21 May 2018

Newsletter Articles

Date Claimers

• Throughout Term 3, Tuesdays @ 3:00–4:00 afterschool rehearsals Pirates! We're Pirates!

Principals Report

The Rotary Club Recognises Maleny State School’s New Initiative on our War Against Waste

Earlier this year, the Rotary Club of Maleny invited community groups and organisations to apply for grants up to $1000, to implement programs or projects benefiting communities in the Maleny and Montville environments. At the beginning of this year, our school had joined the Sunshine Coast Council's STARS program, which involved our school focusing on recycling, composting and reducing our landfill footprint.

Over the last few months, the entire school has been involved in an initiative where they are creating compost from waste, which, previously would have been sent to landfill. We set up three rotating compost bins in our garden area to collect our fruit and vegetable scraps. Classes have been receiving instruction on what can be recycled and each eating area has signs displaying reminders to assist the students on the correct bin to use. In addition to this, we placed four different bins including a compost, recycling, soft plastic and waste bin in all eating areas for the students to access. It has been very pleasing to see the students making a real effort to take the time to recycle and reuse and it has been fantastic to see students proudly showing their lunch boxes with less packaging!

This whole initiative would not be possible without year 3 teacher Lou Walsh and five very dedicated year 4 boys who empty the compost and recycling bins each afternoon. They have given up their time to be bin monitors in eating areas to remind students which bin to use. William, Cameron, Ranger, Zac and Jesse have shown great leadership and accepted the responsibility happily. Our homemade compost has been emptied into our garden beds and we are now growing vegetables and herbs. The different classes have enjoyed visiting the garden and seeing where the compost is going each day as well as smelling and tasting our produce.

Last week we received great news that our grant application with Rotary was successful. We were very fortunate to be given $900, which we will use to purchase another rotating composting bin and to grow new garden beds. William attended the Rotary Presentation night on Wednesday and received the cheque on the school’s behalf. He has represented our school in an outstanding way and we are very proud of him. Thank you so much to the Rotary Club for their generosity and for supporting this very important project that will focus on giving our students the skills to contribute to sustainable practices for the future.

Celebrate our Champion Chappy Becky- Give Me $5 for Chappy

Next week we will celebrate Chappy Week where we highlight the positive role that our Chappy Becky contributes to our school and wider community. Becky officially works of a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday each week, however in reality Becky often commits many hours of her own time outside of these to care for the welfare of our students and parents for which we are grateful.

Many students (years 1-6) take the opportunity at lunch time to play games, sing karaoke, dance or participate in drama activities in a safe positive atmosphere in the hall with Becky.

Breakfast Club of a Wednesday morning has been a huge success where kids and big kids like myself can enjoy a delicious free breakfast served with a smile from Becky and volunteers Becky has sourced.

Becky has been instrumental in coordinating our hugely successful Mentor program within the school. Mentors are matched with individual students and act as a positive role model spending one hour every week with students. Mentors are difficult to find and without Becky’s networking we would have very few. We advocate strongly that all students have 5 trusted adults/friends that they can share information and confide in. When I ask children who their 5 trusted adults are Chappy Becky is more often than not one of them.

Chappy spends a lot of her time having quick supportive, caring and reassuring conversations with kids or at time just being there to listen. The conversations can range from a scratched knee or friendship issues to the more serious of grief and loss that is a reality of children’s lives.

The government funds a 2 day chaplaincy program at our school and Chappy is required to fund raise funds for the third day as well as for any resources such as art and craft that she requires. To show our support for Chappy Becky next week the Student Council will hold a free Dress Day on Tuesday 29 May, and ask families to donate $5 or a gold coin towards our Chaplaincy program.

Mother’s Day Stall

Congratulations to our P&C for their fantastic organisation and to all parents that assisted, donated gifts or supported this event. Certainly our students enjoyed purchasing gifts at the stall. A special mention to Mandy McMahon who coordinated this fundraiser making a $1873 profit, this is a fantastic effort. We received some great feedback and it looked like this event was enjoyed by all. Thanks to all of the excellent volunteers we had, including the Yr 6 girls - Libby, Eliza, Enya and Anna - who were so efficient and friendly behind the counter.

Attendance – Every Day Counts especially Friday

While our attendance data has been overall pleasing this year so far, Friday is consistently our lowest attendance day. Friday is just as an important a day as any other in the week, where new concepts are taught, consolidated and it is business as usual in classrooms. Teachers require five days a week to teach all the content contained within the Australian Curriculum.

