Term 3 Week 1 2020

Welcome back everyone! A special welcome to all the new families who have joined our school community this term.

We have had a wonderful start to Term 3. It is fantastic to see the students engaged in their learning in these first few days. I have also noticed how beautifully children are playing as they re-connect with their old friends and make new connections. The photos below show some of the children playing with their friends over the past few days.

This term we continue our focus on ensuring every student succeeds. Our staff are working to ensure their teaching engages, stretches and includes every student. We are so fortunate to have a team of teachers who are determined to keep growing and learning and being their best!

Please note the following staff changes for this term

• Gabrielle Douglas (DP Year 1 & 2) will be on leave until further notice. Ben Mills is replacing.
• Jessica Rivett will move to a full time HOC role while Ben Mills is replacing Gabrielle.
• Welcome Amanda Kunne who will teach Mr Mills and Mrs Rivett’s STEM classes until Mrs Douglas returns.
• We welcome Andrea Townsend who will be teaching 1L for the rest of the year as Claire Linedale has completed her contract.
• Jess Cutcliffe (4J teacher) has begun maternity leave and is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her bub. Ms Anita Fitzpatrick is now teaching 4J (moving from STEM).
• Kara Gough (Prep G teacher) is on sick leave for the next week or two. Welcome Stephanie Jeston who is replacing. Ms Jeston will also be replacing Beth Brazier when she takes maternity leave later this term.
• Maddy McDonald (Prep M teacher) is on sick leave for 2 weeks. Welcome Andrea Milne who is replacing.
• Shay Bright, Danielle O’Brien and Sam Dixon will continue in their roles coaching staff one day per week. Welcome back Teresa Messer who will teach 1B on Thursdays, Emma Farrugia who will teach 5D on Thursdays and Erin Stacey who will teach 2O on Wednesdays.
• Brooke Pearce will drop back to 4 days with Claire Morrell teaching 2P on Fridays. Jenni Black continues 4 days with Louise Slade teaching 3B on Fridays.

We are so fortunate to have a flexible working staff ready to take on new roles as needed.

As we have seen in Victoria, the pandemic is an ever evolving situation. We must not become complacent! I encourage all adults to continue focussing on hygiene and social distancing. Only enter school if you need to and please do not gather in groups. Keep 1.5m from others please. We are all in this together!

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

The Four Cares

At Mango Hill we use the Four Cares to support our behaviour expectations.  Returning back from the holidays, teachers will be revisiting the classroom and school expectations.  You may like to ask your child about the Four Cares and how they use them in the school environment. 

Our Four Cares are:

• Caring for Self
• Caring for Others
• Caring for Learning
• Caring for the Environment.

Thank you 
Peta 

I am excited to announce that our elective program will commence on the Friday afternoon of Week 3. Students in Years 3-6 will have the opportunity to participate in AFL, contemporary dance, Mango Kitchen Rulez, robotics, drones and much, much more. I look forward to talking to students about their learning experiences and their insights in learning new things.

Our school banking will recommence next Tuesday, July 19.  We’re excited to be banking again!  Thank you to our wonderful volunteers who assist us to manage this activity for our students.

Playgroup will begin on Friday, in Week 2 – Friday July 24. We do need to have an attendance register, so you can register your attendance each week by emailing Jasmine Benfer at jbenf10@eq.edu.au. Due to social distancing and hygiene and health guidelines, we will need to limit the numbers attending, so we do ask for you to only rsvp, should you intend on coming that week. Should there be significant demand in the coming month for playgroup spots, we will work together with our playgroup families to find a suitable time for a second playgroup morning, to ensure all of our families are catered for. Families attending playgroup need to bring their own water bottles. We will be doing lots of hand washing and cleaning of equipment!  We ask that parents in attendance ensure they are always 1.5 metres away from others.

Next week, students who have returned their permission forms will have their vision screened as part of the Queensland Health Vision Screening program. In August, we have our next dates for our hearing screeners. If your child did not have their hearing screened at the start of the year, watch out for the email from Mrs Stewart our Inclusion Support Teacher, with the details. Good vision and hearing is vital for good learning!

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

It’s great to be back! We are very excited for the term ahead in Year 1 and 2. It has been wonderful to see the students, reconnecting with their teachers and friends and diving straight into the learning for this term. The staff are prepared for a busy but uninterrupted term to develop each child’s learning.

