April and May Newsletter

Message from the Principal

Hi All

Welcome to Term 2.  I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable holiday break.  It has been exciting coming back to school with no temporary fencing, no construction, and full access to our school.  I can report that due to wet ground and freshly laid turf, a decision was made to restrict use of the oval for the first two weeks.  I am happy to report access to the oval reopened in week 3 – and it was so good to see the students playing soccer together again and being able to run around.

Correspondence will be sent home and shared on our social media about the Parent Meet and Peek afternoon in week 4.  Now that the school is back open, we thought it would be a great opportunity to show off the works and improvements that have occurred as part of the construction, as well as provide an opportunity for parents to meet up with their child’s classroom teacher.  Our P&C will also be in attendance so make sure you drop by and say hi and I believe they will also have the Mother’s Day Stall open if you want to get in early.  The date is Tuesday the 9^th May from 3.30 – 5.00 (catering will be provided so please return your RSVP).  Hope to see many of you there.

With the colder months coming up, and the need to wear warmer clothes, can I please remind all families to look over the uniform policy that was sent home in the last week of term 1, it is also up on Dojo for easy access and is also included in this newsletter. The P&C have organised a new school jacket and it will be exciting to see them starting to be on display around the school.

A massive thank you to our families for supporting student attendance.  Our data to date is showing noticeable improvement between 2022 and 2023.  I encourage all families to continue to notify the school of any absences (whether they are planned or illness related).  If your contact details have changed, can you also, please update the school with new contact numbers.  We use your current numbers to send absenteeism text messages (it is also imperative to have correct details if we are needing to contact you for other matters as well).

Well done to all of our students and staff for participating in our ANZAC ceremony at school.  A great job was done by the Transition students in leading the ceremony for our school community.  Further thanks and appreciation to all of the students, family members and staff who attended the Gladstone ANZAC Day parade and represented our school in the March.  You all did an amazing job and proudly represented our school.

You may have noticed the front of the school has been cleared of shrubs and bushes.  Keep an eye out over the coming weeks.  We have a new fixture coming for the front of our school – very exciting.

Until our next newsletter, wishing you all the very best.  If you have any concerns or questions, please do not hesitate to contact the school and arrange a time to have a chat.

News from the Deputy Principal

ATHLETICS DAY – UPCOMING Friday 12^th May

Students who have been identified as being interested and potentially eligible to compete in the Port Curtis Athletics Carnival will have an opportunity to engage in a School-Based Athletics Day next Friday 12th May at the TAFE. The purpose of this day is for the students to be given an opportunity to set their qualifying times to support their nominations for the Port Curtis event. We are very thankful to the Athletics Club for supporting our event and we encourage parents and carers to come along and watch their student compete. We are hoping that we can run this event every year from this point forward to ensure our students have access to the same sporting pathways as their mainstream peers.

EASTER RAFFLE

Congratulations to all the winners of the Easter Raffle and thank you to all the parents and families who sold and purchased tickets. Every little bit of fundraising helps to do the small improvements around our wonderful school.

MEET & PEEK TUESDAY 9^th May 3:30-5:00pm

In our March newsletter, you would have seen advertised that we had a Meet & Greet afternoon planned for week 3. This has been moved to Week 4 Tuesday as we had a number of staff absent in the first few weeks of school. Please join us for an afternoon open house celebrating the opening of our new classrooms in L Block and our brand new bike track! There will be food and light refreshments available. Teachers will then have their classrooms open for a show and tell of all the fabulous learning your children have been up to! For families with little ones, we will have undercover available for play. The P&C will also be available for a chat, for any families who might be interested in joining our super cool P&C team.

We have also decided to have a separate night for those parents who have students in the Transition phase of learning, to help you know what to expect in your students final years of school. This is likely to be the end of term or start of term 3. Watch this space for more information.

RPS INAUGURAL BOOK FAIR

How exciting ! We are holding our first ever book fair. Information as follows:

News from Administration

Rosella Park School Uniform Policy

A reminder to all parents and carers that if your child is absent from school for any reason to please ring the school absentee line on 49768333 and leave a message. Alternatively please respond to the SMS absent text message. If your child is going to be absent and travels to school on the school funded transport i.e. bus or taxi, please let them know to avoid unnecessary pick ups.

Taxi - 07 497271                   CDC Gladstone - 07 49721670

Mother's Day Stall

Once again our P&C will be setting up a Mother's Day stall for students to purchase a gift to give to their special someone. As usual gifts can be purchased for as little as $5.00. The stall will be set up next week on Wednesday 10th, Thursday 11th and Friday 12th. 

Junior 1 - Mrs Coulston

Our class has been able to go out on excursion to a local park this term, thanks to Miss Bek our technology teacher. It was reported to me that all of the students travelled well on the bus and behaved while out. I am so proud of them and we will be able to have more excursions next semester.

