19 August 2025

Date Claimers

Principal’s Report

Our School Priorities are:

• Teaching Reading Through the Australian Curriculum V9 – focus signposts Vocabulary and Fluency
• Developing Effective Pedagogies when Implementing the Australian Curriculum V9 Mathematics
  

P&C President Position Vacant

After 9 years of involvement in the P&C, most of these in an executive role and 5 years as President, Merrick Ilett will be stepping down from the President role at our September P&C meeting to allow for a smooth transition process to occur. Merrick will continue as an additional Vice President to enable him to support the new President before leaving our school as a parent (his children will have all moved to High School) at the end of the year.

Merrick has been an incredibly hard worker and supporter of our school and myself for many years. While Merrick leaves big shoes to fill, this is a golden opportunity for a new parent to join our P&C and have the opportunity to learn the President role alongside the current president in a smooth transition before the end of the year. If you would like to know more about the President role, please don’t hesitate to contact Merrick to discuss milet3@eq.edu.au . We will be calling for nominations at our next P&C meeting on Wednesday 10 September.

If you would like to become our next P&C President, please complete a nomination form for the position and submit it to the Secretary, Erin Porter, either by email eport96@eq.edu.au or in person.

School Review

Thank you to all our school and local community members that participated in our school review process that came to a conclusion last week. Our reviewers will now complete their final report which we will communicate and publish once this process is finalised.

Children’s Book Week

Book Week – This Thursday 21 August – Dress up Day

As one of our priorities this year is reading, participating in Book Week is a great motivator to engage students in reading. We encourage all students on Thursday 21 August to dress up as one of their favourite book characters.  Costumes do not need to be fancy; half the fun is involving students in making their own costume.

Support our Chappy Chris on Saturday 13 September 2025

Next P&C Meeting Wednesday 10 September – We need You!

New parents are welcome and encouraged to attend our next general meeting on Wednesday 10 September at 6:00pm. This meeting will be held in the Library where parents can attend face to face or can tune in from their own home using Teams online.

Our P&C is achieving some wonderful outcomes and welcomes all newcomers to ensure that our P&C is truly representative of our whole school parent body.

Have a Magic Week in Maleny.  
John 

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 (07) 5499 8333 so we can update our records. These details include parent/carers’ name, address, phone number, 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 Safe

Buzz Phrase:         Bullying No Way!

The Bullying No Way: National Week of Action was officially 11-15 August 2025.  At Maleny State School we will be dedicating a fortnight to Bullying No Way! Staff and students wore a “pop” of purple on Friday 15 August and joined in a whole-school assembly.

Bullying is the ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening. (To see the national definition of bullying for Australian schools go to bullyingnoway.gov.au)

Bullying No Way! is an opportunity to promote the importance of peer, school, parent and community connections, where every child feels safe, supported and respected.

Positive school climates that value diversity and inclusion can foster a sense of belonging and provide a protective factor against negative peer relationships and reduce bullying (Australian Education Research Organisation, 2023).

This means we think about:

• Speaking and treating others respectfully - in person, behind people’s backs and online.
• Including rather than excluding others.
• Reporting bullying and standing up for others rather than joining in or saying nothing.
• Using the High 5 strategy.

We all have a role to play in preventing bullying.  We’re encouraged to speak up and create a safe place where everyone feels supported and respected, and our voices are heard and valued.

PBL Team

2026 Enrolment Information Questionnaire for Maleny State School

In order to accurately plan classes for 2026, we need your help. We need to know exactly which students WILL and which students WON’T be returning to our school to begin the 2026 school year with us.

Can you please take a couple of minutes to complete and submit this form?

Obviously, the more accurate the information you provide now, the less potential disruption there will be to the students on Day 8, 2026.

Please return the form no later than Friday 29 August 2025.

Thank you so much for your assistance with this complex process.

Year 4

Learning About Food Waste

This term we have been investigating the importance of being Waste Warriors and choosing to live more sustainably and becoming educated to be responsible consumers.  Over the last two weeks we have been learning to write persuasive arguments about different topics using many rhetorical devices to add impact to our writing and persuade our audience to listen to our opinion.  We know how important it is to present facts to back up our arguments and by including statistics it makes our case stronger.  Some of the topics we have investigated included: paper wastage, changing our mindset about eating fruit and vegetables that are classified as the Odd Bunch or seen as not perfect, and taking time to be aware of what is in our fridge and cupboards and reducing food wastage by planning meals and using food up before due dates.  The Year 4’s are entering a competition with OZ Harvest where we are designing a new packaging label for “Use it Up” tape.   There are great prizes for individuals and schools, and the winning package design will be used Australia wide.

