17 October 2019

Domain and email change

Please be aware that the school’s domain name change for our school website address is now:

This domain name change also impacts upon the following email addresses, please ensure you have updated 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

Principal

Zoe Smith

Hello,

It is amazing to think we are two weeks into Term 4 already!

I had the privilege of attending both Year 4 and 5 camps this week. I was very impressed by the Year 4 students as they attended their first school camp. The camp staff commented positively on the behaviour, manners, kindness, knowledge and curiosity of our students. It was lovely to see the children shine in the outdoors and as teachers we took away some great learning about how much the children enjoyed learning both in nature and solving problems in hands on and interactive ways. As I write this newsletter I am on Year 5 camp and so will share the year 5 camp experience in next week’s newsletter.

As you may be aware, I was awarded a Travelling Scholar Grant earlier this year. As part of the grant, I was hosted at the University of Pennsylvania and had the experience of visiting a number of schools in Philadelphia. The tour was an amazing learning experience which affirmed some important things for our school, raised some questions and challenges for where to next for us and most importantly peaked my curiosity to want to learn more. I will share my new learning with the staff over the next few weeks. I would particularly like to thank Ms Hass, Mrs McKeaten, Mrs Martin and Ms Cousins who held the fort while I was away.

Next week is our Quadrennial School Review. Kath Murdoch and two principals from interstate will be in our school on Thursday and Friday, talking with students, staff and a small group of parents (as per the email that went out to all class reps) to help us get an informed perspective of the school and provide affirmations and recommendations to us on how we can further improve. We are looking forward to the process and especially the outcomes of the review which we will use to help us create our next strategic plan.

Next Friday is World Teachers Day. We will hold a special morning tea for our teachers to say thankyou for all they do for the students and community. We encourage all students to say a personal thankyou to their teacher on Friday too!

Next Friday is also Day for Daniel. All children are encouraged to wear a red T-shirt to school to help raise awareness of child safety. The Active School Travel team have also organised a special walk to school event that day, so wear your red shirt and walk proudly with other school mates to show your support and understanding of the importance of child safety. I believe it will be great sight along Oxley road as most schools are taking part in a red T-shirt walk to school.

Don’t forget Monday is a Pupil Free Day and so children do not come to school on Monday 21st October.

I hope you have a great week

Zoe Smith

Newsletter Articles

Deputy Principal

Maree Hass

Some more photos from Study Tour 2019 to Taiwan!

Get Set for Prep!

Term 4 commences our Get Set for Prep series, so make sure you know the days and times of those three sessions. You are welcome to attend if you are on our waiting list for prep in 2020 also. This term is when we start to get an idea if we will have any prep spots for out-of-catchment places.

If you are a current school family or have an in catchment enrolment for prep next year please come into the office to collect enrolment forms and arrange for a meeting asap. This will enable us to get a good idea of numbers for classes and assist in our planning.

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

Below is the calendar for Junior Assemblies in Term 4. Everyone welcome, we are on from 2.15pm on these Tuesdays in the hall.

Fete Update

Congratulations to the whole Graceville State School community for a wonderful fete. It was the dedication and hard work of everyone that made the fete a success.

We're grateful to our sponsors, for their awesome gifts & donations. Also, a big shout out to all who volunteered in one way or the other. Set up day, Fete arrangements, cleaning up, nothing would have been as easy, if we did not have our helpful volunteers.

The smiling faces around in the fete, are reminders of how important this day is to our kids. How much they enjoy spending time with their family & friends. The rides, the fireworks, fun toys, delicious food, everything was enjoyed to the fullest. Younger children had fun, petting the farm animals & on the pony rides. Thanks to all the class reps for managing the food and non-food stalls! Cakes & sweets were a big hit! Thanks to all our talented bakers & chefs! We even had a stall by our very own school, showcasing the various achievements of our students. I'm sure you also enjoyed the stalls put up by GSS parents & students. Thanks to all those who donated the books & toys. Also, we all enjoyed the various class performance and the art work of our children.

Congratulations to all the raffle & cent sale winners.

Finally, the fete is a big fund raising event for the school, and I am happy to say that we raised a good $97498 this year!

