Term 4 2024

Principal's Ponderings

Congratulations to all of the Charleville SDE community for another most excellent year of learning. The staff have shown dedication to the children’s learning, care when things are not going to plan and support for all as we negotiated the school year. I am very proud of their professionalism and achievements.

Looking back:

The Western Alliance has been moving towards a restructuring of staff. In 2025 we will have a WA Deputy Principal, a designated secondary HOD in each school and teaching staff in each school. The following personnel have been appointed:     

WA Deputy Principal: Peta Bates (Based in Longreach)
MISOTA WA HOD: Chris McIntosh
Charleville WA HOD: Mandy McDonald 0.5 and Raquelle Vieira 0.5 (for six months)
Longreach WA HOD: Will Joyce

We continue to meet as a leadership team to better support the students through planning and delivery of curriculum and field events, and development of the Student Code of Conduct and reporting Guidelines. We are looking forward to a productive successful 2025.

Partners in Learning: Michelle Sieber finishes her role as the HOD Partners in Learning on the 6th of December. She has a position at Bowen State School for 2025. I am waiting to hear what we can do moving forward to support Home Tutors in this space of early literacy and reading. A very special thank you to Michelle for her dedication to the Home Tutors and the project. She has done a marvellous job, and we wish her all the best for her new position.

Looking forward:

Departmental Priorities: With the recent state election, our department has a new Minister, John Paul Langbroek and an acting Director General, Sharon Shimming. The DG role has been advertised, and the successful candidate will commence in the new year.

We have been assured that the priorities of Equity and Excellence will continue. Some changes will include the government’s commitment to reducing red tape and the administrative load on teachers to free up teachers to spend more time in the classroom. The increases in:

• Legislation, policy and procedures
• Curriculum, planning, assessment and reporting
• Workforce
• Systems and data and,
• Operational requirements are to be addressed.

A priority in 2025 is Reading which will see our leaders and teachers participating in further masterclasses that align with the strategies of teaching reading. A session will be delivered at the Kick Start Conference.

Real Schools: During the Professional development days in January 2025 the CSDE staff are working with 8 other schools from the Charleville Cluster on a three-year project that will include a full day of PD, follow-up visits with an expert facilitator to help our schools build partnerships and experiences to help each school achieve its potential in three key areas:  

• Committed Teachers
  • By providing experiences and partnerships which are inspiring and yet provoking. By committing to this level of practice, we are simply modelling the lifelong learning we want to foster in our students.
  • By taking teachers through practice barriers. On the other side is a whole new world of focus, effectiveness and impact. But more than this, teachers will actually be happier, less stressed and more ‘on their game’ as a result of their Real Schools experience.
• Caring students
  • This isn’t about caring for students. It also isn’t about using tips and tricks to garner a little extra compliance from our students. It isn’t even about teaching them the good thing to do. This is about showing them how to desire doing good.
• Connected communities
  • The Real Schools mission is all about re-positioning the school as the community relationship hub – where community members have the skill, the intent and the persistence to work together for a better future. After all, we’re more than the sum of our parts … aren’t we?

This work will include all staff, parents and students. It sits beside our expectations and student code of conduct and helps us all to work on the areas of the language we use with each other, our conduct, and our mindset.

The outcome we are planning for is engaged students, students who have a purpose for learning and a school that has a culture that sustains and fulfils its stakeholders.

There will be a session for Home Tutors at the Kick Start Conference in Week 2 of Term 1.

Enrolments and Staffing: Our enrolments are low with a few small classes in the Primary. However, we look forward to a large Prep class with two experienced early childhood teachers. Our Diverse Learners Team has been preparing for a smooth start with some changes in staff…new people and experienced people in new roles and with all students supported in their learning.

Field Events:  Highlights of our year are our field events where we meet our students and families face to face. In 2025 we have Kickstart Conference, Whole School Muster, Canberra and Snow Camp, Minischool, Multischool and WA Camp. So much to look forward to.

Thank you all for the constant care, attention and support for our students. Wishing you all a most well-deserved break and I look forward to seeing everyone in the new year.

Jenny Swadling

From the Deputy’s Desk

As 2024 comes to an end, it’s a great time to reflect on the achievements and memorable moments that have shaped our school community this year.

Term 4 Highlights

The Term 4 Minischool in Charleville and Multischool in Longreach were a tremendous success. These events brought students, parents, home tutors and staff together, creating valuable opportunities to connect, collaborate and celebrate learning. A huge thank you to everyone involved for ensuring these events ran smoothly—it truly takes a team effort.

