23 July 2025

Date Claimers

Principal’s Report

Our School Priorities are:

• Teaching Reading through the Australian Curriculum V9
• Developing Effective Pedagogies when Implementing the Australian Curriculum V9 Mathematics

Read Bears for Year 1 Students- Blackall Range Lions Club

‘Read Bears’ is a simple but effective programme aimed at Year 1 students.

Aims include:

• Increasing reading skill
• Improving child well-being
• Improving parent interaction
• Improving self-confidence & esteem

Children are given a handmade donated ‘read bear’ with an attached tag enabling the child to personalise their bear with a name. Children take the bears home and read to them each school night. This provides children with more motivation to read books by having a friend to read and chat to. It also encourages parents and siblings to be involved in reading with the child at home, this initiative by the Hervey Bay Neighbourhood Centre is in its 7th year.  We are very extremely grateful to the members of the Blackall Range Lions Club and other local groups that have made over 70 bears for all of our Year 1 students to take home, love and read to. Seeing the excitement of children selecting and naming their bears was truly one of the most rewarding sights I have seen. The kids just love their bears. We would like to thank all of the ladies involved in knitting each of these bears and look forward to a continued partnership with the Blackall Range Lions Club.

Parent Teacher Interviews

We look forward to as many parents as possible taking up the opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting with their child’s class teacher this week. Report cards were issued in the last week of term which will give an overall indication of how your child is progressing. Parent teacher interviews give you the opportunity to find out in more detail your child’s strengths and challenges and how you can support them at home. It also allows you to provide the teacher information about your child that will assist them in providing the best support. Parents are also welcome to arrange a meeting with your child’s teacher throughout the year to check on your child’s progress or inform the teacher of any new developments that may be beneficial for the teacher to know.

Every Day Counts

Attendance

As educators, attendance is extremely important to us, as we know first-hand and are backed by research that students with low attendance are more likely to struggle academically, socially and emotionally. As this term commences make it a family goal to strive for a 95% attendance or better. Research also reveals that attendance patterns in Prep tend to not change as students progress through school.

Reading is one of our school’s priorities this year and one of the most important skills that, unlike speaking, needs to be taught to us. The foundations of reading - learning the sounds (phonemes) of the letters (graphemes) and how these blend together - starts on day one of Prep. Learning the decoding skills of reading continues to be an important focus over the first three years of school and becomes difficult for children to progress with reading when they arrive at school late or have low attendance.

Don’t get me wrong, if children are sick they need to stay home, rest and get well and not spread their illness to others.

Last term I notified families of any students who had an attendance lower than 80%. For some children this was unavoidable due to illness or other circumstances, for others, parents were surprised that arriving late to school consistently or having regular appointments in school time adds up and can impact on children’s overall progress. 

Administration Building Refurbishments

Our Administration Block refurbishments are now complete, and our office is back open for business and firing on all cylinders. I very much appreciated the flexibility and patience of our staff and parents during the last three weeks.

Comedy for a Cause – Have a great time while supporting your children

Enjoy a Night Out at “Comedy for a Cause” – Child-minding available!

Join us for a night of laughter, food, and community spirit at Comedy for a Cause, proudly presented by the Maleny State School P&C.

This fantastic event will showcase some of the top comedians from the Sydney and Melbourne International Comedy Festivals – all in support of our school.

Event Details:
Date: Friday 8 August 2025
Venue: Maleny State School Hall
Doors Open: 6:00pm
Show Starts: 7:00pm
Runtime: Approximately 2 hours

Tickets:  General Admission $45 per person
Book your tickets now – seats are limited!

Food and Drinks:
A food and bar service will be available from 6:00pm to 7:00pm, and again during intermission.

Child-Minding Available:
We know how tricky it can be to plan a night out, so we’re offering a child-minding service in the OSHC building for primary school-aged children (5–13 years) of parents/carers attending the event.  1 child: $30, 2 children: $50, 3 children: $70. Places are limited – book early to avoid disappointment.

Please note: Comedy for a Cause is an 18+ event and may contain some low-level coarse language.

This is a great opportunity to relax, enjoy a professionally run comedy show, and support our school community.

We’d love to see you there!

National Tree Day

Friday 25 July is National Tree Day for schools. As we’ve done in previous years each class will be provided with a tree and a stake to decorate. All classes will plant a tree in our rainforest area on Thursday or Friday of this week.

Purchase your new School Jumper and School Hat

No doubt with cool weather here students will be needing the correct school jumper each day. Students without the correct school jumper will always be offered a clean second-hand jumper from the office until they have their own. We ask parents to wash and return these after use to school. A reminder that all students require a school hat every day at lunch time and for outside lessons. New reversible school hats with sports house colour on the reverse side are now available.

