walking shoes and get the whole class involved.

Tuckshop News

Tuckshop Roster for week ending 23rd of August 2019

Thank you to all our wonderful volunteers.

Our sushi and rice paper roll supplier, Cilantro Fresh, is still closed to have their kitchen remodeled.

There will be no sushi and rice paper rolls orders taken for another week.

Cilantro Fresh are hopeful that they will be ready to take our orders again on Monday, 26 August for lunch on Wednesday, 28 August. However, as we all know, renovations seldom go to plan. We will keep you posted.

Should you have any questions pertaining to anything Tuckhop related, please don’t hesitate to contact us at tuckshop.gss@gmail.com

Thanks.

Uniform Shop

Fiona Fryer

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

Prep Selling Days

Thursday November 28th 2019 8.15-11.30am
Wednesday January 22nd 2020 3-6pm

Stock Update

We have new girls long pants in royal blue in stock for $30 and a new lightweight microfibre jacket in royal blue and gold for $33.

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

All sizes of the polar fleece jackets are 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 4 at School Plus has been filled with many activties and games that the children thoroughly enjoyed. The children had sensory fun with Kinetic Sand that they made themselves and they got inventive with spontaneous box creations. They also came up with some super cool waffle block robots and got fashionable with dress ups.

This week was Dental Health Week for QLD so we at School Plus Graceville decided to prompt some conversations and thinking amongst the children by using toothbrushes as paint brushes, encouraging the children to draw themselves at the dentist and talking about the importance of brushing and flossing our teeth. We even handed out some mini dental flossers to each child before school and flossed together! This really got the children thinking and talking about cleaning their teeth and staying healthy.

Week 5 will be a bit shorter with School Plus Graceville closing down for the EKKA Public Holiday on Wednesday 14th of August 2019. Also, it wil be National Science Week. We are getting our lab coats and thinking caps on to come up with some fun science activties and games for next week’s program so watch this space!