Thargomindah State School eNewsletter

Principal's Report

This past fortnight, we have been very lucky to have had a number of visits come to our school from a number of outside organisations.

Last Wednesday, we welcomed the RACQ Streets Ahead road safety presenters. They delivered lessons to the K-6 students and focussed on pedestrian, passenger and bike safety. If you would like further informaton on these important messages, you can find resource packs with age appropriate activities and videos demonstrating strategies at the following website: www.racq.com.au/streetsaheadresources. These resources will assist you to continue to teach road safety, implement the strategies your child/ren has learnt and apply them to everyday situations.

On Thursday, we welcomed NRL development officer Jarrod to our school. It was great to see the effort and enjoyment displayed by all and we thank Jarrod for travelling out and giving us his time. Jarrod was impressed with the skills that our students demonstrated during their sessions with him. Unfortunetely, this was Jarrod's last visit to Thargomindah as he has taken on another role within the NRL.

Geoff from South West Indigenous Network was here on Friday to run various games and activities with the students. Once again, the students had a great time engaging in these activities and we thank Geoff for taking the time to visit Thargomindah.

This coming Tuesday, the 5/6 students will be taking part in a “cool science” day here with staff from the Coolumboola Environmental Centre. The day will be focussed around energy and electricity with the students investigating solar panels, wind turbines and circuitry. This is a normal school day for our 5/6 students however, they will be working with Ms Morgan and the Coolumboola staff on the school oval and in the undercover area.

As we are nearing the end of this term, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful P&C committee executives and members. Without the support of the P&C, our students would not have access to the many opportunities and experiences that they have had, and will have, over the coming months (and beyond). The P&C has worked tirelessley at many events in this past 6 months to fund unique opportunities for the Thargomindah SS students. Through their funraising efforts, the P&C has also helped ease the many costs accossiated with schooling and events. Some of the many things that P&C funraising has assisted with lately includes the purchase and installation of new library shelving, covering the cost of the Canberra trip, supporting high school students with camp costs associated with their Brisbane trip and providing all K-6 students with new school uniforms (3 x shirts, 3 x shorts & hat). This is just a small snapshot of what the P&C has achieved lately through their fundraising efforts. Thank you to all involved and we can't wait to see what new and exciting experiences our students have ahead of them in the future thanks to the generosity and support of our P&C.

Assessment is winding up next week as the teachers finalise the Semester One report cards. A paper and email copy of the report cards will be sent out to parents at the end of Week 10.

Last week both myself and our Guidance Officer spoke to the students in the 3-6 class around outside of school interactions. We are finding as we are nearing the end of the term that a number of outside student interactions and conflicts are coming into school. This is causing problems with relationships and learning. The Guidance Officer shared a number of strategies with our students on how to deal with emotional conflict and she will continue to check in next term to monitor their effectiveness. Being a small community, friend groups are small and when there is a conflict it impacts on everyone. Social media is also playing it's part in negatively impacting our students and their wellbeing. Please be mindful of this and report any issues to the teachers if you feel this is cause for concern. I thank you for working with the school to help foster postive relationships between our students.

Have a great weekend!

Warmest regards,

Joel

Kindy Recap

This fortnight in the kindy group, we have continued the investigations into traditional stories. Mia and Sophie have absolutely loved the creative experiences that have unfolded from the reading of each traditional story. These guided play-activities are extremely important for kindergarten aged children to experience because it opens up pathways for explicit learnings, collaboration with peers and adults, opportunity to be creative, the language used can be quite rich, and it is always learner focussed; meaning the activity is based off of what interests the children. All of these are directly linked to the Kindergarten Quality Learning Areas which scaffold the learnings for the best possible start to their early year’s education.

This fortnight, some stories that have been “How the Kangaroos got their Tails”, “How Frogmouth found her home”, “The Echidna and the Shade Tree”, Kookoo Kookaburra” and “No Way Yirrikipayi”. All these stories are traditional Indigenous stories from the Dreaming that are rich in language and open opportunities for discussion around what they mean and what language it originates from. For example; in “How the kangaroos got their tails”, the children listened to the story and heard words like ‘tucker’ and ‘spinifex’. Both words that we know, but may not have been know by Mia and Sophie. The discussions around these words opened up to learning about our environment and the landscapes around Thargomindah. This is especially important because the learnings from this relate directly to where Mia, Sophie, and the teachers live and where their school is. This is closely linked to the focus area of identity, another Quality Learning Area that is largely encouraged in the kindergarten space.

One more fortnight left in the term and the kindies are half way through the year! Unbelievable! In the next couple of weeks, we will continue to read traditional stories, learn while we play, kick back with the year one and two students and enjoy the last couple of weeks of Term 2!

Thanks everyone,

Miss T and Miss M

K-2 Class Recap

Hello everyone and hello end of assessment time! We have finally hammered the nail on the head and finished all assessments for Semester One. This has been quite the feat as a lot of the students in the downstairs class winced or commented on their displeasure having to do their assessment. This is something that we don’t normally experience, but, being the term that it has been, with public holidays, illness, tired children, cold weather, they have pulled themselves together to produce some positive assessment results. Congratulations kids!

With that aside, we now have the time to get going on creating art and work to display at the school exhibition at the end of the term. This is something the students have been keen to do and have been learning some performances to show up on stage. We are hoping that all parents are able to take the time to come to the hall for a night in Week 10 and celebrate all the hard work that has been put in from their children this term. Let’s celebrate them!

This week we were fortunate enough to have been visited by Jarred from the Roma NRL crew. He worked with the TSS kids on Thursday coaching games and footy skills which went down an absolute treat for the end of assessment period. A very big THANK YOU to Mr McCaskie for organising this for the students.

On Friday, Geoff from the South-West Indigenous Network (SWIN) visited and the kids got another jam-packed day of fun and activities which I am grateful to have seen. We really are lucky to have these opportunities brought to Thargomindah State School for the kids to participate in. The remote nature of this town really doesn’t put a dampener on their school experiences!

That’s all from the downstairs classroom this fortnight, thanks for reading!

Miss T

Student Voice Article

This fortnight we have been working really hard to complete our violin assessment with Mr Clyde. We have planted plants for our science assessment and hopefully things will grow for our open evening with parents. We are all very thankful to Mrs Roy for bringing us at least 400 new books for our library. We finally have new things to read!

3-6 Class Recap

We are now officially at the pointy end of the term. Assessment is starting to take over in the classroom and students have largely positive attitudes towards the tasks. This fortnight, we have had a few visitors. Representatives from RACQ came to visit us to discuss road, bike, pedestrian and car safety with us. Students had an amazing time exploring different strategies we can use to be safe on our bikes, when crossing the road, when in the car and while out walking.

In HASS, we have been exploring federation and the impact that it had on everyone in Australia at the time. Students will be completing their assessment this week – conducting research about an influential person in Australia’s federation during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

In Science, we have planted many different seeds to see how they all grow in different conditions. For their assessment, students will need to compare the growth of their plants in different places and comment on the reasons why the plants may have different growth patterns.

This week, students enjoyed a visit from Jarrod from NRL QLD. He helped students to refine their throwing and catching skills as well as learning how to play team games. Our male students really enjoyed the NRL experience, especially after watching QUEENSLAND win the State of Origin on Wednesday night.

As the end of the term and reporting period gets closer, I encourage students to bring their best attitudes and positive demeanour to every task that they are required to complete over the coming week.

Until next time,

Ms Morgan