November 2021

News from the Principal

Happy middle of term 4.  The scary part is that we are in the middle of the term that means we really only have 5 weeks left of the school year.  I don’t know about you, but I think this school year has been on fast forward. 

Thank you to our staff, students and school community for making the first half of the term successful and enjoyable.  The students have been working really hard in their classrooms, in the playground and the wider community.

Drop off and Pick up times

Before the term gets away completely, it is timely to remind all families of the procedures relating to drop off and pickups.

For any students that are dropped off after 8.45 am, they must be accompanied by a parent or carer and must come through the front office to be checked in.  Classroom teachers are instructed to mark their classroom rolls between 8.45 am – 9.00 am.  If you child is arrives after the 8.45 am start time they may be marked on the school roll as being late.  We encourage all families to work towards ensuring students are at school prior to 8.45 am.  The same process applies for early pickups in the afternoon.  Can families please come into the front office to sign out their child.

P& C Fundraiser

A massive thank you to the P&C team for all of their hard work planning, organising and running the fantastic fundraiser last weekend.  The Trivia night was a great success due to the hard work of the P&C team. 

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)

I am very excited to say that we have seen a noticeable increase in the number of Shazams students have been receiving.  It is great seeing so many students being acknowledged for following our 3 school rules:    

• I am respectful
• I am positive
  
• I am safe
  

One of my highlights last week was supporting students from one of the junior classes cash in 90 Shazams they had collected. 

Strategic Planning

Rosella Park School's 4 key improvement strategies for 2021 are:

1. Provide professional development and feedback to support staff understanding and self-reflection.
2. Embed effective Literacy programs in classrooms.
3. Build capacity of staff to model all modes of AAC all day every day.
4. Build understanding of the Australian Curriculum and Guide for Individual Learning (GIL), and how an ICP/SET Plan aligns with an effective teaching and learning

If you would like to know more, please do not hesitate to contact me as I would be more than happy to share and discuss our school improvement journey.  As we near the end of the year, the school leadership team, in conjunction with the school community and staff will review our 2021 journey and collaboratively identify our 2 key priorities moving forward for 2022.

Moderation

Over the coming weeks, the teaching staff at Rosella Park School will collaboratively work together to moderate student works as part of the semester assessment of student learning.  This is a valuable professional learning exercise for all staff – the professional discussion and reflection on the semester of teaching and learning is invaluable to continually review and reflect on current teaching strategies and learning opportunities for all of our students.  After moderation, teachers will begin completing reporting.  We are currently on track to have the semester 2 report cards out in week 9-10.

New Building

With each day we are seeing more and more construction and development occurring.  It won’t be long until they start raising the walls and the building starts to take shape.  Please keep watching the coming weeks to see how it is all going.

Cheers Geoff

Room 1 - Junior - Mrs Thomas

The students really enjoyed the Fun Run and some photos are included. They were able to play with the fire hose, see the fire truck, play in blow up pools, in the playground, through tunnels and with water pistols. The wet play was so much fun.  The Junior students have finished their swimming lessons and have shown so much growth in their swimming and water confidence.

Currently we are collecting data and doing assessments with students in order to gather information for reporting on each subject. Students are doing some cooking with following picture cards in sequence to create a food product, some of which is up coming Christmas food and Christmas crafts. Also upcoming is our excursion on Thursday 18^th November to the Rockhampton Zoo and Botanical Gardens. If you are available to assist on this day, please let us know as soon as possible. Permission forms have been sent out and need to be returned by Monday 15th November at the latest.

room 1 fun run fun

Room 1.5 - Junior - Mrs Coulston

Room 1.5 has been very busy so far this term particularly due to swimming lessons twice a week; which has now finished. This leaves us time to finish our units of study, practice for the end of year concert and travel to Rockhampton to go to the zoo. Hopefully we will have more photos to share after our adventures at Rockhampton Zoo. In the meanwhile, please enjoy viewing the photos we have chosen to share of our swimming lessons.

room 1.5 swimming

Room 2 - Junior - Mrs Williams

Room 2 has thoroughly enjoyed swimming this term and is disappointed now that it is finished. Because of this, we have decided to introduce water play options in the sensory garden and undercover for the remainder of the term. We will keep you posted on the various activities this will involve. During our Geography lessons we have been exploring what a bedroom looks like through creating and building using boxes, blocks, a doll’s house and a tree house. Students have had a great time engaging in this activity; constructing, making and playing with their creations. In History, we have been looking at a selection of old and new toys. We have investigated how they work and made preferences regarding which toy is our favourite. Students have had a lot of fun exploring and role playing with the old and new items and I think a few of the toys may remain in the room indefinitely.

