Term 4 Week 9 2022
- Principal's News by Tracy Egan
- Team Mango We All Belong!
- Prep News by Melinda White
- Year 1 News by Kylie Vaughan
- Year 2 News by Ellaine Warner
- Year 3 News by Michelle Alcorn
- Year 4 News by Ben Mills
- Year 5 and Year 6 News by Martin Winney
- Curriculum News by Suzette Holm
- Sporting News by The PE Department
- News from our Partners
Congratulations to our performers
What a pleasure it was to attend the music gala evening last Wednesday evening and the dance concert last night. We saw an outstanding display of the performing arts. Congratulations students and thank you to parents for your support.
Special thanks to our performing arts teachers – Mrs Kostoglou, Mrs Morrell, Mrs Almond, Mrs Nicolopoulous. Mrs Newey, Mr James and Mr Stylianou for your dedication and support of students!
Swimming carnival change of date
Due to the weather forecast for heavy rain on Thursday, we have decided to postpone our 8 and 9-year-old swimming carnival to next WEDNESDAY 7 December. At this stage we plan to have our 10-12-year-old carnival this Friday as planned.
End of Year Festivities
Over the next week we have the following festivities.
Awards Assemblies - Next week we will hold our end of semester awards ceremony. If your child is receiving an award, you should receive an invitation from the teacher by tomorrow. Congratulations to the students who are being recognised! The criteria for awards is below.
Carols by Candlelight – We invite you to join us next Tuesday from 5.30-6.30 on the oval. Bring along a picnic rug and sing along with our year 1,3 and 5 students. All families (regardless of year level) are welcome to come along!
Year 6 Graduation Dinner – We look forward to celebrating our Year 6 students next Wednesday evening at Gigum Hall.
Break up Party Day – Next Thursday we will hold our break up party day. Free dress! Teachers will communicate with you regarding what is happening that day for your child’s class.
Farewell Parade – Will be held next Thursday morning at 9am at Gigum Hall. This is our opportunity to farewell our graduating Year 6 students and other students and staff leaving. Parents and carers are welcome to attend.
Year 6 Walk out – This will be held next week on Thursday afternoon. Parents of Year 6 students are invited to gather to watch this walk out.
Clean up Day – This will be held next week on Friday. No formal lessons on this day.
2023 Classes
To accommodate the change to swimming carnival, we will now send our 2023 class placement on Tuesday and students will have the opportunity to meet their new teacher on Tuesday at 1.30pm.
On Tuesday parents will be emailed their child’s class placement for 2023. Many, many hours have been spent forming classes ensuring each class has a good balance and taking into account parent considerations. Please be respectful of your child’s class allocation. Students will have time on Tuesday to meet their new teacher (where possible).
Report Cards
Report Cards will be emailed home to parents next Wednesday at the latest. Staff have carefully moderated results to ensure consistency across the year level and beyond our school. A reminder that a ‘Working With’ in Prep, ‘Sound’ in Year 1-2 and C in Year 3-6 are all good results and mean that your child is meeting the achievement standard. If you have any questions about your child’s report results, please make a time to see the class teacher.
Gifts for staff
Our staff certainly do not expect any gifts at the end of the year however I know many families like to give a small token of appreciation to some staff members. A gentle reminder that staff cannot accept cash, lottery tickets, scratchies or pre-paid cards that can be withdrawn as cash.
We thank you for your kind words and notes of appreciation. They really mean the world to our team!
2023 Staffing
Next week we will farewell a number of staff members who are moving on to new adventures in 2023.
Farewell and special thanks to Vicki Gardner, Lee Peno, Mary Cosmo, Kira Balaam, Jamie Pears, Kirra Sodhi, Tessa Hogan, Fiona Newey and George Stylianou. Each of these staff members has played a significant role in the lives of our students and we thank them for their outstanding efforts and wish them all the best for their next adventures!
