Term 4 Week 5 2020

World-Class Facilities

We have many projects coming to fruition to improve our school facilities.

• The fencing is up and builders are moving on site to start construction of our $9 million hall. This will mean reduced parking during construction and we ask that you consider utilising active travel or bus services to reduce congestion around the school. If you need to drive your children, please use the stop, drop, go facilities and the Look Out Program to avoid the need to park. As part of this project we will be increasing staff car parking to allow additional parks for parents at the front of the school. While it will be challenging to manage the congestion during construction over the next 7 months, we look forward to a fantastic hall for our students and school community for many years to come.
• Our four new demountable classrooms to accommodate growth in 2021 are now fully installed. A few minor touches and a set of stairs will be installed in the coming days. Furniture has been delivered and we look forward to some year 3 classes using these rooms next year.
• Our solar panel installation is well underway and will be completed in the next few weeks. This is the first step toward offsetting the power use for our air-conditioning. An electrical upgrade and installation of air-conditioners will happen in the next six months.
• We are currently in the planning stage for an additional building with classrooms ready for 2022 growth. This will include an increase of bike and scooter racks early next year to encourage active travel.
• Over the Christmas holidays we will be doubling the size of our covered pick up area in the Look out zone and adding additional seating. We will also be adding weather proofing early next year.
• We are currently exploring some additional improvements including artificial turf in the prep grass area and an upgrade to a number of play areas to ensure students have the best possible spaces to play and learn.

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

Growing and Learning

It has been fabulous to be in classrooms over the last week talking with students about their learning. Yesterday our Assistant Regional Director Steve Vincent visited our school and I had the pleasure of taking him to a few Prep and Year 1 classrooms to see the work we have been doing to provide students with clarity about their learning. Mr Vincent spoke with a number of students about their writing and the students shared their progress. He was very impressed that these young learners clearly knew what they are learning, how they are going and what they need to do to be even better. We are so proud of our students growing and learning!

Celebrate Tuckshop Day

It’s Tuckshop Day on Friday 6 November. We are so fortunate to have a great team at MHSS Canteen and SOLE Café and we recognise the hard work, dedication and contribution of our school tuckshop staff and volunteers. They provide healthy and tasty food and drinks with a smile to students and staff. I encourage you to send thanks to these terrific people for all their efforts! We will have a small celebration with them and also conduct an official opening of our new seating area for SOLE Café with some of the special guests who contributed to the project.

P & C Meeting

Our final P&C Meeting for the year will be held on Monday 9 November at 6:30pm in the staffroom. Agenda items include

• Student Code of Conduct
• Gifted and Talented Policy
• Homework Policy
• Instrumental Music SRS 2021
• School photo review
• Events for the start of 2021.

All parents and carers are welcome to attend.

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

Focus of the Week- Recognise, React and Report! 

Last Friday 30 October it was Day for Daniel. This is a national day of action for child safety and protection. Our school mascot Sole was at the front gate greeting students and reminding them to be safe. Sole helps us stick to the four cares by caring for ourselves, others, our learning and the school environment

Part of caring for ourselves is recognising unsafe situations, reacting by yelling or running away and reporting to an adult. Students participated in lessons that helped recognise unsafe situations and strategies to help them react.

Here is the Daniel Morcombe Foundation website if you would like to read some more.

https://danielmorcombe.com.au/day-for-daniel/

We will celebrate NAIDOC in Week 6 - Always Was, Always Will Be

In week 6, Mango Hill State School will celebrate NAIDOC with our school community when we recognise the history, culture and achievements of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The 2020 theme Always was, Always will be. recognises that the First Nations people have occupied and cared for this continent for over 65 000 years. 

There will be a number of learning opportunities for all our students during NAIDOC week including:

• listening to a Dreaming story at our virtual parade retold by some of our students
• participating in a class art experience as filmed and presented by Aboriginal artist and storyteller Gregg Dreise
• visiting our Hub, hosting a wonderful display of artefacts
• attending lunchtime club options such as traditional indigenous games, art activities, dance activities etc.
• engaging with the First Nations Bedtime Stories challenge as presented by the Common Ground organisation.

Our students who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander will also have the opportunity to work with our Reconciliation Leader Alyvia, and teacher Stephane O’Gorman on a special art activity designing a Care project. We can’t wait to show you the results.

If you would like to find out more about NAIDOC, please visit the website https://www.naidoc.org.au/.

Student of the Week 

Independent Reading in Prep

It’s the final push for independent reading in Prep, as we work hard to make as much progress as possible before the end of the year!

Each Prep class runs guided reading groups several times each week. These groups are specifically made to cater for the broad range of reading needs in the class and to ensure guided instruction is narrow and focused in on each child’s “next step” for reading.

By the end of the Prep year, our students should be able to read simple texts, using pictures, sounds and sight word recognition to help them to decode the text. They should be able to answer comprehension questions about the text and retell the story, in sequence.

You can help your child in their reading development by:

• continually practising their sight words and returning to practise recalling sight words you believe your child already knows
• reading a home reader with your child each night
• reading a picture book with your child each day, to help them develop a broader vocabulary and develop their big comprehension skills
• read in front of your child. When your child sees you read for work or for pleasure, you show them how important the skill of learning to read is!
• talk about books, words, characters, front covers, clever rhymes - talk, talk, talk about books as much as you can.

With the holidays coming up, your child will have a large break from focussed, in class reading instruction. To ensure your child continues to make gains in reading and to ensure they maintain the progress they have made this year, it will be vital that you continue to do the above things over the holiday break.