Room 3 - Junior - Mrs Hayne

What another busy month in Room 3. We have completed our swimming program which saw all the students improve in their water confidence and skills. It was lots of fun.

Room 3 enjoyed the Fun Run with the water play and the Rural Fire Brigade hosing us as we walked around the oval.

We have continued to participate  with our cohort peers joining in activities to see how objects move. In Geography, we have made physical maps of some of the rooms in our house. In History, we have played with both new and old toys.

We are looking forward to the excursion to the Rockhampton Zoo on Thursday 18^th November. It will be exciting to travel on a bus to the zoo and then to explore all the animal exhibits and picnic in the Botanical Gardens for lunch.

Warm regards,

Leanne

room 3 fun

Room 5 - Intermediate - Mrs Nash

I cannot believe how fast this year is going.  I remember My year 2 and 3 students arriving to Intermediates at the beginning of the year.  They have all grown so much this year, emotionally, physically and academically.   We have been very busy completing assessments over the last few weeks and while some may not achieve their goals this year I am very proud of each and every student for how the have developed in other areas over the year.

Coming up this term we have a lot events on the calendar.

• Christmas Concert
• PBL rewards Day
• Intermediate Cohort Excursion (wk 8 or 9)
• P and F Christmas Party

And I am sure there are more which have slipped my mind.  Please remember if you ever want to have a chat or touch base regarding your child please feel free to call the school and ask  for me or simply send a message through Class Dojo.

Room 6 - Senior - Mrs Buckle

Welcome to November, where Room 6 is busily working on assessment pieces for moderation and report cards.  Our moderation process requires we teachers to organise students work samples/assessment pieces so that they are stand alone documents.  Teachers from other classes review the given work/assessment pieces and determine if they reflect the mark the teacher has already awarded to that student.  It is part of the curriculum that we do very well at Rosella Park. It helps develop the teacher’s calibration of the A-E grading system as they take on the feedback from their peers.

Since we shared news with you last, we have visited Dreamtime, had our Wet Fun Run, wore red for our Day for Daniel, had a visit from a couple of Bronco players and watched the Melbourne Cup.  Please enjoy some photos of these events.

For our annual Christmas Concert, Mrs Maguire has requested that the students wear a Christmas themed shirt and their regular navy-blue school shorts.  Santa hats are optional!! 😊

room 6 fun

Room 8 - Intermediate - Mrs Schulze

Wow, only 5 weeks to go before Christmas holidays are here.  It has been an amazing year and for me an honour to have had my first class as a teacher at Rosella Park School.  This will be my last term at Rosella Park School and I am looking forward to enjoying the final weeks with the awesome students in my class:  Ethan, Bella, Tehmarni, Tyriq and Dylan. 

On Friday 29^th October students had great fun with the rest of the school participating in the school Fun Run.  With everyone, including Mrs Maguire, enjoying getting wet thanks to the Rural Fire Brigade and some help also from sprinklers.

Room 8 students were also recognised on parade for their class effort with the students, with the support of their parents, purchasing and wearing a bandanna for Bandanna Day.  This coincided with Day for Daniel, with all students also wearing something red and making a donation for the cause.  A great effort by room 8 families supporting both of these worthy causes.

As the year winds down, we are working hard on finalising our assessments for all of our learning areas.  Everyone is to be congratulated on the effort that they are making in preparation for their final assessments.

At the moment we have a special guest sneaking around in room 8. Buddy the Elf is being found in different locations around the room.  Buddy is on a mission to report back to Santa on the students’ behaviour in time for Christmas.  He recently relocated to the top of the smartscreen so that he had a better view of the classroom.  I think this might also help with their efforts on the final assessments. 😉

After our assessments are finalised we will be starting to focus on practicing for our Christmas concert showcase in week 9…only 4 weeks away.  The students have all been practicing hard with Ms Maguire in their Arts lessons each week.  Hoping all our families will be able to join us for this fabulous performance.

Room 9 - Intermediate - Mr Pallett

The past three weeks have been a very busy time in Room 9. The students have completed assessments in English, Maths, Science, History and Geography. I have been very impressed with the effort the children have put into showing me how much they have learned since July.

