Term 3 Week 6 2024
- Principal's News by Ange Padgett
- Team Mango We All Belong!
- Prep News by Mieke Munko
- Year 1 News by Melinda White
- Year 2 News by Kylie Vaughan
- Year 3 News by Kris Olsen
- Year 4 News by Danielle O'Brien
- Year 5 News by Greg McCallum
- Year 6 News by Ben Mills
- Curriculum News
- Sporting News by The PE Department
- Community News
The highlight of my week was visiting the Year 4O classroom and hearing all about their inquiry project. A big thank you to Isla, Veiah, Adhira, Helena, Aadva, Manaia, and Elizabeth for presenting their findings about the benefits of a sensory garden. They presented the benefits of the school funding a sensory garden and even mocked up a 3D version of what this garden might look like. I’ve suggested they meet with our Student Council to pitch their idea. I then heard from Jaden, Arinjay, Karthik, Nicolas and Avansh. They pitched their inquiry project, which was based on looking at ways they could help students regulate in the playground. Their pitch was centred on ‘ground based’ play options. I love this part of my role. I thank all these students for presenting such clever ideas in such a confident manner. They put so much thought and work into their ideas. I hope some of their ideas will come to fruition.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending Wakakirri. WOW! I was once again, so impressed by our students. The pride I felt for our school was incredible. Thank you to Ms Morgan, Ms Morrell and Mr Vleig for their efforts. A special mention is needed for the work and commitment Ms Kostoglou puts into Wakakirri. She is an absolute stand out and we appreciate all that she does. Well done also to our parents/carers and our amazingly talented and hard-working students. They also made it through to the finals, well done!
Once again, we have another action-packed week ahead of us. Tomorrow Yarn and Eats will be occurring from 3pm. We hope to see as many of our families attending. On Friday our Book Fair commences and next week we celebrate Book Week. Our goal is to always foster a love of books. Books allow us to escape, imagine, relax and be informed. Please encourage your child to take part in the fun and festivities of this week. Please see further information in this newsletter.
2025 Prep Enrolments
It has been wonderful meeting our 2025 Prep families in our recent enrolment interviews. If you have a child commencing Prep in 2025, and have not yet enrolled, please see key information below.
- Click the link below to see the program of events for the remainder of the year and read carefully to see what is coming up next.
- Enrolment interviews
Once you have submitted your paperwork, please book an interview by Friday 16 August. The next round of interviews will be held on Thursday 22 August.
- Book in for the orientation sessions via email by Friday 16 August 2024. enrolments@mangohillss.eq.edu.au Please select Monday or Tuesday and we recommend that you attend all four sessions.
On Friday we are also holding a Pre-Prep session, Dancing Delights. It would be great to see our 2025 Preppies attend.
Lastly this week we farewell Ms Jasmine Benfer as she has been promoted to the Executive Officer to the Regional Director. Ms Benfer has worked at the school for 8 years and most recently has been an assistant to myself and our senior leadership team. Her work ethic, commitment, hard work and fun along the way, will be missed. On behalf of our school, we wish her all the best. A recruitment process is being undertaken for this role.
Ange Padgett
Principal
apadg6@eq.edu.au
Focus of the Week
This week in Care Class we will focus on Care for Environment and Care for Country by looking at how First Nation’s people care for country and make use of it in different ways. We all belong at Mango Hill State School on the First Nations land of Gubbi Gubbi Kubbi Kubbi people. Below are some of the ways we can Care for the Environment and Care for Country. Which strategy would you like to focus on this week?
Version 9 Health Curriculum - Replacing Catching on Early
The Queensland Department of Education has developed the Respect program, which is part of the Respectful Relationships Education initiative and is designed for students from Prep to Year 12. This program is evidence-based research and utilises best-practice educational methods, focusing on key areas such as:
- Domestic and family violence
- Consent education, leading to sexual consent
- Gender equality and equity
- Help-seeking and reporting strategies.
The Respect program offers a comprehensive set of practical resources. These lessons provide opportunities to address concerns and assist students in navigating sensitive and complex issues.
In alignment with Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum, the Respect program will replace the Catching on Early program at Mango Hill State School starting in Term 4 2024. We will be holding parent information sessions later this term to introduce these new resources.
Bullying No Way!
Please join us on Friday 16 August by showing your support for Bullying No Way National Day of Action by wear a pop of purple with your school uniform. This could be some purple socks or purple hair accessory.
Teachers will be talking to classes about appropriate strategies students can use if they feel they are being bullied or are bystanders to bullying.
Describing Likes and Dislikes
Writing this term has been focused on describing likes and dislikes about stories the children have been reading in class. Our Prep learners are using a range of feeling words when describing their likes and dislikes and giving a reason for their choice, for example, 'I loved the part in Wombat Stew when Dingo was tricked because he made a funny noise'.
