29 March 2018

Newsletter Articles

Deputy Principal’s Comments

Well it’s that time of the term where school holidays are upon us. It has been a busy start to the year but a good start as well.

The first term of the school year is always a busy time in terms of enrolment growth in our school. Enrolments continue to flow in on a daily basis long after our staffing has closed. This places pressure on our staff as class sizes and workloads continue to grow.

First term too is also an important time to establish routines which set students up for their year of learning and even beyond. The key to success is to establish routines and patterns for students to follow with regard to Collaborate lesson attendance, completion of assigned work and submission of send-in work and assessment tasks.

Our school continues to grow. Our student numbers are at an all-time high which means that the school needs more staff to meet this need. While we have been very successful in finding quality teachers, continued growth does place pressures elsewhere. This includes pressure on facilities and resources which sometimes struggle to keep up with this growth.

The days of our school being everything for everyone are long gone as we move into the new reality that is our school.

This shift from the traditional model is not without its challenges and is reflected in the shifting nature of distance education, not just across the state but across the country and on an international level.

While at a school level we seek to respond to this change, at a systemic level the complexities of coming to terms with this shift can be substantially more difficult. This is the challenge we face as we move forward.

On a lighter note, the school holidays are here. We finish the term with a swimming carnival. Come close of business today, students, parents, and staff will each celebrate the Easter break in their own way.

Whether it is simply relaxing at home and hiding from the world for a little while, travelling to see family and friends or taking a well-deserved holiday, the Easter break is a time to relax and unwind.

I wish you all a happy Easter. If you are travelling, travel safe.

See you next term.

Regards,

Andrew Smith
Deputy Principal

Lesley Griffin – Parent Liaison Officer

Student Photo Competition

Launched by the Education Minister last week, the new Teach Queensland Style Student Photo Competition is a great opportunity for students to get creative, win some prizes and help to attract more teachers to your schools and communities.

The student photo competition aims to engage schools and students in helping us to promote their communities as great places to live, learn and teach. The winning photos may even feature in our next marketing campaign or at our career fairs to help us recruit teachers to state schools across Queensland!

The competition is open to all Queensland state school students in Prep – Year 12 across the following categories:

• Early years (Prep – Year 2 inclusive) – class/group entry
• Primary years (Year 3 – 6 inclusive) – class/group entry
• Junior Secondary (Year 7 – 9 inclusive) – individual student entry
• Senior Secondary (Year 10 – 12 inclusive) – individual student entry

Competition and entry details have been published on our website . We look forward to seeing some creative entries from your students!

Education Minister

The Camp Have a Chat Games!

Lesley Griffin
Parant Liaison Officer

Facebook Page

Lesson Structure

When carrying our lessons at home, how do you structure the lesson to get the best out of the time and your effort?

One of the proven successful methods is using a structure developed by Dr Madeline Hunter, a teacher and educational psychologist, who did leading work in how to make lessons successful, i.e. engage the learner, build retention of knowledge and apply skills appropriately.

The approach promoted by Madeline Hunter - Instructional Theory into Practice teaching model - focused on getting students ready to learn, delivery and checking for understanding, and independent practice. The model was, in essence, seven steps or stages within a lesson. The steps in the beginning and ending portions could be varied and changed in sequence, while the portion in the middle generally was considered to be held in-situ (not to be changed) for delivery.

The stages promoted by Hunter and that have influenced much of the preceding research into sound lesson design and delivery. So when delivering a lesson at home it is probably worthwhile thinking of these seven phases or steps in delivering a lesson:

1. Stated Objectives – Letting students know where they are going. Giving them a sense of where they are headed belays the feeling of being a hostage in a learning experience. This step gives students direction and informs them what they are supposed to accomplish by the end of the lesson.
2. Anticipatory Set – Getting students ready and/or excited to accept instruction. Giving directions is really part of the procedural dialog of a lesson, but are not an Anticipatory Set. An “anticipatory” set means doing something that creates a sense of anticipation and expectancy in the students — an activity, a game, a focused discussion, viewing a film or video clip, a virtual field trip, or reflective exercise, etc. This step prepares the learner to receive instruction similar in some ways to operant conditioning.
3. These two stages could be varied and changed in order.
4. The next three stages were associated with direct instruction and checking for understanding; these involve assessing whether students understand what has just been demonstrated or presented.
5. Modelled Practice – Making sure students get it right the first time depends on the knowledge, or processes to be shown or demonstrated by the teacher who has mastered what is to be demonstrated or shown. In addition to the teacher, prepared students can certainly model the focused skill, process or concept for peers. A video or multi-media element may even be used for this section.
6. Checking Understanding – Teachers monitor student communication and language, ask questions, analyse responses and interactions in order to determine whether or not students are making sense of the material being presented. This portion takes place as teaching or instruction is being given. It would include active questioning, rephrasing of ideas and concepts and other forms of active student response. This is a whole group process; one in which the teacher carefully monitors the actions of the learners to make sure they are duplicating the skill, process, procedure, or knowledge use correctly.
7. Guided Practice – This takes place after teaching/instruction has occurred; it is the checking for understanding to make sure students have it right. The question here is can they replicate what the teacher wants them to do correctly? Students are given the opportunity to apply or practice what they have just learned and receive immediate feedback at individual levels.