Visit the Store of a Friday 8:30am – 9:00am or order online at  www.malenypandc.com.au

We Need Second-hand Uniforms

We are well aware of the current cost-of-living pressures and want to help ease this pain by offering second-hand uniforms for sale at a reduced price. If your children have good quality items of clothing they no longer fit or require please hand these to our office or Uniform Shop, any donations are much appreciated.  If you are experiencing financial hardship please feel free to contact myself, Desley or our Business Manager Corinne who will be only too happy to see how we can assist and support families.

Have a Magic week in Maleny.
John 

From the Deputy Principal

2025 Naplan Reports

Year 3 and 5 students who took part in Naplan this year, would have received their reports on Wednesday 16 July. In the envelope given to students was enclosed the 2025 Naplan (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy tests) - Individual Student Report for the child plus an accompanying cover letter for the parent.

To support parents and carers understanding, ACARA has produced the Information for parents and carers brochure on the proficiency standards.  The link for this information can be found at  https://nap.edu.au/docs/default-source/naplan/isr-parent-carer-faq.pdf or at the NAP website https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/foe-parents-carers

If you have any further questions please feel free to discuss with your child’s teacher at the Parent Teacher Meetings this week.

True Relationships and Reproductive Health - Sunshine Coast Human Relationships Education (Sexuality Education) Sessions for our Year 6’s on 6 & 13 August

This term our Year 6 students will be involved in a relationship and sexuality education program run collaboratively with True Relationships & Reproductive Health and the classroom teachers.

The many benefits of relationship and sexuality education include supporting the development of a healthy self-esteem, a positive attitude towards sexuality, information to care for our bodies and the development of skills to make healthy decisions.

The best way for children to learn about sexuality is by receiving small amounts of age appropriate, factual information from parents/carers and teachers in a gradual and ongoing process.

True recognises that parents are the primary sexuality educator of their child.  Parents/Carers and schools can work together to encourage healthy behaviours and attitudes about sexuality & bodies. The following information may be useful to start discussions with your child, so that you have the opportunity to reinforce appropriate behaviours, new skills and discuss your family’s values, attitudes and beliefs about these topics.

In line with the national HPE curriculum True will be delivering sessions in the Year 6 classes. The information will include:

Year 6

• Body parts – names and functions
• Body changes – physical, social and emotional changes of puberty
• Reproduction and pregnancy
• Healthy relationships
• Decision making
• How to find accurate information on bodies

Each child will receive a leaflet outlining the information that they learned in class, allowing families to continue conversations at home.

A note went home with all Year 6 students on the first day of term 3.  If you have any concerns about your child participating in the programme you can contact the school on 5499 8333.

If you would like further information on communicating with your child about sexuality or about these sessions, please contact Hayley Rowe at True on 07 5479 0755 or hayley.rowe@true.org.au

Paula Heiniger
Deputy Principal

Students of the Week

Contact Details – Do we have your most up to date contact details?

There are times when we may need to contact parents and carers. Do we have your most up to date contact details?  If not, please contact the school on 5499 8333 so we can update our records. These details include parent/carers’ name, address, phone numbers, email address and emergency contact details. Please remember to contact the school if any of these details change.

PBL (Positive Behaviour Learning)

Be Rule - Be Responsible

Buzz Phrase - Quiet Feet, Quiet Mouths

Our first BUZZ phrase for the term is “Quiet Feet, Quiet Mouths”.

This means we move around the school respectfully. We keep to the left when walking on paths or stairs and follow adult directions. We also model sensible behaviour to others and line up and transition quietly between places.

• I keep noise to a minimum.
• I walk.
• I move around the school quietly.
• I keep to the left.
• I sit quietly in lines.
• I follow adult directions.
• I model sensible behaviour.
• I give way to adults.
• I move quickly and quietly between classrooms / lessons.
• I return from play in a respectful manner.
• I leave and enter parade respectfully.

Looking forward to a wonderful term.

PBL Team

Year 4B & 4A

Our Second Term was a Fantastic Time for Learning

At the end of last term, we were busy putting together our Informative texts on our chosen endangered species into a project format.  We had to consider “salience” which is the placement of titles and pictures to draw the reader's attention to our work.  In addition to this some of us created life cycle wheels to show the many stages of development.  The different sections that we completed included an Introduction, Diet, Habitat, Life Cycle, Threats, How We Can Help and a Conclusion.   We also had to Identify our sources where we obtained information and completed a Glossary of Topic Specific Vocabulary at the back of our work.  In the last week we enjoyed sharing something interesting that we found out with our peers.  

