Term 2 Week 10 2020

Parents and Caregivers are invited to participate in this year’s School Opinion Survey and have a say about schooling during the COVID-19 lockdown. You are also given the opportunity to provide feedback about our school more generally.

Participation in the survey is anonymous and you are encouraged to take this opportunity to have your say. The survey form has been designed so that it can easily be completed on a computer or smartphone. The online survey will be available until Friday 17 July 2020, and should take less than five minutes to complete.

To access the survey, please click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:

Parent survey – https://survey.qed.qld.gov.au/form/Parents-HaveYourSay

Please contact us if you have any questions about the survey.

As Term 2 draws to a close, the leadership team and I have been pondering the challenges and opportunities that have emerged as a result of the pandemic. Our key learnings are as follows.

• Teamwork and partnerships with parents, students and staff are so important. When our expectations and values align, we can achieve magic!
• There is such kindness and generosity in the community. People offering to assist others, drop things off to those who couldn’t pick up book packs, offer financial assistance to those in need, show appreciation to the staff with lovely emails, cards, cakes and gifts. So thoughtful!
• Children are incredibly resilient. Despite some children missing 6-8 weeks of school, they re-engaged with enthusiasm, re-establishing expectations and friendships. It has been a joy having them back on site!
• Our staff are amazing! They dealt with the situation with optimism and drive, working hard to plan high quality @home learning materials, connect with families and support parents and children in any way they could.

There were many other learnings and certainly some challenges but I think we have emerged as a stronger, kinder, more considerate community. I wish you all a safe, restful break. We look forward to some further normality returning in Term 3 which I will outline later in the holidays. 

School resumes Monday 13 July.

Happy holidays!

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

The focus introduced this week is ‘Kindness with Dreaming Stories’. We are participating in the Bedtime Dreaming Stories. These Bedtime stories link to our Kindness focus for the term. Students are watching a five minute dreaming story each day this week.

The below link will give you access to these stories. 

https://www.firstnationsbedtimestories.com/preview-for-schools

Instrumental Music Online Virtual Ensemble Experience” (IMOVEE)

During week 8 Mr James and Mrs Bogdan sent details out via email to Parents and Carers of students who are part of the Senior String and Senior Band at Mango Hill State School with regards to The North Coast Regional Office Music Team’s project called “Instrumental Music Online Virtual Ensemble Experience” (IMOVEE).

The IMOVEE project is a voluntary student/parent activity where students can download a specific piece of music, record themselves playing the song, and then upload this recording. All recordings will then be edited into a single movie. 

If you would like your child to participate then please refer to the specific instructions sent out by the instrumental teachers which include how to access the music, consent form and process to submit. The closing date for submission is Friday 10 July. Please note the student consent form should be emailed to the North Coast Region Instrumental Team and not to your child’s instrumental teacher.

It would be fantastic to see and hear our students involved in this project and the school holiday is an excellent time to explore the project.

If you have any questions please contact Mr James mjame38@eq.edu.au or Mrs Bogdan axbog1@eq.edu.au

Prep S and Prep M had a special visitor in the music room last week. Mr James, one of our instrumental teachers, brought in his tuba to play some music. The Preps were very excited and I think their eyes went as big as the tuba when he walked in. Mr James played songs we knew like, "Twinkle Twinkle", and "Row Row Your Boat". He explained that the tuba is the instrument in the orchestra that plays very low notes. 

We are always looking for ways to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into our curriculum and so the First Nations Bedtime Stories challenge, brought to us by the Common Ground organisation, seemed a perfect way to help our students understand about these cultures. We have used these stories together with Gregg Dreise’s stories this week to link to our Kindness focus for Term 2. The children have been enthralled by the stories and the follow up activities facilitated by the teachers.

If you would like to follow up and view any of the stories, please visit the website:

https://firstnationsbedtimestories.com/first-nations-bedtime-stories-initative/posts/introducing-the-stories

This week, the organisers of Wakakirri announced:

Unfortunately, due to a combination of factors caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, Wakakirri is only able to offer a live event to Victorian Secondary and Dance schools in 2020.

Mango Hill State School students will therefore not participate in the Wakakirri competition this year. Our Year 6 participants will receive a filmed version in their Showbie accounts to share with their parents and families commemorating their involvement this year. Thank you to all students and the community members, including Mrs Kostoglou and Ms Sheehan who have supported the development of our story this year! The other students who have participated and worked hard in 2020 will regroup in 2021 to rehearse for the 2021 season. We look forward to another great performance!

