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- Principal's Message
- Student Parade Certificates
- What's Happening in 3C
- Student Wellbeing Team News
- Attendance
- P&C News
- Donations
- Quick News
- RETURNING CALLS TO THE SCHOOL
- MESSAGE TO STUDENTS
- Late or Early Sign outs -
- School Dentist Van
- Bicycle Safety Program
- Gladstone Community Open Day
- University of Queensland
- Parking Inclusion
- Port to Park
- World Science Festival
- Helping Hands
- Position Vacant
Welcome to Week Three. Students in Prep and Year One were excited this week as their new Promethean 85” ActivPanel V9 Premiums arrived in their classrooms. Teachers have been busy designing interactive engaging curriculum for our students. Students will be able to interact with the digital world in a collaborative context with this addition. We will hold parent sessions later in the term so any parent can understand these technologies. The hall has also had a revamp this week with new multimedia.
Student Code of Conduct
Each week I will focus on an aspect of Calliope’s Student Code of Conduct. This week the focus is School Disciplinary Absences
A School Disciplinary Absence (SDA) is an enforced period of absence from attending a Queensland state school, applied by the Principal as a consequence to address poor student behaviour. There are four types of SDA:
- Short suspension (1 to 10 school days)
- Long suspension (11 to 20 school days)
- Charge-related suspension
- Exclusion (period of not more than one year or permanently).
At Calliope State School, the use of any SDA is considered a very serious decision. It is typically only used by the Principal when other options have been exhausted or the student’s behaviour is so dangerous that continued attendance at the school is considered a risk to the safety or wellbeing of the school community.
Parents and students may appeal a long suspension, charge-related suspension or exclusion decision. A review will be conducted by the Director-General or their delegate, and a decision made within 40 schools days to confirm, amend/vary or set aside the original SDA decision by the Principal.
The appeal process is a thorough review of all documentation associated with the SDA decision and provides an opportunity for both the school and the family to present their case in the matter. Time is afforded for collection, dissemination and response to the materials by both the school and the family. It is important that the purpose of the appeal is understood so that expectations are clear, and appropriate supports are in place to ensure students can continue to access their education while completing their SDA.
Re-entry following suspension
Students who are suspended from Calliope State School may be invited to attend a re-entry meeting on the day of their scheduled return to school. The main purpose of this meeting is to welcome the student, with their parent/s, back to the school. It is not a time to review the student’s behaviour or the decision to suspend, the student has already received a consequence through their disciplinary absence from school. The aim of the re-entry meeting is for school staff to set the student up for future success and strengthen home-school communication.
It is not mandatory for the student or their parents to attend a re-entry meeting. It may be offered as a support for the student to assist in their successful re-engagement in school following suspension.
Arrangements
The invitation to attend the re-entry meeting will be communicated via telephone and in writing, usually via the suspension paperwork. Re-entry meetings are short, taking less than 10 minutes, and kept small with only the Principal or their delegate attending with the student and their parent/s.
A record of the meeting is saved in OneSchool, under the Contact tab, including any notes or discussions occurring during the meeting.
Structure
The structure of the re-meeting should follow a set agenda, shared in advance with the student and their family. If additional items are raised for discussion, a separate arrangement should be made to meet with the parent/s at a later date and time. This meeting should be narrowly focussed on making the student and their family feel welcome back into the school community.
Possible agenda:
- Welcome back to school
- Check in on student wellbeing
- Discuss any recent changes to school routine or staffing
- Offer information about supports available (e.g. guidance officer)
- Set a date for follow-up
- Thank student and parent/s for attending
- Walk with student to classroom
Reasonable adjustments
In planning the re-entry meeting, school staff will consider reasonable adjustments needed to support the attendance and engagement of the student. This includes selecting an appropriate and accessible meeting space, organising translation or interpretation services or supports (e.g. AUSLAN), provision of written and/or pictorial information and other relevant accommodations. The inclusion of support staff, such as guidance officers or Community Education Counsellors, may also offer important advice to ensure a successful outcome to the re-entry meeting.
Promethean board
This week we were lucky to have Promethean boards installed in our Prep and Year 1 classrooms and Library.
A Promethean board is connected to your computer and projects what is shown on your computer screen, and allows you to use specialized pens or highlighters to write on the screen and interact with the images shown. The board itself is easy to use, and students enjoy the interactive activities it can provide.
Prep 1/D had some fun this week, using and learning how to navigate the Promethean board.
School Opinion Survey
The annual suite of School Opinion Surveys will be conducted in Term 3 and will close
on 18 August 2023. All families, school staff and students in target year levels (5, 6, 8 and 11) will be invited to participate. We encourage you to take this opportunity to have your say about what our school does well, and how we can improve.
An invitation to complete the Parent/Caregiver Survey will be emailed to one parent/caregiver per family in the week beginning 17 July. The invitation will be sent from the Department of Education, not the school, and it will have the subject line School Opinion Survey for parents and caregivers, 2023. Check your junk email folders if you can’t find it. The survey can be completed as soon as the invitation is received and will take approximately 5 minutes using a computer, tablet or smart phone.
Parents/caregivers who do not have access to the internet at home are welcome to complete their survey online at the school. School computers/tablets will be available. Please contact our administration team to organise this.
Our school uses the results from the School Opinion Survey to drive our way forward. We use other data from students and staff as well. From your opinions in this survey, we make decisions on what our focus is and how we target our funds.
Playgrounds before and after school
Playgrounds are out of bounds for all children before and after school. If all parents/caregivers and visitors to our school could please assist us in this please. This is a safety issue for all our students as these areas are not supervised before or after school.
Staffing
Sarah Jacob joined us last week on assembly. She was able to walk around at lunch time and meet many of our students. I am so please that our community has already welcomed her into our community whilst she is acting principal, commencing next week.