Looking Ahead to 2025

Kickstart Conference

The program for the 2025 Kickstart Conference is now available and registrations are due back by Tuesday 28^th January 2025. This event is a wonderful opportunity for students and home tutors to meet, form connections and set up for a successful year. We strongly encourage everyone to attend and make the most of this experience.

Student Leadership and Halogen Conference

Our 2024 student leaders have shown exceptional growth, embracing their roles and responsibilities with confidence. Aspiring 2025 leaders impressed us during workshops with their dedication and thoughtful speeches, all of which showcased their potential for leadership.

Next year, our 2025 student leaders will attend the Halogen Leadership Conference at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Monday 24^th February 2025. This event will be an inspiring opportunity for them to enhance their leadership skills and connect with peers from across Queensland.

Canberra and Snow Camp

Excitement is already building for the 2025 Snow Camp! With 40 students expressing interest across Years 4 to Secondary, this promises to be a memorable experience. A special thank you to our P&C for their outstanding fundraising efforts, which has helped make this camp more accessible to families.

Updates to Academic Reporting

In 2025, behaviour and effort marks will be reported on a detailed five-point scale, providing clearer feedback to families. This new approach aligns with our Student Code of Conduct and reinforces positive learning behaviours and expectations. More information will be released closer to the end of Semester One 2025.

Key Dates for 2025

Kickstart Conference: 3^rd – 6^th February 2025
NAPLAN: 12^th – 13^th March 2025
Halogen Leadership Conference: 24^th February 2025
Whole School Muster: 26^th – 30^th June 2025
Snow Camp: 13^th – 20^th September 2025
Minischool: 21^st – 24^th October 2025
Multischool: 27^th – 31^st October 2025
End of year events: 2^nd – 3^rd December 2025

Thank you to our staff, parents, home tutors and students for your incredible support throughout 2024. This year has been filled with achievements and highlights, made possible by your hard work and dedication. Together, we’ve accomplished so much, and I look forward to an exciting and successful 2025.

Wishing you a safe and relaxing holiday season.

Rickie Itzstein

Head of Department: Secondary and Primary Teaching and Learning

2025 Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting   

2025 Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Framework (CARF) Updates

The K-12 CARF has been updated for use from 2025. This framework sets out the requirements for all Queensland State Schools.  This updated version merges the minimum requirements and assessment supporting documents from the two versions, allowing users to toggle between the Version 8.4 and Version 9 requirements.  There have also been some updates to the effort and behaviour sections which will allow greater consistency in academic reporting.

2025 Whole School Curriculum Plan

There have been some changes to the whole school curriculum plan for 2025 to come into line with changes being made around the 2025 CARF requirements and to better meet the needs of our students. This will mean changes around electives offered, subject hours, and Semester vs Whole year subjects. If you would like to know more about these changes, please feel free to contact the school for more information. 

There have been changes to the whole school curriculum plan for 2025 in primary too.  These changes primarily affect the delivery of The Arts. Students will continue to study The Arts on-air, with lessons scheduled for one term per semester for each class. In Semester 1, students will focus on Visual Arts, Drama, and Dance, while in Semester 2, the focus will shift to Music.

Quality Teaching Rounds

Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) is a ground-breaking approach to teacher professional development, with demonstrated impact on quality of teaching, teacher morale and school culture. The approach is collaborative and applies across all subjects and year levels, and builds the confidence and capacity of teachers at all career stages.

Primary and Secondary staff will continue with this program in 2025.

Secondary

Multischool

Students headed to Longreach for Multischool from the 14^th-18^th October.  Due to a small number of students attending and requiring transportation, school vehicles were used to transport students up and back. A total of 10 Charleville students attended Multischool, with 7 of those needing transport in the school vehicles.  Students participated in a variety of activities including a trip to the Waltzing Matilda centre and waterpark in Winton, Rangoli Creations, Cooking, Making Terrariums and Water Safety.  The Celebration dinner on Thursday night was a great way to end the week and to reflect on the school journey of our 2024 Year 10 class.

Outreach Day

The Outreach Day was held at Emu Gully Adventure Education Centre at Helidon.  This was a one-day event and staff travelled to Helidon on Sunday the 13^th October, met students and families at Emu Gully on Monday the 14^th October, and travelled home on the 15^th October.  A total of 7 students attended the Outreach Day and much fun was had participating in team and individual challenges – often involving water and mud!

Primary

Minischool

The theme for 2024 was Community and Games, designed to help students understand their role in various communities and engage in musical, sports, and quiz-based activities.