A special mention to Vicki, Lee, Kira and Mary who have contributed their expertise to Team Mango over many years. They will be greatly missed and their legacy will live on in many ways. I am proud of them and their courage to take the next step in their career and life journey. We will miss them and wish them all the very best.
Best wishes also to Suzanne Walker who is taking a year’s leave and to Sam Dixon and Rachel Rosenow who will be on maternity leave for 2023. We look forward to meeting your precious little ones in the new year.
I would also like to pay tribute to Lorraine Willis who was a foundation staff member and has worked tirelessly as a teacher aide in our school. Lorraine is retiring and looking forward to the next stage in her life spending more time with her grandchildren. We thank Lorraine for her contribution to Team Mango over the past 11 years and wish her all the very best for a happy and healthy retirement!
On Monday many of our new staff joined us for an induction day. Look at these wonderful new faces, ready to bring their enthusiasm and expertise to our community. Welcome!
I will send you a full teaching staff list next week with your child’s class placement.
Term 4 Yarn and Eats
This Monday, we had our last Yarn and Eats for 2022. It was another fantastic opportunity to connect with our First Nations community. Students (and even some parents) got involved in some Indigenous games and chalk drawing. We all went home with full bellies after many sausage sandwiches too!
Thank you to the families that have joined us for this connection time throughout 2022. We look forward to more Yarn and Eats afternoons next year!
Focus of the Week
The Care Class focus that will be delivered this Friday is ‘Saying Goodbye”. We will be consolidating this focus throughout next week.
By saying Goodbye, we are Caring for Self and Others. Sometimes saying goodbye to primary school friends can seem an incredibly daunting task, especially if students have known each other since they started school. By discussing what it means to say "Goodbye" is a time to reflect and also a time to dream about new beginnings and things you want to do in the future.
The term “goodbye” represents separation or parting but in several languages, it also means “until we meet again.”
Carols By Candlelight
In less than a week we will be celebrating the end of the year with our Carols By Candlelight event. Students in Years 1, 3 and 5 will be performing but all year levels are welcome to come along to join in the singing. Students are encouraged to wear Christmas clothes to celebrate.
Families are encouraged to bring their own snacks, sit on a picnic blanket and enjoy the evening together. The P & C will be selling chips and drinks and families who’ve pre-ordered pizzas, can pick these up from the Canteen between 5 – 5:30pm.
This event will be held on our school oval. The main entry to this event will be via the oval steps near the Middle Years building/playground. The other entry points will be via the path past the multipurpose court and up the path coming out at the PE shed. The event will open at 5:00pm for a 5:30pm start time.
Children will need to sit with their families for the duration of the evening. Could you please assist on the night by actively supervising your children to ensure that everyone can enjoy this community event. The playground will be strictly out of bounds.
When class group are announced, children will need to meet their teacher in the holding area to the right of the stage. Class teachers will lead students on to the stage to perform and off at the end of their song. Students will be asked to walk back to find their families at the end of their performance. If you are concerned about your child finding you, we have organised a collection point at the back of the event. Teachers will wait with students there if they’d prefer to collect your child directly from their teacher.
Please note we will need to cancel this event should we encounter inclement weather.
Calico Bags
Connecting to our new school WiFi - EQNET
Thank you to all of the families who have connected to Company Portal in recent weeks. For the remainder of the year, our old Wi-fi network iDET, will not be available. Any students who are not connected to the new Wi-fi, EQNET, which requires Company Portal to be downloaded and signed into, will no longer have access to the internet.
If you are still having difficulty with downloading and/or signing into Company Portal for your child, please visit our website for further information and resources: https://mangohillss.eq.edu.au/curriculum/epal-program
If you continue to have difficulty signing in to Company Portal, you can contact the ePAL support team at epal@mangohillss.eq.edu.au .
Concert Success... Even for Ms White!
Woohoo!
And that’s a wrap for our very first dance concert. How brilliant were we?!!
