Term 4 Week 1 2020

A great Start to Term 4!

Welcome back and a special welcome to all the new families who have joined our school community this term. We are really pleased with the attitude and enthusiasm we saw from students yesterday. It was great to see the Year 1 & 3 students make a successful start to swimming!

This term we continue to focus on supporting and challenging each student to achieve their potential. Our partnerships with parents are a key part of every student succeeding and I encourage you to make contact with your child’s teacher if you did not get the opportunity to meet at the end of last term.

P & C Meeting

Our next P & C Meeting will be held next Monday 12 October from 6:30pm-8:00pm in the staff room. All parents are invited to attend.

I will provide an update on what is happening in our school and the plans for 2021. We will also discuss the proposed Health Program for Term 4 including sexuality education.

I hope you can join us!

Facilities Improvements

We have many projects coming to fruition at the current time. I have outlined these briefly below.

• Our $9 million hall will start construction later this month. Wiley have been appointed to build this and we are looking forward to its completion in June 2021.
• Our four new demountable classrooms were craned in over the holidays and will be ready in a few weeks’ time. These four classrooms will accommodate growth for 2021.
• We have completed a bandwidth and wireless upgrade over the holidays.
• We will be installing solar panels in the next few weeks.
• We are progressing our air-conditioning program and hope to start installation this term.
• We are currently in the planning stage for an additional building with classrooms ready for 2022 growth.
• We will be installing additional shade for the Look Out Zone.
• We are working with our Travel Safe Committee  to generate a solution to provide additional staff car parking to relieve pressure in the front car parks for parents and exploring options to make the back of the school safer for pedestrians and road users. I will provide further information about these initiatives in the coming weeks.

We are excited by these improvements and look forward to seeing these projects come to fruition to provide our students with world-class facilities!

Student Code of Conduct Parent Consultation Session

Thank you to the parents who attended consultation sessions last term. We appreciate your input!

In 2020, all Education Queensland schools including our own, are developing a Student Code of Conduct. This document will primarily replace our Responsible Behaviour Plan. 

Throughout Term 3, staff at our school had the opportunity to consult and contribute to the draft Student Code of Conduct. This term, we are offering parents and community members the opportunity to consult on the draft Code.

Parents and community members are therefore invited to join Ellaine Warner, Deputy Principal Inclusion, for a parent consultation meeting on our draft Student Code of Conduct at 4:30pm-5:00pm on Wednesday 14 October 2020 in our school staffroom. Ellaine will introduce the key aspects of the Mango Hill State School Student Code of Conduct and answer any questions you may have relating to the document and it’s development so far.

If you would like to accept this invitation and attend the parent consultation meeting at 4:30pm-5:00pm on Wednesday 14 October, please email aglee39@eq.edu.au.  Given health guidelines, a second parent consultation meeting may be offered if all interested parents cannot be accommodated in a Covid-safe manner.

Planning for 2021

We are busy planning facilities, resources and staffing for the 2021 school year. At this stage, we anticipate approximately 1450 students next year. We will have 8 classes in each year level, except Prep and Year 3 which will have 9 classes at this stage. This is subject to change over the coming months as we process applications for enrolment.

If you have a child due to start Prep in 2021, please make contact with the office as soon as possible. Our prep interviews, information sessions, tours and transitions are happening now.

If you have any matters you would like us to consider for your child’s class placement in 2021, please complete the Class Considerations Form (below) and return to Jasmine Benfer jbenf10@eq.edu.au by Friday 30 October.

If your child will not be returning to MHSS in 2021, could you please let us know so we can ensure our staffing and resources are as accurate as possible. Thanks for your assistance.

Have a wonderful week
Tracy
tegan4@eq.edu.au

Focus of the Week 

The Care Class focus delivered on the last Friday of Term 4 was ‘Positive Emotions – Noticing them and Growing them.’

Positive emotions are important for us in many ways. If we notice them and do things to help them grow, it can help us to the best person we can be. Noticing and growing positive emotions is part of caring for self and it helps us be available to care for others.