The final two stages are related to independent practice; these two components can be interchanged.

Now it is over to you…teachers at our school follow a similar process for planning and delivering their lessons.

Prep

Get the Message!

In Prep, we have just completed Unit 4 – Get the message! This unit focused on the students looking at different types of letters and mail. We all enjoyed reading the story The Jolly Postman.

We practised writing letters to characters from The Jolly Postman story. Students even sent emails to their family members and friends about the story.

Mrs Price and Miss D’Amant have been absolutely blown away by the amazing letters and emails the students had sent through to their family and friends. It was so lovely to see the Preps using their have-a-go writing using their soundwaves sounds and their beautiful handwriting. I’m sure you will all agree that we have some very creative writers already in our Prep class. Well done, Preps!

Firstly, here are some of the wonderful letters the Preps have been busily writing to Nursery Rhyme and Fairy-tale characters:

The Preps have also shared emails with their family and friends. Take a look at some of the fantastic emails the Preps have created below:

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our wonderful Home Tutors. As many of you know, as Prep is the beginning of a student’s schooling, the first term’s main goal is for students to become familiar and understand the structure and expectations of the classroom. Both Mrs Price and Miss D’Amant are very proud of how well the students have settled into both the classroom at Home Tutor School and their Collaborate Lessons. The students would not have gotten here without their wonderful Home Tutors helping them to take part in their Collaborate lessons. We thank you for your patience, encouragement and commitment to the student’s learning. We greatly appreciate your hard work this term.

Enjoy your break! May it be a relaxing one, filled with chocolate!

Yours in learning,
Mrs Alanna Price and Miss Ché D’Amant
Prep Teachers

Year 2

Year 2 went for a nice walk in the Jungle at Home Tutor School…

LOOK OUT FOR THAT ANACONDA!!!!

At Home Tutor School last month, the Year 2 students who were able to attend saw our classroom transform into a jungle complete with trees, brightly coloured word birds, swinging monkeys on vines, giant hanging elephants and so much more!

Unit 1 was poetry and the children co-operated well together producing noun groups and verbs that related to their specially chosen and beautifully decorated jungle creatures. We looked at the rhythm and rhyme of a poem I wrote all about warning a funny monkey on a vine not to fall off and hurt his spine!

We gathered jungle words from around the classroom adding them to their word-bird tail feathers and displayed them around our classroom. They looked so cool next to the monkeys we constructed hanging from vines made from stockings filled with scrunched newspaper.

We practised our jungle spelling words with colours and then chalk on the concrete. We did ELEPHANT STAMPEDE writing and some of the children’s writing of all they knew about jungles filled 2 A4 pages! We were so excited to see all the students have a go and do their very best!

We read in the tent, camped out deep in the jungle, and then followed the ‘walking in the jungle’ song on the smartboard doing the actions.

Maths was full of measurement and place value! We know our partitioning sooooo weeeell! Number lines and Part-Part-Whole work was a breeze for us. The class were COOL JUNGLE DUDES as we rapped the tunes counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s!

We went to visit PAWS Central at the library with Mrs Currin. Some chose to have their faces painted while others visited Mrs Talbot to collect a book from to keep. What a top way to encourage reading! We all came in costumes on Friday morning. PAWS for Books was the book fair theme and there were people with PAWS everywhere! Ms Simatis was a cheetah and Miss Johnson was Slinky Malinky! The Year 2 costumes were out of this world and all based on the students favourite book characters.

Jacob ran us through our Union places.

Mrs Leigh from Bunnings had us creating bird feeders and planting carrots in cups that allowed us to see the roots below.

