Welcome to week eight of term two.  This week is our big week of sport’s days for our students throughout the week.  We are all excited to be out together each day demonstrating our sporting abilities and having fun.  Our sport’s days at Calliope are always a great day.

I would like to draw our school community’s attention to the Department’s Parent and Community Code of Conduct below.  This week I am focusing on Collaboration.  It is expected that parents and visitors to our school will

• Ensure their child attends school ready to learn
• Support the Student Code of Conduct.

Parents and visitors to our school community demonstrate this by:

• Taking responsibility for their child arriving and departing school safely on time every day
• Reading and encouraging their child to understand and follow the Student Code of Conduct.

A great way for parents/caregivers to collaborate with our school is to attend our P&C meetings.

 Social Media and the school Community

When social media is used as a platform to air complaints, many people can be impacted.  You have the right to report inappropriate content. Social media providers may remove content that contravenes their terms of service and/or acceptable use policies. Most websites and apps have a ‘report/block this person’ or ‘report/flag content’ function.  The poster below has links for our major social media sites and other websites that you can view if you have been impacted by recent social media posts.

Resilience Project

Last week myself, Abbey Murray and Mel Goodman-Jones attended the Resilience Project Teacher Seminar in Brisbane.  The Resilience Project centres around finding happiness.  The Resilience Project is for every person.  Life gets bumpy and we all need strategies to manage the bumps in the road.  If Gratitude, Empathy and Mindful is a part of our daily life, it helps us to work through the bumps when they occur.  The work they have done in schools and with many organisations and sport’s teams including our Broncos is amazing.  As you know, for the last two years our school has been implementing the Resilience Project school program that is embedded in the Australian Curriculum.  The team have a podcast named the Imperfects.  This podcast is for adults.

We’re all imperfect, and on The Imperfects podcast you’ll hear interviews from some of the world’s most interesting people who vulnerably share their own struggles and imperfections. When we’re vulnerable, we can build authentic connections, which helps improve our general happiness, well-being and self esteem. The below podcast from the Imperfects is An Open Letter to Parents of Neurodivergent People and it is Hugh’s Letter.  It is very confronting and if you choose to watch it, please take care when listening.

https://www.theimperfects.com.au/episode/an-open-letter-to-parents-of-neurodivergent-people/

Gem Chat

I have included a GEM Chat for families to consider around the dinner table.  GEM chats help families practice The Resilience Project’s principales, offering a simple wellbeing check-in while building stronger connections through daily conversations.  Families can make GEM Chats a part of your dinner routine to reflect, check in, and practice gratitude.

Complaint’s Process

Our complaint’s process is on our school website.  Generally the best place to commence your complaint is with the school.  Often parents discover they do not have all the facts and once fact finding is completed, the matter is often quickly resolved.  We are currently reviewing our complaint’s process to simplify it. Early next term I will share our revised policy with our school community.

Welcome to Week Six of Term Two.  This Friday we celebrate P&C Day. We would like to publicly thank our school's dedicated P&C members/volunteers for the tireless work they do every year to improve educational facilities, resources and student outcomes. We would like to recognise and celebrate our P&Cs inspirational efforts to support our school to give every child every chance in education and in life! 

I would like to draw our school community’s attention to the Department’s Parent and Community Code of Conduct below.  Over the next few weeks, I will unpack it. 

We welcome Parents’ and other members of our diverse community into our school.  It is an expectation that parents and visitors to our school community will –

• Be polite to others
• Act as positive role models
• Recognise and respect personal differences
• Use the school’s communication process to address concerns.

It seems that lately some parents in our school community are going to social media when they have a concern about their child’s education.  Sometimes parents will state that they have been to leadership at the school.  Often this is not the case.  The best place to address concerns about your child’s education is at the school.  Below are a couple of posters that relate to social media and the school community and impacts of threats or violence towards school staff.

AIP

The third strategy in in our AIP is Curriculum – Build staff capability in using the agreed high-impact whole school pedagogies for  reading. 

There are four actions to achieve this strategy.  They are

• Implement agreed high-impact and effective pedagogical approaches (Collaborating, Developing Language, Engaging in Feedback, Learning Goals), practices and teaching stratgies for Reading and Writing (routines) appropriate to the three principles (of pedagogy).
• Develop and implement structured processes to create and implement student-friendly English Learning Walls (visible learning) effectively to improve student learning outcomes. 
• Implement Kagan Seven Keys for Success.
• Develop opportunities for teachers to engage in observations and feedback to enable conversations focused on determining effective pedagogical practices and reflections on their impact and future use.
  

We have had a fantastic half of the term in 1B! The class have been enjoying learning about the characters, setting, beginning, middle and end of narratives. They have been working on finding these parts in the story Alexander’s Outing for their assessment this term. For maths we have been learning about place value and partitioning numbers as well as solving addition and subtraction word problems.

In Science, we have been exploring sound and light. It has been wonderful to hear the many discussions and ideas being shared amongst the class about musical instruments and how we can make sound with them. The students enjoyed watching many videos of people creating musical instruments from recycled materials. We especially enjoyed seeing how the old bush bands used to make their instruments with bottle tops and sticks or boxes and string.

This week the students have bought recycled materials from home to create their very own sound instrument. It has been wonderful to see the creativity flowing as students investigate how they can make and change their instruments to adjust the sounds that they make.

Life Education

Life Education is on its way to Calliope State School. Mia Boyd (educator) and Harold will be here in Weeks 8 and 9 of this term.. All students will be attending with their class over the two weeks. The P&C will fund 50% of the cost and the school will cover the other 50% of the cost to attend, so that all students are able to be part of this wonderful program. The following units will be delivered as part of the program.

