Filter Content
Welcome back to all of our families. We have some new families to our school this year and we welcome you. It is great to be back leading our school again. It is a pleasure to move around the school and meet parents in the mornings and afternoons. Yesterday morning we had excited students either returning or commencing here at Calliope. Students quickly became engaged and settled into classroom routines. As I move through the school, I am hearing beautiful manners from our students. I am also seeing students playing together and helping each other out.
Student Free Days
Staff returned to school last week for three Student Free Days. During these days they completed mandatory training, Reviewed the Department’s new Strategic Plan – Equity and Excellence, pondered resilience and participated in the inquiry process for our Annual Implementation Plan. Together, we scanned and assessed our impact from 2022, looked at data including NAPLAN, A-E results and School Opinion Survey. From here we envisaged what it would look like at Calliope State School when we have achieved Equity and Excellence for all. Staff brainstormed actions we need to take to achieve the best for our students and some difficulties we might need to overcome. Staff also spent a significant amount of time preparing for the return of children to our classrooms, including year level planning.
Calliope State School Dress Code
Attached to the bottom of this newsletter is Calliope State School’s Dress Code. I have been impressed with the tremendous number of students who are wearing our uniform in-line with our Dress Code. There are a few who may have forgotten some aspects. Please take a moment to review our Dress Code. Bike Pants can be worn with either black skorts or pleated skirt, but are not to be worn unaccompanied. Hair that is longer than shoulder length is to be tied back and coloured hair needs to be saved for the holidays. Below is a photo of two students, I noticed on day one who were wearing the school uniform with pride. Well done Addison and Travis. If anyone requires any assistance with purchasing a uniform, please contact the office.
New Staff
We welcome the following staff to our school –
Angie Rudd – Year 4
Katreena Doyle – Year 2
Grace Rackemann – Instrumental Music
Christopher Allen – Instrumental Music
Jade Randall – SLWT
Paula Hallinan – Prep Teacher Aide
Kind Regards,
Moira Mackenzie
Principal
What you need to know about Port Curtis trials-
Port Curtis trials coming up in Term 1 are marked on the calendar. Port Curtis trials are not a school team, they are trials for a Port Curtis representative team chosen from the best players from the surrounding district (Gladstone, Boyne and Tannum). Each sport has limitations to how many students from each school are allowed to nominate for the trials.
The criteria for PC trials is students must be able to demonstrate a high level of skill at a representative standard. Meaning students need to have experience and a high level of skill set in the chosen sport. If there is many students wanting to trial Mrs Betts will hold trials to select the highest skilled players to attend. Behaviour and attitude are also taken into account.
If your child trials for a PC team, they must hand in a student permission booklet on the day of the trial. Without this booklet, students will not be able to participate and will be ineligible for selection.
Link to student permission booklet: https://capsport.eq.edu.au/SupportAndResources/FormsAndDocuments/Documents/rep-sport-details-booklet.pdf
If your child is selected for a PC team then they will need to be available to participate at the Capricornia Regional Trials.
Chelsea Baker Cup
Chelsea Baker Cup is a 9-a-side all girls Rugby League competition. It is an awesome opportunity for girls aged 10-12 years, who are interested in having a try at Rugby League, to participate in a supportive environment and learn the skills of Rugby League. The competition has been modified to accommodate those girls who are new to the sport but eager to participate by starting with afternoon skill sessions and then ending in a round robin competition. Mrs Be
tts will be putting the word out to the girls and taking nominations in the first weeks back.
PJ Marsh Competition
PJ Marsh Rugby League competition for 9- and 10-year olds (Born 2013,2014) is on in Term 1. Mrs Betts will hold trials for this team during the first weeks back at school. Students selected in the Calliope SS Rugby League team to compete at the PJ Marsh competition will need to attend training prior to competition day. This may be after school. During the PJ Marsh competition, the Port Curtis selectors will watch the games and choose possibles and probables for selection in the U10 PC team. These players will trial in a game at the end of the day and a PC team will be announced.
Any queries or questions about sport at Calliope SS please send an email to Cathy Betts cbett49@eq.edu.au
Why do we do PBL at Calliope State School?
Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) helps schools to develop a safe, respectful and productive learning environment by establishing a positive school climate where students and adults have strong, positive relationships and students understand what is expected of them as learners at school.
PBL provides the steps for schools to nurture students by providing them with meaningful opportunities for improving social and emotional skills, such as recognising and managing emotions, developing caring and concern for others, making responsible decisions, establishing positive relationships and handling challenging situations in a constructive way.
In PBL schools, principals, school leaders and staff members work together to establish and maintain a positive school climate. All adults communicate, t
each, and model the positive behaviours they expect students to show in the classroom and school throughout the day. By setting expectations, teaching students to meet those expectations and regularly reinforcing appropriate behaviours, schools see fewer incidents of inappropriate behaviour and more time spent on teaching and learning.
Setting expectations for positive behaviour in collaboration with the school community is one key practice to teach and reinforce expected behaviours. This is completed through:
The data is represented in this triangle weekly.
This is known as the Three-Tiered approach to student support.
Weekly PBL Lesson
Each week the teachers across the entire school teach the same lesson to their students. This week the focus is Expectations and Routines. This includes the classroom, the Student Learning and Wellbeing Centre (Supported Learning) and morning routines, including morning monitors.
P&C News
Welcome to the first week of school for 2023! We’re all very excited to see our kids return to school and hope you are also excited for your little ones to start the new school year. For the first time parents with littlies starting, welcome to our school, we hope the first week goes well with minimal tears from all. As the year gets rolling, we will advertise the upcoming P&C events and fundraisers. If you’d like to contact us, we have a Facebook page: Calliope State School P&C, or our email address: pandc@calliopess.eq.edu.au.