Positive Emotions are transformational. The result of positive emotions is that we can "broaden and build". When we are worried, our focus becomes narrow and we can misread other people's good intentions. When we have positive emotions, our focus becomes wider and we recognise opportunities and when other people are trying to help us. 

Lunch Time Clubs

At Mango Hill State School we offer a variety of lunchtime Junior and Senior Clubs each Term. This Term we have a few new clubs that we are sure the students will love. Lunchtime Clubs are a great way for students to build social skills and new friendships in closely supported environment. They also provide a great opportunity to engage in interest based activities.

Only nine and a half weeks of our very first year of school left!

 Our goals for Term 4 in Prep are:

• improving our reading, writing and speaking and listening skills
• deepening our understanding of numbers to 20 and exploring the concepts of time
• practising our taking turns, sharing and kindness skills, so we’re ready for the Year 1 playground
• enjoying our first school swimming experience
• learning about what it means to be a Year 1 Kid at Mango Hill
• becoming more independent with our belongings, our learning and our behaviour
• continuing to develop our friendships with peers.

Our Prep students will also welcome kindy kids as they join us for visits with their kindy teachers across the term. We are excited to be welcoming our new little Preppies for 2021! As we see our kindy kids visit, it reminds us all of how far our current Prep students have come, how much learning they have done and how much they have grown in confidence. Parents, you should be very proud of your Prep child!

Please enjoy some of our first photos of our swimming lessons. 

Have a lovely week 
Melinda
mwhit37@eq.edu.au

Welcome back everyone to Term 4. With 2020 being such a tricky year, I am just so excited to see how well our Year 1 and 2 students have returned ready for Term 4! Our students have certainly built their independence and resilience! It has been wonderful seeing the students’ confidence increasing and their interest in learning grow.

Thank you also for those families who made time to attend the Parent/Teacher conferences to engage in the progress of their child/ren. Education is truly a partnership and the more fully engaged we have parents working with the teachers, the more opportunities our little ones have of feeling successful in their learning.

The classrooms have been buzzing with learning as the students start working towards their new learning goals for the term. Look at them engaging with the learning already!

Swimming for our Year 1 students commenced yesterday (well done parents in organising your little ones with swimming gear on their very first day! The swimming program is an important part of our curriculum and essential in building the skills to ensure that all of our children in Queensland can swim.

Have a great week!
Gabrielle
gdoug7@eq.edu.au

What a great first week!

So wonderful to see everyone back in class and ready to learn.

This week our students got straight into their new units of work, setting their learning goals for writing and maths this term. I really look forward to seeing how they model their growth mindset and celebrating their achievements on the way.

iPad Settings

A friendly reminder to please ensure that students are bringing their devices to school ready to learn. Following the holidays many students may need their settings reset. Apps such as iMessage should have notifications switched off whilst at school and home apps and searches cleared before coming to class. If families could please check that this is done prior to coming to school it would be greatly appreciated.

Year 4 Camp

Camp is fast approaching and we are very excited about our upcoming trip to Runaway Bay. Teachers over the next week will be preparing students by sharing snippets of information about the activities they will be taking part in!

Have a wonderful week
Michelle
malco14@eq.edu.au

Care for Learning in Year 5 and 6 

After what has been an unusual year, it was exciting this week to see so many Year 5 and 6 classes get straight into the core learning of Term 4. As I visited classes this week I had the opportunity to work with students as they began to deconstruct their response stimulus for the term, Storm Boy (Year 5) and My Place (Year 6). I enjoyed working with students as they used a thinking routine and Kagan collaborative learning strategies to develop a deeper understanding of these texts. To help inform teaching and learning, teachers have spent Week 1 and will spend Week 2 tracking some formative, pre-test data to really determine the next steps for all of their students. Great start Year 5 and 6!

