Welcome to Week Nine of Term One. Students in Years Three and Five have now completed NAPLAN.  Assessments are being finalised and interviews will be held next week.  This week on Friday, we will have the Principal’s Parade followed by our annual Easter Hat Parade.  We are hoping that Smiley will join us for this special event.  Hopefully Smiley can remember to wear the correct uniform when we see him next.

Yesterday our P&C held their annual general meeting.  Congratulations to our new executive for 2024 - 

President – Geoff Kerr

Vice President – Jason Catling

Treasurer – Angelina Kummerfeld

Secretary -  Lisa Newby

Thank you to our outgoing committee from 2023, some of you have stayed on; Calliope appreciates all of your efforts and we look forward to working with the new executive team for 2024.

Equity and Excellence

Data from school reviews is used to inform the school strategic plan.

Our next school review will be Week Three of next term.

Since our last school review there have been some changes to the formats of reviews, and the reports that are generated from the review.

Members of the school community will be interviewed as part of the review process.

The summary of the review report will be made available to the school community following the review.

Staffing

Becky Drury will be on a contract on 6C starting next Monday and continuing into Term 2.  From next term Katie Bramer and Kris Booth will share 2A.

Helena Little is moving to another school.  We wish Helena all the best.

Mel Goodman-Jones is reducing to 4 days per week. Kris Booth will be replacing Mel on Wednesdays in the library.

We welcome Helen O'Brien to our school who will be on 1A from Term 2.

Kelly Sellin will be replacing Charmaine Orton in Week 10 of Term 1 and Week 1 of Term 2.

This term we welcomed Suriya Inslay, our new Chaplain who works Thursdays and Fridays.

In Weeks 10 of this term, and Week 1 and 2 of next term Lucy will be acting as DP at Calliope High.  Tracee Ward is hoping to be back Week 2 of Term 2.

Moira will be away in Week 10 and Raelene will be acting Principal.

Whats Happening in March - 

Moira

This term we have been very busy exploring ways to work together to be healthy and happy. 

Prep have investigated places that are safe to play actively. Most of the students have made sure they stay in the right place at lunch.

 

Year 3: Strategies for a healthy and positive school                          

Year 2: Strategies to keep our school healthy and safe

Year 4: Strategies for managing change. Being litter legends!

 Keeping our environment healthy and safe is everyone’s responsibility.

Lots of children have been getting involved. Check out these litter legends! Has your child been helping out?

Year 5 uncovered a time capsule from 1972, after following clues left by the past students. We found out how different our school is now.

 

Year Six have been learning about the health implications of choosing drinks with high sugar. Some students were also surprised to find out why energy drinks are absolutely not suitable for their growing brains and bodies.

 

We have been learning to co-operate and work well in teams and a lot of students have learned how guiding others in learning is the best way to practice skills and applying knowledge.

 

Learning to communicate with others effectively is a key skill to success at school and in life and we are all working hard on this every day.
In Health, students have been noticing a lot of rubbish blowing its way to our playground from our lunchboxes again. Check out these litter legends saving our playground from being suffocated in rubbish and bacteria.

Some students like to work with numbers and tables and others like to manipulate materials.

Year Six learning about sodium and sugar in popular drink options.

New Home Readers

Calliope State School and Calliope State School P&C were successful in their recent grant submission to Gladstone Foundation – Grant Round 8, to purchase new Decodable Home Readers for Prep. The P&C have generously funded to extra needed to get two full sets of books. The packs of books have recently arrived and are ready for processing. Our Preps enjoyed looking at the new books!

Parent Teacher Interviews

A reminder that our Term 1 Parent Teacher Interviews will be held next Tuesday afternoon in the hall. Please contact your class teacher to make an appointment if you have not already done so, or to arrange an alternative time. This is a great opportunity to discuss your child’s progress this term and next steps for Term 2.

Easter Hat Parade

Our annual Easter Hat parade will be part of our End of Term Parade this Friday at 9.15am. Parents are welcome to wear their Easter Hats as well. We would love you to be part of the parade!

