Term 3 Week Newsletter 16 August 2023

From our Principal

It is hard to believe it is week 6 and we are halfway through the term! The next few weeks continue to be busy with sporting events-Cap trials, interschool cricket and netball, project club day, book week, Author visit and bookfair, prep interviews and transitions, and speaking competition.

Have a wonderful week.

Fiona

Project Club Day/Book Week

Next week is a big week on our school calendar. Project club day on the Monday. Children bring in items for the different events on Monday morning. The afternoon will see our auction of items donated by our students-cooking, flowers, produce (thank you to our families for donating back as the funds raised from our auction go towards our project club to purchase items that benefit all children).

Our book week will see a bookfair all week where students can purchase items from and with dress up day on Friday-come as your favourite book character. All book purchases help us buy new books for our library.  On Friday we also have author Kathryn Apel visiting for the day and she will be speaking with all students.

Student Free Day - 1st September 2023

Reminder that Friday 1 September is a student free day. All staff will be involved in Social Emotional Learning professional development on this day.

P&C Meeting

Our next P&C meeting is on Thursday 24 August 5:00pm at Thangool Hotel. Order dinner on arrival. This is a great opportunity to hear all the wonderful things happening in our school and also be involved in supporting activities that impact your children.

Father's Day Stall

The P&C are again holding a Father’s Day stall for students to purchase gifts for their dads or special someone. Watch for details in coming week.

Enrolment

We are growing and have a big intake of new families for 2024, so if you know of anyone wishing to enrol, please ask them to contact our office as we begin our planning for 2024. We hope to be able to announce staffing for 2024 in week 6 of term 4.

Every Day Counts

Let’s keep our focus on the main game of schooling which is teaching and learning. Remember that Every child matters every day and All students can be high achievers. The partnership between home and school (and vice versa) is powerful in ensuring we continue to pursue excellence in education.

Students achieve more when they are at school every day learning. Our school goal for attendance is 94%.  We are currently sitting at 90.6%. Every day is a learning day at Thangool.

TSS Capable Learner Framework

Importance of Sleep

We all know how sleep affects our life – a good night’s sleep makes life’s dilemmas easier to cope with while a bad night’s sleep (or limited sleep) makes us grumpy, lethargic and mostly no fun to be around. Sleep problems in kids don't just drive parents batty, they also affect children's health and development, including academic performance, growth and even immunity.

Sleep researcher and psychologist Dr Sarah Blunden, from the Centre for Sleep Research at the University of South Australia, told a recent psychology conference in Melbourne (2010) that sleep problems – which can be medical or behavioural – can affect memory, attention, thinking ability and behaviour. For children there are also studies that link bed wetting with sleep problems.

The most common cause of medical sleep problems is snoring and obstructive sleep apnoea (holding the breath), but sleep walking or night terrors, periodic limb movement disorder or restless leg syndrome, and other conditions such as asthma and eczema, can also affect sleep. Behavioural sleep problems can include difficulty falling or staying asleep, resisting going to bed, changing sleep hours (like teenagers do), and getting out of bed during the night.

How screen time and digital technology use affects sleep

Your child needs enough good-quality sleep so they can play, learn and concentrate during the day.

Screen time and digital technology use can affect how quickly your child falls asleep and how long your child sleeps. This happens for several reasons:

• Screen time in the hour before bed can stimulate your child.
• Blue light from televisions, computer screens, phones and tablets might suppress melatonin levels and delay sleepiness.
• Your child might be tempted to stay up late to chat to friends or play games.
• Your child might be disturbed in the night by notifications, messages or calls.

Reducing the effects of screen time and digital technology use on sleep

Here are ways you can reduce the negative effects of screen time on your child’s sleep:

• Avoid digital technology use in the hour before bedtime. This includes mobile phones, tablets, computer screens and TV. Encourage reading or quiet play instead.
• Limit and monitor violent content at any time of day. This can affect sleep regardless of the time and length of use.
• Encourage your child to connect with friends during the day rather than late in the evening.
• Encourage your child to replace daytime screen time with outdoor physical activity or play. This can improve sleep at night.
• Have a family rule that mobile phones and other devices are left in a family room overnight.

