Term 1 Week 4 2021

Diversity is Respected and Embraced

Last week we had five senior members of the department review our school through the lens of inclusion. They interviewed a number of staff, parents and students to gauge how inclusive our practices are using the National School Improvement Tool. They found many aspects to celebrate and some ideas for further improvement. Below are just some of the key celebrations.

We are delighted with the outcomes and thank our school community for their inclusive mindset and for ensuring diversity is respected and embraced.

Our teachers intentionally collaborating to plan for all students to succeed.

Congratulations Student Leaders

Over the past week it has been my pleasure to announce our 2021 Student Captains and Leaders. Next Thursday at 8.40am, these leaders will be presented with their leadership badge in our first whole school parade for the year. All parents are welcome to attend.

Congratulations Student Leaders!

P & C Contributions

I would like to acknowledge and thank the P & C Association who last week committed to contributing $16 000 toward school initiatives for this year. Below is the breakdown of where this money will be utilised

Academic Support $4000

• Academic awards
• Italian support for mosaic

HPE $4000

• New Marque for carnivals
• Cross country ice blocks and ribbons

Performing Arts $4000

• Wakakirri support
• Buses for the choir and instrumental groups to travel to competitions and performances

Wellbeing $4000

• Mural to further reinforce wellbeing messages
• Support for Celebration Days

Increase in capacity for Helping Hands

As our school grows, the demand for places at after school care has increased. Last week I met with Helping Hands and we have agreed to an increase in their licence capacity to 165. Helping Hands are currently planning for this increase ensuring staffing and management procedures are in place. We expect to see an increase in capacity over the next month.

Have a wonderful week

Tracy Egan

Principal
tegan4@eq.edu.au 

Focus of the Week

The Care Class focus delivered on Friday, is ‘Before and After School Routines’.  Below are the routines and expectations that will be discussed during Care Class and will also be revised in the classrooms throughout week 5. 

Before and After School Routines

Prep – Year 2

Mornings:

• Lining up quietly in the designated areas, behind the coloured lines
• Not waiting outside classroom doors or playing on the playgrounds
• Sitting in the Junior Undercover Area

Afternoons:

• Walking safely out to the Lookout area (Preps will be walked out be a Teacher Aide)
• If in Prep, waiting for a family member to collect you from the classroom
• If in Yr 1 or 2, going to the correct area when the bell rings
• If attending Helping Hands, listening to the staff for their instructions

Years 3 – 6

• Sitting quietly until the 8.15am bell
• Playing safely until the 8.30am bell
• Visiting the Hub for borrowing or Attending a Before School Club in the Piazza, Middle Years undercover area or on the Oval

Afternoons:

• Walking safely out to the Lookout area
• If collecting younger siblings, walking straight to their pickup area

All Students

• Walking bikes or scooters in and out of the school grounds
• Wearing your hat to and from school
• Listen to the Teachers when using the Lookout area. Staying seated on the seats at Lookout
• Hopping off your bike or scooter to cross at the crossings
• When the bell rings, move straight to class to unpack and get ready for learning.
• Following instructions from all Teachers and Crossing Supervisors

Report Every Absence

Absence line: 3482 8166

We’re nearly halfway through our first term of school and we’re doing such a great job!

Have there been bumps? Yes! Has it all been perfect? No! But our youngest Mango Hill Family Members are quickly learning that to be a good learner... you have to bounce back from mistakes and try again.

We can model this in our homes. Praise the effort, not the outcome. Notice and name; be very specific when you give feedback - “I love how you turned it around Billy. You were frustrated that you couldn’t open that toy, but instead of throwing it, you took some deep breaths and tried again.”

School life can be tricky to navigate. We have to learn all new routines and there’s much less choice than what many students are used to. Consider the demands in your home environment; what’s the percentage of time you ask your child to do something (that requires significant effort) vs the amount of time they can “choose their own adventure” (within reason of course!)

