Welcome to Week Five of Term One. This week our RotaKids will be presented with their certificates.  I attended the first RotaKids meeting this week and representatives have some great ideas for our school.  It is shaping up to being an engaging year for our students. Last week and this week we have practiced our emergency drills.  Last week we practiced a lock down and this week we will practice our evacuation drill.  It is important that these are practised early in the year so that our students know what to do in case there is an emergent situation

On Monday Raelene Norris, Leisa Bashford and myself attended a workshop facilitated by Central Office around the changes to the teaching of Reading, that will take effect with the implementation of Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum.  Our school has already implemented many of these changes as we are implementing Version 9 of the English Curriculum this year. The workshop was very informative and will guide our continued practice.

 Equity and Excellence

In the picutre above I have included Calliope State School’s model for our Annual Implementation Plan this year.  In the centre is our school’s logo.  Everything that we do is working towards a culture at our school where students can achieve their best.   Our priority continues to be embracing equity and excellence for all.  Our explicit improvement agenda this year is connections and engagement.  Staff are employing a variety of new strategies to make connections and engage our students in learning.  Our three strategies that sit around this include curriculum, pedagogy and wellbeing.

In 3A learning looks like

Hi everyone! We hope everyone is feeling settled into the new routines of a new school year now that we’re just about half way through Term 1.

Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to spend some time helping out in either the tuckshop or uniform shop. While we are always in need of volunteers; we are not asking for a large commitment. Timeslots exist for as little as 45 mins once per month in the uniform shop (open every Friday 8:30-9:00am)! Or maybe you can help out in the tuckshop for one hour on a specific day of the week?! Please check out our Facebook page for specific details on these opportunities. The school does require all volunteers to have completed the Parent/Volunteer Mandatory Training. This only takes about 30 mins and is valid for 12 months for any Queensland State School. Watch this space for the next available session.

Good news from our Uniform shop; our order of size 10 and 12 school shirts have been shipped and will be back in stock early next week. You can now place your orders on QKR for them and they will be filled as soon they have been received by our wonderful uniform shop working group!

We can be contacted 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.

Congratulations to 3A who had an amazing attendance rate for Week 4. Their attendance rate was 98.09% for the week!

Also, congratulations to the 7 classes which were at or above our school attendance target of 94% for week 3.

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

Monday March 4 -

Tuesday March 5 - 

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.