The things we loved the most about the concert were…
- Learning the dance moves and try, try, trying again across the semester, to be the best dancers we could be.
- Showing our families and friends our new talents.
- Spending time together as a Prep community, watching our Prep friends shine.
As I said last night at the concert, in case you missed it, what I have loved the most about this year, is the way that all of our Prep families have come together – just like we promised we would at our enrolment meetings. We said we wanted a village and you’ve all worked hard to create this village atmosphere. I see you looking out for other’s children. I see you being so understanding when one of our fellow Prep friends is finding coming to school a challenge. You’ve all been superstar cheerleaders for not only your own children, but for all of our children.
And that love and support of Team Mango was evident last night at our concert.
So whilst it’s “well done Preps, you smashed your first concert out of the ballpark!” it’s also, “well done families, for your kindness, understanding and unconditional support.”
I’m so proud of our 200 Preps and how far they have come this year!
Deputy Principal - Prep
mwhit37@eq.edu.au
Carols By Candlelight – Year 1
Our Year 1 students are getting very excited about performing at our upcoming Carols By Candlelight event. They have been practising their singing and learning actions to match their song. Students are encouraged to get into the festive spirit by dressing in Christmas clothes for the evening.
Check out the practice going on in 1C and 1W this week.
Please be thinking about how your child might find you at the end of their performance. Students will be directed from the stage to walk back to their families. If you are worried about your child finding you, we have organised a collection point at the back of the oval. Teachers will wait with students there until you collect them.
We are looking forward to a wonderful event!
Aside from carols, we have lots of other special events happening in Week 10. Here’s a list of the what’s coming up.
- Monday 5 December, 8:30am – Year 1 Awards Ceremony. Students should wear their formal uniforms on this day.
- Tuesday 6 December– Meet the 2023 Teacher and class placements sent home.
- Wednesday 7 December- Year 1 Care Class Celebration, report cards
- Thursday 8 December – Farewell parade 8:40am and Break Up Day parties.
Learning in Year 2
The terms have turned into weeks and now we are down to 7 days only left in our school year. Our Year 2 students are looking taller, older and quickly becoming ready for Year 3.
We are keeping our focus on making the most of every day for learning and some fun. It’s such a pleasure to spend time in your children’s classes. Your children have written texts convince their readers that:
- Cats are better pets than dogs
- Our school should use a four day week
- Halloween is better than Christmas
- The best place for a school is by the beach.
Children are learning (again) that an important part of solving a Math problem is reading the question carefully, including any diagrams. And, we are learning more about Year 3 too!
You can help your child over the holidays by reading books for pleasure and to find out important information, and taking all the opportunities that the holidays present to read all sorts of reading material – signs, posters, recipes etc. A holiday journal, shopping lists or some letters to grandparents or other family members are great chances to write together. Consider a calendar to countdown to special days in your family, appointing your child the chief time teller or investing a small amount of money for them to track on your next trip for groceries.
The Year 2 teachers, teacher aides and I are so appreciative of all the ways your support your children to do their best at school.
Take care and have a wonderful week
Ellaine Warner
Deputy Principal- Year 2
ewarn23@eq.edu.au
Busy, busy, busy!
Whilst we have started to wrap up our big units of work across year 3 this week, we have now shifted our learning into applying our knowledge, skills and understandings into other real world contexts. It has been great visiting classrooms this week and seeing students apply their learning in maths to design Snakes and Ladders board games and writing cryptic poems where the reader has to guess ‘who it is?’ or ‘what is it?’.
Year 4 Ready
Over the next two weeks our students will be starting to get ready for Year 4! Part of our transition plan is for classroom teachers to walk their students over to the future Year 4 classrooms and to start meeting some of the teachers and teacher aides they will be working with. Whilst they might not know it yet, they will be working with some of these staff members next year. We purposefully do this to help lessen some of the worries about change and brings some predictability to 2023 for our students.