We have been learning to follow routines, sit to eat our lunch, unpack our own things ready for the day and help our teachers to tidy up when we have finished our activities. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday we spend a session with the other junior classes to participate in HPE and Literacy lessons. During these times we are able to develop friendships with our peers and relationships with other members of staff.

As Mother’s Day is just around the corner, I would like to say happy Mother’s Day to all of you who are mothers, grandmothers, aunties, foster mothers, step mothers, or carers of our students. I hope that you are made to feel loved, honoured and respected on your day.

The pictures show a glimpse of all of the things we do while at school, enjoy.

Junior 1

Junior 2 - Mrs Williams

Students have quickly and happily settled back into classroom routines and learning activities. Last week we had a lot of fun exploring the letters T and G. On Thursday we made green gloop and on Friday, as a whole cohort, we set up a range of activities for students to engage with outside. Students explored with two tepee’s, two trampette’s, a train set, trucks, a basket ball hoop to shoot goals and some creative activities which included glue, green grass, and green glitter. Everyone was extremely engaged in this learning and we were impressed by their sharing and turn taking. We will continue to join together as a cohort each week exploring new letters through a range of learning activities. 

Thank you from Michelle, Laureen and Sarah.

Junior 2

Junior 3 - Mrs Hayne

Welcome to Term Two. We have had a busy start to the term as we return to the start of our class  routines. Our first week saw the students learn about the history and significance of ANZAC Day. The class made a wreath and then participated in the whole school ceremony including the laying of our wreath at the memorial. The students have continued their Balanced Literacy sessions in the morning and are engaging in the letters, books and writing process. In the morning session the students examine the weather to complete the chart. In Maths, the focus is on sequencing activities throughout the day and practicing the addition and subtraction from a collection of objects. We have continued to join with the other cohort classes for Health and Physical education and letter/sound activities on the Junior verandah. The excursion activities are going well with Miss Bek getting out and about in the community.

Warm regards,

Leanne

Junior 3

Intermediate 1 - Mrs Buckle

We are loving that we have full access to our school.  It has been a loooong time, to see everything operating again.  We have been accommodating for 1-1.5 years.  Our class has responded well to the open access. 

We the team from Intermediate 1, wanted to thank all of our parents for making sure your child arrives with a working and fully charged communication device.  We love watching the growing ownership they are showing with their devices.  We are very proud of how the students are allowing us to use them for their pre-writing discussions.

Each day, each student chooses between two photos of themselves, doing a class activity.  And this becomes their writing focus for the session.  It is wonderful to witness the students flip through their previous pages of photos and writing.

Intermediate 2 - Mrs Maguire

Due to sickness no artical provided.

Intermediate 3 - Mrs Bowden

Mr Mike came in to talk to the class about ANZAC Day.  He showed us his medals and explained what they were for.  We all enjoyed looking at his medals and trying on his hat.  Mr Mike also brought in RSL bags for us to take home.  We talked about what ANZAC Day meant and why we should acknowledge our service men.

Helen Bowden

Inter 3

Intermediate 4 - Mr Dennis

Intermediate 4 has been enjoying learning all about the different sounds and combination of sounds that we have in the English language. We have been doing a lot of different kinds of activities to learn and reinforce these sounds, including writing words with these sounds, playing games using these sounds and finding these sounds in books that we are reading. We are also continuing to enjoy our cooking program on Fridays. This term we made ANZAC biscuits to commemorate ANZAC Day and some quiche. For ANZAC Day we also made a wreath, using our hand prints to make the leaves.

Inter 4

Intermediate 5 - Mrs Nash

Wow! Term 2 has well and truly started.  Last term ended with a fantastic PBL rewards day and lots of Easter celebrations.  I trust you all had an amazing holiday with your child.

We will be getting busy finalising all our data ready for report cards at the end of this term.

I have attached some photos from our celebrations at the end of last term.

Inter 5

Senior 1 -Mrs Ward

We finally got to go to the long-awaited excursion to the Gladstone Entertainment Centre to see Mr Stink. We have been reading the book in class but had not got to the end, so it was exciting to find out what finally happen to Mr Stink. We were so eager; we were the first to arrive. The entire cohort had a wonderful time. Lots of smiles and laughing. According to the students, the show was even better than the book. To top it all off, staff were very proud of how well all of the students represented our school with their behaviour and manners.

Senior 2 - Miss C

Senior 2 are off to a flying start with engaging in properties and resources from the sun and the earth. They are creating a transport model from various materials that has strength to support an egg being moved from A to B.

We are continuing with our fractions, sequencing, character comparisons, recognising safe experiences and identifying healthy options or best choices.

Assessment time continues and Senior 2 are demonstrating resilience, confidence and teamwork with their attention to detail in their work.