In Mathematics, we had been planning a pizza party for our final assessment, where we had to itemise and calculate all costs involved to determine how much each member of our class would have to pay.  We included extra for Gluten Free options and ensured Vegetarians were catered for and that each person would be able to have two pieces of pizza.   The children had to include prices for paper plates, napkins, knives and forks and decorations in their total price.  On the last day of term 2, we celebrated with making our own pizza using produce from our garden as a reward for working so hard during the term.  We went down to the garden to identify the different herbs we could use and learnt about the nutritional value and medical uses of some of our herbs eg. rosemary – oil is great for headaches and adding sprigs to hot water can help with sore throats.

We made four different pizzas which we all enjoyed.

During this first week we celebrated NAIDOC week with the theme “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy”.  Over the week of celebrations, the students researched famous and inspirational young Indigenous people from this country and investigated the life cycle of the Bunya tree.

We found out that Bunya trees are classified as monicous where they produce both male and female reproductive structures on the same tree.  They can live up to 600 years and can grow up to 50 metres tall.  

We also completed research on the culture and language of the Jinibara people and why the Bunya tree is so significant.  The Year 4’s created a large bunya tree (Banji) using their thumb and handprints to mix colours and completed a senses chart about this magnificent and special tree.  

These two pieces of work will be placed in the Indigenous Corridor in our school.

Over this next term we will be focusing on writing persuasive arguments and looking at the structure for setting these out.  Year 4’s will be taking part in the Oz Harvest FEAST program where we will be learning about reducing food waste at school and at home. Some of the Year 4’s will be completing persuasive news reports in our school newsletter about practical ways we can reduce food waste, and we hope to offer new lunchbox ideas by providing recipe suggestions that can help to use commonly wasted foods.   We will be using produce from the garden to also make recipes to share at Breakfast Club.  We have two guest speakers visiting us from the Sunshine Coast Council in August to talk about Composting and Waste Management Strategies. We will hopefully gain some very valuable life skills over the next semester and look forward to sharing our learning with you.

It is wonderful to see everyone back at school for a very exciting Term 3.  Camp is coming up in Week 7! 

Kind Regards
Lou Walsh & Trish Mackay (4B) & Caroline Hartley

Jinibara Language Word

As we already know, there are four groups who make up the Jinibara nation. The Nalbo people lived on the land where our school is and Nalbo means the gum of the hoop pine tree. The Dala were named after the staghorn fern. The Dungidau group, we learnt last parade, means the water gum trees by a river.

The fourth Jinibara group is the Garumnga people. They occupied a large area of territory at the southern end of the Jinibara Nation and were in contact with groups from the Ipswich area. Their dialect differed a good deal from the northern groups of the Jinibara Nation. Their land also extended across the Brisbane River, though are distinct from the Jagara people.

You can see the region on the map that belonged to the Garumnga people.

Please say after me, Garumnga (Garumnga).

Yunundai

War on Waste

Enjoying Planting Our Seeds

We have been so lucky to have Chappy donate some fantastic seed growing houses to plant our seeds which were kindly donated from Green Harvest.  We will be adding some of our seedlings to our salad table and to try out hydroponics as well as in our wicking beds to make comparisons on growth rates.

Our Challenge for the Whole School

The Garden Club members have started a campaign to promote nude food lunch boxes.  At the end of last term, we celebrated the tremendous effort that Year 3 has made to reduce plastic packaging in their lunch boxes.  Everyone was very proud to have their photo taken showing their lunch boxes and then we celebrated this on parade to share with parents and other classes.  We will now be focusing on the Year 2’s to show us what they can do.  The Garden Club members will be speaking to classes about reusing their sandwich bags and using small plastic containers which can be bought at op shops.  We are keen to be a Nude Food Lunch Box School in the Future!

Over the holidays our seedlings have grown and we are now planting them in our garden beds.  We also added seedlings to our salad table to observe and learn about hydroponics.

Kind Regards,
Lou Walsh

Chappy News

What’s happening this term

Welcome to term 3 all, we are two weeks in and going strong.  I thought I would give you a bit of an update about what the Chaplaincy service is up to this term.

Breakfast club continues with the help of lovely volunteers on a Thursday morning from 8:00am.  Students and the school community enjoy a free brekky of cereal, toast, fruit, yoghurt and milo. And, of course, a bit of a chat.  All are welcome, why don’t you give it a try if you don’t already come along.  However, as I will be attending Year 5 and Year 4 school camps, there will be no brekky club on 21 and 28 August. 

Chappy lunch clubs happen most first breaks on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.  This term I am planning on running a science experiment club, a drumming group and arts and crafts club.  Information will go out to the students via their teachers soon.  Lunch time clubs are a good way for students to socialise and learn additional skills in a smaller group environment. 