Have a great week
Michelle Alcorn
Deputy Principal- Year 3
malco14@eq.edu.au
Transitions and Celebrations
While this time of the year is very exciting for everyone, we know that for some of our students and their families, it can be a nervous time. After being in a class with the same students and the same teacher for a full year, the structure and routines that become so familiar will soon see some change. While the school environment is the same and all of our students will have familiar faces in their classes, we know that this upcoming change can be concerning. To support this, we will be working with all of our students over the coming week, to best set them up for their transition into Year 5. This will include an opportunity for all of our students to meet their 2023 class and get to know their 2023 teacher. We find that doing this process before the holidays reduces the anxiety for students and their families and promotes excitement and anticipation for the year ahead.
Along with the transition supports, there will be lots of celebrations occurring over the next week. This includes our behaviour celebration and awards ceremony that will both occur on Monday, as well as our class party on Thursday Week 10.
I am looking forward to recognising the successful year our Year 4 cohort has had at these events!
Swimming Carnival
The swimming carnival is this week! Students born in 2012 will attend the carnival on Friday. Due to the postponement of the carnival on Thursday, our students born in 2013 will now attend on Wednesday 7 December. Parents are more than welcome to come along and cheer on their kids. All students are encouraged to attend and participate, with a range of options for swimmers of all abilities.
We are looking forward to a fun day!
Have a super week
Ben Mills
Deputy Principal – Year 4
bxmil3@eq.edu.au
Care for Learning in Year 5 and 6
This week there has been a sea of activity in Year 5 and 6 classrooms. I had the pleasure of visiting 5G last week. Mr Goulding and the students of 5G invited families into the classroom to celebrate the learning that has occurred in 5G this year. It was wonderful to meet with parents and celebrate their child’s success. What a great end to the year! To compliment the learning that has occurred in Maths all Year 5 classes have participated in their Market Day activity. Students have developed their own business and sold products. This helps teach them all about financial literacy. I always love talking to students about the choices they have made within their business and I am always impressed with the level of agency they have in their learning. Congratulations all Year 5 students on their Market Day business.
Transition to Secondary School
Congratulations to all of our Year 6 students who participated in the range of transition excursions over the last two weeks. Our students have attended Mango Hill State Secondary College, Murrumba State Secondary College and a range of private secondary schools as they begin their transition to secondary schooling. Many students I spoke to said they made some new friends, new connections and are excited to try some new things at high school.
Graduation
Plans are ramping up for the Year 6 Graduation. Please remember to return your RSVP forms to indicate that your child is attending and the two adults that are accompanying them. People can start to arrive from 5pm on Wednesday 7 December with formalities beginning at 6:30pm. This will be followed by a disco. Families can purchase food on the night from the three food vans. I also know teachers are busy setting up a PowerPoint with each student's photo from Prep and their Year 6 photo. If you have not done so already, please send these to your teacher. Payment for the night can be made on QKR (instructions attached). Once you download the app go to Mango Hill State School – School Payments – Graduation – add to cart and make payment. We look forward to celebrating your child’s graduation with you and our community. PCYC will also be providing child minding for siblings two years of age or older. I have included a letter in this week’s newsletter if you wish to take up this opportunity.
Martin Winney
Deputy Principal –Year 5 & 6
mwinn7@eq.edu.au
Accelerated Reader
While we have finished AR quizzing for the year, we have a few committed and eager readers who are still reaching for their goals. Congratulations to Sai who reached 1 million words late last week. This week we joined with Jack in celebrating his 2 million words, and also Aadya who reached 4 million words.
We are so very proud of all of these students who have been committed to reaching their goals and have kept on reading right up until the last week or so. Well done Sai, Jack and Aadya!
We have added their photos to our special AR display so that everyone can share in the celebrations. We have had so many photos to add to the display that we have had to start removing some of our AR Millionaires from 2021. But don’t worry – we have a special AR folder so that we can keep track of everyone who has ever reached a million words at Mango Hill State School. The photos of our AR Millionaires from 2022 will stay up until this time next year, so there is plenty of time to remember their extraordinary reading achievements!
