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School Improvement
“Every student succeeding is the shared vision of Queensland state schools. This strategy underpins regional and school planning to ensure every student receives the support needed to belong to the school community, engage purposefully in learning and experience academic success.”
This is the strategic vision provided by the Department. Here at Calliope State School, we are always working towards strategies that bring this to life. The school mantra of “Together for Student Learning” guides our decision making processes and our policies. We regularly share information around these at our P&C meeting. If you would like to know more, please feel free to join our P&C meetings. Another great way to be involved in our school is to join our Positive Behaviour for Learning committee who meet each month on a Monday afternoon. If you are interested in doing so, please contact me for further information.
This year our focus area is our “Reading Improvement”. Our Annual Implementation Plan prioritises the three areas of Wellbeing, Curriculum and Pedagogy. We are relentless in our use of data to inform the next steps for our learners. This week our teachers have all been meeting with members of the leadership team to work together to identify these next steps.
Learning Walls
As part of our Reading Improvement Journey we are focussing on the use of “Learning Walls” in our classrooms. We would like to encourage you to talk with your child about their reading goals and what their strategies are to help them reach their goal. The Leadership Team have highly valued being able to visit classroom to see the work our students are doing. Our visits focus around five key questions:
- What are you learning?
- How are you doing?
- How do you know?
- How can you improve?
- Where can you go for help?
Student Wellbeing
When it comes to the wellbeing of our students, we work as a team. It takes parents, teachers, and the community to support the wellbeing of students. As a school, we appreciate you sharing anything with us that may impact on your child’s wellbeing. This information will be treated confidentially and will help us to better support your child. You may wish to let your child’s teacher know, or you can also arrange to speak with or email your relevant Deputy Principal. If you are already working with one of our Student Services team members, you may also wish to speak with them.Positive Problem Solving
Conflict between children is a normal part of childhood development and provides an opportunity for students to learn valuable real life skills around problem solving, valuing the perspectives of others, conflict resolution and resilience.
If your child talks to you about problems with other children at school, this is good news. Very often children don’t tell anyone about issues they are having at school; they might feel ashamed or worried how their parents will respond. It is important that when children approach parents with a problem, parents stop and listen. If parents become emotional or over-react, this may discourage children from confiding further.
When children are upset by other children’s behaviour, parents can provide a valuable sounding board. They can help children interpret situations and decide on possible strategies that are appropriate and fit with our school expectations of being Safe, Respectful and Responsible. Problems can be solved if the child can stand up for themselves calmly. Parents can help children practise how to do this.
Parents might also help children learn how to ignore minor issues, strengthen friendships with kind children, resolve ongoing conflicts and get help from a teacher when needed. At Calliope State School we encourage the strategy of Talk, Walk and Squawk.
If a child is unable to deal with a distressing issue by themselves, it is important that the parent communicates for the child. If the child is experiencing problems at school, parents should first contact the classroom teacher. The next step in supporting your child would then be to contact the Deputy or Principal for your child’s year level.
Generally it is a risky move to approach parents of another child at school. Your approach is unlikely to improve things and may result in heated conflict. This may worsen the relationship between the children, making it more difficult for the school to resolve the issue.
It is also a risky move to air your concerns in the social media forum. This may also worsen the relationship between the children, making it more difficult for the school to resolve the issue.
It is also not appropriate to approach the other student yourself as this also often make situations more difficult to resolve peacefully.
(Based on information provided by Karyn Healy Program Coordinator (Psychologist), Resilience Triple P program Parenting and Family Support Centre, The University of Queensland)
Safe Schools Transport Committee
Our school has a Safe Schools Transport Committee (SafeST) which has been in operation for a number of years. The role of the SafeST is to be a forum for addressing and responding to any concerns about safe travel to and from school. The committee reviews suggested ideas and then connects with other departments (eg Dept of Transport and Main Roads) for further guidance.
The SafeST is a subcommittee of the P&C and at the AGM on Tuesday 10 March membership of the SafeST will be reviewed.
With the Calliope State High School now open, we will be developing a joint SafeST committee in 2020 to support both schools with student travel.
If you would like to be involved in the SafeST committee, please attend on Tuesday 10 March at 6pm or register your interest.
A dedicated email address is SafeST@calliopess.eq.edu.au which can be used at any time to put forward ideas to support the local school communities and travel.
Further information about the SafeST can be found here: https://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/Safety/School-road-safety/Safe-school-travel-safest.aspx
We remind all road uses of their legal responsibilities and need to use care around our schools. If you observe dangerous driving practices, please notify police of the details
NAPLAN 2020
This year Calliope State School will be running NAPLAN in its online format. The Year 3 Writing will continue to be paper based. We will send home specific information to our Year 3 and Year 5 parents in the coming weeks. The dates for this year’s NAPLAN at our school will be 12-19th of May. Once our test schedule is finalised and approved, we will published the dates and times for each class’s tests. One major difference from the paper versions is that classes will access the tests at different times rather than all at once. We asked that where at all possible families are not planning any trips away/appointments etc during these times. Please ensure that if this is unavoidable, that you are letting us know. This will help us with our planning around NAPLAN.