For Preps, the demands of rules, listening to instructions, processing the instructions, starting a task, maintaining attention and effort until we finish the task, stopping the task when they are asked... all of this takes huge brain power (cognitive load).

So of course they’ll be tired as the day progresses and as the week progresses. But we will get there! Building school stamina takes time.

Keep in touch with us by reading the newsletter, watching parades in your home each Friday, reading your class emails. Help us to make school less “new” by talking positively to your child and encouraging them to be the best learners they can be!

Have a lovely week!

Melinda White

Deputy Principal - Prep
mwhit37@eq.edu.au

Champion Writers 

Classrooms were buzzing this week as students really started to stretch themselves to conquer their writing goals. I am always super impressed at how quickly they grow and how much they can achieve. It is wonderful to see everyone highlighting their celebrations on their scale and working towards their next steps. This week some of our Year 1 students really nailed their learning goals in writing and created retells that included great descriptions of the characters. Well done Year 1 writers.

Representing Numbers in Lots of Ways

Our Year 2 students have been super busy exploring the many ways they can show 3 digit numbers correctly using different representations. They have been busy learning how to write 3 digit numbers in digit form, using concrete materials such as MABs to represent and identifying numbers that are greater or less than the selected number. It has been hard work, but they have been showing a growth mindset and are learning together.

Have a wonderful week everyone
Michelle Alcorn

Deputy Principal – Year 1 & 2

malco14@eq.edu.au

Learning Update

As I have visited classrooms this week, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to students about their learning in writing and Maths. In every lesson, teachers work hard to make sure students know what they are learning, how they are going and what they can do to improve. As I spoke with students, they were able to explain to me the focus of the lesson and many were using their star scales to describe how they were going and what to do next. At Mango Hill State School, we often use the language of ‘Bump-it-up’. Classrooms have their own ‘Bump-it-up’ walls for students to access during their learning as a tool to help them move to the next level on their star scale. It was so exciting to see students engaging with this as they described to me how they need to improve. Well done to these students and amazing work from their teachers in providing such clarity!

Electives

On Friday last week, our electives classes began for all students in Years 3-6. Electives provide our students with an opportunity to continue to pursue a particular area of interest to them. Some of the classes that are available to students across Year 3 and 4 for this semester include: painting, digital art, soccer, zumba, ‘Kindness Matters’, iMotion, engineering and photography. Electives will continue to be held in the final session of the day every Friday for the remainder of the semester. I look forward to visiting these classes over this time.

Showing the Four Cares

I was so impressed this week to spot a group of Year 4 students walking around during playtime to collect litter from the gardens and surrounding areas. The group had decided that they wanted to actively ‘care for our school environment’. I was extremely proud to see such wonderful initiative from our Mango Hill State School Students. I look forward to spotting more examples of how our students demonstrate the Four Cares this week!

Have a great week
Ben Mills

Deputy Principal – Year 3 & 4

bxmil3@eq.edu.au

Care for Learning in Year 5 and 6

It has been a wonderful week in the Year 5 and 6 classrooms as we continue are relentless focus on achieving great learning outcomes. I had the pleasure of visiting many classrooms this week and could really sense a strong learning culture throughout all classrooms. It was great getting into 6C to observe their guided maths rotations and watch students collaborate with each other while using messy space to logically tackle word problems. As I walked through 6V and 6O I had the opportunity to speak with students who were running clinics taught by student experts. Research has proven that Peer Tutoring is such a powerful strategy that causes learning and it was great to see this strategy in action in Year 6. While in 5S it was great seeing the class being organised into groups depending on their current needs on the number unit scale. Ms Stacey and Mrs Batterbee were facilitating guided instruction clinics that provided great intervention and extension to the students in 5S. Great work Year 5 and 6!

