August

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Ponderings

Reflecting on this time last year, we were developing our first newsletter in this format. I hope that you are enjoying the photos and articles that form this very important communication channel for our school community.

After months of planning our 50th Jubilee celebrations are nearly upon us. Have you put in your registration? We encourage you to do this as soon as possible to allow for caterers and organisers to make sure you have food and fun.

The photo book has arrived and is waiting to be taken home to your house to enjoy the history and fun in the pages.

Staffing:

Georgia-Lee Coldwell (SWD) has successfully applied for a promotional position as Head of Special Education Services and will be working part time with us teaching and leading our support teachers.

We have successfully appointed Louise Upton as the fulltime SWD teacher. Louise will commence on the 11th August. Louise will be able to meet students who are coming in to Sports Muster. Louise has been at SDE in the past and has spent the intervening years at a Local school. We are excited to have Louise and her wealth of experience joining our team.

SWD Teacher Aide: Unfortunately Rachael Kennedy has had to shorten her time with us. We are now in the process of seeking a teacher aide for 12 hours per week to work with Students with Disabilities.

Cluster Musters:

Successful Cluster Musters have been held at St George, Mitchell, Charleville and Quilpie. Roma was cancelled as the numbers dropped due to unfortunate family circumstances. While we have guidelines for the numbers needed to run events, each year will bring different groupings and requirements to meet student needs, so nothing is set in stone or cancelled forever. When numbers and situations that are in the best interest of students and within the school budget, field events will be conducted.

Thank you:

I would like to say a special thank you to Kate and all staff for the smooth running of the school while I was swanning around South Africa. Reporting, planning for Cluster Musters and other activities all ran to plan.

Also a huge thank you to the P&C for the successful Playground application. We are being inundated with advertising from companies with playground equipment for sale.

The next step is to decide the what, where and when. The steps will include:

• Geoffrey Elliott (facilities) is coming to talk with me about where and what
• I have a list of preferred suppliers for DET…we do not have to use these.
• Stage one: soft fall and equipment
• Stage two: the shade cover

I am leaving this for after the Jubilee and Sports Muster. Watch this exciting space. The goal is for the playground to be in place for Kick Start Conference next year.

School review:

After the very successful school review the Executive summary and the long version of the report are now on the School Website for public information. These will be discussed at our School Management meeting on the 10th and 11th August by the Management Committee and later by the staff and P&C members. We will all be considering the recommendations and how this informs the Quadrennial School Review and the Strategic Plan.

School Opinion Survey:

Thank you to the 37 parents and 27 students who have completed this survey. There were some hiccups with the emails to notify you of your login details and the date has been extended to the 5th August for our families because of this. Your considered feedback through this survey is used to inform our planning for each year and the more responses that are received the better the information.

NAPLAN:

If your year 3, 5, 7 or 9 student completed these tests this year, the results are to be delivered in the very near future.

Much work is being done to take these tests to an online platform for 2019. Please be assured that we are working with the team doing this in Queensland to ensure that there is equity and sensibility in what is best for students.

SDE Principals’ Meetings:

On the 28th and 29th July the SDE Principals and SODEA representatives met together and separately. A special thank you to Annabel Tully who is taking over from Helena Salmon who both attended this meeting as a hand over. Thank you Helena for your dedication and input into this very supportive group pf parents. Welcome Annabel to the position.

Curriculum leaders and some Prep teachers also met during this time. Zoe and Micarla Byrne attended. Their agenda considered realigning Prep with the Australian Curriculum.

Other discussions included:

• C2C Consolidation: As reported by the Minister of Education the C2C (the Curriculum into the Classroom) that supports schools with planning and teaching resources to implement the Australian Curriculum is under review as a result of teacher and parent concern for the amount of content expected of students.
• As the implementation has progressed, teachers and students have become more familiar with the curriculum content and standards. To ensure the C2C materials continue to meet the needs of schools and students, the number of C2C units for English and Mathematics are being revised. For the Individual Learning Materials (ILMs) that our students receive each Distance Education school had already started this process and now welcome the results of the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) further guiding us with this.