Collaborating with SQRH and HOPE, incursions and excursions were arranged with health professionals in Charleville. Prep to Year 3 students participated in the "Teddy Bear’s Hospital," where they learned about health services through role-playing scenarios involving Teddy bears receiving care. Students in Years 4–6 attended workshops at the SQRH building, simulating patient care from hospital admission to post-discharge.

Afternoon activities included Rugby League skill development, music lessons, and creating a community mural. Evenings were filled with musical games, Friendly Feud, and scooter riding at Graham Andrews Park.

Maths in 2025

There have been some changes to the delivery of Mathematics planned for 2025.  These changes affect the delivery in the lower years.  Mathematics lessons for Prep to Year 6 will align with the Version 9 curriculum and be delivered on-air. For Prep to Year 2, home tutors may need to assist with off-air independent activities. For Prep to Year 2, daily lessons will run for 30 minutes.

Thank you for a wonderful term and looking forward to seeing more amazing learning in 2025.

Venessa Moore and Dave Kruger

PLO Prattle

The end of Term 4 makes you wonder where the year has gone, another year older and greyer for some of us.

The registration brochure for Kickstart 2025 has been emailed out to all the families. Lots of fun, sharing, learning and building friendships along the way. Book your accommodation early. If you have a caravan or camper and wish to camp at Showgrounds, let me know so I can contact the Murweh Shire Council as they are very kindly letting our families stay there free of charge. 

Don’t forget to return your AIC Centrelink forms/letters so that you can claim your AIC payment for next year as this payment helps your family with the costs of field events, school resources and supporting your student/s.

The AIC payment is for Geographically isolated and Medical enrolled students. The current amount per student is $4980 per year and paid over 4 terms. This is federally funded and paid directly through Centrelink. Some keys points are:

• Centrelink currently have updated and changed the allowances/format around the Farm Household Allowance (FHS) for farmers and their partners in financial hardship.
• Geographically isolated students receive $500 (Internet Subsidy) and $400 (Hardware Subsidy) per student per year. This payment is state funded and comes through the school.
• Medical students receive $400 (Hardware Subsidy) per student. This payment is state funded and comes through the school.

I have copies of the form or if you are already registered with Centrelink then you can also complete forms online.

Enjoy your break and remember to book your accommodation for Kickstart 2025!

Helen Cook

Partners in Learning

I’d like to take a moment to extend a huge thank you to all of you who have supported Partners in Learning over the past three years. Whether you attended a workshop yourself (some of you even braved it twice!), encouraged your govie to give it a go, or spread the word to others – your support has been invaluable.

A special shout-out goes to the leadership team at CSDE for recognising the value of this initiative and booking regular workshops to support their fantastic home tutors. Your commitment has made all the difference.

Over the course of this project, I’ve had the absolute privilege of working with some truly amazing people – over 30 from CSDE alone! Your dedication to the young people you support has been inspiring. Thank you for trusting me, sharing your stories (the good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright hilarious!), and diving into the workshops with such enthusiasm. Beyond professional development, these sessions became an incredible opportunity for home tutors to connect, network, and learn from one another.

While the workshop delivery has wrapped up, the content lives on! The Partners in Learning video series is still available anytime you need a refresher. You can find it on the Queensland Department of Education YouTube channel under the playlist “Partners in Learning videos for educators, families, and home tutors” (or follow this lengthy link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgjv5epyrnQDRvo72rdcpz0PKpYbyckkp&si=-q5vIVNhkqpnWec_).

They say it takes a village to raise and educate children, and this project has shown me just how true that is. Even though this chapter has come to an end, please remember: we are all Partners in Learning.

Take care, stay connected, and enjoy your summer break!

Warm regards,

Michelle Sieber
Head of Department – Partners in Learning
Email: msieb4@eq.edu.au

Digital Discoveries

Get Geared Up for 2025

The holidays are a great time to ensure you have all the right gear to get the most out of Distance Education.

Hardware

A laptop is recommended as it allows you to move around and work in different places. The school strongly recommends that each student also have an additional monitor to allow them to have on-air lessons on one screen and other applications, such as OneDrive or OneNote on the other.

Check your student’s headset. Many will need to have a clean and, in some cases, may need repairing. Having a headset allows students to hear and speak clearly during lessons without feedback.

Computer Programs

Student laptops should ideally have Windows 11 as their Operating System (to match what the school is using).

Microsoft Office 365 (or 2016) is the preferred office suite and is available for free to all Education Queensland students to download from Office.com using their school username and password. Office includes: Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook.

