Annual Implementation Plan (AIP)

Our Priority for 2023 is “Calliope State School embraces Equity and Excellence for All”.  We have three strategies to achieve this.  This week I will focus on our first action, Approach to Pedagogy. Our first action is to develop a whole school approach to pedagogy, incorporating Universal Design for Learning, with a focus on Reading.  Universal design for learning (UDL) is a teaching framework based on research about how we learn. It is an approach to curriculum design that acknowledges the diversity of learners' abilities.  This year, as a staff we will be working towards incorporating elements of UDL into our classrooms for optimum engagement of our students and to achieve the best outcomes for our students.

Staffing

Ms Mackenzie will be taking leave every Wednesday for the next ten weeks. While on leave, Ms Raelene Norris will be Acting Principal and Mrs Kayleigh Donald will be Acting Deputy Principal.

Parent and Community Code of Conduct

The Parent and Community Code of Conduct (PDF, 386KB) (the Code) describes the ways in which parents, carers and visitors should conduct themselves while on Queensland state school grounds, at school activities, and when interacting with others in the school community. We welcome parents and other members of our diverse community into schools across Queensland.  Working together with their school community, school staff support the learning and wellbeing of every student, and are entitled to a safe work environment. Parents and other visitors to schools support safety by ensuring their communications and conduct at the school and school activities is respectful.

I have attached a copy of the Parent and Community Code of Conduct to this newsletter, but will highlight a component of it each week for the next three weeks.  There are three elements of engagement.  They are communication, Collaboration and School Culture.  This week’s newsletter focuses on Communication.

2A has been busy learning lots of new concepts this term. The students are enjoying our poetry unit. They have especially taken a liking to learning about onomatopoeia and alliteration and are beginning to experiment with using these in their writing. As of next week, we are going to begin deconstructing familiar poems to create new ones. This is always a fun way to get students’ creativity flowing and will move towards them writing their own poem for their assessment. 

During Math lessons students have been learning about graphs and representing data. They have also been practising their mental computation skills and learning how to apply this to everyday problem solving as well as further developing their skills around place value and counting in patterns.

During HASS students have been learning about places on a personal, local and regional scale. They have been enjoying sharing their knowledge with one another and recognising places they know on maps and in pictures.

Students have been trying super hard to improve in their bookwork skills this term. This week we started writing in our math quad books for the first time. Students were amazed that they had to write in squares. We did a lesson on how to set our work out using the squares and had a go at solving some word problems.

It has been a wonderful start to the year for us in 2A. The students should be so proud of their achievements so far! 2A you are crushing it!

Congratulations to 4A who had an amazing attendance rate for Week 5. Their attendance rate was 98.46% for the Week!

Also, congratulations to the 24 classes which were at or above our school attendance target of 94% for Week 5.

Remember, every day you are away is a learning day lost.

PBL Weekly Lesson

The PBL lesson focus this week is ‘Hands and Feet to Self’. Last week, students were engaged in Calliope News where the students watched  a strategy that could help them when faced with an altercation and they get angry (in red zone). Across the school, students will look at why it is important to keep our hands and feet to ourselves and what strategies we can use to make sure this is going to happen. P-2 will be watching a social story and 3-6 will be having class discussions about what rough play look like and then identifying how to play safely. If you would like a copy of the lesson that we do at school to reinforce at home, please email jxran4@eq.edu.au.

PBL Meeting

This week the PBL team is meeting to allocate jobs and brainstorm ideas for the action plan for 2023. The meeting is at 3:30pm - 4.20pm, Tuesday 7th of March. All parents are welcome to attend. Please sign in at the office and you will be directed from there. 

2023 Year 3 and 5 NAPLAN timetables

NAPLAN is a national literacy and numeracy assessment that Calliope State School students in Year 3 and 5 sit each year.  NAPLAN assesses the literacy and numeracy skills that students are learning through the school curriculum and allows parents/carers to see how their child is progressing against national standards and over time.  The NAPLAN test window starts on Wednesday 15 March and finishes on Monday 27 March 2023. See the below timetable for the testing and catch-up dates for Year 3 and 5 students at Calliope State School. 

For more information, please contact Naomi Hughes, Deputy Principal and NAPLAN coordinator through the school office.

The P&C love hearing from parents and caregivers, your questions, ideas, and suggestions are always appreciated. You can contact us either on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CalliopeSSPandC , or our email address: pandc@calliopess.eq.edu.au.

Subway Day

We have had to postpone Subway Day due to logistical issues. Please keep your eyes peeled for new dates out soon. A letter will be sent home with students and order can be made on QKR. Thank you for your patience.

AGM Meeting

As soon as we get the books back from the auditor, we will advise the school community of the date and time for the AGM.

At the AGM the current executive team step down and all positions for a new committee are opened for the voting process. The P&C isn’t all about fundraising, it is also about community, support, and fun. Please consider joining the P&C, not everyone has to take on a role, and as a member who attends meetings you are often the first to hear of new and exciting things happening within the school.

Tuckshop News

Our kids are so lucky to have Miss Lisa and Miss Mel working hard to provide them with good nutritious food. I know that our hard-working tuckshop staff can always use extra hands. If you’d like to volunteer and join the fun in tuckshop, please contact Miss Lisa via our Facebook page or pandc@calliopess.eq.edu.au

QKR

Can everyone please take 2 minutes to check your child/ren’s details on QKR. If we don’t have the right details, we cannot guarantee that your child/ren will receive their tuckshop or that the uniforms you order will go to the right class. We ask this so you don’t have to deal with an upset child that didn’t receive their lunch or get their new uniform.

