Duaringa State School Newsletter Term One

Week Two Phone: 07 4925 6333 Fax: 07 4925 6300

Mobile: 0472 844 413 Web Site: www.duaringass.eq.edu.au Email: admin@duaringass.eq.edu.au

29th JANUARY 2018

OUR VIS ION: Duar inga State Schoo l st r i ve s to prov ide qua l i ty

learning for each student and is committed to excellence in education.

Dear Parents and Caregivers, Welcome to the 2018 school year! A very big welcome to all of our new Duaringa family members and particularly to our new prep students. You are now ‘Duaringa kids’. We are very proud of our students and we have high expectations of you all. Thank-you to all our parents for assisting with a smooth transition for the back to school time! Our new Preps (Talis, Holly, Bridgette and Hunter) are settling in well and are eager to learn! We also welcome Chase to Year Four at Duaringa State School and we wish him all the best in his academic pursuits throughout 2018. And finally, a very big Duaringa welcome to Ms Shaw. She has travelled from Mackay to take up a position as our P-2 teacher for 2018. I am very excited to have her join our team and look forward to working with her throughout the year. Without you and your support, we can only accomplish so much. Please be sure to be a presence in our school – to work with the educators who want so much for your child. Partnerships are important at Duaringa SS. Regardless of your child’s current learning level, we expect all students to make at least twelve months’ worth of gain during this schooling year. We can only accomplish this when home and school work together. I am pleased to welcome all new families to our wonderful school. We wish all students a productive 2018 and I’m looking forward to working with each and every one of you. I have an open door policy, am very approachable and believe in a collaborative approach to education so if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me so that we can work towards the same goal – providing a positive educational experience to all students at the school.

CALENDAR

January

29th Community Parade

29th Newsletter

February

2nd Swimming (P-2)

2nd Parent Information Session

9th Swimming (P-2)

16th Swimming (P-2)

23rd Swimming (P-2)

26th Community Parade

26th Newsletter

March

19th Teacher/Parent Interviews

20th Cyber Safety Program

21st Teacher/Parent Interviews

22nd Teacher/Parent Interviews

23rd Queen’s Baton Relay

26th Community Parade

26th Newsletter

29th Student Presentations

29th Rewards Day

29th Last Day of Term

Student of the Week!

Term 1

Week 1 – Hunter Roberts For trying his best and working independently. Week 1 – Leah Russell For setting a great example for all our students. Well done Leah!

School Rules

Be Safe

Be Respectful

Be Responsible

Be a Learner

P-2 Miss Shaw

For those who haven’t met me, I’m Taylah Shaw and I’m very excited to be the P-2 teacher this year. I was born and raised in Mackay and this is my first time living away from my home town. I love travelling, music and sport, especially netball. I am looking forward to getting to know everyone and having a fantastic year at Duaringa. We have had a great first week settling into our new P-2 class. We have spent the first week learning about numbers to 5, revising letter sounds, constructing sentences as well as discussing our rules and expectations. Over the next few weeks we will continue to investigate numbers up to 100 and will be introducing narrative texts. Spelling words and sight words will also be implemented from this week on. Homework will also begin this week. Looking forward to having a great first term!

P and C The P&C had another great year at Duaringa State School during 2017. The P&C has had various fundraising campaigns last year such as afternoon teas in the park, Halloween Disco, Marshmallow and Rum Ball Drives to top it all off. All monies fundraised from these events are put back into the school to support our families and children of Duaringa State School, by helping the school purchase resources, assisting families with costs of camps and much more. There were some new faces that joined P&C this year; I would love to see many more. Our P&C meet two times each term.

Swimming From week 2 (2nd February) until week 5 (23rd February), our P-2’s will participate in swimming lessons delivered by our learn-to-swim coach, Alicia Dunne, and assisted by Kelsey Elliott. Students will be learning many skills, from water safety to stroke correction.

Parent Information Session This Friday, the 2nd of February, starting at 2:45pm, we will be holding a parent information session. This meeting allows teachers to explain classroom rules, expectations and curriculum implementation to you so that you are aware of what will be happening in your child’s class and when. This is also a great time for you to meet your child’s teacher and ask any questions you might have about the year. The information session will start in P-2 classroom (B Block) followed by an information session for the 3-6 class at 3:15pm.

Capricorn Highway Cluster Moderation On Thursday, January 18th, the Capricorn Highway Principals and teachers from Duaringa SS, Dingo SS, Bluff SS and Comet SS came together to discuss with our district PEAAC (Principal Education Advisor: Australian Curriculum), Jenny Jones, around quality assurance when implementing the Australian Curriculum in our schools. Throughout this year, our staff will work with Jenny on how to ensure all our students are succeeding in all learning areas, support with teaching practices and supporting our cluster each term when we meet to moderate students’ assessment. We had some fantastic discussions around the curriculum and guiding students to take responsibility for their learning. We are all very excited about 2018 and implementing these strategies into our classrooms!

Expected Student Drop-off and Pick-Up Procedures Parents, please ensure you are dropping your students off after 8am and before 8:25am each morning on school days. If you require an earlier drop off time then you need to seek permission from the Principal to ensure sufficient supervision. Our school finishes at 2:30pm. If you are running late in the afternoon, please phone the school. Also, if students are going home with another parent or family member please inform the school. Our number one priority is student safety before, during and after school.

Look out for notes being sent home! Parents, please ensure you read any note sent home carefully as they contain important information for

upcoming events etc. The information in the newsletter is information that is on hand now and can change. I

will endeavour to send out important information to all parents and the community to ensure smooth running

of events/initiatives.

Next Newsletter

Our next newsletter will be handed out on Monday, February 26 (Week 6). Please ensure you email anything

that you would like to include in our next newsletter by Thursday, February 22nd to Kelsey Elliott

kdunn101@eq.edu.au.

Focus 40: Organising Yourself

Organised people are seen as efficient and in control of themselves and their surroundings. By being

organised, there is more on-task learning time. Children become less stressed as well as more quickly and

readily able to concentrate on the task at hand.

Bring everything you need into the room in the morning

Make sure you have a pen or sharp pencil, eraser and ruler

Keep your tidy-box clean and neat, so you can find things quickly and easily

Clearly label your belongings with your name

At Duaringa State School, students are learning about being organised and taking responsibility for their

belongings. We talk about making sure we are organised before school starts and being organised after

playtime. We discuss the importance of being organised and how it affects our learning time when we are

disorganised. It’s great to see students at this school seeing the importance of being organised each and

every day.

Student Absences Our school will contact parents as soon as practicable on the day if a student is not at school and we don’t know why. If you are advised by the school that your child is away without a reason, please contact the office on 49256333 or 0472844413 as soon as possible, to let us know where your child is. We will follow-up with parents if no response is received. Please remember that it is your legal responsibility to have your child at school every day. If they are away more than three days in a row, that is a cause for concern and is a trigger for an enquiry from the school. If your child is sick or absent from school, please contact the school on that day.

Remember, every day counts!

Yours in Education,

Michael Forrest Principal

From the Office Student Banking This year student banking will be on a Thursday. Students are encouraged to place their banking books into the student collection box in the office before school. Students receive a silver token for each deposit, when they have 10 token they are able to exchange for them for a reward item. Reward items for term one are:

· Twister Power Handball

· Secret Scratch Notepad

P & C News Uniform Order Form Uniform order forms are available from the school office.

Community Information We love to have community information included in our newsletter. Newsletter items can be faxed or emailed to us. Please note the Newsletter is only sent out every four weeks. Fax: 49256 300 Email: admin@duaringass.eq.edu.au or

lmcke226@eq.edu.au