Filter Content
Welcome to Week One of Term 4. I hope that all our families have had a restful break and are ready for our busy term at Calliope State School. This term, students will be completing their final units of work in most subject areas and report cards will be issued. All students will be participating in the school’s swimming program. The is facilitated by our Physical Education teacher, Cathy Betts and qualified swimming coaches. This was the preferred model after consultation with families earlier this year. Notes were sent home last term. Please ensure that these are returned to the school. Swimming commences next week.
Strategic Planning
Throughout this term we will reflect on our practices, look at our data including the School Opinion Survey and consider the following two questions,
How are all students engaged and improving in their learning ?
How do we know ?
A final school created parent survey will come out this term to ask for parent feedback on ways we can improve to achieve the best for all our students.
I will be sharing data at our next P&C meeting and also asking for feedback.
2024 Planning
Planning for classes in 2024 begins early in Term 4. Our first step finalise our anticipated enrolments for 2024. If you know of families considering Calliope State School in 2024, please encourage them to contact Administration as soon as possible. Any family who has a Prep student commencing in 2024 is encouraged to contact Administration now to ensure a smooth transition to school. If your family intends on leaving our school next year, could you please notify Administration so that this planning can be as accurate as possible.
Dress Code
Each week I am highlighting a component of our school Dress Code.
This week I am highlighting the considerations that were considered when writing our dress code. Please see the dot points on the image to the right that has been extracted from our Dress Code Brochure.
Hats
Before school and at each break we have multiple students coming to the office and the SLAWC (Student Learning and Wellbeing Centre) asking for spare hats. We ask that all students come to school with a hat so they can enjoy outside play.
Student Code of Conduct
Each week I focus on an aspect of Calliope’s Student Code of Conduct. This week the focus is on student intervention and support services where incidents of bullying, including cyberbullying have occurred.
Student Intervention and Support Services
Calliope State School recognises the need to provide intervention and support to all students involved in incidents of bullying, including cyberbullying.
Students who have been subject or witness to bullying have access to a range of internal support staff, as identified in the Student Support Network section earlier in this document. Students are, however, also encouraged to approach any staff member with whom they feel comfortable sharing their concerns, regardless of their role in the school. All staff at Calliope State School are familiar with the response expectations to reports of bullying, and will act quickly to ensure students’ concerns are addressed. Depending on the nature of the reported bullying incident, a formal plan of action may be developed and documented to support the implementation of strategies to assist the student.
Students who engage in bullying behaviours towards others will also be provided with support to assist them to use more socially acceptable and appropriate behaviours in their interactions. This includes counselling, social development programs, referral to mental health services or involvement in a restorative justice strategy. School disciplinary measures may also be used to reinforce the seriousness with which the community takes all incidents of bullying. These measures may include internal school suspension, withdrawal from social events or celebrations or more severe consequences such as suspension or exclusion from school.
Learning in 6B
The best part of my day as a principal is when I am in classrooms observing the great learning that occurs in our school. One day last term I was visiting 6B and was amazed by the design and building of battery powered cars our students were doing for Science. This group of boys were becoming quite frustrated because the motor was not big enough and it just wouldn’t go. I told them to never give up. Along with motivation from Mr Brown and Ms Emma searching stores to find a bigger motor, the boys finally had success. Below is their story of learning.
Some reminders of upcoming events from the calendar include -
Week 2 – Mental Health Week
10 October – P&C Meeting
12 October – Parent Picnic First Break – RotaKids activities
Week 4 – State Education Week
25 October – Day for Daniel; wear Red
27 October – World Teacher’s Day
Calliope S.S. Swimming Program 2023
Swimming lessons at Calliope SS start next week. Please ensure your child has returned their signed swimming permission note to their classroom teacher by this week.
For their swimming lessons, students will need-
- Togs and a swim shirt
- Swimming Cap (These can be purchased at Kmart or Big W)
- Towel
- Swimming bag
A couple of things to consider for swimming-
- Ensure all items of clothing (including underwear and socks) are clearly labelled with their name and class.
- If your child’s lesson is early in the day, I would recommend that students are dressed, ready for swimming PRIOR to arriving at school with their uniform worn over the top.
- Goggles are permitted but please ensure they fit correctly and are adjusted accordingly, and practice with your child putting them on.
- Practice independence with your child with dressing, undressing, and talk to them about the importance of neatly placing all their clothing items back in their bag to assist them in organising themselves and to limit lost belongings.
- If your child is anxious or not very confident in the water, talk to them about what will happen and their feelings and please let their teacher know if you think there is something we need to be aware of.
Hi everyone! Welcome to Term 4! We hope everyone had a wonderful school holidays and that you’re feeling recharged for what always seems to feel like the busiest term of the year!
How exciting it is for our children that our usual term 4 swimming program has been reinstated this year?! We were thrilled with the outcome of working closely with leadership to work through the logistics of being able to facilitate this wonderful program run by our very own and wonderful Mrs Betts! Term 4 swimming is such a great opportunity to provide water awareness and endurance leading into summer. If you have any spare swimming shorts, rashies or towels; please consider donating them to the school so every student has access to this amazing opportunity. Just drop them into the office, thanks so much!!
Our first meeting for this term is next week; Tuesday 10th October at 5pm in the Admin building. If you would like to be part of change and improvements for our school, this is where the magic begins! Or if you just want to be privy to what’s happening and what’s coming up; just come along and have a sticky beak!
As always, we welcome ideas and comments! Please contact us on: 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.
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.
- 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.
-
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 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.
Save the Date:
Year 6 Graduation - 04 December 2023.
Pop up shop in Gladstone for families doing it tough with back to school supplies. More Information to come!