Uniform Shop

We are trialling having the uniform shop open on a Friday morning before parade, opening at 8:30am and closing at 9am for the rest of the term. The uniform shop will be run by parent volunteers, please treat them with the same respect and courteous behaviour you would also appreciate being treated with. Please be patient as we work out any teething problems.

Otherwise, orders can be done on QKR. Please note that orders 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 and that it’s not in the classroom. Please remember if you have any concerns contact us via our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CalliopeSSPandC or email uniformshop.calliopess@gmail.com

Volunteer Reminder

As parents ourselves we know how hard it is to fit everything into life. We appreciate that you all understand how hard we work to support our families in every aspect of life as well as working outside of the home or studying. We would like to take this opportunity to ask for support for some extra understanding that things might take a little longer than normal as we prepare for the AGM and the handing over of roles to the next Executive team. Please treat us with the same thoughtfulness and support you would like to receive.

Tenielle, Bec, Kate, and Geoff

Thank you to parents who have returned 2023 medical notes back to us at school. As a reminder, if your child is required to take medication at school or should their medication / dosage change a new 2023 consent to administer medication is required.

For medication to be administered at school or during school-related activities, there must be medical authorisation for the student to have that medication, and the medication must be in its original container with intact packaging.

Examples of medical authorisation include:

• a pharmacy label with both the student’s and doctor’s name on it;
• a signed letter from a doctor;
• a medication order from a dentist;
• an Action Plan signed by a doctor or nurse practitioner.

See below for examples of health conditions, medications and associated documentation:

As we start a new year, police would like to remind parents and caregivers that the areas marked in yellow below on the map are ‘No Stopping’ areas, which means that you can’t pull up and wait an extended period of time for a car to leave a car park or stop to drop your children off.

These areas are clearly signed and marked with a yellow line.

Also a reminder that the Stop, Drop and Go area is limited to 2 minutes for the loading and unloading of passengers. Police have and will continue to issue fines for vehicles stopped along the yellow lines and parked in the Stop, Drop and Go area for an extended period of time.

The maximum penalty for these offences is 20 penalty units (one penalty unit = $143.75) and can attract
3 demerit points.

To avoid the end of school traffic congestion, consider parking a bit further away and walking to collect your children or delaying pick up for 5 – 10 minutes.

Remember school staff will be at Stop, Drop and Go until 3:30pm. 

QParents 

Calliope State School provides parents with access to a convenient, online parent portal called QParents.

The QParents web and mobile application provides an easier way for you to interact with our school. Parents will have secure, online access to their child's student information, anytime, anywhere, through a smartphone, tablet or computer.

QParents provides secure, online access to student information such as:

• Attendance details

• Report cards

• Student photo

• Consent Form
  
  
• Payment History

The benefits of QParents

Convenience and time savings for parents

• Parents can view or update their child's details and report absences without having to call the school or come into the office.
• Secure 24/7 online access.
• Available anytime, anywhere — access QParents on your smart phone, tablet or computer on a web browser or using the app (iPhone or Android). 

Greater transparency of information

• Improves accountability between parents and schools by providing parents with timely access to their child's information online.
• Allows parents to engage more deeply in their child's schooling.

Improved administration efficiencies for schools

• Allows schools to streamline their administrative processes and cut down on printing.

What do you need to do to get started?

The office will be send out emails inviting parents or guardians to become a QParents Account Owner (QPAO) for their student at the beginning of their enrolment at the school. QPAOs will be able to register for QParents to access and manage the student's information online, view the student's information and submit requests to update some of the student's details.

QPAOs will also be able to invite other people (such as another family member), to view the student's information. Once invited, these people can register for QParents as “delegated viewers". A delegated viewer can see the student's details, but cannot make updates.

When you receive your invitation email, simply follow the instructions to register your QParents account. The process should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Initial registration and addition of students to your account must be done on a desktop or laptop computer. Once registered, you will then be able to access QParents using your mobile device (via web browser or by downloading the iPhone or Android App).

Invitations sent by email will only ever come from no.reply@qparents.qld.edu.au. You will not be invited to register from any other email address or organisation.

If you do no not want to register you can just ignore the invitation and your child's student information will not be available to anyone through QParents.

Identity Verification

To obtain full access to student information, as part of their QParents registration users must complete an identity verification process. QParents offers two options for identity verification – online and offline.

For fully online verification (the fastest option), you will need to verify 100 points of the following identity documents online:

If you cannot verify 100 points of the above ID documents online, you may still register for QParents, but you will need to attend the school to verify documentation in person after you have registered online.

Full instructions on how to verify your documents and what you may need to bring to the school will be provided as part of the invitation and registration process.

If you don't have sufficient documents, or are unsure, you may still be able to register. For more information on the online identity verification process, see https://qparents.qld.edu.au/#/identityInformation .

Please note that QParents does not maintain copies or records of any identity documents used for account verification, either online or offline. 

EQ ID

You will also need to have your child's EQ ID (their Education Queensland identification number) in order to complete your QParents registration. You can access this via the school office.

Safe and secure

QParents is a secure portal that meets strict industry standards. The Department of Education and Training considers student information to be confidential (it is classified as PROTECTED by the Department). Only people with the right to access information about their child will be given an account. Additionally, as part of the registration process, 100 points of identity or equivalent will need to be presented to prove that the person who is registering is the person the school invited.

Further information

https://qed.qld.gov.au/about-us/department-apps/qparents

Students can win prizes and have their art exhibited in an art gallery setting*.