Goondi SS 21.06.23 Newsletter

From the Leadership Team

Dear Parents and Carers,

Wow, has it been a big few weeks!

Goondi State School delivered an outstanding Under 8's morning again, this year. With over 150 children, 20+ activity stations & a large variety of choices, our Under 8's were able to 'choose their own adventure' & experience all the activity stations at their own pace. We received many commendations from students, staff, families & community members. Thank you Mrs K Barba for leading this event - and it wouldn't have been possible without the support of many of our staff. We are grateful to all of you. Check out the photos on our Facebook page!

A big congratulations to all our students who performed at Innisfail Young Performers in week 8. We are very proud of your dedication this semester & effort displayed. Many thanks to all staff involved in making the experience a memorable one. 

At Goondi, the end of term 2 means teachers have been working diligently to finalise units of work, assess & report on your child’s learning progress. Data is collated & teachers formalise academic progress through comments & marks in Semester 1 Student Reports.  Reports were sent home yesterday, Tuesday June 20th.

We encourage you to talk with your child about their report, discuss their success, their challenges and support them as they look forward to Semester 2.  It is great to be able to celebrate accomplishments, but equally important to look at areas where your child can set achievable goals. They can then plan and aim for and feel success once achieved. 

If you have any questions regarding Report Cards, please see your child's class teacher, in the first instance.

The next big event on our calendar is our Athletics Carnival - in Week 1 of Term 3. All classes have been practising and training over the last few weeks.  Thank you staff for your dedication.  As in previous years, we will run some of the events on Wednesday July 13th and the main carnival will take place on Thursday 14th July.  On the Wednesday, selected students will run the 200m, 800m and we will also hold the one field event - shotput.  All other events will be held at the full carnival on the Thursday.  Parents, carers and families are welcome to attend.  On the Thursday, the whole school will meet on the Cavallaro Oval where we will hold our House War Cries from 8:50am.  The first event - sprints, will commence at 9:00am. 
There will be no catering from our P&C. Students are to bring their own lunch on both event days.

At the beginning of Week 8, we officially welcomed Ms Mohammed, our permanent Deputy Principal at Goondi SS.  As a Leadership Team, we look forward to leading the work for our school - in our pursuit of Equity & Excellence.

Thank you for a wonderful term. 

We wish all students, families & our staff members a safe & enjoyable holiday.
See you all Monday 10th July.

Kind Regards,

Tania Kaitara - Principal
Khadeeja Mohammed - Deputy Principal

Other School News

BEFORE SCHOOL SUPERVISION

A reminder that students are supervised in the hall from 8am, with breakfast club open every morning. Students are to stay in the designated area (Hall) until 8.30am when classrooms open. Students are not to be at school before 8am, as there is no supervision.

PARADE

This week we will be holding our usual parade on Thursday at 12.45pm, this is where our Student of the Week awards are handed out. On Friday at 11.30am we will be holding a second parade to award our 'A Key' students and hand out our Spell-a-thon medallions to students who scored 100%. The P&C will also be doing the Spell-a-thon raffle, to see who takes home the amazing IPads.

Everyone is always welcome to attend parades.

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

Religious Instruction classes commence in Term 3 for students in Years 1, 2  & 3. Lessons will be every Friday for 30 minutes in duration with the first lesson on 21^st July. Religious Instruction will be conducted by approved volunteers who will deliver departmental approved programs.   The lessons will conclude at the end of Term 3.

Students participate in either of two classes, based on the religious education as nominated by parents. The two groups are:

1. Combined (catering for ANG, COE, AOG, COC, UNITING, BAP, BRE, CHN, GLO, PEN, PRS, REV)
2. Catholic

Students who are listed as non-denominational, belong to a religion not catered for, or did not return a Religious Instruction Permission form, will be supervised with class work during religious education lesson time.

Prep Capers

Just like that, it is the end of Term 2.