Australia Day Rodeo
Our first event for the year is selling drinks at the Australia Day Rodeo on Saturday 28th from 1 pm to 10 pm. We would love to start the year off on a high note and get parents involved in supporting the children of our school by volunteering an hour or two. If you would like to mark your volunteering off nice and early, flick us a message or head to our P&C page and click on the signup.com link.
P&C Meeting
Our first P&C meeting is on Tuesday 7th of February 2023 at 4:30pm (early one due to Valentines Day❤), in the Conference Room in the Administration building. We encourage all parents and caregivers to attend the meetings and find out what’s happening in the school community. If you would like to add anything to the agenda or send apologies, please email secretary.calliopess@gmail.com. The agenda is finalised the day prior to the meeting by 3pm. Apologies can only be accepted in writing via the email address.
QKR
If you haven’t had a chance already, please download the QKR app. It is used for ordering tuckshop, uniforms, and special events tickets. If you already have the app, please make sure that your child’s details are up to date! We can’t guarantee that your orders will make it to the right place if class details aren’t correct.
Uniform Shop
The Uniform shop will be open Monday morning next week 8am until 8:45am; otherwise, orders can be made on QKR. Please note that orders can take up to 3 business days to fill after the day of order. These items are then taken to the office, and the students are contacted to collect them. If you haven’t received your uniform order, please check, if it has been three days, that it’s not in your child’s school bag (we all have that one child) and that it’s not in the classroom. Please remember if you have any uniform concerns the admin ladies are unable to solve them, contact us via our Facebook page or email uniformshop.calliopess@gmail.com.
Volunteer Reminder
As I’m sure you are all aware, the executive committee are parents and caregivers just like you. We have families that require our attention, employers who have expectations of us, some of us (me) are even silly enough to have gone back to university. We joined the P&C as volunteers, we are committed to providing the best communication and experience we can for parents and caregivers, however, we can’t always respond to requests and questions as quickly as we would like. Please have patience with us, we are doing the best we can and appreciate your understanding and acceptance. Many hands do lighten the load and if you’d like to join the P&C we would love to have you onboard.
If you see Tenielle, Kate or Geoff around the school (or happen to be in Morven, say hi to Bec) please don’t hesitate to stop us, say hi and ask any questions. We’re very excited for the year ahead and can’t wait to work with you all.
Tenielle, Bec, Kate and Geoff
Update Contact Details
We would like to remind all parents/carers to update your contact details. Have you changed jobs, address, internet provider or have a new phone number? Do you have a need to update your personal details, phone numbers, mobile numbers, addresses, email, emergency contacts, court orders to name but a few.
If you have had some changes to any of the above or wish to update your emergency contacts, please email: admin@calliopess.eq.edu.au or update through contacting our school office.
Early Collection of Student/s:
We realise that, on occasion, students may arrive late for school, or need to leave early; it is hoped that these occasions can be kept to a minimum so that the learning of the student, the class and the routine of the school is not unduly disrupted. In the event that your child is late or leaves early, please ensure that the correct procedure is followed to sign in/out by going to the Administration building signing out on the iPad, collect a slip and present it to the classroom teacher.
These processes are in place so that the teachers and school staff are aware of the movement of students at school. This is for the protection and welfare of all staff and students. It is important to look at the impact that late arrival and early departure have on a student/s education and those around them. It is not only disruptive to learning that is occurring in the classrooms at the time of arrival and departure, it is all time that accumulates to missed opportunities for learning. A student who is arriving late or leaving early by 15 minutes twice a week will miss, in total, the equivalent of 4 days of school across the year.
Messages to Students
As you know, schools and classrooms are very busy places!
To ensure our students are fully engaged in their learning, and our office staff are able to complete their multitude of daily required tasks, we ask that parents communicate clearly with their child at the beginning of each day where you will be picking them up from in the afternoon.
As you can imagine it is extremely difficult for our office staff to field scores of phone calls asking for messages to be passed on to children regarding pick-up information.
Should you need to contact your children throughout the day, please do this via the office. These should be emergency situations only. Messages received after 1.45pm may not be acknowledged by the class in time, so please ensure children know their pick-up arrangements.
With school back, it's a timely reminder to drivers to slow down in school zones and pay attention at children’s crossings.
Coming back after holidays it can be easy to forget what to look out for. School zone signs are displayed as you approach the school and shows both the speed limit and the times you need to reduce your speed around the school. Childrens crossing are identified by children crossing flags, which are displayed near crossings before and after school hours.
When the crossing is supervised, you as a motorist must:
· wait until all pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders have crossed the road and the crossing supervisor has returned to the footpath
· abide by the direction given by the School Crossing Supervisor.
If the crossing is unsupervised, you as a motorist must:
· give way to pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders on or entering a children’s, pedestrian or marked foot crossings
· give way to pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders on or entering a road you’re turning into
· give way to pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders on a slip lane
· give way to pedestrians in a share zone
· travel at a speed allowing you to stop safely at a crossing if needed
As a driver, it's important to make sure you give way to all pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders such as skateboards, e-scooters. You must also give way to pedestrians using a motorised mobility device such as a motorised wheelchair or a mobility scooter.
Some of our most vulnerable road users are children getting to and from school, so it’s important to slow down and abide by the crossing rules, as it won’t make much difference to the trip time, but it could very well save lives.
Visit the Street Smarts website to find more information about what to do at pedestrian and children crossings.