Term 3 Week 8 Newsletter 30 August 2023

From our Principal

Week 8

It’s hard to believe we only have 12 days of school left and one of those is a student free day. The term has been another busy but successful one with many extra-curricular activities. In the final weeks of term, we have students attending cricket, Interschool netball, parent teacher interviews, speaking competition and our end of term assembly.

Parent/Teacher Interviews

On Tuesday 12 September we are holding parent teacher interviews from 1:30pm-5:30pm. This is a great opportunity to touch base with your child’s teacher. Booking through SOBS.

Teacher Aide Week

This week we celebrate our wonderful teacher aides. We are truly blessed at our school to have dedicated, passionate, caring teacher aides that support our teachers, students and school community to give our students the very best. Our teacher aides are like connective tissue, supporting and giving structure to the organs, but also helping move things around, making everything just work as a whole. Thank you for all you do, it is appreciated more than we can ever say.

Attendance

As we enter the last few weeks of Term 3, most classes will be supporting students to complete work that will be used as their assessment. It makes it a particularly important time to maximise attendance at school. While we appreciate parents keeping students at home when they are unwell, it is critical students come to school every possible day to ensure the best outcomes. Absenteeism can have a big impact on a student’s progress. A student with an attendance rate of 85% will miss the equivalent of a whole year of school as they progress from Prep to Year 6.

Enrolments for Next Year

Reminder to any families who are wanting to enrol for next year that we need to complete enrolment forms as soon as possible. Planning for next year is underway and we need accurate information to ensure the best decisions can be made around staffing and classes.

Head Lice

We have seen some recent cases of Headlice in the school. As unfortunate as this is, it happens in schools from time to time. For information regarding treating head lice, refer to the Department of Health’s Head Lice fact sheet.

Your local pharmacist can provide advice regarding head lice treatment options and head lice combs. Because head lice need close head-to-head contact to spread from one person to another, to reduce the spread of head lice, teachers will discourage students from activities which may involve head to head contact.

To reduce your child’s risk of getting head lice, make sure that long hair is tied up and discourage children from sharing their brushes and combs and hats and having head to head contact with others.

Remember - Anyone can get head lice – they have no preferences for cleanliness, hair colour, hair type, ethnicity or age. If our office calls to notify you, please know this call is made to allow follow up, and is judgement free. Parent response is appreciated.

Year 5 & 6 Camp

We are entering into the final weeks of preparation for our Brisbane camp. Please ensure payment is finalised and you have checked packing list and medication requirements if your child will be needing anything.

Friends

Each week every class is involved in our Friendology lessons. It is wonderful to see how our students at Thangool generally work and play in a way that shows respect and care for each other. The friendships that they form in school help support and influence them as they grow. The importance of friends looking out for each other is crucial in healthy relationships. Encouraging our children to talk about their friends, both the good and bad, gives us an opportunity to help influence healthy friendships.

Friendships are an important aspect of our everyday lives and help to maintain our mental wellbeing. With this in mind, it is vital to remember that developing and maintaining friendships involves the learning and maturing of many crucial skills and the building and refinement of personal attributes. These skills can take a long time to develop and master. Frequent practice can assist children to feel more confident in making choices around who they become friends with and how to manage challenges and disagreements within these friendships.  

We need to embrace any opportunity to allow children to practice these skills. Below is an extract from Beyond Blue (2022) that list some of the skills that are important in developing safe and lasting friendships. Which ones will you practice with your child/ ren these school holidays?

• Self-control: Being able to wait for what they want, using words to express their feelings rather than acting disruptively or misbehaving, giving others a turn with toys.
• Welcoming: Being able to approach and respond to others positively – with a smile and greeting.
• Assertiveness: Being able to say what they’d like.
• Consideration: Being able to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, taking turns, being able to lead and follow what others want to do, being able to cooperate and share.
• Play skills: Being willing to take part in games and make suggestions for play.
• Communicating: Talking and listening to others in a friendly way, saying something to start a conversation.
• Helping: Being willing to help others.
• Prediction: Being able to understand how others might be feeling based on their behaviour, being able to predict how their behaviour might affect others.
• Thinking: About alternatives when things go wrong – for example, if other children want to play something different, thinking of whether to join them or finding someone else to play with.
• Coping: Being able to respond to rejection, disappointment or disapproval without experiencing too much distress or winning without gloating.
• Empathy: Being able to respond to others’ feelings with understanding.
• Flexibility: Being open to hearing or learning about other points of view or ways of doing things.