Feedback Welcome
Calliope State School is committed to ensuring that ‘everyone at Calliope State School is working together to ensure that every day, in every classroom, every student is learning and achieving’.
We want to know from our parents, carers and students, what we are doing well, and if there are any areas we can improve on or do differently.
You can give feedback at any time to a staff member, coming into the school office, or leaving a message in our Suggestion Box (in the office foyer). Please be respectful when providing feedback.
If you have a complaint we ask that you:
1) Arrange a time to speak with the class teacher as the first point of call.
2) If your concern is regarding the classroom teacher or a staff member, contact the office to speak with a Deputy Principal responsible for your child’s sector.
- Miss Raelene Norris is the P-2 Deputy
- Mrs Rebecca Crapp is the 3-6 Deputy
- Mr Mark Wright is the Principal.
We ask that you refrain from using social media platforms to comment about issues or incidents involving our school. We have a great school with great students and staff and together we can continue to promote our school as a fantastic learning venue in our community.
Kindest Regards,
Rebecca Crapp
Deputy Principal
(Favourite Read a-loud book… “The Wrong Book” by Nick Bland)
1A Newsletter
1A is off to a wonderful start! Students have picked up old routines and are adapting to some changes very well. This is an exciting term for English in Year 1 as we are exploring emotions in picture books and learning about all the different nouns, verbs and adjectives in our stories. In Maths, we will be counting and sequencing numbers 1-100, solving addition and subtraction problems and exploring calendars. Science is discovering a range of habitats and the minibeasts that live amongst them. In HASS we will be investigating how the world is different from the past and can change in the future. Learning is well underway and we are looking forward to a fantastic year!
If you weren’t able to make it to Café Connect this month… just saying we missed YOU! It was lovely to have a couple of new ladies and their young children come along. Welcome! We look forward to seeing more back next month.
Diary date: Café Connect - Thursday 12 March at 9:15am at Calliope School
Every Thursday we also hold a Parent ‘Care & Prayer’ time. This goes from 9:00 – 9:15am and is held in my office (near the 3 pencils). Feel free to pop in, we’d love to have your presence.
Effectiveness
- What three words would people use to describe you?
- What three words would you LIKE people to say about you?
- Identify three things you would like your reputation to be and then live that out. (Self-Awareness: Ensure that your behaviours match the reputation you’d like to have).
LIVE THE REPUTATION YOU WANT TO HAVE
Be the change you want to see in the world!
Love Chappy Mel
Last Friday on Parade the RotaKids were presented with their badges and certificates. RotaKids Semester 1, 2020 consists of two class representatives from each Year 3-6 class, as well as all of the school leaders.
RotaKids is an exciting way for students to enjoy working on important fun activities that will make a positive difference in school, in the local community and globally.
RotaKids brainstorm ideas such as raising money for charity, improving the environment, helping the elderly or children in another country! A meeting was held on Monday and decisions were made around the activities which will be organised for Term 1. More information on these activities will follow soon.
This week’s focus lessons
YCDI Education!
Term 1 Year Levels Overview
Lesson 4
Prep: Gabby knows How to Get Along
- Students will understand what it means to get along with others
- Students will recognise examples of what it means to get along nicely in play activities.
- Students will demonstrate friendly behaviours towards others.
- Students will say that getting along means sharing, speaking nicely, taking turns when playing with others, following rules, helping to keep school clean and safe, following important classroom rules and not fighting.
One way to be very happy and popular like Gabby Get Along is to practise getting along by sharing, speaking nicely, taking turns, following rules, helping make your classroom safer and not fighting when you have a problem with someone else.
Year 1: Meet Penny Persistence
- Students will be able to state the meaning of ‘persistence’.
- Students will be able to understand themselves as learners – discuss their strengths and weaknesses as learners and identify some learning strategies to assist them.
- Students will be able to become confident, resilient and adaptable – undertake and persist with short tasks, within the limits of personal safety
Students who are very successful are also very persistent. They know that sometimes when things are hard to do or take a while to complete, they have to keep on going – to persist – before they can play or have fun.
Year 2: Persistence: How hard is it Really?
- Students will learn that tasks vary in their degree of difficulty.
Students will learn that being persistent, especially when the task is hard, will help them to be more successful in their schoolwork.
- Students will learn about some ways of thinking that help them to be persistent.
