Goondi SS 08.06.23 Newsletter

From the Leadership Team

Welcome to Ms Mohammad, our permanent Deputy Principal to Goondi State School. Ms Mohammad was welcomed into the school by all staff and students and is looking forward to working with all parents and families.

The Deputy Principal and Principal will be conducting all interviews for new families, ensuring they are aware of the academic, sporting and social expectations to support life long learners.   

PREP ENROLMENTS FOR 2024

This year we will be again offering our Extensive Pre-Prep Program and a number of transition and information sessions for prospective Prep students and parents to ensure that our 2024 Prep students have the best possible start to their formal education at Goondi State School.

Is your child, or a child you know, eligible for Prep next year?

We are taking enrolments from new students and students who have brothers or sisters attending the Goondi State School. They will automatically be offered a place in our 2024 Prep classes.  

We are also taking Expressions of Interest for children who live out-of-catchment and want to attend Goondi State School.

If there are vacancies, these students will also be offered a place in our 2024 Prep classes.  

Please visit the office as soon as possible with your child’s details to complete an Expression of Interest form even if you are in-catchment.

Our Pre-Prep program commences in Term 2 with:

- Under 8s Day - Today 8th June

- Prep Induction Morning - 22nd June

- Prep Information Afternoon/Evening - 14th June 5pm-6pm

Up and Coming Events and Dates

- Innisfail Young Performers Fri 9th June 

Spell-a-thon KEY DATES

• words sent home: Wednesday 31 May
• spelling test: Wednesday 14 June
• money to be returned from: Wednesday 14 June to Tuesday 20 June
• winners drawn on parade: Friday 23 June at 11.30am.  

Please note: money can only be returned between these dates, with all money to be received by Tuesday 20 June to be included in the prize draw. Please ensure correct amount is included in the envelope.

Happy spelling!

Yours in Education

Tania Kaitara and Khadeeja Mohammed

Dear Goondi School Community,

This is a brief message to introduce myself as the new Deputy Principal of Goondi State School (SS). Many of you may know me as a mum of students who attend Goondi SS and as a former Deputy Principal at Goondi SS in 2019. I was a Principal in the Cane Cutter Cluster (Innisfail Cluster) and Ulysses Cluster (Tully Cluster) for 10 years and have lived in and around Innisfail most of my life. I was also a student at Goondi SS for my entire primary school years.  For the last 3.5 years I have been the substantive Deputy Principal at Balaclava State School in Cairns.

I am looking forward to reestablishing old relationships and building on and making new ones, while working with the community at Goondi SS to improve outcomes for all students. I aim to build positive relationships that encourage successful and productive teams and look forward to working with students, staff, families and the wider community.

I am excited to join the Goondi SS community and look forward to meeting you all over the coming weeks.

Kind Regards,

Khadeeja (Deej) Mohammed

Prep Capers

The end of Term 2 is approaching very quickly!

Our literacy lessons have been very busy with assessments.  Students have been completing phonics, sight words and reading assessments with Prep staff.  During our writing assessments, students completed their Weekend Recount and a retell about The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Students are always encouraged to use capital letters, finger spaces, full stops and are exposed to adjectives in sentence writing.  Students presented their Fabulous Family posters, during the presentations students displayed listening and speaking skills.  

Maths lessons have also been busy completing assessments for the concepts taught this term.  These included counting, number of the day, matching numbers and words, patterns, days of the week, 2D shapes, heavy and light, long and short, and addition and number representation.  All students have had a Red Hot Go and staff applaud students for their efforts.

Students have been busy during Science, HASS and Health lessons.  The students are enjoying these learning areas as they learn about the weather in Science.  During HASS students learn about their families, celebrations and commemorations.  Our Health is called ‘All About Me’ and students learn about themselves and their bodies and how physical exercise is important and how to stay safe.  

This week, the students were given their Daradgee Excursion forms and invoices were email or put into your child’s homework folder.   The excursion cost is $10.00 and can only be paid through BPoint online.  Please follow the instructions on the invoice form.  Forms and payment are required by Friday the 16^th of June.

Yours in Prep

Mrs Myers, Mrs Ferguson, Mrs Barba and Mrs Tanti 😊

Year 1 Capers

We have been busy bees here in grade one the past two weeks completimg assesment and sharing what we have been learning. 

Students have shown us their persuasive writing skills by letting us know why the beach is better than the town pool. They have been very convincing in their arguments including breath taking views, amazing wild life and the ability to run and play various games at the beach, whereas some arguments against the pool was that you had to pay, it was smelly and you couldn't run and play. 

In Maths we have been working hard on assessment tht has included students knowledge of number, including two digit numbers, tens and ones and addition and subtraction problems. Studnets have also shown various measurments including time and duration of time, using informal units such as blocks as measuring tools and location of objects and giving directions. We have also looked at the probabilty of events happening and used graphs to display and intepret data.