Prep T have been reading Wombat Stew this week and thinking of different feeling words they could use to describe their likes and dislikes. They then chose one feeling word, drew this on a post-it as a reminder then used it in their sentence writing. Here we have some examples, one writer about to use the word 'excited' and the other two using 'shocked'. The sentences read 'I felt shocked when Dingo gets poisoned because I don't like being poisoned' and 'I don't like when Dingo got shocked because it is not nice'. Great work Prep T!
iPads
Thank you everyone for your support in making sure iPads are charged and ready for the day. Prep learners are enjoying using their devices to complement the learning going on in class. If you have any technical difficulties, please use the following email address to get advice.
Mieke Munko
Deputy Principal-Prep
mmunk1@eq.edu.au
Counting
We’ve just finished our counting patterns number unit and we’ve really enjoyed problem solving in this unit of work! To be a mathematician, we have to count efficiently and explain our thinking.
Skip counting may seem like a memory concept, something you just recite. But in reality, we use skip counting all the time in daily life.
Counting objects… if there’s a large pile of something, we won’t count in ones - it would take too long!
Counting people… teachers use counting in twos everyday as they count their students in line up!
Estimating… if you want to have a sense of an even bigger number than you can count, you might quickly skip count a small section of, say, a crowd. Then use your estimation skills to do the rest.
Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s is what we’ve been working on. Have some fun with your Year 1, exploring what they know about these counting patterns.
Melinda White
Deputy Principal- Year 1
mwhit37@eq.edu.au
Exploring Word Choices in Year 2
This term the students in Year 2 are exploring how authors use words to influence the mood of the reader. Specifically, they are reading a range of texts to learn about how noun groups are used to describe places in interesting and engaging ways. They will also write their own description of their favourite place describing what they can see, hear and do to match an overall mood or feeling.
Learning about how authors construct texts is an important part of being a reader and a writer. We want our students to be able to see how authors want us to think about a particular place, and also be able to use language, including noun groups, to persuade others to see things in particular ways.
The students in 2P recently read a text about the playground and identified the following noun groups- ‘many excited students’, ‘amazing playground’ and ‘long green slide that winds down the hill’. The students in 2P decided that these noun groups evoked the feelings of joy and happiness about the playground.
Mr Pollock really mixed things up when he asked the students to change the noun groups to evoke a feeling of being scared. The students got very creative and changed the noun groups to ‘many frightened students’, ‘scary playground of horror’ and ‘dark rusty slide’. Students in 2P really understood the power of their word choices. Check out the final text that they constructed together.
We can’t wait to read all the children’s descriptions later in the term!
Kylie Vaughan
Deputy Principal- Year 2
kvaug3@eq.edu.au
Learning in Year 3
We’ve flown past the half way mark of the term and celebrated with a great long weekend. As we move into the back half of Term 3, our students will begin new units of work. In English, this is our speaking and listening unit. Just like reading and writing, speaking and listening is a key component that makes up the English curriculum. This semester students will participate in a class debate, sharing an opinion in response to the question “Who is the bravest character?” from the Kumiko books. In class students will explore how to connect with an audience by using eye contact, appropriate volume and pace, expression and using pauses for impact. This is such a fun unit that our students will love rehearsing at home. Maybe they will persuade you at home into some extra dessert!
Upcoming Events
With 5 weeks left of Term 3, we have some exciting events on our radar. Next week, in Week 7 we have our Book Week Parade. On Friday 23 August at 11:45 am - 12:15 pm we invite families to join us for the Year 3 and Year 4 parade. This year’s Book Week theme is ‘Reading is Magic’. I can’t wait to see the witch and wizard costumes (as well as the limitless possibilities). This event is such a highlight each year to celebrate all things reading.
Thursday 29 August (Week 8) we have our Year 3 Stay and Play morning. We hope you can join us in our classrooms from 8:30 – 9:00 am for a morning full of activities. Please look out for further information from your child’s teacher.
Camp at Runaway Bay
Due to the bad weather today we have made the decision to postpone the Year 4 camp information evening to next Wednesday 21 August to ensure the safety of our families and our staff . During this session we will share information about our upcoming camp which is in Week 3 of next term. This will be held in person at Wandani (the old hall) and via Teams if you are unable to join us in person.
Please remember that this information session is for adults and it is requested that students do not attend the in-person session in Wandani and that supervision for students will not be provided.
Students will also be bringing home a ‘Form C’ and a movie consent form in the coming days. Both of these forms are required to be returned to classroom teachers. Form C is the form where you can let us know of dietary needs and any other information to support students at camp (e.g. swimming ability, toileting at night). Can you please ensure that the Form C has been signed on both sides even if your student does not have any dietary needs.
