Welcome to Week Seven of Term Two. Last week was an exciting week for our Robotic’s team. Congratulations to you all for the amazing effort that you put into your lunchtime sessions and competition days. Students were recognised on assembly last week. A huge thank you to Karen Fennel who puts many lunch hours into making this happen and giving students at Calliope State School this opportunity.

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 how parents and visitors to our school community demonstrate respectful communication. This is demonstrated by –

• using polite spoken and written language
• speaking and behaving respectfully at all times
• being compassionate when interacting with others
• informing staff if the behaviour of others is negatively impacting them or their family
• respecting staff time by accepting they will respond to appropriate communication when they are able
• requesting a meeting to discuss any concerns about their child’s education — allowing staff time to prepare and appreciating their time may be limited

The school has again been impacted by parents using social media as a platform to address their concerns and not contacting the school. Mostly, parents of Calliope State School are respectful and request meetings. Thank you to those parents who do support learning, wellbeing and safety in our school.

AIP

The third strategy in in our AIP is Collaborative Capability Development – Development and implementation of agreed collaborative capability development processes

There are two actions to achieve this strategy. They are:

• Collaboratively develop and implement processes for collaborative capability development of pedagogy through V9 English, Reading , including walkthroughs, observation and feedback and Collaborative Inquiry Learning Approach. 

• Collaboratively consolidate instructional leadership processes to inform whole school resourcing and capability development to support all students (Resilience Project, Collaborative Proactive Solutions, PBL reset, Kagan Collaborative Learning).

Foxes, Funds & Fantastic Thinking – Term 2 in 2A!

It’s been a busy and exciting few weeks in 2A, with plenty of hands-on learning, creative thinking, and enthusiastic discussions happening across all subject areas. Here’s a little peek at what we’ve been up to!

English – Speaking Like Storytellers

We’ve been diving into the world of Fantastic Mr Fox and practising our spoken recounts. After exploring the exciting chapters, students are preparing to recount the events for Boggis’s Chicken House Number One in their own words. They’ll be using time connectives, descriptive language, and expression to bring the story to life. It’s been wonderful to see their confidence grow as they develop their speaking and storytelling skills.

Maths – Pocket Money Problem Solvers

In Maths, we’ve been tackling real-life problems by working out how much pocket money we could earn through household chores. Students applied their addition strategies to calculate daily and weekly totals, showing their thinking with number sentences and number lines. This fun and practical unit helped us connect maths to the real world in a meaningful way!

Science – Marvellous Materials & Lunchbox Design

Our Science unit has focused on exploring materials and their properties. We’ve been testing which materials are waterproof, strong, flexible, and insulating as we prepare for an exciting STEM project designing and creating our very own lunchboxes! Students are thinking like young engineers as they plan, test, and build their unique creations. We can’t wait to see the finished results!

HASS – Technology Then and Now

In HASS, we’ve been learning about how technology has changed over time. From black boards and slates to promethean boards and laptops, students have loved comparing the past and present. They’ve been asking great questions and reflecting on how technological advances have made everyday school life faster, easier, and more convenient.

Calliope fielded two softball teams again this year in the Softball Gala hosted by Softball Gladstone. The Calliope teams should be extremely proud of the grit and skill they showed on the day! A huge thank you goes out to Tegan who assisted in coaching. Both teams played with enthusiasm and embraced the competitive spirit. Unfortunately we did not make the finals; however, we managed to get 5 students into  Port Curtis which is an accomplishment. Brax, Kyson, Ava, Indee-Mae and Lara are going to compete in the Port Curtis team in Rockhampton next month. A huge thanks to Mrs Betts for coordinating on the day.

Readiness to learn

A vital part of success in life is being ready and organised to take on any challenge. This organisation and readiness begins at school. It is important that students have all the materials they need to be successful in a classroom. This can be as simple as a sharp pencil and eraser, to more complex items such as a protractor or calculator.

By being ready, it takes the stress out of having to quickly think or process too many things and stops having to complete activities on the run. By being organised our brain can focus on what we are learning rather than our attention being split in many ways. This can be practised at home with activities such as packing school bags, getting ready for sport or keeping bedrooms organised and tidy.

GEM this week is: