Mango Hill State School eNewsletter

Principal's News by Tracy Egan

Parent Teacher Partnerships

It is great to see parent teacher interviews starting this week. A positive parent-teacher relationship contributes to your child’s success at school. Your child’s teacher is usually the second most important person in your child’s life (after his/her parents of course). We want to ensure the relationship between parents, teachers and students is a strong and rewarding one.

A positive parent-teacher relationship helps your child feel good about school and be successful in school. It demonstrates to your child that s/he can trust the teacher, because you do. This positive relationship makes a child feel like the important people in their life are working together.

Communicating well is a key factor for making this relationship work. Communication is especially important if you are worried about your child’s progress, development or an issue. Our staff want to help and want every student to be happy, safe and successful at school so please take the time to set up an appointment to discuss any concerns you have.

Finally, a reminder that if your child has conflict with another student, it is NEVER okay to discipline another person’s child at school. Any concerns must be referred to staff to manage.

“The secret is to gang up on the problem, rather than each other.” —Thomas Stallkamp

Special events

Over the next week we have a number of special events for the end of Term 1.

Senior Cross Country (Year 3-6) will be held this Friday 25 March and the Junior Cross Country will be held on Wednesday 30 March (weather permitting). Parents are welcome to join us.
On Friday 1 April we will celebrate with our Prep - Year 2 students at a Fancy Bonnet Parade to celebrate Easter at 8:30am in the piazza. Students will make their fancy bonnet at school. Parents are invited to join us. We look forward to celebrating our Term 1 success!

Staying Positive

It is certainly a difficult time with a number of staff and student absences due to COVID, close contacts and normal illness and personal circumstances. I know many of our staff, students and families are feeling challenged with the current circumstances, particularly with different teachers managing classes when staff are absent. Thank you for continuing to stay supportive and kind in these challenging times. The health and wellbeing of our community is a priority. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns we can assist you with.

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

Team Mango We All Belong!

Inclusive Education

At Mango Hill State School, we strongly believe in inclusive education and we reflect on our practices so we can be consistently learning and improving. Inclusive education can be described as the belief that all students can learn best in their class alongside their same age peers. We use many evidence-based practices to ensure that our students learn and play in inclusive environments. One practice is the strategic use of co-teaching.

What is co-teaching?

It is a teaching arrangement in which two teachers deliver the curriculum in an inclusive way to students in the same classroom or learning environment. At our school, co-teaching typically involves an ILT (Inclusive Education teacher) and a class teacher jointly planning, instructing and assessing a class of students in a particular curriculum area eg writing. Both teachers collaboratively differentiate the curriculum to suit the needs of their class. There are many models of co-teaching which are used flexibly and interchangeably within a lesson.

Service Dog

You may have seen a service dog at our school recently, at drop off and pick up or maybe at a parade. Service dogs are especially trained and must pass rigorous assessments before they gain their qualifications. They wear a vest to alert you to the fact that they are on duty. As service dogs are focused on their tasks, it is protocol not to speak directly with them or pat them.

Focus of the Week

The Care Class focus delivered on Friday, is ‘IT Safety and Conduct’. This topic will be discussed during Care Class and will also be revised in the classrooms throughout week 10.

Teachers will be reminding students about the importance of using all devices and the internet safely. This topic ‘IT Safety and Conduct’ links to all four of our Cares.

Children will be involved in discussions and various activities that will remind them to use the correct apps at the correct time, not to share personal information and to be kind whilst online. Classes will be revisiting appropriate strategies and behaviours when working online. Our school ePal Student Participation Agreement sets out our school expectations. A great link is provided below should you wish to cover this topic at home.

Cyber Smart Heroes- Cyber Bullying

https://www.esafety.gov.au/educators/classroom-resources/cybersmart-challenge/cybersmart-hero

Student of the Week

Instrumental Music

Prep News by Melinda White

Prep News!

Big first time events are happening next week for our Preps! We have our very first Cross Country next Wednesday and our very first Fancy Bonnet Parade next Friday on our last day of term.

Both of these events are about participation, enjoyment and being part of a team.

You can prepare your child by focusing on joining in, rather than “winning” or “being the best”. Large events like these can be overwhelming for our little ones; with a different location, crowds and noise. They did really well at their first Gigum Hall parade last week, so we are hopeful they will do just as well at their first oval and piazza events too!

It can be difficult to visualise events they’ve never been to before, so we will be working through social stories in class. In PE, our teachers have been walking the course with our students so they know where to run.

Teachers will be helping our Preps to make a simple headpiece for the Fancy Bonnet parade in class; however if you’d like to create a masterpiece at home, you’re most welcome. Your toddler is welcome to create a headpiece to wear and join in the event too.

There’s many absences in Prep at the moment due to illness. My own family is unwell right now too. I’m thinking of all of “my” Preppies at their homes and in their classrooms. Can’t wait to be back with you all!