During the past few weeks, Prep classes completed the Spell-a-thon test and assessments for each learning area.  All students worked very hard and gave all activities “A Red Hot Go.”  During the final days of Term 2, our classrooms will continue to work and begin to get organised for Term 3.

On Monday, the weather was great and the Prep classes went to the Daradgee Environmental Education Centre.  They had a fantastic day out of the classrooms as they learnt about the farm animals.  Students fed the hens, rooster, ducks and turkeys.  Some students were lucky enough to find some eggs and put them into the egg cartoons.  They held the guinea pigs and the baby chickens and touched Roxanne the Python.  Students also revised their Five Senses (Touch, Smell, Sight, Taste, and Hearing) then used them to identify different types of food and plants.  All students and staff had a fun time, especially at both lunch breaks when students played games outside with the different sports equipment. 

We would like to thank our families for another great term. May you all have a safe holiday and we look forward seeing you in Term 3. 

Yours in Prep

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

Year 1 Capers

End of Term 2 already, time has flown by. Congratulations to all the students who worked hard learning their words for spellathon and giving it their best on test day.

All the students have worked extra hard over the past two weeks finalising their assessments. We are finishing out the term with reviewing topics in maths such as money, shapes, directions and place value using tens and ones. 

In English we have been working to build better sentences and even having a go at writing poems like Dr Suess. 

Science ended with a lot of fun with students making boats and seeing how many marbles they could hold and still float. There were some amazing designs, and some very strong boats. It was wonderful to see the students putting their knowledge of making changes to materials into practice and the excitement of seeing how many marbles your own boat as well as a friends boat could hold.

Have a wonderful and restful holiday.

The year 1 team.

Year 2 Capers

Hi from Year 2!!

We can’t believe it’s end of term, and halfway through the year. Time flies when you’re having fun! This term has seen lots of challenges. It was an assessment term, which can be stressful for those involved, but we saw the hard work paying off. We also had our Spellathon challenge, which was well met by our Year 2 cohort. We looked at life cycles in Science, and how people travel in HaSS. Our Technology unit was amazing, with students coding their own programs on Scratch. Our information reports saw lots of learning about Australia’s unique and wonderful wildlife.

Next term will also be fantastic. As a brief preview, we will be looking in HaSS at changes in technology from past to present, which is a great opportunity to talk about the way things were when you were at school. Science is all about Earth’s natural resources, and the importance of looking after them. Writing gets more creative, with our topic being Narrative, giving students a chance to create stories, as well as modify existing stories. Was Goldilocks the hero or the villain?

From all of us in Year 2, it has been a brilliant term and semester, and we look forward to what the rest of the year has in store. We hope that everyone has a happy and safe break, and we look forward to seeing everyone again in Term 3.

Regards,

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

Year 3 Capers

Thank you everyone for your support this semester and we look forward to making more progress after the holidays. Students took their reports home this week and we ask you to take notice of the effort ratings. This is because so many students are displaying very good and excellent effort during learning times.

Students have learnt how to round numbers to the nearest 10 and 100. We have a catchy little rhyme which we use to help us.

Circle your number,

Look right next door,

5 or greater add 1 more,

Numbers to the left stay the same,

Numbers to the right zero's your name.

We also revised place value and representing numbers up to 5000 in different ways, such as word form, expanded, ordering and identifying which is the greater number.

In our procedure genres, we are practising cursive hand writing and correctly setting out the subheadings next to the margin. These skills are giving us a head start to next term’s information reports.

Please have a safe and relaxing holiday.

Until next time, Ashley, Janelle, and Amanda.

Year 4 Capers

What an amazing term by all students. This Friday will see students partaking in a reward day and understanding what life was like for the convicts. Thank you, Miss Reitano for stepping up and helping out 4A the past few weeks. We have absolutely loved having you teaching. Term 3 will see Mrs Long returning to team teaching 4A with Miss Reitano and adding her expertise to the year 4 team more so.

SPELLATHON

Congratulations to everyone for trying their best in Spellathon. This year was a lot trickier with so many people extremely unwell but everyone should be so proud of themselves and their achievement.