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

Feedback from the Teacher and Peers

Feedback is so important for students to reflect on and improve their learning. Our teachers are committed to providing specific feedback to students against the success criteria that students co construct so they know exactly what to do to ‘bump up’ their work. These ‘bump it up’ samples are displayed in the classrooms linked to the scales for children to reference during their learning. Often when I talk to students about their learning they reference the Learning Walls in their classroom with fabulous work samples, anchor charts or bump it up samples as being useful for them to understand what they could do to improve. 

Another form of feedback teachers set their students up for is peer feedback or peer tutoring through collaborative strategies like ‘Rally Coach’ or Gallery Walks, where they are able to provide (and receive) feedback from their classmates. These feedback skills can be another valuable way students can understand what it is in their work they have done well and what their next step might be. Feedback helps us all to learn in Year 1 and Year 2!

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

Powerful Learning Opportunities in 4W

It is always so rewarding watching our students working together. However, it is always such a powerful learning opportunity when they get to give each other feedback by identifying their celebrations and together plan their next steps.

Students in 4W have been working closely with each other this term to track their progress in writing. They work in partners to reflect on their learning against the scale. It is Great to see them identify the bits they have been doing well and use the scale to plan their next learning goal.

Fantastic work 4W in supporting each other to get that little bit better with every write.

Please check out the photos below of 4W supporting each other. 

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

Care for Learning in Year 5 and 6

Things are really ramping up in Year 5 and 6 classrooms as we inch our way closer to Term 4 assessment pieces. It has been great seeing the enthusiasm of our Year 5 students as they prepare for their market day businesses. Students are learning great life skills including how to budget effectively and the maths skills needed to calculate profits and loss. These financial skills will be vital as they get older, get their first jobs and grow to become self-sufficient. In Year 6 I have had the opportunity to read the beginnings of some great diary entries students have written in response to viewing the text, My Place.

Keep up the great care for learning Year 5 and 6!

Year 6 Graduation

Thank you to all of the families and students that volunteered their time to work at the Graduation Committee’s Election Day BBQ. Due to the efforts of so many people we had a successful day and look forward to organising a fitting celebration for our Year 6 students. Next Monday at 4pm the Graduation Committee will be meeting to discuss some of the final details of what the night will look like. A reminder to all parents to please pay your graduation invoice by Monday 23 November.

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

Preparations for 2021 classes have begun 

Across the school, the Inclusive Learning Team is collaborating with all teachers and staff to prepare for the transition of our students from their current year level to their 2021 year level.  Just as we are already preparing 2021 Preppies for our school and our Year 6 students for their next school, our 2020 Prep students are already visiting Year 1.  Towards the end of this term, all students at our school will have the opportunity to visit their 2021 classroom and in most cases meet their 2021 class teacher.  A small number of students may need to be supported with a second visit or resources such as a social story to reassure and prepare them.

Take care
Ellaine
ewarn23@eq.edu.au

AR Millionaires

This week has been another big week for our AR Millionaire readers. Franco and Areesha both reached 2 million words, which is a fabulous achievement. Both Franco and Areesha have been working hard to continue their reading and quizzing over the last couple of months. Congratulations Franco and Areesha!

For Prithuvi this week has seen him reach extraordinary new heights! He has now read 8 million words this year!! We are overwhelmed by this amazing achievement and have had to ask for help (and a longer ladder) to display the latest photo! Congratulations Prithuvi. I wonder how many more words he might read this year?

We are very proud of all of our AR Millionaires and have added their photos to our special display. Pop on down to the Hub one day soon to see all of these amazing readers! The Hub is open every morning from 8:15am and every afternoon until 3:00pm. There is still time to reach your AR goals in 2020 so keep reading!

Book Fair

We are very excited to announce that we will soon be holding a Scholastic Book Fair. There will be lots of books for students and families to purchase. More information in next week’s newsletter but in the meantime you might like to be saving your pennies!

Happy reading
Suzette
shol0@eq.edu.au

New Appliances in the Canteen and Sole Cafe 

This week saw our new P&C funded appliances being installed in our Canteen/SOLE Cafe building. The two new ovens and the oven/cooktop unit replace the ones that were there when we initially opened our school with around 200 students in 2012. They will triple our previous oven capacity, add functionality, and give us a great cooktop for our P&C staff to prepare delicious in-house meals and snacks for our students, teachers, staff, and visitors. The P&C committee, Louise (our awesome Canteen Convenor), and her team thank you for your patience during the Monday closure to allow the new appliances to be installed.

Tuckshop Day - 6 November 2020

The daily efforts of our P&C Canteen & SOLE Cafe staff and the volunteers who support MHSS students and staff have been tremendous during this challenging year. We should remember to say please and thank you every day but on Tuckshop Day, Friday 6 November, we will say a very special thank you to this wonderful team. 

Our canteen and SOLE Cafe provide a great service that helps our families, staff and visitors who have to juggle many different tasks at the start of each day. Some good food (and coffee!) helps everyone work, study and play through the day. 

A BIG THANKS to Louise, Tracey, Kathryn, Bec, Rachael, Adinda, Jodi, Krista, and Keischa. We don’t take their hard work for granted. The P&C always welcome, when possible, our parents putting up their hands and getting involved with our P&C to support MHSS. 

Thank you
Renee, P&C President

Uniform Shop Update

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

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 Orientation Days.  Now is the time to call and book. 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 rather than 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 washing, in original packaging and a receipt is shown.

Have a great week
Belinda Myers
Uniform Shop Convenor