Have a lovely week
Melinda White
Deputy Principal - Prep
mwhit37@eq.edu.au

Year 1 News by Kylie Vaughan

Celebrating Kindness

There was a sea of orange across Year 1 last Friday as we stood together on the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence and celebrated kindness.

Kindness is more than just being nice. It’s about being a good friend and showing care for other people without expecting anything in return. Sometimes it can be easy to do and other times showing kindness can be really hard. It’s often in those times that it is really hard to show kindness where it can mean the most to someone else.

The children in Year 1 do a great job spreading kindness every day when they are here at school. When I asked them how they showed kindness, they said the following:

‘I am kind to Bridgette when I play secret agents.’ – Paisley

‘I help Raiden when he gets hurt.’ – Darcey

‘I help pack up my classroom and help my teacher.’ – Sahasra

‘I help my sister when she is upset. I give her a cuddle.’ – Patrick

‘My sister lost her squish pillow so I bought her a new one with my own money.’ - Scarlett

We are so lucky to have so many caring people in Year 1!

Fancy Bonnet Parade

On Friday, 1April we will be hosting a Fancy Bonnet Parade for our Prep to Year 2 students. Parents are welcome to join the festivities that will start at 8:30am in the Piazza. The children will be making a simple bonnet to wear in class however if your child would like to get crafty, they are more than welcome to construct your own creation at home to wear to the parade. Toddlers and kindy children are also welcome to join in the fun. We hope to see you there!

Have a lovely week
Kylie Vaughan
Deputy Principal- Year 1
kvaug3@eq.edu.au

Year 2 News by Ellaine Warner

Learning in Year 2

It is fantastic to see and celebrate the academic and personal growth of our students over this term. This week I joined 2R for a Math lesson. They “bumped up” their own descriptions of 3D shapes from the start of the term. Students confidently used mathematical language such as attribute and vertex. Parent teacher meetings are a wonderful opportunity for you to meet with your child’s teacher to discuss celebrations and next steps. Our Year 2 teachers look forward to meeting with you!

Where should Year 2 students wait in the morning?

We love to see our Year 2 students arrive each morning. Year 2 students must wait in the Junior Undercover Area. We have toys and activities set up and staff members on duty to support and assist our students. Parents, if you think your child is waiting anywhere other than the Junior Undercover Area can you please give them a reminder for the next few mornings about the correct waiting area.

Special events

Last week we had our incursion and each and every class loved it. I personally heard so many highlights shared by students. The snake, the crocodile and the tree frog were favourites I think. Our students cared for learning and others by demonstrating awesome audience skills and interest. We also had our very first sector parade for P-2 in 2022. I was so very proud of our Year 2 students who all showed leadership by modelling the way for our Preppies. We are all looking forward to our Cross Country, our Fancy Bonnet Parade and We all Belong Day. Just a few reminders:

If you have any concerns about your child’s participation in Cross Country can you please discuss with your child’s class teacher as soon as possible.
Students are making bonnets in class. However, we know that some families and students love craft and might want to do a bonnet independently at home. If that is the case for you, your child is welcome to bring and wear their bonnet at the parade.
It’s never fun to miss out, but if your child is unwell please follow health guidelines and keep them home.

Ellaine Warner
Deputy Principal- Year 2
ewarn23@eq.edu.au

Year 3 News by Michelle Alcorn

Messy Maths

This week 3M students used their big table space as a messy place to share their mathematical thinking. It was wonderful seeing the students work together to show how they could read and write numbers beyond 10 000. I could see students were really striving for that 4 star goal as they represented their thinking in multiple ways including drawing up their own place value charts, MABS and creating number sentences. Some students even took up the challenge of partitioning their numbers as standard and non-standard. Who said maths wasn’t fun? 3M are loving every minute of their messy maths space time!

Friendly Reminders

NAPLAN ready! Over the past week teachers have been emailing and calling parents to check their child’s device is NAPLAN ready. It is really important to allow our students to take part in the online component of NAPLAN, so all students need a headset and the NAP app installed on their devices. If you are a bit unsure if your child’s device is NAPLAN ready, please speak with the classroom teacher as soon as possible.

Have a great week
Michelle Alcorn
Deputy Principal- Year 3
malco14@eq.edu.au

Year 4 News by Ben Mills

Year 4 News

The countdown is on! With only just over a week left of Term 1, our teachers and students are working incredibly hard to consolidate learning. In visiting classrooms this week, I have continued to see the power of collaboration in action, with students sharing their learning with classmates and even providing feedback to each other about their next steps. Our Year 4 students make excellent peer tutors!

