10 February 2020

Newsletter Articles

PRINCIPAL’S PRIDE

Welcome to The Willows 2020 school year to all of our returning and new families! The first fortnight of school has been a fantastic one, with fantastic learning happening across our school in each of our 39 classrooms.

For our new families to our school, already it has been fantastic to meet you through our enrolment processes and we thank you for choosing The Willows State School. Settling into a new school can be overwhelming and there are many people who can help and assist.

Congratulations to all of our families. Our students are well equipped, dressed in their team Willows uniform and already kicking learning goals. The excitement of our students and staff is contagious and we look forward to our parents and community supporting our school and the educational goals for learners in a positive and productive manner.

I would also like to thank our P and C members who worked across the holiday period sorting out book packs and opening up for sports shirts and hats. A shout out to Jason Curtis, Rachel Ratten, Wanda Austin and Rosie Helander and Nadine Matthews.

Please take the time to catch up with your child/ren’s class teachers on Monday the 17th of February from 3.15-4.15pm. Classrooms will be open to parents and students and teachers are looking forward to showing you the first parts of your child’s learning. This is a great way to meet and greet class teachers and our team across the school. We look forward to seeing you!

EXPLICIT IMPROVEMENT AGENDA 2020

In 2020, we can stand proud of leading the way in North Queensland in the systematic curriculum delivery of the Australian Curriculum Version 8 and leading the way to providing maximum and differentiated support and challenge to our students and staff.

Our school core priority areas are as follow:

1. Every Student is a Reader and a Writer
2. Inclusivity – Everyone Counts!
3. Collective Leadership
4. Positive Behaviour and Partnerships

Every Student is a Reader and a Writer

In 2020 the Reading Benchmarks for Prep-Year 3 by the end of year are:

• Prep – Level 9
• Year 1 – Level 21
• Year 2 – 26
• Year 3 - 30

In 2020 our collective school staff have analysed data and have agreed that the top 3 areas for writing improvement are:

• Sentence Structure
• Text Structure
• Ideas

Inclusivity – Everyone Counts!

All students have the right to entitled curriculum through high quality differentiation and reasonable adjustments required through precision planning and a range and balance of pedagogical practices. Everyone has a sense of being accepted and belongs!

Collective Leadership

• At our school, we recognise that there is leadership at every level and we collaborate to innovate solutions for our students.
• We look forward to working with our 2020 Student Leaders and supporting their initiatives and ideas!

Positive Behaviour and Partnerships

• A culture that promotes learning is key to the success of learning. “Better Behaviour: Better Learning” underpins the Student Wellbeing and Engagement Framework. Culture is the way we work together. At our school we have high expectations of all members and visitors to our school.
• At our school we have embedded Positive Behaviour Learning which is an overarching framework.
• It is everyone’s business to be safe, respectful and responsible and model expected behaviours at all times.

Facilities and Infrastructure

I am pleased to also report that the addition of our security fence in 2019, allowed all of our school team a great break with minimal disturbances across the holiday period. A shout out to our neighbours and local community members for reporting anything that didn’t look quite right.

Over the holiday period the works to our new Undercovered Multi-Purpose Shade Area commenced. Currently we are waiting for clear weather for the slab. We will continue to provide updates on the progress as the weather dries.

Currently we are working with a local architect and building group to provide the Trike and Sensory Track vision of our school which will be located at the old main entrance. This area at the moment has remained untouched since the fencing and it is great that we are now seeing more progress behind the scenes. The 2019 (not a mistake) leaders of our school will be excited to re-visit later in the year once their idea comes to fruition.

The projectors in all early years classrooms will soon be updated. There have been delays in deliveries across all sectors as a result of the extreme weather and bushfires experienced widely in Australia. There will be minimal disruption to classes during installation as these will be done mainly outside school hours.

Our staff look forward to a positive and productive year ahead. Our next newsletter will be published on 21st February, 2020. In the meantime, school announcements and stories are posted on our school Facebook page.

Kind regards
Helen McCullough
Principal

COMMUNICATION AT THE WILLOWS

At our school we communicate to parents/carers using multiple media and forums. The main ways we communicate are as follow:

1. Social Media – Facebook
2. School Website
3. Newsletter published and emailed each fortnight (even weeks)
4. Letters home usually with permissions
5. Emails
6. Telephone Calls
7. Text messages for absence follow ups and/or alerts
8. Email for alerts and whole of government messages
9. Class communication books/diaries and letters
10. Parent/Teacher Interviews (one per semester) or by special request and appointment.

WILLOWS WARRIORS

GENERAL NEWS

SCHOOL PHOTOS

DENTAL VAN NEWS

Dear Parents,

Consent forms have been issued to all the preps and new students.