While Mrs Douglas is on leave, I have the privilege of working with Year 1 and 2. Normally you will find me teaching STEM across the school or working with Year 4-6 students and teachers in Maths. I look forward to getting to know the Year 1 and 2 students and their families during this time. Please contact me at any time by email at bxmil3@eq.edu.au

Last term, while trying for the whole school community, the circumstances did help to develop some increased independence for our little people. The teachers discussed frequently that they were so impressed with the students’ growth in confidence getting themselves into school and class, unpacking and packing their own belongings. We are all keen to continue this development, so please help us out by encouraging your little ones to be responsible for themselves and their belongings. Dropping them at the gate, reminding them to unpack and collect their own belongings each day, will all help to build this independence. The students love it!

Have a good week 
Ben
bxmil3@eq.edu.au

What a wonderful start to the new school term. It was great to see our students return in full school uniform, on time and ready to learn. There is always such excitement on the first day back as students reconnect with their teacher and friends. In many of our classrooms students took what they had learned last term to have a go at writing a personal diary entry about their holidays. I loved reading about their holiday adventures, even though some may have decided to share their thinking on their desk instead of paper! Students did a great job editing their own work and responding to each other’s writing by acknowledging celebrations. It was great to see them apply their learning from last term into new contexts.

This term for our Year 4’s we will be starting to think about the Term 4 camp to Runaway Bay. Over the next few weeks we will be sending out a survey to get parent feedback regarding the camp. Currently we are in close communication with Runaway Bay to ensure that they have the appropriate Covid Safe plans are in place. As we receive more information we will continue to provide families with updates. Please keep an eye out for the survey in the near future.

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

It has been a great start in Term 3 in Year 5 and 6. Many classes I have visited this week have started their work on different text types including Australian poetry and multimodal texts. It is great seeing students engage with a range of texts that they have not been exposed to during their schooling. In particular I had the pleasure in observing 5L and Ms Peno conducting some work on engaging students with different books and helping to create eager young readers. I have also had the opportunity to observe classes re-engage with a range of number facts activities which always helps excite our students with learning new maths concepts. Great work Year 5 and 6!

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

At Mango Hill State School, Fridays are Care Class days.  Care Class is learning time for our students about our Four Cares and what each of the Four Cares means.  We teach students the Mango Hill way for behaviour and social protocols, and we include an ongoing focus on Student Wellbeing.  Traditionally, class groupings have been mixed for Care Class.  This year, due to health and safety considerations, Care Class is currently being held in students’ own classes.

This term our topics include:

• Bullying (Reporting)
• Using your strengths
• Mindfulness
• Growth Mindset
• Filling our Buckets
• Resilience
• Regulating our feelings
• Being ready to learn
• Setting goals
• Positive emotions.

To add some fun, this term a mystery student will be chosen from each class each week to meet with Ms Egan, the Deputy Principals and our Heads of Curriculum to share their Care Class learning. The Senior Leadership Team are excited and looking forward to it.

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

This week students in all year levels have begun their learning in English, Maths and STEM (Science and Technology). They will also develop their understandings in HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences), Health, PE, Italian and in some aspects of The Arts (i.e. Drama, Dance or Music). An overview of each of the learning areas is attached here and our Class teachers and Specialists are also able to provide further information. We look forward to watching our students grow and achieve throughout the term.

All classes have a special time (either weekly or fortnightly) where they will be able to visit the Hub to return and borrow a new book. The Hub is also open every morning from 8:15am and every afternoon until 3:00pm. Lunchtime clubs are open for Years 3 & 4 on Monday, Years 5 & 6 on Tuesday and Years 1 & 2 on Thursday. Students from Years 3 to 6 are also able to visit for borrowing on Wednesdays and students from Prep to Year 2 on Fridays. We look forward to seeing everyone soon.

This week in the Hub we are lucky enough to have some special artefacts on loan from the Queensland Museum, highlighting some of the traditions of Aboriginal people. These include clapping sticks, boomerangs, ochre and the grinding stones used to make these, and an example of a bark painting. There are also information cards to read about the artefacts and some books to borrow. The items are on loan for a fortnight so make sure you pop in to see them.

Don’t forget to continue your reading for the Reading Challenge. All forms are due back by 28 August so there is still plenty of time to read, read and read. All completed forms need to be returned to the Hub. 

The new term is a great time to set some new reading goals, especially for those students on AR. Students may wish to set a goal for a particular level, a number of books or a number of words.

Late last term Prithuvi reached his goal of reading 4 million words. This is an outstanding achievement and of course there is still plenty of time left in the year. I wonder how many words Prithuvi will read by December? We are very proud of Prithuvi’s achievements and have added his photo to the special AR display in the Hub.

This week we were very excited to add two new millionaire readers to our AR display as well. Nesandi has reached her goal of reading one million words! Nesandi has been working hard all year to read, read and read. We are very proud of her achievements and were pleased to see her huge smile when she realised her efforts had been rewarded by reaching one million words!