A big focus in classes this week has been writing an ending to a chapter of My Girragundji. Students have completed their planning document for how they will structure their text and engage the reader through the strategic use of language features. Many have begun writing and have been receiving feedback around their next steps from their teacher and peers, so that they can bump-up their final writing piece. I have been blown away by how dedicated our students are to improving their work and achieving their writing goals!

This Friday is our Cross Country carnival. Year 4 will be split up across two sessions, with students born in 2012 competing in the morning session and students born in 2013 competing in the middle session. When they are not competing, please be aware that some Year 4 classes will be combining for the session. As this unfamiliar routine can be challenging for students, please take the time to talk this through with your child the night before. I know that the teachers will discuss this with the students before Friday.

Last Thursday, we had our Year 3 and 4 Stay and Play afternoon. What a wonderful afternoon it was with parents and students connecting with their teachers and each other. It was wonderful to see so many smiling faces and parents getting involved in activities with their children. After the challenges of the past couple of years, it was so nice to once again build a sense of community.

Have a super week
Ben Mills
Deputy Principal – Year 3
bxmil3@eq.edu.au

Year 5 and Year 6 News by Martin Winney

Care for Learning in Year 5 and 6

It was an exciting week to be in Year 5 and 6 classrooms as students began receiving their last bits of feedback to improve their writing and students participating in open-ended problem solving questions to extend their learning. It was great working with 5I as they deconstructed a piece of writing against the star scale to reflect on which one was the better sample and to use these reflections in their writing. In 5P this week I had the opportunity to celebrate so many great writing samples. I loved seeing the writing prompts to help stimulate narrative story ideas. In 5R students collaboratively examined problems involving fractions and harnessed their powers of persuasion to debate with their group which problems were solved correctly and which problems were not. Then students used their higher order thinking skills to address the misconception. While in 6H students also drew on their higher order thinking skills to design questions for their peers involving a variety of number properties. Well done Year 5 and 6!

Science in Year 5

Last week, 5K and 5I loved working together to make 'oobleck'. During the activity, the students consolidated their science learnings around the properties of solids and liquids in a fun way. Oobleck is a unique substance as it behaves like both a solid and a liquid. The hands-on investigation also gave the students the opportunity to apply their fractions understandings in a real-world context when measuring the ingredients. Oobleck is super easy to make and you can do this at home by combining equal parts corn flour and water!

Have a good week
Martin Winney
Deputy Principal – Year 5 & 6
mwinn7@eq.edu.au

Curriculum News by Suzette Holm and Danielle O'Brien

Monitoring Learning in English

After many weeks of learning new concepts and trying out ideas, this week is an opportunity for many students to show their teachers what they have learned in English throughout Term 1.

For some students this will require them to complete their short story or adventure narrative. For others, they will complete their written recount or show off their drawing skills. This is a special time of the term where there is always so much to celebrate. Students will also be provided with some feedback, linked to their writing scales, so that they know what they will need to work on in the coming term. Students will also have an opportunity to complete some reading tasks, where the texts are unfamiliar and some of them will be challenging. This is a great opportunity for teachers to see how well students are progressing with their reading and comprehension.

Teachers will also be able to share these work samples at the upcoming parent interviews. What a great time to celebrate all of our achievements from Term 1.

Caring for the Hub

Don’t forget that a library bag is a great way to care for our precious Hub resources. Library bags can be purchased from the Uniform shop or students are welcome to use any kind of plastic or fabric bag. Students are welcome to borrow a book for the holidays and do not need to return all resources before the end of the term. Holidays are a great time for relaxing and spending time with family, but also a great time to continue to practise our reading and comprehension!

Volunteers

Thank you to those willing volunteers who are busy contacting some new books for the Hub. If you would like to do some contacting at home, we would love your help. Pop on in to meet Wendy or Cherie and find out how you can help.

Hub display

This week in the Hub we have a super display from the Qld Museum, featuring the ways in which local indigenous people use their environment. There are lots of items including some animals that may have been used as food, as well as plants that were used to create fibres. Pop on down to see this display before it has to be returned next week.

AR Millionaires

Congratulations to Lucy who this week reached her goal of 1 million words. She has been working so very hard all throughout Term 1 to reach this amazing milestone. We are very proud of her and so excited to add her photo to our special 2022 display.

Have a fantastic week
Suzette Holm and Danielle O'Brien
shol0@eq.edu.au

dxobr0@eq.edu.au

Sporting News by The PE Department

MHSS Cross Country

A reminder the dates for our Cross Country events are:

Year Prep-2: Wednesday Week 10 - 30 March
Year 3-6: Friday Week 9 - 25 March.

Below is a copy of our course maps and community notice for our Junior and Senior Cross Country Events. Students have different lengths for their races depending on their Year Group (Junior Prep-Year 2 event) or Age Group (Senior Year 3-6 event). All students will be instructed during their upcoming PE lessons of their course and will also complete a walk through. The course is colour coded with markers so depending on their race distance, students follow different markers which again is detailed in the attached map. An email with full event details has now been sent to all parents.