We have taken home our bright yellow “Use It Up” tape to label products in our fridge to help us remember what is close to the use by date.  Some of the students have been taking photos of the Odd Bunch fruit and vegetables at the supermarket and we have been enjoying taste testing these products and finding they taste the same as the so-called ‘perfect’ produce but are cheaper to buy.

This week we have been focusing on Fast Fashion and we have discovered from research that Australians buy an average of 56 new clothing items a year and Australia now leads as the world’s biggest consumer of fast fashion in the world.   Fast Fashion is a huge problem that adds to landfill and has enormous environmental consequences for our planet. The students have been brainstorming ways to promote better solutions to address this problem.  Some ideas include:  swapping clothes with friends instead of always buying new ones, buying clothes from op shops, supporting brands that treat workers fairly and care about the environment, and being creative by repairing or decorating old clothes to make them new again

Two weeks ago, the Year 4’s created fruit skewers as part of our FEAST Program to contribute to Chappy’s Breakfast Club.   We had Keith Gilbert from Pick of the Crop come to help us on the day as we learnt about cutting up the different fruits and the nutritional value of how they help our growing bodies and minds.  Our Fabulous Fruit Kebabs were very colourful and included blueberries, apples, oranges, mandarins, strawberries, grapes and bananas as well as some Greek yoghurt.  Some of the students in 4B made up signs for Breakfast Club and others interviewed students about whether they enjoyed the kebabs and feedback was recorded and shared with the rest of the class.

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In Science, we have been investigating the observable properties of different materials. 4B started the unit making and exploring the properties or cornflour slime.  We have been busy looking at different vocabulary to use when exploring properties such as ‘flexible’ or ‘durable’.  We have also started looking at the properties of ochre when mixed with different binders.  

For Drama, we have started looking at how play scripts are written down and had lots of fun presenting these plays to the class.  The children are learning to project voices, use expression and actions to be more engaging for the audience.

Kind Regards

Lou Walsh & Trish Mackay (4B), Caroline Hartley (4A)

War on Waste

Wide Bay Seedlings Donates to the Garden Club

We were very lucky once again to receive a very kind donation of 70 vegetable seedlings delivered by our wonderful Pick of the Crop Co-ordinator, Keith Gilbert.  The Garden Club members were busy weeding and planting out the seedlings suitable for this time of the year.  We added tatsoi, sugar loaf cabbage, chinese cabbage, red chard, baby broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbages and lettuces.

4B students enjoyed making kale chips to enjoy as a treat after working hard for the morning.  We had two different varieties of kale and both were delicious and a big hit with everyone.

It is so lovely to walk down to the garden and be able to create one of our favourite recipes so easily.

The garden club members have been checking the Year 2 students with their NUDE food lunch boxes.  It is so good to see kids using small containers and less packaging.

Kind Regards
Lou Walsh

Chappy News

Mess

Ok, so I have a confession to make.  Sometimes I like to make a mess.  I am the one around the school who looks forward to making slime, using paint, glitter and sequins.   I love making mess!  Well kind of, I love the fact that mess often means freedom and/or creativity.  I was the mum at the beach who let their children bury me in sand and the mum who let their children jump in muddy puddles. I also loved playing with playdough, slime and soil.  However, I do understand the frustration of daily household mess and clutter (she says as she picks up her children’s dirty socks for the fifth time this week!).

At our school I run an arts and crafts club at lunch time to encourage creativity and build student’s confidence.  This club also furnishes our students with an opportunity to work together, share resources and ideas as well as to socialise with other students.  It takes me a while to prepare for the weekly session and clean up afterward, especially if we use paint.  However, it is totally worth it to see students display joy and confidence about what they have created. 

My children are now teens and aren’t real keen on getting messy anymore.  However, I will never forget or regret my time that I spent with them exploring, experiencing and experimenting.  I encourage you to get messy and creative with your children.  Yes, it takes a while to clean up, but you are making wonderful core memories with them.  Cook together, create an artistic masterpiece, google some low cost science experiments.  They will remember the time you spent with them the most over anything else you have done for them. 

Chappy’s quote for the week: “Time spent playing with children is never wasted” Dawn Iantiro

Chappy Chris

P & C News

Next P&C Meeting

Wednesday 10 September @ 6.00pm

Mewar Café (Tuckshop)

Opening Hours

Mewar Café will be open Tuesday, 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 J

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 payments may be made in person at the office.

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

Community News

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

https://malenysportandrec.org.au/events-calendar/

You can keep updated with Maleny Community News and the Maleny Local Shopper at the  NEW link: https://issuu.com/Maleny-Grapevine-Community-News

P&C’s Qld - Click through to view their most recent editions of Parent Talk - https://pandcsqld.com.au/members/publications/parent-talk/