The ILMs will not be rewritten and our HOD, Zoe, will bring further information as the work is done.

ETeach: Judith Felton presented the updated progress of the units available for 2017. These units will replace the CLC units that our Primary students have been completing. Further information will be provided when our unit schedule is released. These units have had a very positive response from the students and families who have trialled them, for their ease of use, student engagement and time taken to complete the unit.

Welding competition: Have you started a sculpture to grace our school grounds as a unique example and proud display of something that depicts your property or home? Please see the Arts and Crafts information booklet for the details.

Wishing you all a wonderful August, full of an exciting Sports Muster, A fun filled 50th Jubilee and a successful learning experience for those students and staff attending the year’s 4-10 camp.

Yours in education,
Jenny

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin

From the Deputy’s Desk

Successful Cluster Musters

Thanks to all who have attended the term 3 round of Cluster Musters. Both the teachers and admin staff have greatly enjoyed the opportunity over the past couple of weeks to meet with parents and home tutors and to work with the students. This term students focussed on learning important skills that will soon be put to good use at our annual Sports Muster. Parents and Home Tutors focussed on the importance of feedback. See also Zoe’s article for more on this topic.

Camp

This year students in years 4 – 6 with CSDE and students in years 7 – 10 across the Western Alliance will be coming together to attend our tri-annual camp to Canberra followed by 3 days at the snow fields of Smiggins Holes. This much anticipated camp looks set to be a great week with 48 students, 7 staff members from across CSDE, MISOTA and LSODE and 6 parents all getting ready to meet the politicians and don their ski gear.

Thanks to the CSDE P&C for their contribution of $100 per attending student to assist as many of our students as possible to attend.

Australian Government assistance for National Capital excursion

Students from our school will soon be undertaking an educational tour of the national capital. While on this tour they participate in a variety of educational programmes focussed on Australia’s history, culture, heritage and democracy.

The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit their National Capital as part of their civics and citizenship education. To assist you (the parent) in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government is contributing funding of $60 per eligible student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate programme toward the travel expenses incurred. This contribution will be paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion.

We would like to thank the Australian Government for their support of this program. Activities undertaken as part of this educational excursion will be outlined in a later newsletter.

Minischools

Planning is now underway for term 4 Minischools. Invitations and expressions of interest will soon be arriving in your blue mail bags. Please ensure that you RSVP for this event as soon as possible. If you haven’t yet had a go at being a food coordinator or assistant why not make 2016 your year? There are still plenty of “old hands” around to help you out if you feel you would like to take the plunge.

Curriculum Corner

Curriculum Dispatch

The production timelines for 2016 papers are becoming too close to the time that units are needed which doesn’t allow much time for them to make their way to you or for teachers to plan with them. Therefore, the following decisions have been made:

• Western Alliance: students will use 2015 papers for all subjects from Unit 6
• P-6: 2015 papers for Unit 6
  Unit 7 & 8 to be decided this week after talking with C2C

This might make it somewhat confusing with discs etc so we apologise in advance for this but rest assured, we are doing what we can to make life as simple as possible.

Digital Readers

Thank you to those P-3 parents and HTs who participated in the trial of Wushka and for the time taken to provide your feedback. I will collate the feedback and consider how this will work for our school and whether it is the best option for us. Please stay tuned on which subscription we decide to go with!