In order to access the internet, the school highly recommends that students have at least two browsers on their computer. Microsoft Edge is essential with Google Chrome or Firefox being used as backup.

Students need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on their computer in order to open PDF files. This is available as a free download from: https://get.adobe.com/reader/

Internet Advice

Review your Internet plan and check with your Internet Service Provider for deals that may apply for students working via Distance Education. It is essential that students have a reliable broadband connection to be able to complete on-air lessons effectively.

Need some advice on what is the best options for accessing the Internet? The Regional Tech Hub is available to give free advice on what is the best type of Internet for your area. Visit https://regionaltechhub.org.au/ for more information.

Buying a New Computer

If buying a new computer for your student, remember to ensure it meets our minimum specifications to ensure students are able to access all resources and complete all activities required.

Student Laptop Hire Scheme

Check out the flyer for more information:

Teams Etiquette

In 2025, all classes will be taught using Teams Meetings. Please ensure your student has Microsoft Outlook and Teams installed on their computer. Below is our new Teams Etiquette Poster that should be printed and displayed near where your student completes their on-air lessons.

Need More Help?

Digital Learning Facilitator – Sam Owczarek: sowcz1@eq.edu.au or 07 4656 8915

For advice or help with using programs or tools (including QLearn and Microsoft Office).

Version 9 Update

Version 9 Update

V9 Mathematics is ready to roll out for 2025! When you receive your Term 1 resources, please take a bit of time to look through the new Maths Independent Learning Materials and read the first few of pages of the Home Tutor Guide. Within these pages, you will find a summary of the unit, the lesson sequence, resources required and descriptions of what to find in the units.

At the start of the Term 1, 2025, we will step Home Tutors through the new layout. Please bring along any questions you may have about the new ILMs.

Some of the key changes in the V9 Australian Curriculum for Mathematics are:

• A stronger focus on students mastering the essential mathematical facts, skills, concepts and processes, and being introduced to these at the right time
• Strengthened the focus on students developing the mathematical processes of mathematical modelling, computational thinking, statistical investigation, probability experiments and simulations.
• Raised standards by introducing content earlier (for example lifting standards in Year 1 in relation to addition and subtraction, with additional content setting expectations about recall and proficiency with multiplication facts, beginning in Year 2) expanding depth and/or breadth of content and including new content.
• Re-sequenced content to strengthen the developmental progression of key mathematical concepts, skills, procedures and processes based on evidence, a stronger focus on students
• Mastering the essential mathematical facts, skills, concepts and processes, and being introduced to these at the right time
• Making clear what mathematical computations need to be done without a calculator, reinforcing the importance of achieving proficiency in foundational skills
• A revision of the sequencing of content in Mathematics; in particular, telling time, introduction of fractions, recall of multiplication facts (‘times tables’) and solving equations
• Lifting standards for Mathematics in Year 1 in relation to addition and subtraction, with additional content setting expectations about recall and proficiency with multiplication facts, beginning in Year 2

https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/resources/stories/curriculum-changes#accordion-41087ee733-item-594b90cc58 

As you are teaching your students the Maths using the V9 ILMs in 2025, you may notice your student not doing something that an older child you’ve taught did when they were in that grade. For example, you may wonder: ‘Why haven’t I taught my Year 1 child about digital clocks this year?’ This is because some V9 changes include changing when certain skills are being taught (as described in the key changes above). Students now won’t need to be explicitly taught digital clock concepts until Year 3. The same is true for the reverse scenario – expectations around number knowledge have increased, particularly in the early year levels. As an example, by the end of Prep, Year 1 and Year 2, students will be expected to make connections between numbers up to 120, up to 999 and up to 9 999 (respectively).

As well as creating the ILMs to align with these changes, we have made some changes to our Maths boxes to support students as they engage with V9 concepts. These will now be sent as Prep, Year 1-3 and Year 4-6 Maths boxes. This was quite a big undertaking so thank you to families for sending these back early so Cherryl and Lhen could make the required changes in time to send Term 1 resources.

I’m excited and thankful that the project has been given another year to work on completing these Maths ILMs. Writers have worked hard to provide quality lessons for our students, and I’m grateful to work with this team of people moving into next year. Wishing everyone a wonderful long break and looking forward to what 2025 brings!

Di Knudson (Head of Curriculum)
dknud3@eq.edu.au

Western Alliance Multischool and Outreach Day

Minischool

Year 3 – 6 Camp

Year 6 and 10 Celebration Dinner

Swim Muster

Whole School Concert

Speech and Awards Ceremony

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