Congratulations everyone for their extraordinary effort throughout assessments. We are extremely proud of their hard work and determination.

Next term, Mr Leaver will be leaving the year 4 teaching team. The students will miss Mr Leaver and we wish him all the best in his future endeavours. This vacancy will be filled by Ms Austin whom will be returning to Goondi SS next term.

Great upcoming events:

Athletics carnival will be happening early next term, in addition to this year 4 will be going on an excursion to reinforce our learning in both English and Science. Please be aware notes will be handed out early Term 3.

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe holiday.

Thanks, Leigh, Kath, Jade, Blake

Year 5 Capers

Wow! Term 2 has flown by. As we wrap up the term, we look at the amazing things we have done. We have had camp, Young Performers, Spell-a-thon and a range of other activities where the students have worked really hard to achieve their best. We have seen a great effort from students when working to complete assessments.

In Mathematics, there is a test for each strand of the Australian curriculum (number and algebra, measurement and geometry and statistics and probability) so three in total.

In English, we created a debate and debated against our peers to present strong arguments to support our opinion.

In Science we have been looking at adaptations and how animals and plants survive in their natural habitat. Students have shown a keen interest in our technology unit, where we worked on a coding program to fix bugs in games and make characters do certain tasks.

When looking into next term, please check with your students whether they have all of the equipment they need. For example: pencils, red pen, rubbers, ruler, whiteboard markers, coloured pencils. Have a well rested break and we look forward to seeing everyone back next term ready for learning.

Thanks for now,

Kayla Hutchins, Rebecca Nolan and Greg Azzopardi.

Year 6 Capers

Hello Class 6B and Class 5/6 families!

Another term almost over!  It is hard to believe the holidays are nearly upon us and we are almost half-way through the year.  Please ask your child if they’re running low on any stationery - quite a few students have run out of pencils and whiteboard markers, in particular. By replenishing supplies during the break we can ensure that students are fully prepared to hit the ground running at the start of Term 3. 

The testing period can be tough, well done to the students who have persevered and worked hard to achieve their best results possible. At the start of the next term students will be asked to make two SMART goals for the term. A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Some students have already begun looking forward and making academic goals for the remainder of the year.

Innisfail State College (ISC) hosted the Year 6 cohort on Monday for the 2nd Orientation Day. It was great to get positive feedback from the college about behaviour and engagement while the students were there. ISC has also hosted their HOTSHOTS program this week - a big congratulations must go to those students who were selected to participate in this. 

Be sure to look out for our Goondi State School stand at this year’s Innisfail Show, which is the Friday of Week 1 next term.  We hope everyone has a safe and relaxing holiday and we look forward to seeing the students bright and ready to learn next term.

Thanks again for your support!

Until next time,

Mrs Worth, Mr Ward and Mr Azzopardi

The Arts News

Instrumental Music News

Innisfail Young Performers Competition

In Week 8, Goondi Instrumental Music students participated in the annual Innisfail Young Performers Competition. This is always a fantastic opportunity for students to develop their confidence on stage, listen to other young musicians and receive feedback from a professional adjudicator. All students represented Goondi proudly, and we came away with some fantastic results.

Woodwind Solo Year 6 and Under

1^st place – William G

Duet – any two orchestral instruments

3^rd place - Elias A and William G

Paige B and Alice W

String Solo – Year 6 and under

2^nd place – Ethan C

Adam E

Small Ensemble

Jackson T, Layla M, William G and Zachary W

Percussion Ensemble

3^rd place – This group included Elias A.

This was followed by polished performances from the Canecutter Cluster String Orchestra, Beginner Band and Concert Band on Friday evening. This was particularly exciting for beginner band students, as this was their first ever performance. They finished with 3^rd place, the strings came in 2^nd and the Canecutter Cluster Concert Band took out 1^st prize.  Congratulations to all instrumental music students for their hard work this semester.

Community News