Upcoming Events Calendar
Included at the end of this newsletter is Term 3’s whole Calendar for you to print and put on the fridge if you like. If, in the event we need to change anything, you will be notified in upcoming newsletters.
Week 3 – Friday, RotaKids Badge Presentation on Assembly
Week 4
1 August – P-3 Pie Collection
Week 5 – Eisteddfod – Instrumental
8 August – Yrs 4-6 Pie Collection
8 August – P&C Meeting
9 August – ICAS Tech and Writing.
This term in 3C we are reading and comparing different points of view within The Lorax. We are identifying the author’s use of language to create a retell from a different perspective. The students have used their inference from nouns and adjectives to create their own version of Truffula fruits which are being displayed on our Learning Walls.
PBL Focus
This week students are focusing on using items and objects appropriately. All classes are going to look at many scenarios and discuss who is being disrespectful and respectful and why and how they could be more respectful. This is an example scenario:

If you wish to have a copy of the PowerPoint that the students will be engaging in to reinforce at home, please email jxran4@eq.edu.au.
Student Learning and Wellbeing Support Staff
This lesson is also paired with an explanation of the support staff in our school, so the students know what these staff members do even though they might not necessarily see them regularly.
Congratulations to 3/4D who had an amazing attendance rate for Week 2. Their attendance rate was 94.28% for the week!
Remember, every day you are away is a learning day lost.
Hi Calliope families! We hope everyone is having a good week as the term is now in full swing. We had the pleasure of attending the 2024 Prep parent information sessions last Thursday. How wonderful it was meeting some of our new families who will be joining our school community next year!
Next Tuesday August 1st is the collection day for all Prep-3 Pie and Lamington Drive orders. Don’t forget to collect your pies straight from Lizzy’s Country Bakehouse in the Hazelbrook Village Shopping Centre on this day.
You may have heard that the school is working very hard to bring our swimming program back for our students this year for Term 4 PE lessons. With how quickly this year is flying by, it is never too early to start planning for such activities. If you have any swimming shorts, rashies or towels that you no longer use or no longer fit your children, please consider donating them to the school for Term 4 swimming lessons.
All school uniform shirts will cost $35.00 from next Tuesday August 1st. Place your orders before the end of July if you wish to beat the price rise.
Please take care when ordering your children’s tuckshop that you select the correct break time. Our wonderful volunteers in the tuckshop work incredibly hard preparing and planning every day to ensure a smooth process for students when they’re collecting their orders. However, when students present to the tuckshop wanting their second break orders at first break, this disrupts these processes and may not be able to be facilitated; particularly on Fridays which our busiest day by far. If you would like to volunteer some of your time in the tuckshop, we would welcome you with open arms, so please reach out if you have even just half an hour to an hour of free time Tuesdays to Fridays.
Our contact details are: communication.calliopess@gmail.com for our Communication Officer or pandc@calliopess.eq.edu.au for our Executive team.
Warm regards,
Heidi, Geoff, Angela and Lisa.
Donations - The office is chasing donations of size 10 to size 14 school black shorts. If you have any that your child has grown out off, we are more than happy to receive them in the office for students.
Thank you for your help.
- ARTICLES FOR OUR SCHOOL NEWSLETTER: If you wish to publish a NOT FOR PROFIT COMMUNITY article in our school newsletter you can do this by sending an email to admin@calliopess@eq.edu.au with all the relevant details. This will then go through our approval process prior to publishing.
- REMINDER TO PARENTS: Reminder to parents and visitors to the school to drive carefully when accessing the front entrance of the school. Please drive slowly, abide by the speed limit, normal road rules and be mindful of your surrounds. We appreciate your attention and understanding.
- COLLECTING YOUR STUDENT EARLY FROM SCHOOL: 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.
- RETURNING CALLS TO THE SCHOOL: We ask parents to assist us by checking their message bank before returning calls to the school, to establish which staff member has phoned. Due to the high volume of staff within our school it is not possible for us to identify who may have called you. Please call the member on their direct number if they have provided this as this will free up the office phone lines.
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MESSAGE 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.
We ask parents to assist us by checking their message bank before returning calls to the school, to establish which staff member has phoned. Due to the high volume of staff within our school it is not possible for us to identify who may have called you. Please call the member on their direct number if they have provided this as this will free up the office phone lines.
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.
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 and signing out on the iPad, collecting a slip and presenting 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.
Attention - Dental forms can be found on our webpage or in the office. The dental van sent out lots of letters during Week 10 of Term 2, these forms are to be returned ASAP for an appointment to be made and for the dental staff to see your child/children,this term.
The RACQ CapRescue helicopter will be stationed at the event allowing the community to get 'up close and personal', experiencing the rescue aircraft from inside with prime photo opportunities and an opportunity to meet the crew! The event will also showcase other local Emergency Services including QLD Fire & Rescue, Rural Fire Service, QLD Police, SES Rockhampton, and Gladstone Volunteer Marine Rescue.
There will be photos with the helicopter and crew, face painting, fun activities, food and more! The fun, energetic and educational day will aim to display the great work the Emergency Services do in our region.
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.
The Port to Park is on again in 2023. It is a fun run that will be held on Sunday 20 August. Entries are open now! Participants can nominate their school to receive funds as part of the event.
Take in the magnificent views along the 10km Koongo Dash starting at East Shores and winding along Marina Parklands and Spinnaker Park or the 3km Yallarm Family Run, crossing the Marina Bridge and back to East Shores. For those with a competitive spirit or plenty of stamina, why not try both!
Keep updated at Gladstone Ports Corporation Facebook or visit Port to Park for more information.
The new childcare subsidy changes to daycare means childcare subsidy rates have increased. Use the child care subsidy calculator.
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