We have already started preparing for the next year! I'm sure, the FB posts looking for new volunteers have reached all. Please feel free to sign up for any kind of help possible. Our fete thrives on the help of wonderful people like you.

See you all, next fete!
The Fete Committee.

P&C Update

P&C meeting

The P&C held its sixth General Meeting for the year this week on Wednesday night.

We were thrilled to hear the fete raised $63,314 this year. An enormous thank you to the fete committee and all the families who supported the fete. These funds will be used over the coming years to support the continual improvement of the facilities and resources our children enjoy as students at Graceville State School.

An example of the contribution the P&C makes to the school is the $24,000 it has recently contributed to the Wondergarden—a fabulous new outdoor learning space for our children to enjoy.

Please join us for the final General Meeting for the year is scheduled for 7:30pm on Wednesday 4 December.

Tuckshop price increase

From Week 3 this term, some items on the tuckshop menu will be subject to a small price increase.

The P&C aims to keep prices in the tuckshop as low as possible for students and families. This is only possible because of the help of the many volunteers who work in the tuckshop.

With the increase in the cost of some supplies, a small price increase has been applied to some items. This has generally been in the order of 10 to 30 cents per item—and only applies to some items.

If you do notice the price of your regular items has increased, please know the P&C has tried its hardest to apply the minimum price increase necessary to keep our tuckshop covering its costs.

Voluntary Contributions

If you haven’t made a voluntary contribution yet this year, you can still contribute to help fund technology resources at Graceville State School.

You can make your Voluntary Contribution of $100 per student (or your preferred amount) by transfer to the P&C account, at the School Office or in $10 instalments online via the link below.

The P&C account details are:

Account name: Graceville State School P&C Association
BSB: 064-111
Account number: 000900130
Ref: VC “Child’s name”

School banking

We are currently seeking volunteers who would be interested in running school banking next year. If you are interested, please contact the P&C at: pcgracevilless@gmail.com

Music News

Naomi Lindh

All of our music students in ensembles and choirs will be performing at the end of year evening concert on Wednesday 13 November at 6pm. Please ensure your child is attending rehearsals and lessons regularly to prepare for this. Mrs Prout is currently on leave due to an operation on her knee and we wish her well during her recovery. We are hoping string lessons will resume next week and will send details to families once they have been confirmed. Thank you for your understanding with the disruption to string lessons and rehearsals.

All of our concert dates are listed below with the ensemble/s and choirs which will be performing. Please note these dates as we need all students in attendance for successful performances and appreciate your support with this.

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...

13 November - Annual Music Concert at 6pm - all choral and instrumental music students will be performing at his concert
27 November - Grandparents' Concert at 10am - students in the Junior Choir, Senior Choir and Senior Strings will perform at this concert for their grandparents/special guests
30 November - 5:30 - Christian Riverside Church Community Carols - all students from the Junior and Senior Choir students are invited to sing (performance scheduled for 5:30pm)

Thank you for supporting our music program!

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

Library News

Melanie Hutchinson

BOOK FAIR IS COMING…

It’s that time of year again - the school library is hosting its annual BOOK FAIR!!

In WEEK FOUR, from Wednesday 30th October – Wednesday 6th November, Book Fair will take place in the LIBRARY.

It will be a huge event for everyone – there will be lots of fabulous books from publishers all over the world, with exclusive titles and great-value books for every child’s reading interest and level, so don’t miss out! (Don’t forget books make fantastic gifts - come in and get your Xmas shopping done early!) Remember, every purchase you make the library earns a percentage to gain great books and other resources for our library and classrooms.

So, if you love bringing children and books together, help us celebrate reading with our students and the school community. Keep an eye out for the Book Fair Flyer which will be sent home shortly.