Classes that have the highest Friday attendance go into a draw each week at Assembly. The winning class gains the privilege of sitting on the seats at the front of assembly and the honour of hosting the Friday Attendance Trophy.

Purchase your new School Jumper and School Hat

Our Uniform Shop is stocked up with new polar fleece jackets. No doubt with cool weather coming these jackets will sell quickly. A reminder that all students require a school hat every day at lunch time and for outside lessons. Please check your child has a named hat and it is in their bag each day.

We Need You!

Our next P&C meeting will be held at 6:30pm on Wednesday 13 June. Please come along as our numbers at last meeting were down on previous meetings.

Updates on local issues and organisation of our Country Fair will be key items on the agenda.

Have a Great Week.
John

From the Deputy Principal

A simple way of developing the first building blocks of an effective writer?

Our school focus is writing – but within this one area are many complex elements that work together to create an effective writer.

In the last ten years, a solid body of research has shown that effective writing depends on the development of lower-order skills, such as handwriting and spelling, and of higher-order skills, such as planning and revising.

There is a strong relationship between handwriting automaticity (often called fluency) and written composition. The ability to write quickly and effortlessly allows children to focus on translating ideas into writing, thinking about what they want to say about the topic at hand.

Poor handwriting may conceal the writing potential of primary school children. Teaching handwriting improves both automaticity and the writing quality of texts produced by students in primary and secondary schools.

Therefore the teaching of handwriting is a very important building block to becoming an effective writer. The earlier children use a pencil to write and form letters correctly the better and the more often they repeat the formation of their letters they will develop automaticity, which will not only be helpful for handwritten text but will also improve their ability to type text as well.

A simple way of developing handwriting automaticity is to time writing the alphabet correctly, with correct letter formation. Each day trying to better the time from the day before.

Paula Heiniger – Deputy Principal

Trapezoidal Tables for Sale

The school has a number of surplus trapezoidal tables (ranging in size from 560mm to 730cm high) for sale at a cost of $5.00 each. Buyers will need to arrange for the relocation of any tables purchased.

An appointment can be made to view the tables by contacting the school office on 5499 8333.

From the Office

Payments

Payments can be made by any of the following methods.
Directly into our bank account noting the invoice number, initial and surname of the student for whom you are paying. Our Bank account details are:

BSB: 064-462
Account Number: 10080359

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.

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.

Casual School Crossing Supervisor Position

A casual position exists for a Casual School Crossing Supervisor at Maleny State School, you may also need to relieve at other schools.

The School Crossing Supervisor may be required to work five days per week in all weather conditions. The hours of work for School Crossing Supervisors are normally 1.5 hours a day and usually comprise of one hour in the morning and ½ hour in the afternoon.

The successful applicant is dependent on:

• The favourable outcome of a health assessment carried out by a Government Medical Officer or a duly qualified Medical Practitioner according to the guidelines in the “Notes for Medical Practitioner” on the School Crossing Supervisor Scheme – Health Assessment Form.
• Holding a Positive Notice Blue Card (or be prepared to apply for a Blue Card if successful).
• If you are successful in your application for this position, you can only commence employment with Transport and Main Roads if you hold a current Blue Card or are renewing your Blue Card and have submitted either a Blue Card Application form or Authorisation to Confirm Current Blue Card form to the Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardian.
• It will be necessary for the successful applicant to carry out mandatory training with the Queensland Department of Transport.
• Applicants are required to advise in writing of any charges that have been laid against them or any offence of which they have been convicted of.

To apply for this position, please collect an application package from the school office and return the ‘School Crossing Supervisor Employment Application’, Advertised Position Application and your suitability for the position addressing the selection criteria as listed in the ‘Position Description’ to;

Private and Confidential
The Business Manager
Maleny State School
Bunya Street
Maleny, QLD 4552
Email: bsm@malenyss.eq.edu.au

Applications close at 3.00pm on 1 June 2018.
For further information please phone the Road Safety on 07 54521827

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.

Music Notes

Pirates! We're Pirates!

A very big thank you to Miss Dawn from Maleny Dance Academy who has kindly choreographed three dances for our Pirate Musical and has taken the time to teach me, my Year 5, and Year 6 dance helpers each of these dances. Over the next few weeks, during music lessons, all the students in Years 1 and 2 and 3 will spend some time learning a dance specifically for the Pirate Musical.

After School Rehearsals for Actors

Small group rehearsals during lunch and school times.

As well as Musical Rehearsals during lunch and school times there will also be After School Rehearsals for ACTORS from 3:00pm – 4:00pm on Tuesday 29th May, Tuesday 5th June, Tuesday 12th June and Tuesday 19th June.