Please complete and return to the office promptly if you would like your child/ren to have a check-up.

We are still working through students whom returned forms and were not seen last year.

We will be sending texts or phoning to schedule appts.

Attached is a link to a 2 minute video to encourage children with brushing.

Brushing Song & Video

SCHOOL WATCH

We need everyone to look out for after-hours crime in our school. If you see anything suspicious, please don't attempt to intervene.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Positive Behaviour Learning

P and C News

Welcome to the new school year!

Our P&C is a vital part of the school. Without us, the Tuckshop and OSHC will be outsourced, as is currently happening in other schools around us. This means a loss of control of these services, it means profits go to the owners not the school, and it also means our parents and community lose our voice as we work with the school. Not good.

We have a strong (but small) core who lead and run the P&C, but this year we will be losing a few of our longer term parents who will no longer have students at our school, so we need help. We’ll say it again... we need help.

If you, perhaps together with some friends, are interested in stepping in to help our P&C, please give it some serious thought. Drop us a line and ask a bit about it. If there is something you're concerned about with the P&C, or how we do things, or even when and how we meet, please let us know. We don't know there's a problem unless we're told.

If we cannot form a P&C in 2020, this WILL affect you and your child at The Willows.

Next P&C Meeting - 11th February 6pm in Conference Room

Save the date - Tuesday 11th February, 6pm. Our first P&C Meeting for 2020. We'd love to see you. Come along for a listen, or come along to be involved - no pressure for either, and we'd love to see you!

If you have any questions about our meetings, the P&C, or what it's all about, please get in contact and come along. We DO need some help but it can be anything from another voice and opinion at our meetings, to an hour or two of help at a stall or function, through to involvement on a Sub Committee or our Executive. Lots of hands make light work.

See you there!

And yes, you can bring the kids!

School Banking

Join the Dollarmites on a savings adventure with School Banking!

Every year the School Banking program launches a new savings adventure and there are 8 new reward items for 2020 from the Treetop Savers range:

• Terry Denton’s Activity Book
• Mini Soccer Ball (size 2)
• Treetop Stationary Set
• Treetop Handball
• Tomato Seed Kit
• Magic Mist Drink Bottle
• Emoji Wallet
• Snakes & Ladders Game

All you need to get involved in the School Banking program is a Commonwealth Bank Youthsaver account. You can open an account for your child in one of two ways:

1. Online
   Visit https://www.commbank.com.au/banking/school-banking.html and click on the link to open a Youthsaver account.
2. In branch
   Visit a Commonwealth Bank branch with identification for yourself and your child, like a driver’s licence and birth certificate.

If your child has an existing Commonwealth Bank Youthsaver account they can start banking straight away. They just need to bring their deposit in every week on School Banking day using their Dollarmites deposit wallet. If they don’t have a wallet, we can issue one - just send a note with account details and their deposit.

School Banking day is WEDNESDAY. Each week your child needs to bring their banking wallet and deposit to the tuckshop in the morning (through the classroom tuckshop ordering tub)

We also need another helper to coordinate this program and will only takes a small amount of your time. Please contact us to let us know if you can help!

Tuckshop – Volunteers needed!

The Willows State School Tuckshop operates 5 days a week at both break times & offers a light breakfast.

Volunteers are always welcome and are necessary to ensure the smooth operation of the Tuckshop on a daily basis. If you can help, please see our super convenors, Rosie and Nadine, at the tuckshop.

Sports Shirts

Sports shirts are available from the Tuckshop during usual opening hours. We do currently have stock, but not all sizes, so please drop in to check. We are waiting for new stocks to arrive to replenish our supplies, so watch this space and our Facebook page for updates.

Contact us!

Like us on Facebook to keep up to date with school and P&C events. (Search for The Willows State School P&C.) You can contact us sending a pm to the page. Alternatively, you can contact us via email at willowspandc@gmail.com

See you round!

Music News (The Pitch)

PE News

Prep News

We have had an excellent start to the year, with all of our Prep students settling into their new classrooms beautifully. In our first week at school we have been making new friends, learning about our classroom rules and how to follow the Willows Way. In Prep Mac we have been learning about letters, numbers and practicing our social skills e.g. sharing, taking turns and playing together. Students have been loving painting their self-portraits for the start of the year as they have the opportunity to share a little bit about themselves with the class.

Literacy:

In our morning sessions, we have been learning a different letter each day! This week we have been learning about the letters S, A and T. Students have been given the opportunity to practice tracing and writing these letters as well as exploring the differences between letters, words and sentences. Miss Mac and Mrs Thompson are very proud of their students for trying their best with their early writing skills!

