March 2023

Newsletter Articles

Principals Ponderings

Thank you, students, staff and families, for a most wonderful start to 2023. Was it smooth sailing? No. Was it fun? Yes.

What did I enjoy in term one and see going so well?

1. The KickStart Conference – so well organised, students engaged and learning, Home Tutors engaged and learning and our fabulous new song. Thank you, Josh Arnold, for your expertise and guidance! And how wonderful to have a whole school chorus in this video.
2. Our new staff settling back in to a different school to when they left many years ago. Thank you for brining your experience and enthusiasm to our students and fellow staff and for coming back.
3. Our returning staff with their wholehearted engagement in working for our students. We are grateful for the dedication and expertise that you bring to the running of the school.
4. The delivery of the Partners in Learning workshop. Eight home tutors attended the Charleville workshop and returned home with new ideas and ways to help their students with early reading skills and understanding. Watch this space for the term Two workshops during our whole school Muster week.
5. Our student leaders leading Assembly each Tuesday. You make it interesting and run so smoothly! Thank you, Mrs Itzstein, for helping these students develop their leadership qualities.
6. Multischool with our secondary students and teachers from across Western Queensland was a success in week nine. There were some repeated activities and some new activities that brought our students together to make new friends and work together.
7. Our supportive P&C has filled the executive positions with organised, enthusiastic parents who are fundraising to support the students’ attendance at camps and to purchase resources that support students’ learning.
8. Our state’s vision for schooling in Queensland was launched. Equity and Excellence. Through the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration, we, as a nation, committed to equity and excellence in education – that all children and young people are confident, creative lifelong learners active in their community. Achieving our vision requires a collective understanding of what we all stand for and how we will make it a reality. Excellence cannot be achieved without equity. Equity and Excellence: realising the potential of every student renews our focus on empowering our teachers and school leaders, investing in digital innovation, school performance, fostering collaboration between schools and community and delivering sustainable investment in schools for the future.

So much to be grateful for in ten short weeks.

“At the end of the day, the
most overwhelming key to a
child’s success is the positive
involvement of parents”
James D. Hull

Thank you for being those positive and involved parents. Wishing you a happy, healthy, relaxing break.

Yours in education,
Jenny

From the Deputy’s Desk

Term 1 down and so many achievements to reflect on.

Staff Professional Development Days

We were incredibly happy to welcome our new and current staff back on Tuesday 17th January this year to begin our Professional Development sessions.

Western Alliance – Brisbane meeting

Our Western Alliance teachers had the opportunity to meet their colleagues from Longreach and Mount Isa face to face in Brisbane this year. The Western Alliance Leadership team and teachers worked collaboratively and covered a significant amount of content in a brief period including our focus for 2023 – ENGAGEMENT. They also discussed the Western Alliance philosophy – Vision, Mission, and Values. The feedback from staff that attended was incredibly positive.

CLAW Workshops

We were fortunate to attend several workshops presented by the Roma Centre for Learning and Wellbeing. These centres have been established to provide valuable professional learning and capability development for rural and remote teachers and school leaders at all stages of their careers. Workshops included:

• Reading Workshop: Oral Language activities, phonemic awareness etc.
• Curriculum Workshop: Literacy demands across learning areas
• Simple View of Reading

Smarter Stronger Cultural Capability Training

All staff participated in cultural capability training presented by the Stronger Smarter Institute. During the program we focussed on cultural awareness, cross cultural sensitivity, and cultural competence. During a variety of activities, we had Indigenous knowledges at the forefront and recognised the local Indigenous peoples as the experts for what is needed in our local context. We are continuing our work on a CSDE Acknowledgement of Country.

TRACK

Are you on TRACK?

As outlined in our Student Code of Conduct, our staff are committed to delivering a high quality of education for every student, and believe all adults in the school, whether visiting or working, should meet the same expectations in place for students, being Thoughtful, Responsible, Accountable, Co-operative, and Kind (TRACK). Please ensure you have your TRACK poster visible in your Schoolroom and contact your teacher if you need another copy. TRACK postcards are sent out on a regular basis and presented during Assembly each Tuesday morning.