Curriculum Leaders Meeting

As I am writing, I’m looking at the clock to ensure I don’t miss my plane to Brisbane. I will be catching up with the curriculum leaders and principals from the other SDEs on Thursday and Friday of this week to discuss:

1. The eTeach resources (HPE, Arts, Civics and Citizenship and Digital Technologies) and how we can implement these into our unit schedules next year.
   I am hoping that we will be able to use these new materials to replace our current CLC units that no longer align with the Australian Curriculum. I will however be considering the roll out of these units and what will be best for our school and our students. This will be done by keeping in mind the introduction of new units and the prior skills required to complete them as well as whether the units we have been using or are currently using are able to continue to work in our setting.
2. Prep
   We will be considering the prep resources and whether they still align to the current curriculum and whether they are manageable for families. We will also be looking at what other SDEs are doing to value add to the current papers and what can be removed from the papers to make on-airs and the daily routine more manageable.

Considering the Prep papers is not going to be a fast or easy job and may need some future actions developed around it. This will be done in consultation with the other SDE principals.

Thanks
Zoe Farrer
Head of Department – Teaching and Learning

Teaching and Learning Library

Feedback – the breakfast of champions.

I wonder what goes through you mind when you think of the word “feedback”? Growth, criticism, motivation, goals, development, failure… Are those thoughts mostly positive or negative?

How you think about feedback can have a significant impact on your schoolroom and consequently this can also affect student’s beliefs about feedback. Do you go through the feedback sheets with your students or do you throw them straight in the bin? Do you manage to use them to work towards future goals?

There is lots of educational research going around at the moment about the importance of feedback. In fact, the work of Hattie shows that feedback has a significant effect size of 0.73 (with anything above 0.4 being considered a ‘desired effect’).

Feedback is even in the top 10 of the most effective practices that can be used to improve student learning!

During our Cluster Musters, we discussed the following:

What is already happening in our school in relation to feedback?

• What feedback is given from HT to student and from HT to teacher?
  - Are you giving mostly corrective feedback or are you taking the time to acknowledge distance travelled or achievements as well?
  - In Charleville, it was discussed how the relationship between staff and HT plays a big role in the ability to give and receive feedback. It is however the responsibility of both parties to work at this.
  - We also discussed how we often jump to corrective feedback, with much less consideration to thinking about what is working well. Have you told your teacher about something you’ve admired or you noticed worked well?
• What feedback is given from Teacher to student and Teacher to HT
  - We have established that lesson reflections at the end of lessons are a really valuable feedback tool in terms of how the lesson went.
  - Feedback sheets were considered the best when they articulated the achievements and the things to work towards in a nice easy to read table.

One of the biggest considerations when looking at feedback is that we want our students to develop a GROWTH mindset. We want students to understand that their brain is always capable of growing new connections and this is done through difficult situations, challenges and feedback. We want our students to see failure as a part of learning and to know how to work through that failure so that success follows.

So, how do you give effective feedback?

This can be done in 4 ways:

1. Use affirmation with all students (but make sure this is about performance and not praise)
2. Use corrective and direct feedback to help inexperienced and struggling students with a particular task
3. Point out the process when you want to help your students use your feedback to complete similar tasks in the future
4. Coach experienced and gifted students to critique themselves.

We are entering an ever increasing world of test scores, benchmark tests and grades and in that ever changing world it is important that we don’t lose sight of why we have students in school. We want them to grow; to become a life-long learners; to be critical thinkers and to be ok with the ‘unknown’. Life isn’t predictable. We don’t have all the answers. And we therefore owe it to our kids to teach them the skills to successfully navigate the unknown world.

If you were unable to make the CM session and would like to learn more about the feedback process and how to make the most of it, I’ll be running a HT Drop In on 17th August 2pm. This will be a repeat (shortened version) of what was offered at Cluster Muster. I believe that the parents who were able to attend got a lot out of the session, so it would be great to see you there!

If you attended the session at CM and would like information from the slides, please email me at zfarr21@eq.edu.au and I will be happy to share.

An “I can do this” attitude will move mountains.

Thanks
Zoe Farrer
Head of Department – Teaching and Learning

PLO Prattle

The countdown is on for Sports Muster and the big 50th Birthday Party. Have you booked your accommodation yet? Also please note the change of time for the start of this year’s Sports Muster.

