2022 Newsletter Issue 10 - 24 June 2022
Principal's Message
As the students begin their winter holidays I want to thank the school and the Thargomindah community for their support over the last 6 months and for welcoming our family into the town.
It is a pleasure to announce Thargomindah State School's new permanent principal, is Jade Maksan. Jade is joining us from Mt Surprise State School where she was principal. Jade comes to our school with a wealth of knowledge and experience.
A message from our new Principal:
Hello Thargomindah school community. I am coming from Mt Surprise which is approximately 500km west of Cairns. Surrounded by cattle stations with half my students travelling 80km each way to school, I have been here for just less than three years. Though my family (husband and 2 adult daughters) remain on the Sunshine Coast I have enjoyed working in remote and rural schools since 2014. I have experience in a range of schools and communities. Before undertaking the role of Principal I worked as Head of Special Education working with students, families and teachers to overcome barriers to learning. I look forward to being part of the Thargomindah community. I am sure it is as lovely a community as I have been told it is. Kind regards, Jade Maksan
Thanks again for your suppport and I wish you all the very best for the remainder of 2022 and beyond.
Joel
Awards
K-2 Class
We did it! End of term is here! How the year has flown, we are already half way through. This term has definitely been an interesting one, with most of us either catching or fighting off illnesses and soldiering on for the learning. Some amazing achievements made by the K-2 class this semester are; utilising the Visitor Information Centre’s library and attractions, construction of obstacle courses to play on, baking and making lots of delicious foods, touring to the Old Hospital and Memorial Park, met some people who serve with the Army, ran cross country, cared for our class butterflies, prepared and participated in Under 8’s Day, learnt road safety from RACQ, more construction with giant boxes, and play traditional games with Geoff from the South-West Indigenous Network. Not to mention the academic achievements that came from the learning and activities we participated in.
This term, the Year 1 and 2 students have made great success in their traditional story studies, learning about the structure of a story and how to re-write or create their own traditional story. As you would have seen at the student work exhibition in the town hall, your children have written some very creative stories that are really interesting to read.
Mathematics this term was also a great success with the time and number units. Time is a tricky concept for younger children to grasp and understand, so I am glad we invested as much time as we did in this learning, because it has proven to successful in their assessment.
Science this term was an awesome unit learning about life cycles of insects and animals. The students were able to do some independent research, watch documentary videos and even witness the changes in a butterfly’s life cycle.
In PE this term, the Year 1-6 students have been practising their athletics skills in preparation for Term 3’s athletics carnival. We are ready and raring!
Until next term, enjoy your holidays everyone!
Miss T
Kindy
This fortnight was the last for kindy in Semester One! Half way through the year already! In no time the girls will be in Prep...
This fortnight in the kindy space, they have finished off their Traditional Tales unit of investigation with some more Indigenous stories. Some books in focus were “Welcome to Country”, “The Sand Symbols”, “Big Rain Coming”, “Fair Skin Black Fella” and “Whoever you Are”. These all had a particular focus on self-identity and relationships with people around them. Week 9 saw the kindy kids investigating colour, talking about how different art is used to portray landscapes with complimentary and contrasting colours. A big part of story telling in Aboriginal culture is the art which is used to illustrate the tellings. This is an important part of the learning for the kindy kids and as such, they got to experiment with colours by painting and mixing colours. Week 10 saw the girls listening to and reading books about people of diversity and people with different occupations. The agenda of inquiry was focussing on developing dispositions of acceptance and belonging and not judging people by the colour of their skin or the career they have chosen. The kindy kids got to experiment with more colour and used coloured paper to create scenes from the story.
These stories open up conversation to discuss self-identity and how to become accepting. An important role to teach and encourage in younger children. These learnings are vital to the success of the State Delivered Kindergarten program.
Next term, in the kindy space, the children will change from a Traditional Story focus to focus on Poetry and Rhyming. This will be a very fun unit as children are naturally inclined to use nonsense and rhyming words. This unit supports oral and vocabulary development in younger aged students and will largely support their learning in the years to come.
Have a fun and restful holiday everyone!
Miss T and Miss M
3-6 Class
We are finally here! The final week of Term 2. What a whirlwind term it has been. From the start with sickness and disruptions to learning, I can honestly say that I am very proud of all that we have achieved in the upstairs classroom this term.
In Science, students explored lifecycles and planted different vegetable seeds in the garden beds which have finally started to sprout. The assessment focused on lifecycles for the Yr 3/4s and the growth of plants in different environments for the Yr 5/6s. while some of the plants did not initially look like they wanted to sprout, many of them have shot up in the past fortnight. To finish off the term, we planted all of the seedlings into the garden beds downstairs in the hope that by the time we get back to school, we have a fantastic crop of different vegetables starting to flourish.
In HASS, students were exploring Federation and the impact that it had on Australia. Students really delved into their research of people who were significant to federation and presented fantastic posters of their work.
Design technologies finished with a bang this semester. All students were deeply engaged in creating their puppets (Yr 1/2s) or their item that would benefit wildlife (Yr 3-6s) made from recycled/reusable materials. These items looked fantastic and students had a great time letting their creativity shine.
In English, students explored traditional stories from different cultures and reflected on them. Students also had the opportunity to write their own story with a moral. This creative writing process was tricky at the beginning, but everyone produced an imaginative text.
The final days of school were met with excitement as well as sadness as we found out that Mr McCaskie would not be with us next term. We thank you for your presence in the upstairs classroom as well as all of your hard work alongside students this year so far.
Student Voice
This term has been very busy. This week we really enjoyed pyjama day and the food that we got to eat. We also loved watching all of the movies in the last week of school. It was so much fun! We are keen for a 2 week break and looking forward to meeting our new principal. See you later Mr McCaskie. Thank you for being our teacher/principal for the past 2 terms. We will miss you very much.