15 September 2020

Newsletter Articles

Date Claimers

Principal’s Report

Terrific Term Three

I would like to congratulate all of our staff and students on a magnificent term. At the start of this term I challenged staff to prioritise their teaching on those areas that would be of the greatest benefit to our students and make the most difference. I am extremely pleased by the progress of all our students and can report that this challenge was well and truly achieved by our staff. Student behaviour has been excellent and our positive incident data has been far superior to the equivalent time periods in the past. I am very grateful to our Positive Behaviour Learning Team and the consistent implementation of behaviour processes across our school by all staff. It is an honour to be the principal of a school where the overwhelming majority of students do the right thing, because it is, the right thing to do!

Colour Fun Run - Last Week of Fundraising

We are slowly creeping towards our $20 000 target set and are hoping we will have a late surge this week in fundraising to make it a reality.

So far, we have had monies pledged to the amount of: $16923.96

Local Businesses Sponsoring Students in Fun Run

A Huge thank you to:

• Sunshine Coast Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd - Melissa Berglas
• Maleny Arts and Craft Group – Secretary Debbie Palmer
• Rhee Taekwondo Maleny – Nathan Arrowsmith

On behalf of the P&C I wrote a letter to the Chamber of Commerce asking for businesses to sponsor a child in our upcoming Colour Fun Run. The above businesses responded immediately and were only too happy to be involved donating generous sponsorship. We are very grateful for their involvement in supporting our school. The IGA Maleny also advised that we have funds available in our Community Benefits Fund that we can access. This is a timely reminder to please ensure you are registered with the IGA and have nominated the Primary School as your preferred Charity.

Maleny IGA donates one cent in every dollar you spend back to your local Charity of choice.

Crazy Hair and Free Dress Friday

Our Student Council will be holding a Crazy Hair Day this Friday. Students from all classes can colour their hair at home, wear wigs or design funky hairstyles. To participate we ask students to donate a gold coin. It is essential that students Do Not bring hair spray or hair colour spray cans to school.

Queensland Mental Health Week: Take Time for Mental Health, 10th-18th October

Aims:

• Raise awareness of the importance of mental health
• Promote easy to apply strategies to take time for mental health

This important week raises awareness of the importance of communities supporting mental health and wellbeing.

The theme for Queensland Mental Health Week this year is ‘Take Time for Mental Health’. We will be holding a whole school week where children and staff will be able to take part in a range of experiences which support wellbeing and help children understand the importance of being as healthy as they can be.

To help us do this, we need your help!

• Are you or do you know someone who works in this area? For example nutritionist, personal trainer, yoga instructor, pilates instructor, mindfulness or life coach, art therapist etc.
• Are you able to support our school by offering your time to lead a session(s) for a class/teachers?

We are aiming to enrich our current health and wellbeing offering to children and staff through highlighting this dimension of learning to the school during this week.

If you think you could help, please email admin@malenyss.eq.edu.au with your contact details, what you could offer and availability of day.

Father’s Day Stall 2020

A huge thank you to Mandy McMahon and her helpers for organising and coordinating this well-oiled event that ran very smoothly. $1000 profit was made in a very unusual year. This was an outstanding effort, especially in a very different year where no donations were sought.

Swimming Term 4

All students will participate in Swim and Survive Lessons (Swim and Survive is a national swimming and water safety program to teach children essential foundation skills in swimming, water safety, personal survival and basic rescue) in Term 4. These lessons will commence in Week 3 (19 October) and continue to Week 7 of a Monday and Tuesday. Cost will be $12.50 per student. These sessions will be coordinated by PE teacher Shane Turner, Maree Hooley Swim Coach and Corinne De Jong.

Maleny State High School - Enrolment

Last week the Maleny State High School held a parent information session for year 6 parents. If you missed this opportunity it is essential that you complete an enrolment package available from the Maleny State High School (we also have a number of packages available at our office). Students must have their application lodged to be available to attend the High School Transition Days.

Transition Days:

Transition days for 2021 Year 7s will be held during Week 8 of Term 4 (25&26 of November). This 2-day event will be for only those students who have submitted enrolment applications prior to these days.