Another article from Michael Grose, this month it is about being tolerant of others and how we are all different in some way. Just look at me………..I’m short for my age and weight haha.

Why tolerance encourages success

Want your child to be successful way past the confines of the school gate?

Then you need to make sure your child is tolerant of individual differences and accepting of children and adults who look and act differently to them.

There’s no doubt that success in today’s world depends on the ability to understand, appreciate and work with others. The child who is open to differences is likely to have more opportunities in school, in business and in life in general.

Schools are diverse places

Walk into any school ground in Australia and you’ll witness diversity firsthand. You’re likely to see children from many different cultural, racial and family backgrounds. You’ll also see kids with different needs and diverse ways of expressing themselves. Some kids will wear their hearts on their sleeves, while others will be taciturn and quiet. Tolerant kids are accepting of these differences. They make friends with children and young people who may look and act differently to them.

5 ways to promote tolerance in your child:

1. Help your child feel accepted, respected, and valued. When your child feels good about himself, he is more able to treat others respectfully.
2. Model acceptance. Kids learn what they live so make sure you welcome differences in others, and be sensitive to cultural or racial stereotypes.
3. Challenge prejudice or narrow-minded views. Sometimes kids, knowingly or unknowingly, can say the cruellest things about others. As a parent respectfully remind your child or young person about the impact that a narrow view can have on his or her own behaviour as well as on those it may be directed towards. Intolerance of diversity is an attitude that parents should make a stand against.
4. Answer kids’ questions about differences honestly and respectfully. Teach your kids that it is acceptable to notice and discuss differences as long as it is done with respect.
5. Respect individual differences within your own family. Your ability to accept your children's differing abilities, interests and styles will go a long way towards establishing an attitude of tolerance in the children themselves. By valuing the uniqueness of each member of your family you are teaching your kids to value the strengths in others, no matter how diverse.

I can’t wait to catch up with everyone at Sports Muster. GO NARUNGI

Helen Cook
Parent Liaison Officer

Digital Discoveries

NEWS FLASH: iConnect will continue to be used until further notice

New Web Conferencing Delayed

The new Blackboard Collaborate is now on hold awaiting a final sign off after investigations into security. Home Tutors are still able to test the system until we officially launch. All eLearn courses have a session available for testing called ‘Help Desk’. Please note that while students can use Web Conferencing on an iPad the App has limited tools available and won’t give full interaction like the online version does.

For full instructions on how to access the new Web Conferencing using the Blackboard Collaborate Launcher please view the appropriate documentation below:

Charleville SDE’s Facebook Page

Have you seen some of the new videos on our YouTube Channel yet? New videos are being loaded, some especially for the 50th Anniversary Celebrations with lots of photos and videos from our history!

iPad App of the Month: OurPact

OurPact is a parental control app for iPhones, iPads and iPods that makes it easy for you to set limits on how much time your children are spending on their mobile devices and using the wireless Internet. Create schedules, block all Internet and app use at a moment’s notice or reward them with the allowance feature.

Parents direct involvement in their children’s mobile habits has proven to be a key factor in children’s healthy approach to technology. Encourage or block all mobile apps and Internet access at your own parental discretion through OurPact’s schedule dashboard or block/allow feature.

Parents can also restrict access to certain things on an iPad using the settings. Please read the document below for more information and step by step guide:

Student Work Celebrations:

The ICT students have been learning about ergonomics and the best way to sit at a computer. Check out these fabulous examples of how to sit correctly.

For more information on working ergonomically at your computer watch this informative YouTube video:

Year 8 students have been experimenting with the online presentation tool ‘Prezi’ as a replacement for PowerPoint.

Check out the latest blog posts:

From the Technician’s Table: Removing old Apple ID on iPad

If your iPad has an old Apple ID stored it may stop you from downloading updates and new apps. In order to remove the old Apple ID you need to sign out of it and sign in with a new one.