Term 1 Events

Kickstart Conference: 7th – 10th February 2023

Thank you to all the students, parents and home tutors that were able to attend our 2023 Kickstart Conference, it was a tremendous success! 68 Prep – Year 10 students arrived on Tuesday morning ready to see their friends and teachers and have some fun. We had an extremely busy and rewarding week:

• Class time
• Swimming lessons
• Vulcana (Circus skills)
• Carnival night
• Disco
• School photos
• Josh Arnold visit
• Movie night

WOW! So many wonderful experiences in such a short amount of time. I would like to thank Mick Winton and Jo Springall for coordinating swimming sessions. Abbey and Phoebe from Vulcana Circus for teaching our students some new skills. Katrina Lehmann for the gorgeous school photos. A definite highlight of the week – Carnival Night a huge thank you to Katy Williams for going beyond to organise this epic event, the bar has been set exceedingly high for future events! Josh Arnold filmed our new ‘United by Voice’ music video. It was an absolute privilege to work with Josh and his crew and we are incredibly proud of the new video

I would like to thank our staff, parents, and home tutors for their amazing support to ensure these amazing events continue for our students. Everyone gives up a lot of their own time during the week and I am so grateful for the dedication and contributions provided by all. Thank you to our students for continuing to represent CSDE so proudly and staying on TRACK.

National Young Leaders Day (Halogen): 20th February 2023

“For many students this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be in the same room as their heroes and role models. It provides a unique opportunity for students to gather at world-class event venues to hear some of Australia’s most high-profile people share insights from their own leadership journey.”

Miss Cash, Mrs Cosh, our CSDE Student Leadership Team and I had the privilege to travel to Brisbane to attend this year's event. We heard from guest speakers – Anthony ‘Harries’ Carroll, Hilary Rogers, Bryson Klein, and Gretel Bueta. There was extreme energy and enthusiasm shown throughout the event with the help of DJ Raf and the Dance Curriculum performers. I would like to thank Mrs Cosh for volunteering her time to travel with us and providing the best care for our students. All students and teachers had varying highlights of the event but overall, it was an extremely rewarding experience.

Western Alliance Multischool: 20th – 24th March 2023

As I write, 36 Western Alliance students are currently making their way to Longreach for our first Multischool. Students will participate in engaging subject activities with their teachers and participate in social activities such as:

• Inflatable Obstacle Course at the pool
• Holey Moley
• Amazing Race
• Astronomy
• Camden Park tour

A huge thank you to our Secondary teachers for the extra time and effort they put in during Multischool week. They give up their time to stay with the students in Longreach and ensure the experiences are engaging and rewarding for all involved. Without supportive teachers these events would not be able to take place.

Term 2 Events

Cluster Muster: Friday 21st April 2023

We will be hosting our first Cluster Musters in Charleville, Mitchell, Quilpie, and St George on Friday 21st April. The aim of these events is for students to interact with peers and teachers and engage with the curriculum. If you would like more information about these events, please feel free to contact your class or Go2 teacher.

Whole School Muster Week: 22nd – 26th May 2023

Save the date! Jess Head and her Sport Muster committee have started preparing for our 2023 event. Shaun Lethem (Senior Development Officer) Little Athletics Queensland will once again be visiting to work with our students and develop their athletics skills in preparation for our Athletics Carnival (Sport Muster) on Friday 26th May. Stay tuned for more information.