Miss Darcy, Bec Palridge (our Acting Director) and I will be leading these rehearsals.

If you have any questions please contact me: lcrip9@eq.edu.au

Liz Shortland – Music Teacher

SWPBL (School Wide Positive Behaviour Learning)

Buzz Phrase

The buzz phrase for weeks seven and eight is a Be a Learner Rule – Learn to listen, Listen to learn.

Students are encouraged to be good listeners, wait for their turn to talk and listen to others when they are speaking.

Classrooms will discuss the importance of working in an environment which encourages and supports all students’ learning. We need to acknowledge everyone’s efforts and different styles of learning. By doing this everyone can achieve to the best of their ability.

Bee Club News

Students should be well on their way to collecting stamps on their Bee Club cards. Rewards for the end of this term are:

Be Super Club (10 stamps) - In class reward
Be Awesome Club (20 stamps) - Games on the oval
Be Epic Club (30 stamps) - Watch a movie in the hall

Keep on following our Four Be Rules to achieve these great rewards.

Prep A & B

Wind Ornaments

Our Science Learning has been all about materials as the children build upon their understandings for their assessment task - creating a wind ornament. They have been describing the properties of materials and discussing their suitability for being outside in the weather. To test how different materials might be affected by wind, the children created kites with tails made from a range of materials – foil, paper, plastic, vinyl, ribbon. They enjoyed running and flying them on the oval to make their observations.

Writing

Writing has continued daily with our focus this term being on Exciting Endings. We have been retelling fairy tales and asking the children to think of different ways to end them with impact. We have encouraged the children to use sound effects and WOW words to make their writing more interesting to the reader. Here are some of our very exciting endings

Sasha's exciting ending for Little Red Riding Hood: "Aaaaah!" said Little Red Riding Hood as she looked into the big bad wolf's eyes.

Matilda's exciting ending for The Little Red Hen: Mmmmmmm! The Little Red Hen decided to sell the bread.

Mandy Bauer (Prep A) & Lindy Hicks (Prep B)

Year 1A & 1B

Year 1 students have been learning about patterns in Maths and utilising some Age Appropriate Pedagogies. 1A took the opportunity to create repeating pattern pasta necklaces as a special gift for Mum on Mother’s Day. Students also dove into the Visual Art curriculum where they created line art portraits of their Mum’s. We hope all Mother’s enjoyed their gifts on their special day. Whenever we can, we take every opportunity to bring the ‘fun’ into learning. While learning about 3D shapes 1B created 3D models using toothpicks and plasticine. Both classes are also looking forward to hearing the poetry that students will be presenting in English this term! Students have chosen some great pieces to perform and have begun practising.

Jo Dykes (1A) and Rochelle Callard (1B)

Year 2A & 2B

We are deep into learning and assessment for this term. Please remember that we will need your children's push pull toy (a note went home last week) that they are making at home out of recycled materials, as soon as possible so we can use it for the experiments and assessment for science.

Sarsha Anthony, Jean Penny & Libby Ferguson

Year 3A, 3B & 3C

ANZAC day reports

Over the last few weeks in HASS, the Year 3’s have been busy looking at the significance of Anzac Day. They have researched the different groups that march and the different reasons why this day is commemorated. The students then wrote an information report explaining why aspects of our Anzac day parades have stayed the same or changed over time.

In English we have been enjoying reading Charlotte’s web and focusing on the different character traits.

In Science the children have been exploring space and have made models of the earth to observe how day and night occur.

The children are very excited about starting their desk caddy this week. They have been busy drawing their designs and incorporating recyclable materials to make it useful for storing their belongings.

Emma Back, Anne Coogan, Trish Mackay & Lou Walsh

LOTE News

Japanese Poster Competition

Useful Apps for Japanese Homework

Drumming

On June 7th Maleny State Primary School is hosting an incursion from the Brisbane based Japanese drumming group for students in Year 5 and 6 only, from 10–11 am, in the school hall. The cost of the performance is $ 4.00 per student. Permission slips and invoices will be sent home soon. Completed permission form should be returned to the school office by Tuesday 05 June.