Arman has also reached four million words. He worked particularly hard during the school holidays and returned with a large pile of books ready to complete quizzes on. We are very proud of Arman’s commitment to AR and look forward to watching his progress throughout the year.

Pop on down to see the photos of our millionaire readers and to talk about how you might meet your goals this term.

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

It has been a quieter period for the MHSS P.E. department with the postponement of our usual Term 2 activities, which included Gala Day, Athletics Carnival (Year 3-6) and Sports Day (Year P-2).  However, there is light at the end of the tunnel and there is some progress with school sporting events occurring in Term 3.

From 10 July 2020, in line with the Queensland Government’s Stage 3 easing of restrictions, schools will be able to conduct inter-school sport competitions for both indoor and outdoor sports, including contact sports.  Planning for these activities include consideration of the Roadmap, AIS Framework and Return to Play Guide.

Gatherings for sport activities and competitions conducted during this stage are restricted to a maximum of 100 people and may include modifications based on the sport-specific guidelines from AIS.

Due to the large number of students at MHSS and the restrictions listed above, at this stage we are unable to deliver any school carnival events (i.e. Athletics Carnival and Sports Day) for the near future. We will closely monitor the restrictions implemented by the QLD Government and will adapt where required to provide the best level of sporting opportunities possible.  This includes our hope to run our MHSS Swimming Carnival at the end of the Year.

We are in the process of working with Pine Rivers District to try to get Gala Day events taking place in Semester 2. As mentioned above there are several restrictions we must implement to ensure student and teacher safety. This may mean Gala Days in Semester 2 are structured differently than in previous years. We will let families know as soon as possible any information regarding the occurrence of Gala Days in Semester 2. 

Fantastic news for those students who were earlier in the year selected in the MHSS AFLQ Schools Cup training squads, the AFLQ Schools Cup competition has been rescheduled and will be taking place this year. The new competition date is Monday 31 August and will be held at Maroochydore. For those students selected in the training squads, more information will be emailed shortly, including training/selection times for Term 3.

In some positive news, it appears as if the QLD Netball Primary Schools Cup will take place in 2020. The QLD Netball Cup is a state-wide Netball competition played amongst primary schools and is open to students in Years 4-6.  Please see the attached information items regarding trials for this event.

In some more fantastic news, Netball QLD have agreed to run their NetSetGo Netball Program at MHSS in 2020. This is a fantastic introduction to Netball program and will run on Tuesdays starting 21st July 3pm-4pm and will run for 8 weeks.

Please see the attached Flyer for more information on how to register, or follow the online registration link. Participants can register via the link below: https://netball.resultsvault.com/common/pages/reg/welcome.aspx?type=6&id=89835&entityid=77310

We have applied for funding for the Sporting Schools program for Term 3 at MHSS. We are waiting to see if our application has been successful. If it is successful, we will place more information regarding the program in the coming weeks.

Physical Education lessons for all classes in Term 3 are outlined below;

• Prep - In Physical Education lessons, students will demonstrate personal and social skills to include others and describe their feelings after participating in a range of active games.
• Year 1/2 - In Physical Education lessons, students will demonstrate fundamental movement skills while using scooters and scooter boards. They will perform movement skills to manoeuvre along different pathways and through a range of obstacles. Students will be provided with numerous opportunities to perform these skills in closed-skill environments, movement challenges and games. They will also work collaboratively with partners to solve team-based scooter board challenges.
• Year 3/4 - In Physical Education lessons, students will perform the refined fundamental movement skills of throwing (overarm shoulder pass and chest pass) and catching and use them to solve movement challenges. They will apply strategies for working cooperatively and apply rules fairly.
• Year 5/6 - In Physical Education lessons, students will demonstrate skills to work collaboratively and play fairly to solve movement challenges in partner and group situations.

 If you need to contact me regarding any sporting issue at MHSS, feel free to send an email to Mr Nick Hills (nhill96@eq.edu.au) or Mr Tyson Newell (tnewe20@eq.edu.au).

Please see MHSS Term 3 Sports Calendar below for your reference. 

Have a great week 
Nick and Tyson 

As a new term begins an exciting new Canteen Menu is now avaliable to order through Flexischools. Please see the new Canteen Menu below. Please ensure that all Canteen orders are placed by 8:30am the morning of your Canteen order. 

The MHSS P & C will be holding a fundraising meeting this Thursday, 16 July at 10:00am in the school admin block. This meeting is aimed at revising and completing planning for any fundraising activities for Term 3 and 4. 

If you would like to attend the meeting please RSVP to Renee via email- mhsspcpresident@gmail.com .