Senior 2 along with their Rosella Park peers commemorated ANZAC Day and showed their respect during our class activities and at the Rosella Park remembrance ceremony.

I am very proud of the teamwork, effort and persistence shown by the students of Senior 2.

Senior 2

Senior 3 - Ms Harris

Term 2 is continuing on as fast as term 1 was. We are flying through 2023. There has been a huge change this term in our classroom, that change being the view, thank goodness for a lack of construction fencing! All students have been enjoying the newfound access to the bike track and new pathway to the oval area. We are incorporating more outside time into our learning and have been utilizing the new areas of the school.

Week 1 of term saw us celebrating the return to school and then three students competing at the Cross Country event on the Friday.

Week 2 we paid respect to ANZAC Day and then got back into the swing of the curriculum learning.

Week 3 we are celebrating school leadership and guidance councillors as well as going to see Mr Stink at the GECC on Friday.

Week 4 we will have the Parents Afternoon 3pm-5:30pm on Tuesday 9^th May; and then the Rosella Athletics Day on Friday 12^th May.

Week 5 the three students who absolutely smashed out Cross Country in Gladstone will be competing in Rockhampton on Tuesday and I’m sure they will run 3km in their best times yet.

Along with all the special events and activities we are still completing all our academic goals. Students have been learning about the weather, the importance of staying healthy, skip counting, telling the time, reading, writing and communicating. Everyone in Senior 3 has developed skills this year so far which we will continue to work on. I’m very proud of how well this class is working.

Socially we have been working on ways to handle disagreements and how to talk to each other with respect, even when frustrated. I am happy to report that we are having more respectful interactions than arguments and I have seen a few deep breaths being taken before speaking. This level of self-regulation is hard for many adults so it is fantastic to see these children achieving it.

All of your children are a joy to teach and I am so grateful to be their teacher.

If you have any questions, concerns, comments please contact me.

Senior 3

Senior 4 - Miss Susan

 Due to illness no artical provided

Transition 1 - Mr Pallett

I trust everyone had a restful Easter break.

Transition 1 have been very busy in their Maths lessons, working on their basic number competence. The students have been consolidating their addition and subtraction skills and using a variety of Jack Hartmann – which are very popular with everyone – to improve their counting.

In Citizenship, we are learning about the importance of democracy and fairness in decision-making, both in our own lives and in the wider community. In Technology, the class have travelled to various locations in Gladstone and used touchscreens in McDonald’s, the electronic map at Stockland and learned about ATMs on a visit to Suncorp Bank. We have also continued to improve our fitness, health and general wellbeing in our PE lessons.

On a more serious note, Transition 1 prepared a wreath for the ANZAC Day service at school. Lest we forget.

Transition 2 - Mrs Brierley

Welcome back to Term 2!

In English we are really enjoying our cooking program, which will run for the duration of the term. Students are working with technology to create their shopping lists, independently shopping for their groceries and using the self-service checkouts to scan, pack and pay for their purchases. Each Thursday, following our recipe, students cook different meals using their ingredients, that they then take home to share with their families.

Our recycling business for both Year 11 classes continues to power on. We welcome new businesses to the program this term with Blood Bank, BCF and Sydney Tools coming on board. This program is pivotal for developing students’ entry level workplace relation skills and is a fundamental component of the transition vocational and training program. We are tracking wonderfully with our efforts and both classes enjoy watching their totals increase each week.

Our excursions continue this term as we utilise our various subjects and goals to provide opportunities for students to build connections in the community in a real-life context. It has been wonderful to see their awareness and knowledge grow with this foundation.

We are looking forward to seeing you all at our open afternoon on Tuesday 9th May.

Trans 2

Transition 3 - Mrs Leeson

The Year 12 students have been very busy over the last few weeks. We have been unpacking the new equipment and supplies for the kitchen in the new building. It has been quite a big job as we have had to wash and dry everything. There is still some shopping to do to complete the kitchen but it won’t be long before we can use it.

Did you see the photos on Class Dojo or Facebook of our school ANZAC Day service? What a great job the Year 12 students did. We also need to thank Matthew, Mary-Rose, Levi, Allie, Lane, Joshua and Jesse for representing our school so maturely at the Gladstone ANZAC Day service.

This week we start visiting local agencies in town to gather information about their post-school program options. We are starting with Endeavour Learning and Lifestyle and ICare. Some of the Transition students will be attending the Career Expo at the University on Tuesday 16^th May.

In our Active Citizenship class, we have decided to support PAWS Gladstone in our next fundraising endeavour. We will be hosting a Pizza Party on Wednesday May 31^st. More information about this program will come home soon.

Keep an eye on Class Dojo and the Rosella Facebook page for photo updates of our upcoming lessons.

Community News