I continue to speak to students and help in classrooms where required as well as support the school programs and initiatives. 

This term, I have joined forces with the student council to carry out an additional project to support a local community group.  From Wednesday 23 July to Wednesday 6 August we will be running a Smart Pups Paws to Support Initiative at school.  That is, we will be asking every student to bring in a gold coin donation to support Smart Pups. Each student then will be able to write their name on a carboard dog paw which will be displayed in our wall of paws in the hall.   Smart pups trains autism service dogs, seizure response dogs and multi-purpose assistance dogs to support children with special needs. (https://www.smartpups.org.au/) On Wednesday 23 of July during parade we will have a short presentation from some dogs and their trainers from Smart pups to let us know how the money will be used. At our school we like to focus on community partnerships and helping students to learn about others’ experiences.  Research shows that teaching children to give can have a strong correlation with developing further social skills such as empathy and compassion. Thank you for supporting this project.   

It is so wonderful to have school chaplaincy services partly funded by government however there is a percentage of Chappy's wages that needs to be fundraised.  The organisation that employs us is a non-for-profit organisation also. Most chappies that you will meet will express their discomfort around promoting fundraisers.  We just want to do our best to serve the school community without all the other pressure of asking for support.  However, there is a group of local people who have volunteered to hold a fundraiser for the three chappies of Maleny surrounds.  That is Chappy Chris (Me), Chappy Jayde (Kenilworth and Conondale) and Chappy Donna (Maleny High School).  The details are below however I wanted to personally invite you to this event.  There will be lots of free activities and stuff given out as well as well as some low-cost food and activities.  We would love to see you there. Pop by and say hello as we really want this event to be about getting to know our community.

Thank you again for your ongoing support of having a chaplaincy service at our school.  I always love speaking with you at the gate, waving to you in the street and saying g’day in Woolies. 

Chappy Chris

P & C News

Mewar Café (Tuckshop)

Opening Hours

Mewar Café will be open Monday, Thursday and Friday:

• 8:30am to 12:00pm (first meal break only)

My School Connect

Orders can be made on the online ordering system My School Connect.

• Online orders close at 8:30am each morning.
• Snacks, drinks and frozen items can be purchased over the counter.

When ordering, please ensure that you see the GREEN THUMB screen and receive an order confirmation email.  This notes that your order has been successfully submitted and will be sent to our service.

Several times each week, we still have upset children turning up at the final bell for 1st Break looking for their 'missing' orders.  We need all of the preparation time from 8:30am to 11:00am (when the first bell for 1st Break rings) to have every order ready for collection.  It is not possible to prepare fresh or cooked meals during 1^st Break.

Please ensure there are sufficient credits in your child's account so that they can purchase items from our Counter Menu in the event that their online order was not successfully completed or that they have forgotten to bring their lunch to school.  We don't want to see any child go hungry!

Our current menu is available on the P&C website. 

Thank you for your support and any casual or recurrent volunteering will make a big difference to our committed Team!

Volunteers - If you can help please contact Mewar Café

For instructions, support and to learn more, visit Mewar Café.

Feedback is welcome to improve our service and menu items.  You are welcome to visit the Mewar Café to talk to one of our team or send an email to:  tuckshop@malenyss.eq.edu.au

Uniform Shop

The Uniform Shop's regular hours are Friday mornings between 8.30am and 9.00am. Payment options are EFTPOS or cash at the uniform shop only. Alternatively, orders can be placed online via the link below by 5pm Wednesday for Friday pickup or class delivery.

If you have one hour per month that you may be able to help us out in the Uniform Shop please contact the office on 5499 8333.  Open from 8:30-9:00am on Fridays, bring along a friend and be part of our happy team.

From the Office

Payments

Payments can be made by any of the following methods.

1. Directly into our bank account noting the invoice number, initial and surname of the student for whom you are paying. 
2. Credit card using the bPoint reference number that is located on the bottom left hand side of your invoice. Credit card payments can also be made in person at the office.
3. Cash and cheque can be made by placing the cheque/correct change in a payment envelope and depositing it into the drop-safe in the office. Please ensure that the envelope is sealed so the cash does not fall out.  Please write the student’s name, class, amount enclosed and what the payment is for, clearly on the envelope. 

Office hours are 8:00am to 4:00pm on Monday - Friday.

Sports & Co-Curricular Group Photos

Community News

Please see the link below to the Maleny Sports and Rec Maleny Events Calendar.

You can keep updated with Maleny Community News and the Maleny Local Shopper at the  NEW link: 

P&C’s Qld - Click through to view their most recent editions of Parent Talk -