Numeracy:

In Maths this week, students have been learning to sequence events as well as practicing their number sense. Students were role playing different activities to explore the order in which we do certain events in our everyday lives e.g. brushing our teeth, getting ready for school. We have also been investigating numbers in our environment and the students have enjoyed counting to 100 every day.

Year 1 News

Welcome to Year 1

The Year 1 children have started the year off well and have settled easily into class routines.

In 1Tro we have been reading about Jack, a little boy who was nervous about starting Kinder, so he puts on his super hero costume to make himself feel brave. After we read the story the children then made a personal connection to the text.

After Writing the children needed to check:

• I can start with a capital letter.
• I stretched out the words.
• I left finger spaces.
• I ended with a full stop.
• My writing made sense.
• I made a personal connection.

They also drew themselves dressed up in superhero costumes.

Year 2 News

What a great start to Year 2! Our new cohort of eager learners have spent Week 1 of Term 1 settling into their new classroom environments and re-igniting their love of learning. Each student has been working hard to show their peers and new teachers their fantastic literacy and numeracy capabilities. We have been blown away by the high standard of writing and reading that has already been observed in each classroom and cannot wait to support and extend on this in the year to come.

Year 3 News

What a wonderful start to the 2020 schooling year so far in year 3. As part of the Mathematics unit this term, students are learning to conduct and interpret data from simple chance experiments. To be successful students need to do the following:

1. Conduct a simple chance experiment thinking about:
   - Listing all possible outcomes
   - Collecting data efficiently and accurately
   - Recording data in tables using tally marks and a total
   - Listing the results from data collected in a table.
2. Interpret data from a chance experiments thinking about:
   - Explaining why data can differ using chance vocabulary
   - Similarities and differences in the data collected.

Students in 3FAH have been exploring chance through simple chance experiments using coloured counters. Students have collected and recorded data accurately and efficiently and have begun analysing data in pairs, looking for how the data sets are similar and different. As well, students have been exploring chance via games whereby students need to identify which type of card is more, less or equally likely to be drawn out. It is great to see the year 3 learners so activity engaged!

Year 4 News

Learning Intention: To create an imaginative new chapter for a book.

Success Criteria

You will know you have been successful when you can:

Create a structured chapter for ‘The Twit’s’ that engages the audience thinking about:

• A series of events that develop the characters and setting using a range of sentence types

Use language features to create coherence and add detail to your text thinking about:

• How images add detail and extend key ideas.
• Using noun groups, verbs/ Verb groups, prepositional phrases, adverbs, text connectives, time connectives, pronoun referencing, cohesive devices, past tense verbs
• Using grammar (past tense) and accurate spelling and punctuation (boundary, speech marks for dialogue)
• Re-reading and editing your work to improve meaning.

We have been experimenting with our artistic talents drawing our own interpretation of Mr and Mrs Twit and exploring noun and verb groups to describe these characters.

Year 5 News

Welcome to the Y5 cohort and the fabulous five classes that make up this team. We have:

5A KRO – Mrs Krogh / Mrs Aplin
5B CRO – Mrs Cropp
5C LES – Ms Lester
5D THE – Mr Theodore
5E DIB – Miss Dibnah

This week teachers and children have worked hard to establish exciting and engaging classrooms where they have discussed behaviour expectations and how to be a successful learner. Students need to be safe, respectful and responsible in all learning areas of our school. This aligns with our three school mascots (Willow, Olive and Waldo). Positive behaviour and learning rewards are presented to students who demonstrate these qualities.

Our fortnightly school-wide PBL focus (Wk 1 & 2) is: ‘Slow your pace, it’s not a race! In all classes, lessons/ discussions have occurred on what this focus might ‘look and sound like’. An art & craft activity in one of our classes reinforced this message with the children making sloth faces, as a strategy to remember information shared.

All children in Y5 are working over the next few weeks to ‘Reach for the Stars’ – a reward system in all classes. In Wk 5 and Wk 10 this term children who reach 75 stars will be invited to attend a fun reward session – so good luck to you all….

This year our cohort will have a short parade at 12.55pm each Monday to celebrate all the wonderful things that have happened over the week in Y5. Important messages are given out where necessary. Certificates are given to children in each class who demonstrate ‘Excellence in Learning’, ‘Excellence in Behaviour’ and ‘Excellence in Attendance’. Winners of WOW tickets (one from each class) will receive an icy pole treat. All of these school wide systems encourage students to try their best and strive for excellence!

Community Events & Notices

Code of Conduct for Students Travelling on Buses