Year 6 Graduation – Election Day Fundraising

Thank you to all of the families who have contacted me to lend their support to the fundraising for Graduation. A reminder, that if you wish to assist, there are multiple opportunities for you to donate money, goods or your time. All help is appreciated and will go to funding the Year 6 Graduation. These opportunities include:

• Volunteering at the Queensland Election Day on Saturday 31 October from 8:00am-2:00pm. I will be sending a roster out closer to the day.
• Baking goods (please include a list of ingredients) that can be sold as small goods on Election Day, as well as donating cans of soft drink to be sold at the canteen on the day. Please bring the baked goods to the school the day before and drinks can be donated to the office at any time.
• Donating goods to your child’s class hamper which will be raffled on Election Day.
• Buying and selling raffle ticks to go into the draw to win a class hamper.

Have a great week
Martin
mwinn7@eq.edu.au

Preparations for Next Year Begin

Term 4 is upon us. A focus this term is preparing our students for transitions into Prep, to the next year level and into secondary school respectively. Our Care Class curriculum aligns with this preparation for students. This term’s Care Class lessons are:

Week 1 – Mental Health Week

Week 2 – Sun and water safety

Week 3 – Curiosity and wonder

Week 4 – Day for Daniel (focus on Recognise, React, Report)

Week 5 – Personal values

Week 6 – NAIDOC

Week 7 – Playground problem-solving/restoring friendships

Week 8 – Images of the future.

Please note that due to Covid arrangements, Mental Health Week activities will take place in school time. 

Take care 
Ellaine
ewarn23@eq.edu.au

Accelerated Reader

Term 4 is a great opportunity to set some new reading goals. For students on Accelerated Reader, this might be a particular level, a number of books or perhaps a number of words.

For some students, Term 4 is a chance for them to reach one million words. For two students, they reached this outstanding milestone at the very end of Term 3. We are very proud of Avery and Franco who have been working hard all year to read, read and read! We have added their photos to our special AR Millionaire display in the Hub and are so pleased to share their achievement with our school community. Congratulations to Avery and Franco on reading one million words!

Last term also saw Prithuvi reach the dizzy heights of 7 million words in AR! Prithuvi loves to read and his commitment and dedication to AR has meant he is the first Mango Hill student to have read this many words in one year! We have added another photo of Prithuvi to our special AR display and left a little bit of space – just in case he has the persistence to go a little bit further. This is an extraordinary achievement and we are very proud of his reading efforts!

Pop on down to the Hub soon to see the photos of Avery, Franco and Prithuvi, as well as all of our 2020 Millionaire readers. There is still plenty of time for everyone else to reach their goals too – this week is a great time to start!! The Hub is open every morning from 8:15am and until 3:00pm each afternoon. See you soon!

Term 4 Curriculum

Term 4 is such a great opportunity for new learning. In English we look forward to students developing their understandings about different text types as they read picture books, poems, novels, diary entries and persuasive texts. In Maths students will continue to develop their understandings about a range of concepts and apply their skills as they solve a range of authentic problems. Students from Prep to Year 6 will continue to work with our Specialist teachers in STEM, Italian and PE, and further develop their abilities in either Music or Performing Arts. All students will work on concepts from the Health curriculum, with a focus on taking care of themselves and making decisions that ensure their personal safety. Further details about the curriculum for each year level are described in the Term 4 Curriculum Overview. We look forward to celebrating the ongoing learning as the term progresses.

Uniform Shop Updates 

Uniform shop hours during the term are:
Monday 8:00am - 10:30am
Wednesday 1:30pm - 3:30pm
Friday 8:00am - 10:30am
Online @ www.wearitto.com.au/schools/mango-hill-state-school

Greetings! I hope you have all enjoyed your break and are ready for the last term. A reminder that school photos are later this month, October 27 and 29 so pop in to see us for all your formal uniform needs.

For new prep students starting in 2021 - the Uniform Shop is conducting fittings by appointments running in 15 minute intervals between 9:45am-11:45am on the Transition Days. Now is the time to call and book in for Friday 9 October, Friday 16 October or Friday 23. Please call 3482 8117 during opening hours to book your spot. By making an appointment we hope to save you a considerable amount of time  waiting in long queues in January.

We offer lay-by with a minimum $50 spend and a 10% deposit. Fortnightly payments are required and can be made either in store or by phone during our regular opening hours.

Uniforms may be swapped for different sizes if need be, provided they are not washed, in original packaging and a receipt is shown.

Have a great week
Belinda