So, what is enough sleep?

• Toddlers need 12 to 14 hours sleep daily.
• Primary school kids 10 to 12 hours.
• Adolescents need about 8½ to 9½ hours of sleep per night

Research suggests without this sleep, children don't function as well. They're more irritable, aggressive, hyperactive, fidgety, and can't concentrate or remember information, compromising learning and exhibiting delayed response time. They get sick more and have an increased risk of accidents. We as adults can also relate to these symptoms

Student Code of Behaviour

We Care, We Learn, We are Safe are our school rules and we continually refer to these rules when discussing behaviour choices with our students.

Just as we teach our children to read, and support them when they are having trouble and get stuck on a word, we must do the same with behaviour.

Every day we talk with our students about what being kind looks, sounds and feels like. As our children are still developing and learning, at times they may require extra support and guidance. Learning that every choice we make has a consequence either good or bad is also part of this learning.

Our Friendology program that is run in every classroom is helping to teach and support students around what makes a friend and how to deal with conflict in friendships.

SEL News

When to rescue and when to reassure?

A key focus in our SEL programs is on students owning their own learning journey. Often, when a student encounters a problem, we want to fix and solve the problem for them. It is human nature to want to help. Conflict can be uncomfortable and fixing or solving the problem, in my experience, has made me feel better but only solves the issue short term (safety is the exception here). The goal is to help support our students to develop the skills to cope.

In our visible learning journey, the aim is to develop independent learners. Teachers have the opportunity step into a coaching role that can have a much greater long-term benefit.

Hattie and Yates, 2014 suggest that learning often comes out of conflict, such as confronting the unfamiliar, being in challenging situations, and when we are invited to resolve problem situations.

What else can we try?

Be the ‘guide by their side’. When well-intentioned adults jump to fixing or rescuing as the first option, it can send the message to students that they don’t have the skills to cope. When we can guide them and reassure them to work through problems and learn for themselves, their confidence increases, and they realise they have the skills to cope through tricky situations. This builds resilience.

Head of Curriculum News

Phonics involves recognising the relationship between letters and sounds, also known as the ‘alphabetic principle’. Research states that the teaching of phonics needs to be done using a systematic and explicit process, where the order of teaching the sounds taught facilitates their blending into simple words. Through blending the sounds children can immediately practice their new skills, building automaticity and confidence. The research also recommends that these new skills are reinforced as early as possible by having children both listening to high quality texts and reading connected text themselves. The teaching of phonological/phonemic awareness and letter-sound relationships, phonic skills can be taught simultaneously.

In the Early Years, we use the following phonic sequence, supported through the programs Decodable Readers Australia and Jolly Phonics:

As students become successful with the acquisition and manipulation of the sounds, students move to using the THRASS program to identify the many spelling choices for each sound/phoneme.

National Science Week

This week is National Science Week.  It provides an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Australian scientists to the world of knowledge. It also aims to encourage an interest in science pursuits for students to be curious about the world we live in.   This term student across the school  have been engaged in science learning and investigations.

Sport News

State Athletics Trials

  Congratulations to Macey, Will, Paige and Harry for making the Port Curtis Team. They will now head to Mackay next Monday and Tuesday  to take part in the State trials for Athletics. 

Green/Orange Ball Tennis

Congratulations to our Orange Ball Tennis team on placing second in the Primary School's Tennis Challenge in Gladstone earlier this month.  They now have the opportunity to head to the State Finals in Brisbane to be held early next year.

Red Ball Tennis

Last Friday, 45 students from Grade 1 to 4 headed into Biloela to take part in the Red Ball Tennis Gala Day held at the Biloela Tennis courts.  For some of our students, this was the first time that they had played a modified version of tennis and they were able to use the skills that they have been learning in PE with Mrs Nancarrow.  Congratulations to our Mixed Red Ball Team who finished the day in first place.  This team will have the opportunity to take part in the State Final in Brisbane as well.  Congratulations to two of our participation teams who tied for first place in the participation division. 

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