BOOK WEEK DRAWING COMPETITION

A big thank you goes out to all those students who took the time to create an art entry for our BOOK WEEK DRAWING COMPETITION this year. A huge congratulations to the following winners and highly commended students who scored themselves first place, runner up and of course some wonderful prizes:

Prep [1st]: ANYA T; Prep [High Commended]: CHEHAN R
Year One [1st]: HARRY H; Year One [Highly Commended]: SOPHIA G
Year Two [1st]: SIENNA D; Year Two [Highly Commended]: FLYNN G
Year Three [1st]: LUCINDA J; Year Three [Highly Commended]: GABBY D
Year Four [1st]: CAITLIN D; Year Four [Highly Commended]: RUBY N
Year Five [1st]: ISABELLA N; Year Five [Highly Commended]: MARCUS K
Year Six [1st]: DANA J; Year Six [Highly Commended]: OLIVER D

Please feel free to come to the library and check out all the AMAZING artwork.

BOOK CLUB

Please be aware that we will not be running Book Club Issue 7 through the school due to the upcoming Book Fair. However, anyone who wishes to order from this brochure can view it and place orders online.

We will participate in the final Book Club (Issue 8) in the last few weeks of this term.

Melanie Hutchinson
Teacher Librarian

Chappy’s Chat

John Erichsen

Monday morning saw our year 4 students arrive early to school and extremely excited for camp. Over two days at Thunderbird Park, Tambourine Mountain, that excitement and enthusiasm never waned. Our students participated in raft building, mini golf, archery and a very muddy obstacle course during the day, while Monday night’s activity saw marshmallows and damper enjoyed around the fire pit. Parents should be very proud as students behaved to the expected high standards and embraced challenges eagerly. Even the more homesick students did well settling at night, supported by caring and respectful cabin mates. I am positive many stories of camp adventure will be shared over the coming days. Yesterday morning, School Camp Part 2 commenced with our year 5 students leaving for their Noosa North Shores campsite, so even more tales of camp escapades await. I would like to extend a huge thank you to the teachers and administration staff who attend camp and provide the opportunities for students to gain some awesome experiences. A very special thank you this week to Mrs Malcolm who is attending both camps and I trust she well have a very well-earned rest this weekend upon her return.

Have a fantastic week!
John Erichsen
(Chappy)

Tuckshop News

Tuckshop Roster for week ending 25th of October 2019

Thank you to all our wonderful volunteers.

With the hot weather now here, we will do a sushi and rice paper roll order on Monday, 21 October for lunch on Wednesday, 23 October, even though it is a Student Free Day. We will do an S24 reminder email on Monday.

A big thank you to those who have volunteered to help us fill the term 4 roster. We still have a few gaps, so DON’T PANIC, you haven’t missed out.

Thursday, 31 October
Thursday, 7 November
Thursday, 14 November
Thursday, 28 November, and
Friday, 6 December.

Should you be able to help on any one or more of the above listed dates or you have any questions pertaining to anything Tuckshop related, please don’t hesitate to contact us at tuckshop.gss@gmail.com

Thanks,
Anne and Emma

Uniform Shop

Fiona Fryer

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

Uniform Roster

Term 4

Prep Selling Days

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

Families that are already at Graceville State School are encouraged to come during normal uniform store hours as the prep selling days are much busier than usual.

Stock Update

We have great quality swimming bags for $12 and swimming caps for $10 in various colours.

We have a lightweight microfibre jacket in royal blue and gold for $33. Size 6 microfibre jackets are now out of stock.

Size 8 Flinders shirts are back in stock.

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

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

We will need some new volunteers for next year, if you are interested please send an email or come and see me in store.

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

The first week back in term 4 was a short one, with the Queen’s Birthday holiday on Monday. The weeks hot topic was all about the school holidays. The children shared their exciting holiday adventures that varied from trips to New Zealand, theme parks, birthdays, BBQ’s, camping trips and of course Vacation Care at School Plus. Aside from all the talking and catching up with friends, the children also enjoyed a number of activities including making Space Slime, which was very messy, but much enjoyed; arts and craft activities such as making Fish Tanks and Paper Plate Creations and many outdoor activities including moon rocks in the sandpit and lots of sports games! This week we also celebrated World Space Week and incorporated a number of space themed activities into our program. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be finalising our Prep Project and emailing it to our families with information on how School Plus is going to support their transition to grade 1. Our end goal is for the preps to independently walk to their prep classes at BSC and ASC by the end of the term, luckily, it’s a short journey to our building!

Community Notices