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Welcome to Week Six of Term One. NAPLAN commences next week for Year 3 and 5 students at our school. Below is information about NAPLAN including links to the public demonstration site. Anyone can go to this site and participate in the practice test to see what our students do in the NAPLAN tests. There is also a NAPLAN webinar for parents on Thursday 6 March. This session will provide valuable information on NAPLAN, encourage student participation, and offer tips to support students to do their best. I encourage parents and caregivers to attend this P&C Queensland NAPLAN webinar by clicking on the link above.
Equity and Excellence
https://behaviour.education.qld.gov.au/
Behaviour Website
- Teachers play an important role in assisting students to understand behaviour expectations, develop and extend their capabilities in self-management and learn acceptable ways of interacting and engaging with others.
- And it is in partnership with the community that all our children come to understand how to behave as a member of a functioning, caring and thriving community.
- With good discipline and respect comes great opportunity.
- This is not something that we develop intentionally – and the behaviour website provides resources that can be used by families and the broader community to support student behaviour and make a positive difference in our whole state.
Background
- The behaviour website is accessible to all members of the community – it is housed on an external facing website.
- The behaviour website is ‘one-stop-shop’ for practical advice and resources on supporting student behaviour.
- to community agencies for schools,
- The Behaviour Website is a comprehensive source of information on supporting student behaviour
- student discipline procedures
- guidelines and fact sheets,
- evidence informed approaches to individual, classroom and whole school support,
- links to community agencies for families and students
So far in 1A, we've been diving into the exciting world of informative texts and sentences! Our class has been learning how to gather and organise information and we’re doing it in some fun ways. One of the highlights has been our ice cream survey!
The class has been doing a fantastic job working together in teams. Whether it’s reading a text or coming up with ideas for our ice cream survey, everyone is contributing. Teamwork has been a big part of our lessons, with students helping each other create informative sentences and share ideas. It's been wonderful to see how well everyone collaborates, making learning fun and effective.
All About Wakeboarding with Mia
When did you start wakeboarding and how did you get into it?
I started wakeboarding when I was 6. We moved to the Sunshine Coast and one of my dad’s friends invited us to go to the wake park and try kids club where they teach you how to wakeboard.
Where do you wakeboard?
Mum and Dad have to drive me to the wake park at either Mackay or Bli Bli on weekends and school holidays.
What do you have to do in the competitions? And how long does a competition go for?
Each competition is different. The most common one is called a 'Jam Style', this is where all the competitors are on the water at the same time for 8 minutes. The obstacles are broken up into sections and you need to do your best trick/hit in each of the sections. The other type is called 'traditional'. This is where there is only one person on the water at a time and you need to do your best run/tricks in one lap. And you get two goes of doing this.
The competitions can go over a few days with all the heats and other divisions riding.
What do you do to train for wakeboarding?
I set a goal and I try to work on that goal until I get it. My current goal is landing a 720 off a kicker. That’s two handle pass spins in the air. I also have a goal board in my room that I cross off once I get that goal.
What’s your favourite wakeboarding move?
My favourite moves are either a Scarecrow, which is a front roll of a kicker with a 180 (switch) landing or a 540 of a kicker, which is one and a half spins with one handle pass.
What do you get if you win a competition?
Usually a bag filled with shirts, lollies, stickers, and vouchers. Sometimes you get life jackets or helmets. I have also won money before.
A huge congratulations to our little pocket rocket Grace for making into the Capricornia AFL team.
Running Club is back!
Mrs Betts will be down on the back oval at 8:30- 8:50am on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings to encourage students in Year 3-6 to run laps of the oval. Each lap is recorded and there will be a competition amongst the year levels who gets the most laps. The top two-year levels will win the opportunity to play a game of dodgeball with Mrs Betts at the end of the term.
Please encourage your child to come and join us on the back oval, especially if they’ve got that little bit of extra energy that would be helpful to burn off before going into the classroom for the day.
PBL Lesson this week
This week we are focusing on before and after school procedures.