Information regarding medications at camp and a packing list will be sent closer to camp.
Please reach out to your classroom teacher if you have any questions.
Writing
Our students are well underway with writing their traditional stories that teach their readers a moral. Teachers are providing students with green celebrations in their writing and blue next steps. It's been great to hear students talking about how their writing entertains others and the choices they've made in vocabulary and sentence structure to carefully craft their stories.
Danielle O'Brien
Deputy Principal- Year 4
dxobr0@eq.edu.au
Hello Year 5 families. I hope you managed to get some time off work on Monday to spend with the family.
Academic Achievement
This week in Math students continued their work on number patterns.
Students are learning to identify strategies for finding unknow quantities in number sentences linked to the four mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).
Students are also required to explain and justify strategies (using mathematical language) for finding unknown quantities in complex problems.
While on the surface this pattern may appear relatively straight forward it can become increasingly complex when students are using multiple operations and fractions.
Having your child create a problem for you to solve is a great way to develop their mathematical thinking. Enjoy!
Wet Weather
With the usual mid August cold weather hitting us this week, please continue to ensure students bring a jumper and wet weather gear for the journey to and from school. Learning takes a lot of hard work at the best of times but is particularly difficult if you are cold and wet.
Greg McCallum
Deputy Principal- Year 5
gmcca24@eq.edu.au
Move N Proves in Maths
This week I visited 6J during their Maths lesson on the order of operations. Students practised applying the order of operations and also explored the effect that brackets have on an equation, and if they were always necessary. Ms Beard challenged students’ reasoning skills, posing some tricky multiple-choice questions and then having students move to the corner of the room with the correct answer. Students then had to prove that their answer was correct by explaining their thinking. It was great to hear the in-depth reasoning from the 6J students, so early on in this new unit of work!
Reading, Analysing and Creating Advertisements
In English, students are currently reading, analysing and creating advertisements as a part of their new English unit. While visiting 6W during the week, I saw them working together to identify the language features used in advertisements and who they believed the target audience was, based on the language choices made by the author.
As students learn more about the language features used in advertisements throughout the term, they will then apply this to creating their own multimodal advertisement. I look forward to seeing students’ multimodal advertisements later in the term.
Environmental Champions
A special shout-out to our environmental champions, Kyzah and Ashton! Kyzah has been working hard all year in the vegetable garden behind the tuckshop. He works in this space every break, keeping it clean and watered. Recently, Ashton has joined Kyzah, helping him out with this important job. Both boys are a great example of how Team Mango care for the environment!
Teaching Respect in Year 6
This year, our Year 6 teachers have a shared vision: Build collaborative communities that value and achieve high expectations, fostering independent learners and leaders. In setting and achieving high expectations that foster independent learners and leaders, we have had a focus on unpacking and enacting what respect looks like for our students. This has been co-constructed with students across the Year 6 classes and regularly unpacked in classrooms. Our aim is for all Year 6 students to model the Mango Hill value of respect to their peers in younger year levels for the remainder of the year. Check out the photos below for how some classes have unpacked how they can show respect in their classrooms.
Graduation Fundraising
This year we will be running a silent auction at Arts Fest to raise money for our graduation. Please note, this is separate to our students art pieces. Money raised from artwork goes back to our Arts Program. We are after a few more art pieces for this. If you’re an artist or you know of a local artist who would like to donate an artwork for the silent auction, please let me know. Thank you to those who have already donated their artwork!
Ben Mills
Deputy Principal –Year 6
bxmil3@eq.edu.au
Accelerated Reader
Congratulations to Rohan who this week reached his goal of 1 million words. This is a fabulous achievement and we are super proud of Rohan! We have added his photo to our special AR display in the Hub. The Hub is open every day from 8.15am and until 3pm every afternoon. Pop on down to have a look at all of our AR superstars!
Premier’s Reading Challenge
Time is running out… if you have not yet started on the PRC for 2024 now is the time! All completed PRC forms should be returned to the Hub by 24 August.
Book Week
Our annual Book Fair will open this Friday 16 August until Wednesday 21 August. The Book Fair will be open in the mornings from 8am until 3.30pm every afternoon. We’d love to see you there – to have a look at all the special things on sale and perhaps to purchase something too. We will have EFTPOS facilities and will also accept cash.
Another exciting part of our Book Week celebrations will be our special Book Week competition. All students from Prep to Year 6 are welcome to enter and there will be some fabulous prizes on offer!
Have a fantastic week
Suzette Holm, Jessica Rivett
shol0@eq.edu.au
jxqui5@eq.edu.au
Mr Hills, Mr Newell, Mrs Fuller and Mr Lisha
Physical Education Teachers