During Term 3 we will hold two School Tours and Information Session mornings (dates below). Each tour will have two session times, 8:30am and 9:15am. Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings we require you to book in for a School Tour if you would like to attend. Please RSVP to Jasmine Benfer - jbenf10@eq.edu.au to register your attendance. 

• Monday 27 July 
• Tuesday 11 August 

This will be an opportunity for any new or prospective families to meet the Principal and find out more about what Mango Hill State School has to offer.

And that’s a wrap on the most eventful first semester of Prep ever!  Not only did we all survive, but I think we all thrived!

I bet many parents did not think their child would be so capable of showing such independence by the end of first semester; walking themselves into school each morning and unpacking their own school bag. Our youngest students have shown us that when we set high expectations and show them how, they can achieve anything!

We are beyond proud of our Prep students!

This term, we have focused on kindness. Last week, I asked parents to share how their child is kind at home. Thank you to those families who took the time to share such lovely stories of kindness in your homes with me! Here’s a few examples of how our Prep students are kind at home:

Beautiful smiles for everyone

Offers massive hugs to make others feel good

Develops beautiful friendships with his peers

He gives out golden tickets to his family members

I share my toys with my brothers and sister.

Mia is such a kind big sister to her little sister Ivy (19 months). Mia helps her mother to prepare dinner and serves it to her sister!  Mia also decided her Prep S classmates would love a sticker, so she made sure she had enough stickers to give one to every child in her class – no one missed out!

Zoha, gives her mother a foot massage every night before bed, saying, “Mama I’m being kind with you because you get tired of working all day, plus doing the home chores and working in the kitchen for us preparing yummy food.”

Jasmine is working hard at doing things at home without any prompts or reminders.  She has:  * Folded a full basket of washing. * Swept the patio after a storm. * Set the table for dinner. * Carried food to the table. * Prepared school clothes the night before.* Helped her brother from the shower, dried him and dressed him every night. * Laid clothes out for herself and her brother.

Some of the ways Alexis is kind at home include: helping mum and dad to cook (pizza is her favourite thing to make), paying family members compliments on how they look, donating some of her toys and clothes to others and using manners, like please and thank you.

Please keep on the Kindness Train over the holidays.  It makes us feel good when we are kind to others!  Kindness is such a fabulous quality to have and we should make sure we regularly celebrate the kindness our students show.

Have a lovely break. 
See you in Semester 2!
Melinda 
mwhit37@eq.edu.au

Wow what a term we have had! Starting with @HomeLearning, our whole community really stepped up to support our partnerships in learning! Since returning to school, our little ones have done an amazing job relearning the expectations of school and engaged in the Term 2 content. In the playground, our littlies have learned to play without toys from home and understand their expanding play areas.

Year 1 students have described and discussed familiar characters in books, learned how to use character traits how to create new characters to describe for the stories they have read while continuing to develop their reading and comprehension skills. They have continued to work on representing numbers and focussed on number lines, described and worked with counting patterns and developed their understanding of measurement. In STEM, they have explored physical changes of materials and used design technologies to represent their learning by planning and constructing.

Year 2 students have written imaginative recounts for familiar characters, compared characters from different stories and continued to develop their wide range of comprehension strategies when reading.  They have developed their representations of 3 digit numbers, learned many new problem solving strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems and used chance language to describe everyday events. Year 2 students have been comparing measurements using informal units. In STEM, the students have been exploring their living world and using design technology to use different materials to represent their learning.

All the while, they have continued to develop their understanding of kindness and learned their next steps in PE, Music, Dance and Italian. I am so proud of their achievements and learning!

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

It has been a big term with lots of opportunities. We should all be very proud of how well we came together and worked together, to keep our students learning. Over the past few weeks teachers have been supporting students grow and relearn some of those bits they found tricky as they worked through their assessments. It has been fantastic spending time in classrooms listening to students celebrate their accomplishments and plan for their next steps. Our teachers have done a remarkable job planning for a variety of learning experiences along with social and emotional activities to help our students end the term with big smiles. Great work by all!

In Year 3 we have been having so much fun exploring capacity. With a range of measuring tools we used the liquid tubs to fill measuring jugs and record their capacity. It was a great activity which helped us work out which containers could hold the most water.

I hope you all have a safe and restful holiday and we look forward to seeing you all in Term 3!