While some tasks at school may be easy for you, some may be more challenging, and some will be very difficult for you. When you have to do something that is challenging, a bit boring or not your favourite thing to do, using helpful ways of thinking can help you to be persistent and successful in the end.
Year 3: Persistence Pays Off!
- Students will be able to state the meaning of ‘persistence’.
- Students will be able to state the relationship between the attitude of Giving Effort and persistence.
- Students will be able to state the difference between ‘helpful thoughts’ that lead to persistence and ‘unhelpful thoughts' that lead to giving up.
The reason that students are successful at learning is that they bring with them the ‘key’ of persistence – especially when attempting schoolwork and other activities that they feel are too hard. Having the attitude of Giving Effort means telling yourself that the harder you try, the greater your chance of success will be.
Year 4: Be Confident in Your Mistakes
- Students will appreciate the importance of not giving up and finishing a task (persistence).
- Students will understand the advantages of doing schoolwork and chores they find boring or difficult and the disadvantages of putting off their work.
- Students will understand that ‘needing’ to have fun all the time is not sensible and only makes it harder to have fun as well as get work done (Working Tough).
To be good at persistence, students need to be good at weighing up the benefits of having fun now with the benefits of doing their work first and then having a good time. What’s more important for their future success and doing their personal best – work or fun?
Year 5: The Persistent Payout – Success!
- Students will know the three attitudes that help students to be persistence (I Can Do It!, Work Tough, Giving Effort).
- Students will understand that exaggerating the difficulty of a task makes it harder to do.
- Students will understand the relationship between motivational thoughts and task persistence! Persistence means working on and completing tasks and activities that feel like they are too hard to do. There are three types of thinking that help people to be persistent:
- I Can Do It! -When learning something new that is hard to understand or difficult, I am more likely to be successful than to fail.
- Giving Effort – The longer and harder I try without giving up on something that is difficult to do, the more successful I will be.
Working Tough – I want things to be exciting, fun and not boring but they do not have to be. I know that to be successful, I sometimes have to do things that are not easy or fun.
Year 6: Packing Yourself with Persistence
- Students will understand the meaning of ‘persistence’.
- Students will understand that positive self-talk can help them to become persistent.
Success has much more to do with persistence than it does with talent. Trying hard and figuring out different ways to do your personal best develops your brain power, too – it sets you up for more success when you enter high school.
Calliope State School P&C
Wow! How amazing was pizza day. A massive thank you to all of our school families, we had a whopping 509 orders. Our fundraising would not happen without our volunteers and of course the local business that support us. Thank you to the team at Calliope Pizza Place and a huge thank you to our volunteers who helped sort and distribute pizza.
Our AGM will be held on the 10th of March in the Admin building at 6pm. Our P&C have organised Tina from Calliope Crafty Capers to be there to help with the kids (by booking to P&C only). All positions will be available for election, please note that you have to be a member to vote and becoming a member of the P&C is a great way to be involved in your child's school. Want more information on how to become a member? Don’t hesitate to email us, send us a message on Facebook or simply fill out a form next to the P&C box in the office and we will contact you. Keep your eyes peeled for our online membership form.
Fundraising and Events
Thursday 19th March is our first school disco of the year. Time to dust of those dancing shoes, deck yourself out in green and dance the night away like a leprechaun on St Paddy’s day. We will be looking for volunteers to help with our disco, please contact us if you are interested in helping.
Chocolate, who doesn’t love chocolate? As we do every year, we will be holding an Easter raffle to be drawn on the end of term parade. For this raffle we ask our families to make a small donation of items towards our hampers. Please find our collection hampers in the office next week.
Tuckshop
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Lisa! Make sure you pop by and wish her a happy birthday week. Each week we have delicious home baked treats that you can order this week tasty treat is Banana Loaf.
As with all of our P&C events and operations, the tuckshop is always looking for volunteers. If you are interested in socialising, having a cuppa and even helping Lisa out, please pop past the tuckshop or contact us via facebook.
Uniform shop
Our uniform shop is open Tuesday mornings from 8.15 – 8.45 for all your uniform needs or order on flexischools and orders will be sent to your child’s classroom. If you have any queries regarding orders, please contact our P&C via Facebook, email uniformshop.calliopess@gmail.com or phone/message Tenielle on 0406218312.
Pre-ordered senior shirts are available. If you no longer require these please contact Tenielle. All shirts at the end of this week will then become available on Flexischools.
Have a great week
Your P&C team
Mel, Tenielle, Bec and Kate
We are very excited to let our Calliope community know that the Play2Learn Playgroup will start from next Tuesday, 3 March, at Calliope School. The group will run from 9.00-11.00am each Tuesday morning in the Prep playground area. Children from 0-5 are welcome to attend with their parents or family members. For further information please see the attached flyer or contact Wendy Dodds on 0427 249 725.