2021 Classes

Class Preference Forms Due in by Week 3 Term 4

Please ensure you have completed a class preference form in writing by Friday 23 October 2020 if you would like us to consider any educational reasons about the placement of your children in 2021. I remind parents that we are a relatively small school and most year levels have two full class cohorts, this does not allow for a great deal of flexibility around which class or teacher some requests may ask for. All requests on time are considered but ultimately decisions are made by the school to benefit all students rather than specific individuals. We aim for balanced classes and a lot of time is put into making classes up by teachers who consider numerous factors including, academic, behaviour, social-friends, emotional, students with special needs, disabilities, physical classrooms, legitimate on time parent requests. Sorry late requests from parents will not be able to be considered. For requests to be considered they must be lodged on time on the correct form. Any request previously submitted in a past year must be resubmitted again this year if you wish the same circumstances to be considered.

Leaving our school or have a 2021 Prep student enrolling

Our staffing formula is based on student day 8 2021 enrolment numbers and as such it is crucial that 2021 Prep students enrol now to assist us with our class structure organisation. It is also crucial that if families are leaving next year they alert us now.

Prep Information Session – Save the Date

A Prep information session will be held on Wednesday 4 November at 5:30pm at our school. Please phone 54998333 to RSVP by Friday 30 October.

Register for Prep now! Don’t wait.

It is essential that parents who have not contacted the office to register their child for Prep in 2021 do so now. Please do not assume we know you are coming. Registration can be completed in a one minute phone call (Ph 54998333) or an email to admin@malenyss.eq.edu.au.

Note: all students will require a birth certificate before commencing Prep in 2021. I look forward to meeting with you soon. If you know a family in the area that has a Prep eligible student for 2021 please encourage them to contact us immediately.

Prep Enrolment Interview Dates:

Interviews will be held over 2 days (Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd October) and are already filling fast. If you have not booked your Prep enrolment interview please do so as soon as possible.

Please Call 54998333 to book your 20 min interview with your child, you can collect enrolment forms and packages from the office and our Web Site.

Transition to Prep Days

We will be holding a series of Transition to Prep days to ease the children’s transition from home, kindy and day-care to Prep. Children are invited to attend any or all of these days with an adult. These transition mornings will provide you with an opportunity to visit the Prep classrooms and playground and meet the friendly staff. Please bring a hat. Parents can order uniforms for students on these days. Students need to be enrolled to attend our transition days.

These days will be held on:

• Wednesday 11 Nov - 9.00am – 10.00am
• Wednesday 18 Nov - 9.00am – 10.00am
• Wednesday 25 Nov - 9.00am – 10.00am

P&C Meeting – We Need You!

Our next P&C meeting for the term will be held on Wednesday 14th October (Term 4 Week 2) at 6:30pm. Please click on the link emailed to you to join our Skype meeting. We welcome and encourage new parents and citizens to attend our meetings.

Keeping our school safe

Please keep an eye on our school over the holidays and report any suspicious activity that you may notice as unusual. It is a credit to our community that we thankfully have not experienced any of the vandalism etc. that many other schools do struggle with. This being said we realise that we must all continue to be observant and play our part collectively to ensure that this continues. A big bonus for us is that parents do not allow their children to come to the school over the weekend/ holiday period and know where children are at all times. Our local police also do a wonderful job and regularly patrol our school out of hours, I very much appreciate their continued efforts.

Have a safe and relaxing holiday, I look forward to catching up in Term Four.

John

From the Deputy Principal

RRR – ‘Repair Relationships Room’ – A Restorative Practices Approach

At Maleny State School we have a RRR room, so I thought I would include a snippet in this week’s Familygram to explain the purpose of the RRR room and how it works.

What is Restorative Justice & why do we use it at Maleny state school?

The Positive Behaviour for Learning process is aimed at setting rules and boundaries and teaching socially acceptable behaviour. By developing social and emotional skills, positive relationships have a greater chance of flourishing. It embraces a wide range of human attributes: Respect, responsibility and valuing one another and our learning.

When an incident occurs, the impact it has had on those affected is explored and ways to make amends are investigated. This way of dealing with issues is known as Restorative Justice. Restorative practices focus our attention on the quality of relationships between all members of the school community.

It asks the questions:

• What happened?
• Who has been hurt or harmed?
• What can we do to fix this?
• What will you do next time?