MHSS_Junior_Cross_Country_Community_Notice.pdf

MHSS_Junior_Cross_Country_Community_Notice _pdf 113.72 KB

MHSS_Junior_Cross_Country_Map.pdf

MHSS_Junior_Cross_Country_Map _pdf 535.56 KB

MHSS_Senior_Cross_Country_Community_Notice.pdf

MHSS_Senior_Cross_Country_Community_Notice _pdf 133.97 KB

MHSS_Senior_Cross_Country_Map.pdf

MHSS_Senior_Cross_Country_Map _pdf 441.01 KB

Pine Rivers District Sport Trials – Term 1 and 2

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 https://prdss1012yr.teamapp.com/?_webpage=v1 or Mr Nick Hills - nhill96@eq.edu.au (MHSS PE Teacher).

Costs

Some Pine Rivers District Trials that occur during the school day will incur a fee to cover the supervision costs of teachers running the trial. Trials which are run after school will be free of charge. All Metropolitan North Trials in 2022 are free of charge as well.

Pine Rivers District Sports Trial (after school) Free
Pine Rivers District Sports Trial (half day or full day) $10.00
Metropolitan North Sports Trials Free

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

Event	Date of Trial
Pine Rivers District U/12 Swimming Trials – Boys and Girls – CANCELLED (noms direct to MN)	16/02/22
Met North Regional U/12 Baseball Trials – Boys and Girls	22/02/22
Met North Regional 10-12yr Swimming Trials – Boys and Girls	23/02/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 AFL Trials – Boys	2/03/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 Netball Trials – Boys and Girls	9/03/22
Pine Rivers District U/11 Netball Trials – Boys and Girls	11/03/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 AFL Trials – Girls	15/03/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 Basketball Trials – Boys and Girls	16/03/22
Met North Regional U/12 Golf Trials – Boys and Girls	21/03/22
MHSS Internal u/12 Football Trials – Boys and Girls	24/03/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 Touch Football Trials – Boys and Girls	24/03/22
Met North Regional U/12 Squash Trials – Boys and Girls	29/03/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 Hockey Trials – Boys and Girls	31/03/22
Pine Rivers District U/11 & U/12 Rugby League Trials – Boys and Girls	20/04/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 Football (Soccer) Trials – Boys and Girls	26/04/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 Rugby Union Trials – Boys	25/05/22
Pine Rivers District U/12 Tennis Trials – Boys and Girls	25/05/22

* 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.

Pine Rivers District Sporting Trials (10-12yr Old’s)

Pine Rivers District School Sport offers 10-12 Year old students the opportunity to compete at Metropolitan North trials and carnivals, with the possibility of selection into teams competing at State events. Students must be nominated by their school in order to attend a district trial or carnival.

Students who express an interest to trial can collect forms from our PE office. They will be given the Pine Rivers District forms and the relevant trial information. Completed district forms are to be returned to the PE office by the due date. Once the forms are collated, students will be nominated for the trial. Forms are then handed back to students and must then be taken to the coach/manager at the District Trials. Students will NOT be allowed to trial if district forms are not handed in completed. Unless specifically organised by the school, it is the parents’ responsibility to transport students to and from district trials.

Most Pine Rivers District trials are limited to students turning 11 or 12 years of age and who are considered at a high level in the sport e.g. Div. 1 or A Grade. Cross Country, Athletics and Swimming trials however are open for students turning 10, 11 and 12 years of age. Sports that students are able to trial for include;

AFL
Basketball
Cricket
Football (Soccer)
Golf
Hockey
Netball
Rugby League
Rugby Union
Softball
Squash
Tennis
Touch
Triathlon

Mango Hill can nominate up to three students for each district sport trial. If more than three students wish to be nominated Mango Hill will select the three best candidates for the trial. The selection of these students may be either based on past performances/current club form or through a selection trial at school.

If you are interested in your child trialling for Pine Rivers District more information can be obtained from the Mango Hill State School newsletter, with regular trial updates listed. You may also obtain trial information from the Pine Rivers District School Sport Website https://prdss1012yr.teamapp.com/?_webpage=v1 or Mr Nick Hills - nhill96@eq.edu.au

Interschool Sport (Year 5-6)

All Year 5 and 6 students will get the chance to participate in the Pine Rivers Interschool Sport, which was formally known as “Gala Days”. This will be structured slightly differently than Gala Days with students competing in Terms 2 and 3 only, with the competition running for 6 days (3 days each term). Students compete against teams from other schools for Interschool Sport. Permission forms and voting slips were sent home with students last week. These must be returned by Friday 18 March 2022 for your son/daughter to participate in this competition. The Interschool Sports for 2022 are;