In HaSS students have been designing parks which are suitable for everyone to use at any time of day or night and include different features that are either natural, managed or built.  There have been some very creative parks designed that look like they would be a lot of fun. 

In Science students have drawn boats that they are going to make from a selection of materials which will then be tested to see how much weight they can hold. We are very excited to see these designs come to life in the coming days and see how the changes the students make to the materials help to build strong boats.

Students have been enthusiastically practicing their spellathon words and we encourage families to keep helping their child learn their words. Spellathon will be held next Thursday.

Regards Year 1 Team

Year 2 Capers

Hello from Year 2!!

Unbelievable that it’s week 8 already! We are now deep in assessment territory, and it is vital that we come to school every day we can. We have a lot of assessment to get through, but it all contributes as evidence towards a result for your learner. It’s not just about the grade on the report card; assessment such as this lets us find any areas in the learning that need to be addressed again, any gaps in knowledge, as well as the many successes we see when students apply their knowledge in different ways.

It can be a stressful and tiring time for some students, so please ensure as always that your learner is getting enough sleep, and healthy food. Reports will be finalised next week, and should come home in week 10.

We are also practising our song for the Young Performers competition on Friday, and we know that a lot of students are excited about performing on stage. If we could all wear our best uniform on Friday, that would be helpful in making us look even better. Please return the permission slips as soon as possible, this will allow students to travel on the bus and perform at the Shire Hall. Good luck to all the performers!

Regards,

Nathan Worth, Robyn Scheiwe, Kathy Pike and Jeanette Spataro.

Year 3 Capers

We are running out of weeks in Term 2 and are definitely at the pointy end where everything is due. Good luck to our singing group on Friday. It’s wonderful to have the opportunity to participate in the competition and many thanks to our music teacher, Mrs Macgillivray, who works on students’ singing pitch from the prep years.

Spell-a-thon is our next big focus. Keep writing out the words and learning the letter patterns in the harder ones. Remember to identify the morphographs and spelling rules. The apostrophe is a must in the contraction words. The test is next Wednesday, the 14th June.

Learning continues in the classrooms for the next two weeks. In Numeracy, we will introduce rounding numbers to the nearest ten and one hundred before rounding to the nearest dollar value, then nearest five cent. We are studying the seven times tables and challenging how we can do accurately in three minutes. It’s amazing the speed some students have at recalling these number facts.

During our explicit writing lessons, we are learning the structure of a procedure text and practising writing titles, goals, lists of things you will need and the method set out in steps.

Until next time, Ashley, Janelle, and Amanda.

Year 4 Capers

We have reached the business end of the term. The year 4 students have been working so hard to complete assessment tasks to the best of their ability. We all need to remember what an A Key or B Key looks like and ensure we are always putting our best foot forward and showing the world just how incredible we are.

SPELLATHON

Year 4 has repeatedly scored exceptionally well in spellathon, students will be going over words daily. Let’s make sure Year 4 blows everyone else away.

In English the students have written their end of term writing task and will receive feedback very shortly. The growth in the writing of all students has been wonderful and they should all be proud of their ability to step into the shoes of someone who live hundreds of years ago and attempt to understand what their life was really like.

The end of this term has seen a heavy focus on number and algebra, we have been fine tuning these skills and applying them to various situations to enhance our understanding.

The commencement of the science unit will be fun-filled games, racing cars, playing different games to reinforce our learning.

At the end of the term students are feeling exhausted so please ensure the students are getting adequate sleep, eating breakfast and staying hydrated. Please also ensure your child gets a chance to have a break and be a kid for their own mental health as we come into assessment time.

Year 6 Capers

Hello Class 6B and Class 5/6 families!

Week 8! All students are working hard to learn their Spell-a-thon words in preparation for the test in Week 9! Students are showing huge improvement from the original pre-test we completed when we first got our list, and everyone should be really proud of the hard work they are putting in practising and learning the words. Don’t forget to keep practising at home!

This week we are working hard to complete end-of-term assessments. Thank you for supporting your child by getting them to school well-rested, with a good breakfast and lunch to fuel them throughout their days. Some students are finding they are running out of stationery like pencils and whiteboard markers. We will do a tidy-tray stocktake before the end of term so everyone knows what equipment to organise ready for Term 3.

Students have also been completing their annotated drawing of a container to grow edibles in, and practising their speeches to present these ideas to the class. Ask your child to present their speech to you, and if you haven’t had a chance already you might like to try to build their idea with them during the holidays. Some students have already brought their plan to life, and it’s been wonderful to see these in our classrooms!

The Innisfail State College team will visit our classrooms again soon to discuss the upcoming transition day with our Year 6 students. If your child is in year 6, please ask them for the information letter regarding this if you haven’t seen it already. Information about the HOTSHOTS program will go out soon as well. All ISC transition events this term are happening in Week 10.

Thanks again for your support!

Until next time,

Mrs Worth, Mr Ward and Mr Azzopardi