2025 Life Education Program 

Prep – Harold’s Friend Ship (Social and Wellbeing) 

Year 1 – Harold’s Online World (Personal Safety) 

Year 2 – Growing Good Friends (Social and Wellbeing) 

Year 3 – Friends and Feelings (Social and Wellbeing) 

Year 4 – bCyberwise (Personal Safety) 

Year 5- Relate Respect Connect (Social and Wellbeing) 

Year 5/6 - Relate Respect Connect (Social and Wellbeing) 

Year 6 - Relate Respect Connect (Social and Wellbeing) 

Port to Park

The Port to Park will be on Sunday 24 August 2025. Registrations will open soon.

Calliope SS Athletics Carnivals:

will be happening in Week 8.  Families are welcome to attend.

• Tuesday 10^th June- 1:45am- 3:15pm Year 1 and Year 2 Sports Carnival
• Wednesday 11^th June- 1:45am- 3:15pm Prep Sports Carnival

The Junior Sports carnivals will kick off with sprint races, followed by fun athletic inspired rotational activities.

• Thursday 12^th June- Finals for 800m race, high jump and discus

Students have qualified for these events during PE lesson time and will be notified of their selection, and reminded at the start of Week 8 of their event time. A timetable of events can will be in the Week 7 and 8 newsletter and posted on the school Facebook page. The 800m will be ran in the morning, followed by high jump and then discus finals will begin around lunchtime. Students will still be in class on this day and only the finalists will attend their competitive event.

• Friday 13^th June 9am-3:15pm Years 3-6 Athletics Carnival

The Senior Carnival will start at 9:30 with 100m and 200m heats. The top qualifiers will race in the finals. The students will then split up into their age groups and complete rotational activities of long jump, high jump, shot put and ball games. Students who made the shot put and long jump finals will compete in the competitive circles/pits during this time. The day will finish off with 100m and 200m finals, relay races, team war cries and presentations.

A timetable of events will be in the Week 7 and 8 newsletter and posted on the school Facebook page.

*The 1500M final will be held on the back oval on Tuesday 10^th June at 8:15am.

Country Coast Primary Schools

Track and Field Trials

The 2025 Country Coast Primary Schools Track and Field Trials will be held on Friday 20^th June at St Francis Catholic School, Tannum Sands. The main goal of the trials is to select a team to participate in the Port Curtis Trials at Gladstone Athletics Club on Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th of July 2025.

If your child places first or second in their event they qualify to attend the Country Coast Zone Athletic at St Francis Catholic Primary School, Tannum Sands on the following Friday 20th June. Information and a permission form will be sent home on Monday 16th June and will need to be returned before Thursday 19^th June.

What is a Nude Food Lunchbox?

A Nude Food lunchbox is one that eliminates disposable wrappers and single-use packaging, such as plastic, foil, or zip-lock bags. Instead, it focuses on packaging-free foods, offering a sustainable alternative to conventional packed lunches.

Why is it important?

The idea behind Nude Food has two primary goals:

• Encourage children to consume more whole, real foods while reducing reliance on processed snacks and packaged items.
• Reduce single-use packaging and minimize litter around schools.

Studies reveal that, on average, a single packed lunch generates three pieces of litter, contributing to a total of 30kg of waste per child every year. At Calliope State School, this translates to a staggering 16.8 metric tons of avoidable waste annually!

Introducing “Nude Food Wednesdays”

Calliope State School is proud to launch "Nude Food Wednesdays," an initiative to inspire students to bring rubbish-free lunches, free from plastic bags, paper bags, wrappings, or cling wrap. Not only does this promote sustainability, but it also encourages students to pack meals that nourish their bodies and support healthy brain function.

To motivate participation, every Wednesday we’ll hold a raffle! Teachers will give out raffle tickets to students who bring a "Nude Lunch," and these students will be entered to win a Nude Food Lunchbox Pack.

Top Tips for Packing Nude Food Lunchboxes:

• Find a Nude Food approach that suits your family’s routine.
• Keep things fresh and exciting with a variety of colourful foods.
• Start small! Replace one single-use item in your child’s lunchbox with a Nude Food alternative. Include foods you know they love, while gradually introducing new ones to try.
• Shop for foods with minimal packaging—fruit and vegetables are an excellent place to start. Seasonal produce often tastes better and is more affordable.
• Nude Food doesn’t require expensive lunchboxes or perfectly curated meals—simple and sustainable is the key.

Recipe Idea of the Week - A delicious recipe to try in your child’s lunchbox this week!

Hi Calliope Families! 

Calliope State School Pizza Day

Note: Orders close promptly at 3:00 PM on Friday, 27th June. Unfortunately, we cannot accept late orders.

P&C Meeting – Have Your Say!

Our next P&C Meeting will be held on Tuesday 15 July at 4:30pm in the Administration Building. We warmly invite all parents and carers to come along, get involved, and have a voice in the future of our school community.

If you have any items you’d like added to the agenda, please email them through to secretary.calliopess@gmail.com before the meeting.

Your input matters — we’d love to see you there!

Uniform Shop 

The uniform shop operates on Fridays before the parade. Orders placed via the QKR app can be collected during this time. For any inquiries regarding the uniform shop, please email uniformshop.calliopess@gmail.com. 

*Please Note:* EFTPOS is currently unavailable, so orders must be placed via the QKR app.

Best wishes for a great week ahead, 

The P&C Team