Welcome to Week 7! The term is moving along quickly as we continue to focus on our school priority areas of Wellbeing, Curriculum and Pedagogy. I enjoyed visiting the Year 2 classrooms last week to join students in their reading group sessions. I look forward to reading with the Year 1 students this week.

Key Summary

• Science Week continues this week with lunchtime activities
• Prep Interviews for 2021 students starting next week
• 2021 Enrolment packages available from the office
• Staff participating in PD – Phonemic Awareness
• Premier’s Reading Challenge – last week to complete reading
• Active August – final week
• Student Free Day – Friday 4 September
• Continue to follow current procedures to stay safe and healthy

Science Week

Last week was Science Week. At Calliope State School we are continuing with Science Week for another week. Lunch time activities will continue throughout this week for various year levels.

Some classes have focused on classroom investigations for Science Week. 4B worked out how to make a pen lid float and then looked at buoyancy and the forces acting on the pen lid in water. When you squeeze the closed bottle, it causes the air bubble inside the pen lid to compress. This means the pen lid becomes more dense than the liquid surrounding it and gravity makes it sink to the bottom.

Staff PD – Phonemic Awareness

This Saturday we have 18 staff attending a day of professional development. Calliope State School introduced the phonemic awareness program based on work from Dr Michael Heggerty in the lower school from the beginning of this year. It has spread to other year levels and specific groups over the last two terms. We are fortunate to have such a dedicated staff, prepared to attend training on the weekend to consolidate their skills and knowledge with this program.

Premier’s Reading Challenge

The 2020 Premier’s Reading Challenge is well underway and it is pleasing to see so many classes accepting the challenge. The Challenge concludes on August 28 2020, so get reading this week to complete your sheet. Make sure you let Mrs Kettle know when you have completed the challenge to go in the prize draw!

Active August

Our classes have found many ways to be active throughout August. This week will be our final one participating in Active August. So far we have walked over 10 000km, taking us from Calliope to Perth and back!

Pupil Free Day

Friday 4 September is a Pupil Free Day for all Queensland schools and school will not be open. If you require care for your children, Helping Hands will be available and can be contacted on 0409 267 755.

Staying Healthy and Safe

Currently there are no changes to our operating procedures at school. I encourage you to remember the key actions that will prevent the spread of COVID-19:

• students stay home if they are sick
• if you have any COVID-19 symptoms, no matter how mild, get tested
• Social Distancing - stay 1.5 metres away from other adults, especially at pick up and drop off times — think two big steps
• all students, staff and adults entering wash their hands with soap and water or use hand sanitiser

Raelene Norris

Deputy Principal

Year 6 Update! We have been busy this term!

In English, we have been comparing texts written by Elizabeth Honey and its exciting to see how engaged the students are of this author.

In Maths, students have been working with fractions, decimals and percentages. Students are gaining confidence with their number facts and relationships between numbers.

BANG! Science has started with a bang, discovering and investigating all of the different natural disasters. Students have been learning the theory behind natural disasters then applying there knowledge in practical investigations.

Exciting news! We have started planning our Year 6 Incursion happening in December. Watch this space for details.

Weekly Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)

Welcome to Week 7. The Positive Behaviour for Learning lesson for Week 6 is: Responsible – Using resources appropriately. There are plenty of resources around the school – both in the classroom and the playground – that need to be handled appropriately. Students can do this by:

• Leaving all branches on trees and all sticks and rocks on the ground;
• Being gentle with all technology and by placing any device back on charge;
• By using all school equipment for school tasks only e.g. rulers are for ruling up margins in our books; and,
• Through using the bins for rubbish over leaving wrappings on the ground.

Please take a moment to remind your child/children of the importance of keeping their hands and feet to self.

Fantastic Fun Friday is on again in Week 9 and there are two events, one for the lower school and one for upper school. For Preps-2, they will have their picture taken in a Teddy Bear frame at school. For Years 3-6, they will be competing against the teachers in a student verse teacher beep test. Mr Wright is said to be preparing hard for the beep test, saying he does three runs a day – a Maccas run, a coffee run and a sausage roll run. 

Please remind your child/children to get their stamp charts in to be a part of the fun.

Enjoy your week.

Thanks.

Brian Rowe

Student Welfare Teacher

P&C News!

Last week Tenielle, Bec, Kate and Sian attended two P&C workshop days. These were days spent networking with other P&C teams; learning from P&C QLD’s Training and Development Officer; hearing how other school’s have navigated through 2020 and reflecting on our P&C and how we can improve into the future. These workshops are always worthwhile attending and we always walk away having learnt something. Thank you to Margaret Leary for visiting our region and providing this training to schools around us.

DESIGN YOUR OWN OUTDOOR CLASSROOM

We have a competition for our students to participate in! We want your ideas for a new outdoor learning space that we could create in our school. Please see attached flyer for more details.

Designs can be submitted from individual students or from a small group of students. We can’t wait to see lots of entries into this competition.

Pie Drive

Thank you Calliope families, for ordering from this year’s Pie Drive. Your support towards our P&C in this tough year is greatly appreciated. Please see below for a reminder of the delivery days for our families. Please note that the pickup location has not been confirmed yet.

Delivery Days

Year 3 – Year 6: Wednesday 16th of September

For families with children in different year levels, your delivery date will be determined by your eldest child’s year level.

Tuckshop & Uniform Shop

This term, Tuckshop will be open First and Second Breaks, Tuesday through to Friday. We are still cashless, due to COVID procedures, so make sure you place all Tuckshop and uniform orders on the Flexischools App. Contact us via Facebook or via pandc@calliopess.eq.edu.au for any queries regarding uniforms or tuckshop. We are always happy to help.

Flexischools

We have found an alternative to Flexischools which is more user friendly for our families and our P&C. Throughout this term we will be transitioning to use QKR, but don’t worry, this will be a slow transition. For now, Flexischools is still in use and this is the best way to order your tuckshop and uniforms. We will keep you updated as the transition begins in the coming weeks. This transition is now getting closer.

Your P&C Team

Tenielle, Sian, Bec & Kate