Classes will be wearing their finest creations on Friday morning and we look forward to celebrating with our families.

In partnership with schools across Queensland, SHEP connects the finest young musicians with a team of eminent international and national conductors in pursuit of musical excellence. Selection into this program is only via audition.

Some of our students got selected into the State Honours Ensemble Program and they recently went to Longreach for a two day program. 

Hi everyone! Did you see us at the polls on Saturday? What a big day we had feeding hungry voters and their families. An enormous thank you to all our volunteers for the day! Without many helpers coming forward the crew that showed up to support this fundraiser put in a huge effort for a long day of cooking and serving! And thanks to everyone who stopped by and supported us by buying a snag or two!

Don’t forget to grab your tickets in our Easter raffle! We have multiple egg hampers to be won and it will be drawn this Friday morning at the end of term Easter Hat parade in the hall. Hop to it and get your tickets via QKR, before school from Yr5&6 students or in the office.

Our school is a Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) school. This is a whole school framework that promotes positive behaviour across the school to help develop safe and supportive learning environments for all students. The PBL team meets for one hour three times every term to strategise proactive approaches to ensure all students are receiving the appropriate level of support to be successful at school. We would love to have some parent representatives to attend meetings as a voice for the parent community. If you have completed your parent volunteer mandatory training and are interested in making a positive difference at our school, please reach out on the contact details below.

Last night we held our AGM. Thank you to everyone who came along to show an interest in our school and to show your support. A very warm welcome to our new members! A big thank you to our renewed members for your continued support. As always, a new executive committee was elected and your new executive team are:

President – Geoff Kerr

Vice President – Jason Catling

Treasurer – Angela Kummerfeld

Secretary – Lisa Newby

Other official roles that were filled last night include:

Grants Officer – Celisa Faulkner

Communications Officer – Crystal Catling

Chair of SafeST working group – Matt Carlyon

We would like to send a sincere and huge thank you our outgoing President, Heidi Jackman, for her tireless efforts over the last year leading the way with her positivity and unwavering “can do” attitude. We greatly appreciate all your hard work for the benefit of all our students at our wonderful school! We also send a big thanks to all our members who have moved on this year but made significant contributions to the team in 2023.

Our objective is to continue this great work and keep kicking goals in all areas of strategic planning, fundraising, school improvements and community engagement. We would genuinely love to hear from the school community with any thoughts or ideas you have on how we can all work together to keep making progress in these areas. You can contact us on communication.calliopess@gmail.com for our Communication Officer or pandc@calliopess.eq.edu.au for our Executive team.

Warm regards,

Geoff, Jason, Angela and Lisa.

Congratulations to 4/5D who had an amazing attendance rate for Week 8. Their attendance rate was 98.33% for the week!

Also, congratulations to 1 other class which were at or above our school attendance target of 94% for Week 8.

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

Our End of Term parade will be held on Friday 22 March. Our Term 1 ACE Awards will be announced, our annual Easter Hat parade will be conducted and the P&C Easter Raffle will be drawn. Parents and family members are welcome to wear their Easter Hats at the parade as well. All are welcome to attend.

Parents are welcome to visit classrooms after parade and families are welcome to have a picnic with their children at first break on the grass area between the hall and Administration building.

Cross Country- Monday Week 10

Just a reminder Cross Country is coming up in Week 10. Mrs Betts is holding Running Club on the back oval on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings (8:30am) in preparation for this. On the day, there will be age champion medals for 9,10,11 and 12-year old students. Students that are 10,11 or 12-year-old who place in the top five with a suitable time will get the opportunity to compete at the Port Curtis Cross Country Trials on Wednesday 8^th May 2024 (Term 2, Week 4) at Benaraby State School. For Port Curtis trials, all runners must be able to complete their distance without walking.

We are looking for volunteers to man checkpoints on the day. If you have completed the school’s mandatory training and would like to volunteer your time please email Cathy Betts (cbett49@eq.edu.au).

Please make sure your child is wearing appropriate footwear on the day, and packs their hat and their water bottle.

SCHOOL CROSSING SUPERVISOR TIME CHANGE