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No. 38 22nd November 2012
A Letter to the Community
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Dates to Remember in 2012
NOVEMBER
23 – No Friday Lunch today
23 – Parent/ Teacher Interviews
26 – 2013 School Captains selection
Parents of the Year 6 students are invited to attend parade, at 8.45am
29 – School Concert
DECEMBER
02 – P&C Morning Tea Catering
03 - Yr 7’s Orientation Day - B.S.H.S.
04 -Dance Fever dance display 1.30pm
10 – Team work for Yr 7’s - Mt Tamborine
11 –Graduation Dinner Yr 7’s 7pm Happy Valley Family Restaurant
12 – Swimming Carnival
14 – Last Day of Term 4
Thought for the Week
“Habits form a
second nature.”
Jean Baptiste Lamarck
Tuckshop
28th november
HELPERS –
Angela Scott, Kaylene Wright
CAKES/SLICE
Sarah Arkinstall
Years 4-7 News
During English this week we constructed Cinquain poetry which is a five line poem that follows a set grammatical pattern. Cinq in French means five and Cinquains are the American derivative of the haiku poems. Our students wrote a book of Haiku poetry in 2010 and it is displayed in the library with beautiful illustrations of nature.
In science this week the students really enjoyed watching the Solar Eclipse through the ABC broadcast and then their task was to research the differences between Solar and Lunar Eclipses. They then presented their findings and images back to the class.
All the physical activities are still being enjoyed very much by the students and their dancing is really looking great! The swimming lessons are also well appreciated as the hot weather is reminding the students to bring their swimmers. I have already noticed their swimming techniques have developed or been refined.
Next week will be a big week for rehearsals; the school play is on the 29th of November, so just around the corner.
There will be no healthy Friday lunches this week as we will be busy with parent teacher interviews.
I look forward to seeing you all at our Parent Teacher interviews on Friday.
Regards Ms. Kuiper
Science
Could all Prep – Yr 2 students please bring along a mobile toy for next Thursday’s lesson. We will be experimenting on how and what causes them to move.
Mr Undery
Parent/Teacher Interviews
It’s that time of year again!! Tomorrow, 23 November, will be our parent-teacher interview day. We have attached the allocated time slots once again with this week’s newsletter. If you are unable to attend your allocated, time please contact your child’s teacher to arrange an alternative interview time.
For new parents, we ask you to come to school about 15 minutes ahead of the appointment time so that you can sit quietly
with your children and look at their books, test and work samples as well as their report cards before meeting with the teacher.
The kids really love it when you make the time to do this! It also better informs you, when discussing your children’s work with the teachers.
Friday Lunches
There will be no more Friday Lunches for the rest of this year, as the year is very quickly coming to a close.
Thank-you to everyone, for their support during the year with our Healthy Friday Lunches each week.
Student Banking
Next Monday on parade a Commonwealth Bank Dollamite character will speak to the students re-school banking.
Students will be able to sign up for Dollamite accounts. Students will need to have identification etc. to be able to sign up for the account.
Any queries please ring Angela Scott on
5544 1775.
P & C News
Harley Davidson Bikies Morning Tea - On the 2nd of December the P & C will be catering for a Morning Tea to be held at the school for the Harley Davidson Bikies Group. This event has been held in previous years and has always proved to be successful. There will be a note sent home next week with more information regarding helpers for this event.
Senior School Musical
Many students should still have their costumes from the centenary performance in May. We are reprising this show for our end-of-year concert. We will send out this list again in the coming week for anyone who needs this information.
As always, we don’t want anyone to go to a lot of trouble or expense to provide costumes for their children, so we try to suggest items that should be reasonably easy to source.
Tea, coffee and cordial will be provided after the musical. Could families please provide a plate of food to share to include with this Supper. The cost of entry for Concert night is $2 per person (excluding school children who are performing).
Term 4 Swimming Carnival Wednesday 12 December 2012
Term 4 swimming carnival has always been based more on a fun element. This year the children have been divided into two teams. We negotiated with the Year 7’s on naming these teams and whether it would be a good idea to revive the old houses of Logan and Cunningham. The students decided that Logan (blue) and Cunningham (yellow) will be revived in this year of our Centenary.
As part of this fun day we would like each child to wear a swimming cap in their team colour. The school has purchased these caps and the children will be able to borrow one for the day. Students will be competing for a perpetual trophy and the winning team will be awarded an ice block at the end of the carnival. All students entering an event will earn a point towards their team as well as earning points for first, second and third. As well as the usual freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and kickboard events, additional novelty events have been added to the program. The emphasis is on team participation and students supporting each other in positive ways. Events are scheduled to start at 9.30am and continue until finished, with morning tea and lunch breaks at the normal times. I’m really looking forward to this fun day and hope to see many parents there cheering on their children’s team.