GEM focus this week
The focus this week is gratitude with the question “What activity do you enjoy?"
Positive Behaviour Data
|
Action Type |
End of Term 1 2024 |
End of Week 5 Term 1 2025 |
|
Positive Behaviour |
556 records |
345 records |
|
Awards (Teacher Aide Certificate, Cool Kid Certificate, Classroom Cool Kid, Principal’s Award) |
177 awards |
95 awards |
|
Good News Letter |
89 letters |
62 letters |
|
Contact Home (Positive email home, positive phone call home, e-postcard) |
42 contacts home |
5 contacts home |
NAPLAN will be occurring later this term for our Year 3 and 5 students. The purpose of NAPLAN is to assess the literacy and numeracy skills your child is already learning at school. NAPLAN is about assessing learning progress and is not about passing or failing. Encouraging your child to do the best they can on the day is the best approach for preparing your child
If you have any questions about NAPLAN, please contact your child’s teacher as a first step.
Participation
All students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are expected to sit the NAPLAN tests unless they are withdrawn by their parents/carers or exempt. An information sheet will be sent home this week to all Year 3 and 5 parents.
Withdrawals
Parents can withdraw their child from the tests by notifying the school in writing before testing. Withdrawal is intended as an option to acknowledge religious beliefs and philosophical objections to testing.
Test Timetable
Below is the test timetable for Calliope State School in 2025.
Uniform Shop
Open Friday mornings before parade. Orders placed via the QKR app can be collected then. At the moment there is no EFTPOS available so plesae place orders via the QKR App.
What Are Your Goals for the P&C This Year?
Do you have ideas, skills, or a passion to help make our P&C even more successful? We’d love for you to get involved!
To continue the great work we’re doing, we need parents to step into executive roles. To be part of this we are holding our AGM on the 18th of March at 5pm, all are welcome to attend. All positions will be declared vacant at this meeting.
During the AGM, we will discuss our direction moving forward, including the possibility of reducing fundraising activities and focusing solely on the Tuckshop and Uniform Shop. This shift could impact our ability to contribute to school activities, which may result in higher costs for all parents.
Due to limited volunteer availability, we’ve had to postpone this term’s pizza day. Going forward, we may also face challenges with events like the Mother’s and Father’s Day stalls.
This is your opportunity to step up and support our school community!
A huge thank you to those who have already volunteered over the past few weeks. We look forward to meeting all the amazing parents who can spare some time to help at the AGM!
Did you know that Calliope State School offers Centrepay as a convenient payment option? We understand that managing school and other expenses can be challenging, especially at the start of the year or when there are multiple siblings enrolled. That’s why we offer several ways for parents to manage payments, including Centrepay.
What is Centrepay?
Centrepay is a free, voluntary service provided by the Commonwealth Government to Centrelink payment recipients. Eligible parents can use Centrepay to make regular, automatic deductions directly from their Centrelink payments to cover school fees and other expenses.
If you would like to set up a Centrepay Payment Plan, simply contact our office to schedule a quick 10-minute appointment with the school's Business Manager.
For more information about Centrepay deductions, please visit: Centrepay Information.
How it Works:
- Each Centrepay deduction to the school incurs a small fee (currently $0.99) to cover Centrelink’s administration costs, but this fee is not passed on to parents.
- We recommend a minimum deduction of $10.00 per student, paid fortnightly, to cover school fees.
- You can choose a specific end date for deductions or set a target amount, and once that target or end date is reached, deductions will automatically stop.
Centrepay is our preferred method for setting up payment plans, offering a straightforward and stress-free way to make regular payments.
- 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.
- Student and Parent contact details
- Attendance details
- Report cards – all report cards (past & present) are available to view and upload.
- Payment history.
- Online consent management.
- A faster, more efficient way to communicate with parents regarding student information.
- A secure, convenient and automated process for parents to pay school invoices.
- Significant time and effort savings for both your school and parent community.
- An innovative online communication tool that’s free of charge for both schools and parents to use.