Returning all books
Don’t forget that all library books are now due back to the Hub. For lost and damaged books we ask families to replace the missing books.
Have a great week
Suzette Holm
shol0@eq.edu.au
A reminder of our big dates this term in PE.
Big PE Dates in Term 4
- 2 December (Friday, Wk 9) – MHSS Swimming Carnival (10-12yrs)
- 7 December (Wednesday, Week 10) CHANGE OF DATE - MHSS Swimming Carnival (8-9yrs)
MHSS Year 3-6 Swimming Carnival
Later this term our MHSS Swimming Carnival for all Year 3-6 students will be held. Our goal is to ensure all students can participate in a variety of swimming races and have an enjoyable day with their peers.
Students in Years 3-6 who are turning 8 and 9 years old in 2022 (Born 2013 and 2014) will compete on Wednesday 7 December (Week 10). Students in Years 3-6 turning 10, 11 and 12 years old in 2022 (Born 2010, 2011 and 2012) will compete on Friday 2 December (Week 9).
Students compete at sporting events, including at representative levels, in age groups, not in year levels. Therefore, our carnival days run to align with this process.
Below is the initial parent information for both days. Students will receive or have received more information at school. This will include a permission and race nomination form, which will need to be returned for your son/daughter to attend. There is no cost for parents associated with the swimming carnival days.
Mr Hills & Mr Newell, Miss Richards and Mr Lisha
Physical Education Teachers
PCYC News
Bookings for 2023
We have been offering positions to those that have already completed the form. If you missed the email sent out please collect a form at the sign in and out station in the room or email us.
CCS
There are still a few missing CRN’s in the system. Miss Alysa has been trying to catch families at pick up and drop off. Please check your CRN’s in the system to ensure that they are correct for your benefits to come through.
Communication
Miss Alysa (Assistant Coordinator), Mr Robert (Support Coordinator) and Miss Fiona (Area Manager) are your main points of contact while Angela is off, one of us will be available so please call, email or catch us in person.
Menu Ideas
Thank you to those that provided menu ideas. We welcome any further input into the menu.
Uniform Shop News
Shop Hours During Week 10
Monday 8:00am-10:30am
Tuesday 8:00am-10:30am
Wednesday 1:30pm-4:00pm
Thursday 1:30pm-4:00pm
Friday 8:00am-10:30am
Are you starting to think about new uniforms for next year? You are welcome to come and see us during our regular opening hours for the rest of the term. Alternatively we are running appointments again from January 10-13, which will save you from long queues in the hot weather.
Bookings can be made at Wearitto Mango Hill SS | Scheduling and Booking Website (simplybook.me)
Competition time! Upgrade your uniforms and get ready for back to school (B2S) - place an online order before December 2 to be in the running for some new ROC school shoes.
Online orders - can be placed through our website any time at www.wearitto.com.au/schools/mango-hill-state-school
Orders are packed through the uniform shop during our opening hours and an email is sent to let you know when your order is ready to be picked up, or, if you'd like your student to bring the uniforms home with them, email us at mangohill@wearitto.com.au with your student's name and class name and we can get it to them.
P and C News
SWIMMING CARNIVAL
If your child is attending swimming carnival either on Friday or next Wednesday? If so, please do not place orders for tuck shop as the children will be off at the pool and we have no way of getting their orders to them.
Just a reminder that on Thursday and Friday of Week 10 the canteen will be cloased, however the Sole cafe will remain open until the end of Week 10 as per normal hours.
Did you know we now have a coffee machine at Gigum Hall run by Sole Cafe? We will be open every morning for the award ceremonies in week 10 so please stop by for a coffee.
Please be advised we are cashlessat Gigum Hall.
Looking for ideas for Teacher's gifts? We have gift cards available at Sole Cafe.
Please see the Sole Cafe staff at the counter to purchase.