As children mature so to do their friendships. Working together we can support our children to have lifelong, healthy friendships. When discussing friends with our children using our Capable Learner Framework around feedback of good, better and how is a great way to unpack a friendship problem. What is good about the friend/situation, what could be better and how can you make that happen?

TSS Capable Learner Framework

Head of Curriculum News

Book Week

Each year since 1945 the Children’s Book Council of Australia has brought children and books together across Australia through ‘Book Week’. Last week, we celebrated with each class setting up a book display after reading one of the shortlisted books.  We had a book fair organised by Mrs White and hosted a visited with the Australian children’s author Kathryn Apel https://katswhiskers.wordpress.com/  Kathryn shared some of her stories with the students and encouraged them to be creative, with shape poems and puppets.

Parent Teacher Interviews

Parent/Teacher interviews will be held on Tuesday in week 10, beginning at 1:30pm. Each interview is 15 minutes in length. (If you require additional time, it would be appreciated if you could negotiate another time with your child’s teacher). The purpose of parent teacher interviews is to improve student outcomes through building school parent partnerships and to communicate information to parents about student achievement and progress. Information regarding how to book an interview through the SOBS platform, will be sent home soon. 

At the interview, teachers will be sharing information with you using our school interview template.  These interview templates will only be completed for those families who attend. During the interviews, students will be supervised by Mrs Byrne, specialist teachers and teacher aides.  The routine for the afternoon is as follows:

12:50    Students pack their equipment and take their bags over to Possum Place

1pm      Students go out to play (20 mins)

1:20      Second Break lunch is eaten in Possum Place

1:30      Mrs Byrne, teacher aides and specialist teachers supervise the students.

Interviews begin

3pm      Mrs Byrne dismisses students, interviews continue (if applicable)

If you have any questions about Parent/Teacher interviews, please see you child’s teacher.

SEL News

Visible Learning and 4D

Tell me why?

This term our teachers have been working hard at helping students understand ‘why’ they are learning a concept in class. Simply adding the why can increase engagement and motivation with our students. When we can understand why we are learning something and make real life connections this can lead to deep motivation. The effect size on learning is 0.61 (0.40 is equivalent to a years’ worth of learning).

Adding ‘why’ we are learning a concept can move our students from surface motivation to deep motivation with learning as seen below.

Surface motivation - To learn facts and figures to pass a test - 0.13 

Deep motivation - To develop understanding and make sense of what they are learning; to create meaning - 0.61

4D Caroline Blackley visit

In week 9 we have Dr Caroline Blackley and her team visiting our school. Caroline has years of experience and research in her 4 Dimensions model to support teachers in their classroom management.

Our teachers will be involved in classroom observations to reflect on current classroom practices that support a productive learning environment and limits disruption to the learning.

As a staff, we value the opportunity to reflect on our teaching practices and use the feedback to continually learn and grow as professionals. We look forward to celebrating our strengths and reflecting on our next steps in development, to support the teaching and learning of our students.

Sports News

Congratulations to Paige and Harry on making the Capricornia Athletics Team.  They will now head to Brisbane in October for the State Athletic Trials.

Tomorrow, 24 of our Year 5 and 6 students will head into Biloela to take part in the Woolworths T20 Cricket Blast Cup.  We know that you will have an awesome day. 

During Week 10 some of our students in Year 4, 5 and 6 will head into Biloela to take part in the Interschool Netball Gala dDay. 

Book Fair - Thank You

Thank you for supporting our Book Fair last week.  Your support will see our library receiving over $800.00 worth of new books over the next 12 months.  

Project Club Meal Deal

Uniform Shop Hours

Our Uniform Shop will now be open on Thursday mornings.  Please see the  image below for information.

Term 3 Date Claimers