It encourages wrongdoers to understand the consequence of their actions, empathize with the victim and creates a willingness for them to take steps to put things right. Repairing the impact that the incident has had forces us to learn from the experience that has led to the conflict and examine our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that have contributed to it and allows students the opportunity to continue to learn and grow socially when the opportunity arises.

Let’s take deliberately creating a mess as a further example. To right the wrong, the mess needs to be cleaned up by the person who created it. By insisting on the wrongdoer taking responsibility for one’s actions, all the while maintaining a positive relationship, the desire to re-offend is diminished and expectations of future choices are established and understood. Restorative Justice values personal change above retribution and is about supporting and building a strong community identity.

Paula Heiniger – Deputy Principal

School Photographs will be taken on Thursday 15 October 2020

Advanced Life, our school photo provider, have advised if you have already purchased your package please be assured that your package will be delivered once the rescheduled photography has taken place.

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.

Enrichment Centre

Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology (AT) is broadly defined as "any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially or off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities". (Lewis, Rena B. 1993 Special Education Technology Classroom Applications, Brooks/Cole Pub Co, California).

For example, students who struggle with writing using pen and paper have a range of alternative assistive technology options to explore such as small and large keyboards, note takers and specialised software that offers various supportive features and functions.

AT can be useful for students with ASD or other communication limitations to:

• supplement, assist or expand expressive communication
• provide assistance with organisation, sequencing and prioritising skills
• provide visual supports such as schedules or timetables, cue cards, story based interventions, lists, checklists and visual reward systems
• support the understanding, development and application of social skills & emotional regulation

PBL (Positive Behaviour Learning)

Keep Your Cool, and Let It Go

Our BUZZ phrase this fortnight continues. Encompassing all the “Be” rules; Be a Learner, Be Respectful, Be Responsible and Be Safe. This buzz phrase helps remind students when outside of the classroom to:

• I keep my hands and feet to myself
• I let go of what I can’t control
• I use calming strategies when I feel upset
• I use the high 5 to help solve problems
• I move away and re-set
• I play fairly
• I am a team player and show good sportsmanship
• I use positive talk to myself, my peers and adults.

We are doing this so that everyone enjoys their time at school and feels safe and happy.

Rocket almost full!

Excitement is growing because our ROCKET is almost full! If you’re in the office don’t forget to check it out. Once full the whole school receives an extra 20 minutes of play time. There is much excitement and anticipation for this as we near the end of Term 3.

We wish all families a safe and happy Spring holidays and look forward to Term 4.

PBL Team

Year 3/4C

Students are now demonstrating their knowledge learned through this term’s unit assessments and reflecting on their learning. During science year 4 students have been exploring the causes and implications of erosion and the various strategies that can be put into place to combat erosion issues. As part of their assessment, students chose between erosion prevention designs to test the results and record their findings.

Year 3 students have been demonstrating their knowledge learned about the occurrence of day and night in relation to the movements of earth in relation to the sun, the effects on shadows created and impacts on our daily lives on earth. Students completed scientific diagrams and recordings of their findings from experiments which have then been uploaded with audio voice recordings to share their knowledge into their power point presentations.

We have had a very full and productive term and students are progressing well. I look forward to seeing everyone again after a restful break for our final term of the year.

Kerry Lees (3/4C)

Year 4A, & 4B

Creating our Vertical Garden for Technology and Design

The Year 4’s have been very busy creating our new vertical garden out of recycled bottles. Thank you to all the parents who have been bringing their plastic bottles in to help us with our project. The students have been cutting out holes and joining the bottles together. This week we started adding soil and plants to our vertical garden and highlighting solutions for any problems encountered.

Last week we completed writing about our Dad’s and drew portraits using oil pastels and dye. There would have been many Dads who loved reading what their children had to say and maybe a few tears were shed. It was lovely as teachers to read about the special moments you share with your child.

In English we are all enjoying reading the quest novel Rowan of Rin. There have been some interesting discussions about how a small boy is changing from facing challenges to become stronger and more confident. The students have been drawing what they visualise as they listen to the story.

In science the children have been completing an assessment task that investigated properties affecting the use of ochre. They looked at the smudge resistance of ochre (after it dried) when it was mixed with oil, water, pva glue and egg yolk.