We have had such a wonderful start to the 2023 school year, and I am really looking froward to seeing what the rest of the year brings. As always, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Rickie Itzstein
Acting Deputy Principal

Head of Department: Primary and Secondary Teaching and Learning

Student engagement

Literacy groups Prep-Yr4

Prep – Year 4 teachers have met on a regular basis with staff from the Diverse Learners Team, to work collaboratively on the planning for Literacy Skills this term. This time provides an opportunity for teachers to reflect on and refine their practise to ensure our students are provided with access to most appropriate content for their learning. They are also able to constantly monitor their students’ progress, ensuring that students’ needs are met to further develop understanding and acquisition of sounds and skills. Literacy Skills teachers are currently completing Term 1 screening. This will provide valuable information to allow for effective planning to be implemented for Term 2. Students are to be commended on their engagement and effort towards these sessions.

Multischool 1 - Years 7-10 (20th – 24th March)

Students and staff travelled by coach to Longreach for the first Multischool of the year where students had the opportunity to participate in face-to-face curriculum classes as well as a variety of extra-curricular activities. Students enjoyed meeting their teachers and classmates and participating in hands-on classroom activities for Science, Maths, HPE and other subjects. Students and staff also enjoyed a trip to the local pool for an inflatable obstacle course, as well as a camp oven dinner and astronomy show out at Camden Park station. The next Multischool will be held in Term 4, week 3.

Professional Development

Annual Performance and Development Plans | Phase 1

This term staff have engaged in completing their Annual Performance and Development Plans. In completing these plans, it provides a wonderful opportunity for staff to reflect on their professional growth and areas of strength. As well as engage in meaningful conversations about school improvement agendas, development opportunities and career aspirations. The performance and development process provides the opportunity for staff to establish professional goals to build greater confidence and capability.

Systematic Curriculum Delivery

Moderation processes

Moderation processes refer to professional conversations and a series of calibration and confirmation activities, sharing expectations about student learning and achievement. At the midpoint of the term, primary staff had a planning day focused on clarity and collaboration on the Australian Curriculum. This process forms the before phase of moderation. The focus was to align the aspects of the achievement standard being assessed to the evidence of learning a teacher would be looking for in the assessment task. With this knowledge teachers identified the skills and understandings students need to develop to demonstrate evidence of learning. After establishing these expectations teachers worked collaboratively in sharing pedagogical strategies to improve student access to the skills and understandings that had been identified. This provided a great opportunity for staff to build a deeper shared understanding of the Australian Curriculum and ways students demonstrate their learning.

The last day of this term staff will be moderating at the after phase. This is when a student has completed a task and it has been marked by the class teacher awarding an appropriate grade. Teachers will bring along deidentified samples to collaboratively mark and discuss the students’ evidence of learning against the marking guide. A key aspect of this process is identifying and highlighting where in the assessment the skills and understanding that are being assessed have been demonstrated. This creates a consistent approach to making judgements on student work and reporting accurately against the achievement standard.

Dave Kruger and Venessa Moore

PLO Prattle

Another busy start to the year for Term 1.

Yes Kickstart/Minischool happened. We had 40 Home Tutors and 70 students with lots of learning and upskilling happening for both Home Tutors and students.

A positive that always comes out of Field Events is the friendships that are formed and some then become lifelong friendships. When students form these friendships at school it plays such a key role in their sense of belonging and connectedness. As they branch out and build new friendships at the start of the year, it’s important they have the skills to think critically about the kind of people they want to be surrounded and supported by.

The Carnival Night on the Tuesday night was very popular with Students, Home Tutors and Staff. Every student went away with a prize from the activities.

I also attended Multischool this term for a couple of days. It was a small number of students, however was good to catch up with the Parent Liaison Officer from Longreach SDE and compare notes and have discussions around how each school operates.

Enjoy the break, stay safe and enjoy family time along with “ME” time to re-energise and re-focus. Read a book, have a cuppa and just stare into space. Listen to the sounds around you. Have a chocolate or two or three, then go for a walk.