It also pays to check the Messages, FaceTime and Videos to ensure that the Apple ID has been signed out there too.

Western Alliance

Junior Secondary:

The Western alliance is running smoothly. A HOD (Chris McIntosh) has been appointed from within the staffing to support the Alliance with leadership and operational support.

Discussions about the subjects offered for 2017 are being held and families will receive this information as soon as possible.

Parents of students in Year 6 will be given more information about what the Western Alliance is and how it operates in the near future. This will help when decisions about year 7 and secondary options are being made.

An information night is also planned for Thargomindah to introduce the Secondary Learning Centre and Western Alliance to students and Parents in Thargomindah.

P&C News

Not long now till Sports Muster. I’m sure your house is like mine – excited students practising for Sports muster including war cries and finishing off their art entries and Mothers planning what to bake to bring for the smoko challenge.

Sports Muster

Thursday 11th

12 noon - Canteen open for adults and below school aged children. Gluten Free Options must be ordered.
E-Kindy and School students’ pre-ordered lunches delivered.
Remember to register at the registration table.
New families keep an eye out for the colourful balloons at Mrs Cook’s table. Any questions will be answered for you.
Cent Sale tickets on sale.
Souvenirs and Uniforms Stall
12.30 - Whole School Assembly
1pm - Sports Muster events commence.
1.45pm - Parents of E-Kindy to Year 2 students meet teachers in the pavilion to help change students into School Uniform for photos.
2pm - E-Kindy to Year 2 photos
Canteen closes
2.30pm - Smoko Challenge available for Adults and below school aged children.
School student smoko delivered
3pm - Year 3 -10 photos

Friday 12th August

8.30am - March Past and War Cry
9am - Canteen Open
10.30 - School student Smoko
12.20 - School student pre-ordered lunches
1.30pm - Canteen Closes
2pm - Cent Sale drawn and results written on whiteboard. So remember to check before you leave Sports Muster.
3pm - Whole school presentation. Sports Muster finishes.

Have you?

• Returned your Sports Muster form
• Returned the student lunch order form
• Ordered Gluten Free food at the canteen if you or anyone with you needs it.
• Emailed Anne-Marie Flynn (gfcolamba@gmail.com) if you can help for an hour in the canteen.
• Registered for the Anniversary

What to Bring:

• Your smoko challenge contribution. We want to beat the staff this year.
• Art and Craft entries
• Blue school shirt for school photos
• Eskies for your ordered pies
• School photo order form

50th Anniversary – Make sure registrations are sent in to the school.

Friday 12th August

6pm-9pm - Meet and Greet. Book Launch

Saturday 13th August

8.30am – 12 noon - Official Welcome/ Time Capsule/ Markets
1pm – 5pm - Wine and Cheese Marquee at Races
6pm – 10pm - Adult Trivia Night

Sunday 14th August

7am – 9am - Farewell Breakfast

50th Anniversary photo Book

The book has arrived. Make sure you put your order in. The P and C would like to thank the following sponsors: Elders, Southern Wire, Williams, Hall and Chadwick Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors, Centacare Toowoomba, Rabobank and Murweh Shire Council. Please consider supporting these organisations as they have supported us.

Battery Drive

A huge thanks to Richards Transport who have again transported our battery collection for free. The P and C are very lucky to be supported in our fundraising effort by this very generous company.

Fundraising

Last days for sending in your Pie Order. What a great way to support the P and C, but also to fill your freezer with yummy pies that are quick and easy to cook for those busy days we all have.

REMINDER……

All memberships are NOW DUE

If you have not been receiving the documents for the meetings, your membership is not current for 2016. Membership is free. Please complete the form and send to the secretary.

Next meeting is Tuesday 30th August. We hope you can join us.

Quilpie Cluster Muster

Fun was had by one and all at Quilpie Cluster Muster on Tuesday!