Kylie Hulm (4A), Lou Walsh & Trish Mackay (4B)

Year 5A, 5B & 5C

Multimodal English Assessment

Year 5 classes are busily putting the finishing touches on their Narratives which have been based on 3 well known Australian poems by A B Patterson. Students could choose to base their story on either Waltzing Matilda, The Man From Ironbark or Mulga Bill’s Bicycle. First students re wrote, or innovated the traditional storyline, concentrating on developing the characters and setting through precise vocabulary and noun groups. Then students were able to create a powerpoint where they could add images and audio to make their narrative more effective.

Here are some short excerpts:

The short tempered, muscular man from Ironbark ambled down the misty streets of Sydney trying desperately to put a foot in front of the other. “Blimey I`m knackered!” he spat coming to a quick stop to catch his breath. The unpleasant smoky odour of the city trilled in the air, nothing like the endless plains of dry Ironbark. A flash of red and white glistened in the corner of his eye. Long poles towered over him announcing the entrance of a fashionable vast barbershop. He halted outside the flashy corner store feeling relieved. “Oh thank the trees!’ cried the man from Ironbark. Emeline (5A)

Bill sang a beloved song to pass time while his billy boiled. He was thinking of his dad and how he died. It was a sad story that he’s never told before because everybody was trying to hunt him down and kill him. Ebony (5B)

The days blurred into one another without ceasing. A strange scrawny man limped towards a shading Coolibah tree, he sat down to take a rest to wait for the afternoon heat to disappear. He stretched his neck back as far as it would go and began to hum a familiar tune. As time wore on his voice lifted to "Waltzing Matilda! Waltzing Matilda!" as his mother had sung to him as a small boy waiting to fall asleep. Evie (5C)

Science

This term students worked on a maze assessment where light had to enter from 1 door and exit from another door on the opposite side of the box using mirrors.

Here are some examples of the finished models.

Digital Technology

This term students have completed a Scratch workbook getting them ready for next term’s assessment where they will need to use their coding skills to create a maze game to help inform the audience about a specific topic (Being prepared in a disaster or Being Healthy). Here are some students in 5C doing some coding.

Deb Darcy (5A), Eric Faulkner (5B), Caroline Hartley (5C) & Tammalee Johnston (5C)

Year 6A & 6B

Year 6 have been dancing up a storm over the past 8 weeks under the tutelage of the wonderful and talented Miss Ebenezer. Our year 6 cohort were fortunate enough to have the resources of Maleny State High come down and spend a session each week this term engaging the students in dance skills. This week we ended our sessions with a high energy ‘dance off’ between the two classes with it being declared a tie!

Emma Back (6A) & Greg Corkin (6B)

Students of the Week: Week 8

Students of the Week: Week 9

Students of the Week: Week 10

Japanese

Let’s KENDAMA!

The kendama is a traditional Japanese skill toy. It consists of a handle (ken), a pair of cups (sarado), and a ball (tama) that are all connected by a string. On one end of the ken is a cup, while the other end of ken is narrowed down, forming a spike (kensaki) that fits into the hole of the tama. Kendama can be held in different grips, and the tricks and combinations that can be done are fun and limitless. Students in year 5s and 6s have been practising the skills and getting ready for the kendama championship at Maleny State Primary!

Emi Obara – LOTE Japanese teacher

War on Waste

A Lush and Abundant Garden

What a great thrill it was to spend two lunch breaks picking bags of salad mix to give to our lovely teacher aides to thank them for the warmth and help that they give to us in the classroom.

We’ve had a fabulous crop of snowpeas and sugar snaps and many were picked and ended up in the mouth instead of the bag.

Spring is bringing new growth and every day the garden changes which provides a great surprise for our garden club members.

Kind Regards
Lou Walsh

P & C News

Next Skype P&C Meeting 14 October @ 6.30pm

From Our Tuckshop

The Tuckshop is open three day a week – Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

If you can help, please see Gunnar at the Tuckshop. Your support will be much appreciated.

FlexiSchools is our preferred ordering system and is simple and easy to use.

To register go to:

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 8:30-9:00am 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 9.00am. Payment options are EFTPOS, cash or cheque at the uniform shop only. Alternatively, orders can be placed online via the below link by 5pm Wednesday for Friday pickup or class delivery.

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. Our Bank account details are:

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.

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

Community News

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