Cheers,
Helen Cook
Parent Liaison Officer

Partners in Learning

The first face-to-face delivery for the 2023 Partners in Learning workshops was presented during Week 7 this term. I always love coming to Charleville and this trip didn’t disappoint. I absolutely loved my two days delivering and working our way through the 4 modules that comprise the workshop and getting to know a fantastic group of home tutors. We have had a positive start for Partners in Learning this year with eight keen participants giving their time for two days to develop their understanding in how they can support their P-2 students with their speech, language and oral language development, emergent literacy skills and finally brining it all together in how to support the teaching of beginning readers. Participants developed their understandings through the use of a variety of resources and practical strategies that can be implemented in schoolrooms at home. These included identifying some speech and language development ‘red flags’, observing a shared book reading experience, planning how to teach vocabulary, working through the steps to develop narrative skills, learning about concepts of print, understanding phonological awareness including a strong focus on phonemic awareness, decoding and strategies and scaffolds to support learning to read at home.

These workshops also provide a great opportunity for home tutors to ask questions and engage in conversations throughout the two days. There was no shortage of either this time round either with plenty of great questions, interesting conversation, plenty of laughs and positive feedback at the end of the two days. Whilst the workshop may be over the support continues… I now provide ongoing support to those who have questions about the content or who would like to share something they’ve implemented.

The next workshop offering will be the 23rd – 24th June, please see the flyer included for further details. This workshop coincides with whole school muster. I look forward to working with the next round of home tutors.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions, that’s what I’m here for. The only silly question is the one you don’t ask.

“Reading is important. If you know how to read, then the whole world opens up to you.”
– Barack Obama

Michelle Sieber
Head of Department – Partners in Learning
Based at Longreach SDE
Available Monday – Thursday
Email: msieb4@eq.edu.au
Phone: (07) 4658 4220

Digital Discoveries

Typing Websites

Using a computer is a huge part of Distance Education and as such learning to type quickly and efficiently can have huge benefits for our students. Below are some websites home tutors can use with their students to practice daily or weekly typing.

Prep to Year 3 Students – learning where the keys are on the keyboard

Year 4 – Year 10 Students – learning to touch type

ICT Subsidy

The school understands that having an Internet connection and computer can be expensive and families are strongly encouraged to plan their purchases and research their Internet plans carefully. The Department of Education offers families, who are geographically isolated, a subsidy to assist in paying for equipment and Internet costs. This is an annual payment for students who have been enrolled with the school for more than 6 months. Please ensure you have submitted your bank details to the office in order to receive payment each year.

For more information visit the link below.

The current subsidy is:

Geographically Isolated Enrolments: $500 (Internet Subsidy) per student and $250 (Hardware Subsidy) per student Medical Enrolment: $250 (Hardware Subsidy) per student

Choice Enrolment: No subsidy available

What can I spend the subsidy on?

• Towards paying for a new laptop computer (the school suggests that computers be less than 3 years old)
• Towards an external monitor to go with a laptop (to assist students to see OneNote and Collaborate at the same time)
• Towards a headset (if not using the hired headset from the school)
• Towards an audio splitter (to allow a second headset for the Home Tutor to listen in on lessons)
• Towards a document camera (for showing teachers work on the desk)

Headphone Splitter

A headphone splitter is a nifty device that lets you connect multiple audio outputs to one headphone jack. All you have to do is plug the audio splitter into your PC’s headphone jack and secure your headphones to the splitter. Headphone splitters work with any wired audio device with 3.5 mm plugs.

Headphone Splitter for headphone jack

Note that our school-hired headsets are a USB connection and home tutors are able to connect an audio jack headset to the computer as well as the school-hired headset if the computer has the ports available.

Document Cameras

These are like webcams but designed to be able to share what is happening on the desk to show the teacher.

Dictate Tool

Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and OneNote have a dictation tool that students can use to talk to the computer and it will type for them. Check out more in the attachment: Dictate.

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 on the Learning Place (including eLearn, Microsoft Office and Collaborate Ultra).

Kickstart Conference 2023

Kickstart Conference 2023

Leaders Conference – Brisbane 2023

Leaders Conference - Brisbane 2023

Multischool Term 1 2023

Multischool Term 1 2023