We have been enjoying the Woolworths Lego that has been donated by parents, staff and other members of the school community. We have a box full of extra pieces if anyone is missing any from their own models at home. We completed the set last week, thanks to Miss Tammy from Room 13 letting us have the last two pieces we were missing. Miss Carolyn insisted we complete the first model exactly as it is on the Woolworths website…

With our second model, the children created their own shop layouts. Blair made sure there were plenty of workers at the checkouts…

Others made sure the customers had lots of places to sit…

Riley created a Halloween theme for his shop…

Room 9 lego fun

Room 10 - Senior - Mrs Thornton

Students in room 10 had the opportunity to learn that some languages use characters in their writing that are very different from English.  They learned to write their names in both Japanese and Arabic with Miss Rania and Mrs Thornton, and made these wall hangings with their names using paint and textas.  They also learned about some modern cultural traditions, such as that in Japan, KFC is very popular on Christmas Day!

Zac enjoyed choosing from a selection of animal stamps and using some printmaking techniques.  He used a roller to push and pull the paint across the paper.

Room 10 learning fun

Room 11 - Senior - Mrs Dunstan

Room 11 is having great fun and plenty of yummy food as we cook and test the recipes for our upcoming recipe book.

Room 12 - Senior - Mrs Ward

Uniforms

Although it’s not summer, the weather certainly is heating up already. Thanks to the wonderful parents and carers, every student in Room 12 already have a wide brimmed hat so the only reminder needed is a water bottle.

Fortunately we have access to a cold water drinking fountain, so their bottles can be filled on arrival to school and throughout the day as needed. Please ensure the water bottles are labelled with your child’s name.

Birthdays

Hip, hip, hooray!!!!! Shontae turned 14 on the 22^nd October. We celebrated her birthday with music, balloons, a Barbie movie and ice-cream cake. Mmmm 😊 ice-cream cake. Just what we needed in this hot weather.

Room 13, 14 and 15 - Transition

We are so excited for school camp from the 8^th to 12^th November. Mrs Leeson has planned an amazing week away. The students staying back at school will also have a great time as the staff at school are planning a week of fun here.  Watch this space for photos in the next newsletter.

Farewell Year 12's

The end of year activities are fast approaching and students are working hard learning songs to perform at Graduation and at the End of Year Concert. Learning 2 songs each year is always a challenge for the transition students and I love seeing them rise to the occasion.

This year Room 14 are saying goodbye to Tina, Ethan and Smithy on the 26^th November at a Graduation ceremony to be held at the Harvey Road Tavern. This will be a very emotional day for me as I am so proud of all three of them and how much they have grown as students and young adults; in the time I have worked with them. I have been blessed with having them in my class 3 years running and what an honour it has been. A big thank you to all three of them for turning up each day with a smile and sharing it with us all.

Tina you are so creative and sociable and I am sure you will do really well working with animals in the future and have a tight knit group of friends.

Ethan you are so positive and determined and I am sure you will find some future study options to keep you on your path towards working in customer service; and of course, you will always keep your smile.

Smithy you are so expressive and respectful and I hope you continue your time doing work experience at Small Motor Service and can continue writing incredible stories.

The year 11’s are going to have a big job stepping up and filling these shoes next year. I believe they will rise to the challenge and reach their potential.

As always; if you have any questions or concerns please get in touch.

Community News

University of Queensland Research Project

The project aims to evaluate the Early Response Tool. The Early Response Tool measures day-to-day issues parents and carers commonly experience when providing care to a child or adolescent with a disability. The end goal of the Early Response Tool is to gather a snapshot of an individual family’s strengths and challenges. This project will provide evidence around whether the Early Response Tool is a reliable and valid measure that could be used routinely to identify the service and support needs of parents, carers and families caring for a child or adolescent with a disability.

Parents or carers of children and adolescents with a disability will be asked to complete an anonymous online or paper survey (taking approximately 10 to 20 minutes to complete). Those who complete the survey in full can enter a raffle to win one of four $50 Coles Myer Gift Cards. There are no risks or disadvantages associated with participation in this project for parents/carers.

If you have any additional queries about this project, please don't hesitate to contact me on 0413 769 142 or m.vassos@uq.edu.au.

Gladstone Regional Council

Rockhampton Symphony Orchestra