Ms Emi Obara – Japanese teacher

Students of the Week: Week 3

Highest Class Attendance for Week 3

Congratulations 5A

Students of the Week: Week 4

Highest Class Attendance for Week 4

Congratulations 3B

Innovation Centre

Sumo Robot Battles

The GEMS RoboClub (Yrs 5&6) entered into the Robocoast Sumo Robot Competition last weekend. 135 teams from primary and high schools, from as far afield as Hervey Bay to the southern side of Brisbane competed for various prizes, including full robotics kits. Being our very first ever attempt we all knew it was going to be an uphill battle. All of the student teams did a great job for their first ever go. Teams battled in the sumo rings in 'best of three' rounds. With 6 rounds in the day before the finals, teams were able to see how their robots faired and changes to designs and even coding they needed to become more successful. One team even made within 1 point of the finals round. So close! Check out the final robot designs below.

The robotics club will be taking a short hiatus over the coming weeks, during the main assessment block, before beginning again on new robotics challenges. It is also planned mid-year that an additional intake of 8 students from years 5&6 will occur when we receive the final grant payment from the Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow program that focuses on Robotics and Coding. So if you missed out first time around the next intake could be your opportunity.

A big thank you to the parents who came along and helped on the day. It was huge and I couldn't have done it without your support.

Year 3 Coding Club

Starting in week 6, year 3 students have been invited to participate in a coding club, focusing on the Scratch2 visual programming language. Last week students were shown how this wonderfully powerful little program can be used to create games, tell stories and create interactive characters. This software is used in year 3 and 5 in Semester 2 to create interactive activities and games as part of the work in Digital Technologies, Science, HASS and Health. Code Club materials are made available world-wide (click here for more information on Code Club) … Have a look at some of the projects we'll be exploring. There are limited spaces (our computer lab is only so big). The Lunchtime club runs on a Tuesday 11:00-11:25 each week. If any parents are interested feel free to let me know and come along. Mrs Back will be assisting as well.

BTW... the best bit is that the software is FREE! Check out this older page I wrote about Scratch in the school website a few years ago. There are links to the Scratch page if you are interested to download it. There are heaps of resources as well to get you started.

Book Fair

The Book Fair is once again upon us. The Book Fair will be open between the 11- 13 of June at various times of the day (specific times to come closer to the day). The Book Fair is hosted at school inside our Science and Technology Room (STiC) between the Innovation Centre and tuckshop. Children will have the opportunity to visit the Book Fair stall and write down a wish list of a few titles that they would love to get. Of course there is no need to buy all that they wish for. It is just a wish list. Payments are either made online or via card payment at the fair. Keep an eye out for more posters and information in the coming weeks.

Mr Greig & Ms Shelley – Innovation Centre Team

P&C News

Our next P&C meeting will be held at 6:30pm on Wednesday the 13 June.
Updates on local issues and organisation of our Country Fair will be key items on the agenda.

Uniform Shop

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 8:30-9:30am on Fridays, bring along a friend and be part of our happy team

The Uniform Shop's regular hours are Friday mornings between 8.30am and 9.30am. Payment options are EFTPOS, cash or cheque at the uniform shop only. Alternatively, orders can be placed online by 5pm Wednesday for Friday pickup or class delivery.

Chappy News

Being a Friend

I’ve recently been speaking with my son about how to be a good friend. For some us making friendships is not the easiest thing to do and so I was helping my boy recognise and develop his questioning skills in order to get to know someone better. I asked him to think of all the things he would like to know about someone and write them down. I also explained that a good friend will ask lots of questions and won’t just fill the conversation talking about themselves. When you BE what you would like a good friend to be to you, then I’ve found that making and keeping friends is quite easy. Another aspect of friendship that I have been talking to some students about this week involves honesty and trust. A great proverb says, “An honest answer is a sign of true friendship.” I shared with some students that I have had a close friendship with a girl I have known for 30 years. I explained that there have been many times in my life where she has spoken truth to me. Even when it has made me upset, I’ve been able to go away and think and see that what she has said HAS been true. A true friend will speak the truth in love and will not just say things to flatter you. Another great proverb says, “In the end people appreciate honest criticism far more than flattery.” I encourage you to think about your own friendships and strive to be that friend who is honest and speaks from a heart of love.

Volunteers Needed!

If you are a parent/grandparent/member of our community who is interested in the Mentoring Program at our school, please see Chappy.

CAMPS…

Anyone interested in camps that are happening in the June/July holidays please see me for a brochure.

Have a great week.

Chappy Becky

Community News

Permanent Cleaning Position – Maleny State High School

Applications are invited for the permanent position of a school cleaner for 35.25 hours per week + ADO. The successful applicant will be required to work Split Shifts. eg. 5:00am - 9:00am ; 2.30pm -6:00pm - Monday-Friday.

Application packages are available from the school office or email chart55@eq.edu.au

Applications close 15 June @ 3:00pm.

Please contact Carol Hart – 5499 8104 if you have any queries.

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