Kristin 

Now in our third week of schooling, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the vast majority of students on their level of engagement, sense of enthusiasm and overall commitment to the school’s core values of safe, respectful and responsible. It is terrific having students back at school undertaking their education and from all reports, they are really trying to achieve their best in a respectful manner.

This week we have seen many parents visiting classrooms for our Parent Information sessions. We hope you found this valuable to make connections with your child’s teachers. Class newsletters will be sent home this week. This is another way the class teachers will connect with families each term.

This Friday our school leaders and senior students will receive their badges on parade. We look forward to this special parade to recognise our senior students at Calliope State School with members of our school community. All are welcome to attend and please RSVP to the school office on 49758333.

Stop, Drop and Go

Please do not park in our Stop, Drop and Go to wait for children from other schools. We have a number of parents who are using our Stop, Drop and Go to sit and wait to collect their children from the local high school. Please ensure that you move off, away from Stop, Drop and Go as soon as you have collected your primary aged child/ren from our school. If you have a child/ren attending the local high school, I encourage you to collect them first from their Stop, Drop and Go and then move to the primary school. The high school has an earlier finishing time.

https://www.facebook.com/CalliopeStateSchool/videos/464651811146265

The safety of our students is a priority at Calliope State School; please be patient when using Stop, Drop and Go. Do not park in the Stop, Drop & Go zones at any time as this congests the flow of traffic and blocks access to the kerb. Some key points to remember:

· Stay in your car and leave the car running so that you can move forward (this maintains a steady flow of traffic).

· Keep left while queuing for Stop, Drop & Go.

· Children must enter and exit cars from the kerb side only.

· Give way when exiting the drop zone.

· In the afternoon, delay your arrival to minimise traffic congestion.

· If your child is not yet at Stop, Drop & Go, drive slowly through the carpark and turn right just before the exit to re-join the queue.

If you are unable to use Stop, Drop & Go area in this manner, please park your vehicle to drop or collect your child.

Communication

If you would like to talk through an issue that you or your child is having at school, please ensure that you contact the classroom teacher as your first point of call. If you need further support after talking to the classroom teacher, please do not hesitate to organise a time, through the Administration Team in the office, to meet with a Deputy Principal (Raelene Norris P-2, Naomi Hughes Years 3-5 and Christine Johnston Year 6). Please contact Administration on the following details between 8am and 4pm:

Phone: 4975 8333 Email: admin@calliopess.eq.edu.au

Congratulations to 1B who had an amazing attendance rate for Week 2. Their attendance rate was 100% for the week!

Also, congratulations to the 8 classes which were at or above our school attendance target of 94% for Week 2.

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

5A is off to a flying start. As part of Calliope State School’s AIP we have been implementing Kagan structures of Teams and Universal Design for Learning (ULD) around differentiation for all students. This has seen all students engage and participate to the best of their ability. Students have also been completing weekly lessons for The Resilience Project. With this week’s focus being Emotional Literacy where all students are displaying their emotions and how we each show emotions differently. 5A is enjoying have the ability of flexible seating and co-teaching and learning with 4/5D across the majority of subjects.

Displayed are some of 5A students participating in Science exploring observable properties of materials. Students have also displayed their facial emotions that will be added to our respectful relationships wall.

All year 6 parents would have received an invitation to our ceremony this Friday to present badges to our 2024 leaders, as well as Seniors badges and certificates to our whole Year 6 cohort. This parade will be a special parade to outline the importance of being a Year 6 student at CSS and the expectations around this-setting the scene for the year ahead. As part of this ceremony, all year 6 students will recite a leadership oath.

Hi everyone! We hope all our families are safe and well. We’re sure you would have heard that our Tuckshop was broken into this week. We are extremely disappointed that this has occurred and we’re so sad for the impact it has had on the students and the whole school community. Especially since the tuckshop has been cashless for many years now and it was a pointless act of destruction. We would like to thank our wonderful community for your understanding and support through this time. Our team worked super hard to restore the tuckshop to full service so that we were only down for one day. A big shout out to our Tuckshop convenor, Lisa! Your hard work is greatly appreciated!

We are currently seeking volunteers for our Uniform shop to fill some spaces in our roster, created by some of our volunteers moving on to high school. If we have a full roster, this is only a once per month commitment for half an hour on a Friday morning before parade. Our current opening hours are Fridays 08:30-9:00am. If we cannot find some wonderful and willing volunteers, unfortunately these hours may have to be decreased.

Next week brings our first P&C meeting for the year. This will be held in the Administration building on Tuesday 13^th February at 5pm. We are very much looking forward to seeing our usual attendees and meeting some new families also. These meetings are a great opportunity to find out what is happening around the school, not only from the P&C perspective but with our Principal presenting her report too. If you have any ideas you wish to share and/or want to have a say on decisions being made; this is your chance. We will be accepting new members at the meeting but this doesn’t mean you have put your hand up for a job with the P&C. We genuinely welcome you to come along and see what it’s all about! If you can’t make the meeting but have an idea or comment all the same; no worries! Just send us an email.

We can be contacted on communication.calliopess@gmail.com for our Communication Officer or pandc@calliopess.eq.edu.au for our Executive team. Also, please consider following our Facebook page for the most current updates available.

Warm regards,

Heidi, Geoff, Angela and Lisa.

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.

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

Parent Information sessions will be held in Week 3 for all classes. This is a great time to find out information and routines for your child’s classroom. Please see table below for times.