Happy holidays
Michelle 
malco14@eq.edu.au

This week marks the final week for the Term 2 Curriculum. Due to the impact of COVID-19, students have had to work through many more assessment pieces than they normally would at this stage of the term. Thank you to all of the Year 5 and 6 students who celebrated their learning with me throughout the last month. It was great seeing what students were able to achieve during @Home Learning and upon their return.

As a Year 5 and 6 teaching team, our staff have turned their minds to planning the Term 3 Curriculum and ensuring the teaching program is engaging and rigorous. Teachers met over the last two weeks within their professional learning committees (PLCs) to collaborate with each other to ensure they are well prepared to achieve learning outcomes again Term 3. Great work teachers!

Article written by Mr Michael Rogers, Principal of Mango Hill State Secondary College

 On Friday 19 June, a group of enthusiastic Year 7 MHSSC students visited the Year 6 classrooms at Mango Hill State School to give a first-hand account of their experience in high school, and what Year 6 students can look forward to if they attend Mango Hill State Secondary College in 2021. After a brief video introduction, the students discussed their daily routines, the options for extra-curricular activities and the types of new subjects they have experienced in Year 7 this year. The students, many of whom attended Mango Hill State School, were fantastic ambassadors for the college and the visit generated a lot of excitement among the Year 6 students. On behalf of Mango Hill State Secondary College, I would like to thank all of the Year 7 students, along with Ms Radford, Ms Murphy and Ms Major for coordinating the visit, and Mrs Egan, Mr Winney and the Year 6 teachers for allowing us to spend the morning in their classrooms.

 The next phase of our transition program will begin in Term 3 with enrolment interviews starting from week 4, and a half-day transition experience for enrolled students at the end of Term 3. For those who have not yet submitted their application for enrolment, enrolment packs can be found on the Mango Hill State Secondary College website (www.mangohillssc.eq.edu.au/enrolments ), or you can collect a hard copy from the office at Mango Hill State Secondary College or Mango Hill State School. We look forward to working with you to support your child’s transition to secondary school at Mango Hill State Secondary College.

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

Families are encouraged to rest, recharge and enjoy the break after such a busy term. Moreton Bay Regional libraries are offering some at-home activities as follows.

'Enjoy our exciting range of online events from the comfort of your own home. There’s fun for the whole family to enjoy, including improv for teens, self defence for kids, bear hunts and free take home activity pack when children and young people borrow from the library during the holidays!'

Find more information at:
https://www.moretonbay.qld.gov.au/libraries/Events

Have a happy and safe holiday.
https://th.bing.com/th?q=Resting+Relaxing&w=120&h=120&c=1&rs=1&qlt=90&cb=1&dpr=1.25&pid=InlineBlock&mkt=en-AU&adlt=strict&t=1&mw=247

With thanks 
Ellaine and the ILT 
ewarn23@eq.edu.au

The past week has been a super one for celebrating milestones in AR. Four eager Year 4 readers this week reached one million words. We are super excited to add the photos of Ipshitha, Anika, Areesha and Sophia to our special AR display in the Hub.

These girls have been working hard all year, not only reading and quizzing consistently throughout the semester, but also supporting and encouraging each other. Congratulations to each of you and we can’t wait to see how many more words you will read this year!

While we will not have class borrowing this week, so that we can return the 1000s of books on loan, the Hub will still be open before and after school. Pop on down to make sure you have a book to read over the holidays.

As Term 2 draws to a close, teachers are busy preparing for the excitement of next term. Term 3 offers a range of opportunities for lots of learning in all areas.

In English there will be opportunities to explore rhyming texts (Prep), retell some Aboriginal dreaming stories (Year 1), write descriptions (Year 2), read and enjoy new novels (Year 3), write tales with lessons (Year 4), appreciate Australian poetry (Year 5) and create persuasive texts (Year 6). In Mathematics there will be lots of opportunities for students to continue to develop their understandings and skills related to counting, addition and subtraction, coins, data, fractions, shapes, number facts, time, decimals, angles, symmetry and shapes. 

Students will also have an opportunity to explore new learnings in STEM, Performing Arts, PE, Music and Italian with our Specialist teachers. Class teachers will also implement a suite of new Health units, providing lots of opportunities for students to consider how to ensure they are healthy and safe. More details about the learnings in each area will be provided at the beginning of Term 3.

Have a wonderful week 
Suzette 
shol0@eq.edu.au