Student Leader Badge Ceremony

This Thursday (25^th of February) is our annual Student Leader Badge Ceremony. This ceremony formally introduces our Year 6 Student Leaders to the community as well as our Year 4 and 5 Student Councillors. As part of this ceremony I will be presenting other Year 6 students with their Student Leader badge. I will be walking around classrooms later this week to inform the students who will receive this badge. This is a part of each weekly assembly to come this year as well. So, if your Year 6 child would like their Student Leader badge please encourage them to complete their Student Leader Passport. A reminder to all students receiving a badge during this assembly, please wear your formal uniform. We look forward to celebrating the achievements of our fantastic leaders with our community.

Have a great week
Martin Winney

Deputy Principal – Year 5 & 6

Take Care this week

Ellaine Warner

Deputy Principal - ILT
ewarn23@eq.edu.au

Accelerated Reader

As part of our English program, we offer many opportunities for students to develop their reading skills. Part of being a successful reader is finding a book at the right level, as well as reading lots of different books and building positive attitudes towards reading. Our senior students have an opportunity to build these reading skills through the Accelerated Reader (AR) program. This program allows students to choose a book at their reading level before completing an online comprehension quiz. We have 1000s of specially-marked AR books in our Hub and we look forward to helping students choose an appropriate book. The attached handout provides further information about the details of the AR program.

The AR program also allows us to monitor the number of words read (in each calendar year).  For those keen readers who reach 1 milion words, we have created a special Millionaire Reader display in the Hub. We are very excited to announce that Roma from Year 5 has already read 1 million words this year! Congratulations to Roma on such a super start to the year!

Come on down to the Hub to see our millionaire readers from 2020 and Roma! The Hub is open from 8.15am every morning and until 3pm every day.

Parents as Partners

Parents as Partners 617.60 KB

Library bags

Don’t forget that one way to ‘care for the school environment’ is to use a library bag to protect our Hub resources. The library bag can be any type of bag – plastic, cloth or a special one purchased from our Uniform shop.

Volunteers

We are lucky enough in the Hub to have a small but willing band of volunteers who help with the contacting of our Hub books. If you are interested in helping out too, we are happy to supply you with a roll of contact and a small (or large) pile of books to contact. Pop on down to talk with one of our staff in the coming weeks if you can help out.

Thank you 
Suzette Holm

Head of Department 
shol0@eq.edu.au

MHSS Cross Country

All students from Years Prep to 6 will be competing in the 2021 MHSS Cross Country Race. This is completed in the morning session of school with students competing in a long distance race with their age group peers.  More information regarding the Cross Country will be available later in the term. Dates are:

Year 3-6: Friday week 8 - 19 March

Year Prep-2: Tuesday week 9 - 23 March

Gala Day

All Year 5 and 6 students will get the chance to participate in the Pine Rivers District Gala Day Competitions.  Students compete against teams from other schools on Gala Day.  Students have now voted for which sport they would like to play, which will be confirmed soon. Students will receive permission and information forms later this week so please keep an eye out to ensure they are returned on time.

Sporting Schools

We have had a fantastic response to Term 1 Sporting Schools programs. All spots have now been filled for Term 1 with successful parents notified via email. Please keep an eye out for more programs starting in term 2.

Pine Rivers District Sport Trials – Term 1

Below is a list of upcoming Pine Rivers District trials.  Most trials are limited to students turning 11 or 12 years of age and who are considered at a high level in the sport eg Div 1 or A Grade.  If you are interested in your child trialling for Pine Rivers District more information can be obtained from the Pine Rivers District School Sport Website www.pineriverssport.qld.edu.au  or Mr Nick Hills - nhill96@eq.edu.au (MHSS PE Teacher).

Please Note:

• Trial information and district forms are not available until 2 weeks prior to trial date.
• District forms must be returned by the due date for students to be nominated
• Trial fees must be paid online by 3pm on the due date

* Due to high student interest in attending the PRD Football trials, MHSS will be conducting internal trials to select the students who will attend the PRD trials.

Have a fantastic week 

Mr Hills & Mr Newell

Physical Education Teachers

nhil96@eq.edu.au
tnewe20@eq.edu.au

P&C