Logan: Jayden Bellis, Abbi Mendhan, Holli Williams, Hannah Auld, Davey Degn, Carly Griffin, Ryan Arkinstall, Ella Barry, Harry Binstead, Rosie Downes, Tannon Hill, Taleesha Jackson, Kaila Hill, Kalani Williams, Kalem Barry, Layla Wilson, Lachlan Jackson, Jessica Jurd, Plymouth Smith- McMaster, Corey Auld, Blake Ryan-Rendoth, Marli Roche, Aidan Hill, Hope Lahrs, Angus Downes, Sophie Holland
Cunningham: Indyanna Baker, Alara Cassidy, Mia Reilly, Elizabeth Scott, Indianna Cobb, Joe Keane, Hunter Baker, Jocelyn Reilly, Saphina Baker, Belynda Scott, Rachel Russell, Liam Wright, Genna Baker, Emily Peach, Seb Mills, Mazie Russell, Darian Daniell, Tyr Cobb, Kiara Giles, Tayla Giles, Cameron Mills, Shaye Gerchow, Tori Mackay, Jason Rosewarne
Deb Easton (PE Teacher)
Principal’s Report for the P&C Meeting
20.11.12
Staff and Students
The end of another school year is in sight. All our students have progressed with their learning throughout the year. This week, parents will be able to appreciate how far their children have come as they attend parent-teacher interviews with the staff and receive their children’s reports. We hope that many parents, if not all, will attend the interviews.
This week Wednesday, sees the last of our Pre-prep program mornings in the Early Learning Centre. This has been a great opportunity for the staff and the new preps for 2013 to get to know each other. It is especially helpful when the students start school next year for them to feel that they are already familiar with their new learning environment. After Wednesday’s Pre-prep morning, the parents of the Preps for 2013 are invited to come to a special morning tea in the school’s staffroom to meet with the staff. After this both, Kasey and Tina will be presenting an information session and inviting new parents to put forward any queries they may have about the school and the program we run in Prep.
For the last two weeks of the school year, Tina will be on long service leave. At present we don’t know who her replacement will be. Please keep your eye on the school newsletter for further information about this.
Enrolments are still the same as for last month. It pleasing that some parents have already enrolled their children for Prep for next year. We ‘ve also received a new enrolment in Year 1 for 2013 in the past two weeks.
Student Council
The Student Council are continuing to collect milk bottle tops from Paul’s milk bottles. Please keep an eye out for special milk bottle tops at the supermarket, and please save and send in those bottle tops to the school. Thank you to all the parents who have already sent in tops this year!!
The Council have continued with their cooking of healthy Friday lunches. This is proving to be a small, but steady and successful fundraiser for the Council each week.
The Student Council hope to partner with the Rathdowney Hotel again this year for the big Christmas Stocking raffle as their final fund-raising event for 2012.
School Band
The school band continues to practise each week for our weekly parades.
The students in the beginners’ band are becoming more proficient on the fife each week, so we hope to have some added numbers for the band soon. Our band numbers are very small and we only have 3 fife players at present. Two of them are in Year 7 and will leave the school at the end of the year. We desperately need more fife players to form a band for the school next year. We are asking any parents who are interested in seeing this unique institution in our school achieve its 50th anniversary next year, to please encourage their children (Year 3-7) to consider joining.
Mrs Wieland is asking for any practice fifes that are presently in homes where the children are no longer using them to please return them to the school so that we can issue them to potential new band members.
School Events
School swimming lessons have continued throughout the term 3 times each week for each class, weather permitting. It was a bonus for us to have a qualified swim coach to train the students at each of the lessons this term. A big thank you goes to Mrs Masen for helping us out with our school swimming. It is great to see the enthusiasm from the students at every year level. Mrs Easton, our school’s PE teacher has organised a fun swimming carnival in the last week of school for all the students. The students will be competing in two teams, Logan and Cunningham, in honour of the school’s centenary year. The carnival will enable them to show off their swimming skills to their parents and to be safe in the water for the Christmas vacation!! Parents are asked to come along and join in the fun on Wednesday, 12 December.
The school has again provided dance lessons for all students on Tuesday afternoons this term. Dance Fever is a group of professional dance teachers who work in schools around the country teaching students the social art of dancing both traditional and modern dance styles. This term the students in Years 3-7 have learned the waltz and the mambo as well as a very energetic hiphop line dance. The students in the junior school have also learned some cute dance moves. Unfortunately, Dance Fever are not providing a Dance Challenge at Chandler this year for our students to attend. Instead, the dance teachers will put on a dance display with all the students on the second last Tuesday of term, 4 December. There will be more details about this in the school newsletter.
The senior class has had puberty talks with our school nurse this past month.
Our pre-Prep program for next year’s Preps began 6 weeks ago. Any children intending to enrol at Rathdowney State School for Prep in 2013 were invited to come along to our school’s Early Learning Centre from 10 am to 11 am every Wednesday morning. This gave our future students a little taste of what school will be like and will, hopefully, ensure a smooth transition into school at the start of next year.
RawArt student art workshops were provided to all our classes on Monday, 29 October. The school funded these workshops for all the students as it does every year.
The Queensland Arts Council (Artslink) presented another engaging educational performance at school on Thursday, 1 November. As always the production was well received by students and staff alike.
The Gifted and Talented Network for the Beaudesert area organised another day for the local schools to send 3 or 4 students, from Prep to Year 2, with ability and talent in maths to a special day of challenging, fun activities at the Beaudesert State School Hall on Wednesday, 7th November. Tannon, Taleesha, Ryan and Ella attended and thoroughly enjoyed this day.
Our parent-teacher interviews will be held on Friday, 23rd November. We have also brought forward the school concert to Thursday, 29th November. The reason for the changes is mainly so that these activities are finalised before Tina goes on long service leave from 30 November.
The graduation awards and presentations for our Year 7’s and our Preps are usually held in conjunction with the school concert, we are hoping to conduct the election of school captains for 2013 on Monday, 26 November. Parents of the Year 6 students are invited to attend parade on Monday to hear their children’s speeches for school captain and vice-captain for 2013. There are already several great posters on display under the school. The names of the 2013 school captains and vice captains will be announced on our concert night.