Swimming was just as much fun as the bus trip to and from the pool!

Just when we thought all the fun was over… we became tooth defenders learning about looking after as well as cleaning out teeth and then went out to eat smoko’s healthy fruit just like those found in real jungles.

We created plate art with giraffes, zebras and elephants! We then had a great time peeling paper back, adding colours to create beautiful Sand Art jungle scenes!

At the end of the week, all was quiet and a story began… There was a teacher leading her students on a jungle excursion. One by one, the students were disappearing. The anaconda following them is getting bigger and bigger! All our class was swallowed as we acted out the story.

HOWEVER, the teacher biffed the anaconda in the nose and tied him in a knot. All the class returned safe and sound, all appearing right there in front of me once again. I was so relieved!

I would like to thank the students, families and Home Tutors who were able to join us for Home Tutor School and enjoyed the opportunity to share our week with those who could not. All had a fabulous time!

Ms. Lyn Simatis for THE CTSDE JUNGLE NEWS CLASSROOM.
Year 2 Teacher

Year 3

Wow! Term 1 is finished! Our class has done a tremendous job at transitioning into Year 3. This year has been challenging for some students but Miss Nelson and Miss Ralph have been blown away by everyone’s effort and enthusiasm towards their learning.

We were luckily enough to meet most children during Home Tutor School week and what an amazing time it was! We made pizza, spent an afternoon swimming, had the local rugby union team come and teach us rugby skills, created chalk pastel masterpieces but of course we still did our English and Mathematics work.

We created a narrative about Mr Geoffrey Pizza from ‘Pizzaglore’. Mr Pizza made awful pizzas but luckily, the Year 3 children were able to help him make delicious, mouth-watering pizzas. You can see their narrative in the main foyer.

Even though it stormed, this did not stop us from adventuring down to the swimming pool to show off our swimming skills. We dove, we swam, we played and we even splashed our teachers (the highlight of their day).

Home Tutor School would not be complete without some healthy competition. The aim of the game was to get the ball before your partner did! We decided the best way to do this would be to dive on the ball, roll in the mud and stand up and cheer as our friends enthusiastically encouraged us to ‘GET THE BALL!’.

After a long, rainy week Miss Nelson and Miss Ralph thought a calm art activity would be the best way to finish the week. The creative Miss Nelson taught us (and Miss Ralph) how to create an artwork with chalk pastels. These can also be seen in the foyer beside the mailroom.

Miss Nelson and Miss Ralph
Year 3 Teachers

Year 4

Home Tutor School

Many of the Year 4 students were able to attend Home Tutor School earlier this term. Although the weather was very unpredictable at times, students enjoyed a week jam packed with hands on activities and being able to spend valuable time with their classmates.

Students constructed number lines to plot fractions on, zoomed in on Uluru to look for signs of erosion, wrote some creative narratives that had everyone hooked and even celebrated a birthday. Students were also lucky enough to participate in a Rugby clinic and create many art projects.

Mrs McLauchlan and Miss O’Brien enjoyed spending the week with all the students, getting to know them better and hearing about many of the adventures they experience at home.

Mrs McLauchlan and Miss O’Brien
Year 4 Teachers

Year 5

Explore Sculpture

This term the year 5 students are exploring and creating a sculptural artwork. Their sculpture integrates what the students have learned in Science and expands further with the students creating a creature in clay that can be either abstract or realistic. Students have learned design principles such as contrast, pattern, balance, rhythm and unity. The students also have developed artist statements for their work. Here are a few examples of students’ progress with their final resolved piece.

This creature is designed to have the structural features to live in a rocky, desert environment. Great job, Willis!

Mrs Amber Larson
Year 5 Classroom Teacher

Year 6

The second half of Term 1 has been very busy for the year 6 students. Along with studying Mathematics and an Economics and Business Unit, the Year 6 students have been examining reversible and irreversible changes in Science. The unit culminates with the students designing their own experiment to agree or disagree with a claim that ‘all changes that occur to materials because of heating can be reversed through cooling’.

Our novelists in Year 6 have been trying their hand at writing short stories for their English unit. Keeping under a word limit, students had to produce a short narrative that included a conflict and entertained an audience.

Here are some of their stories, we hope you enjoy them!

Miss Ruthenberg
Year 6 Teacher

Languages

Young Language Ambassadors

I would like to invite Year 5-9 SDE students learning language to join a wonderful program called Young Language Ambassadors hosted by James Cook University.

The conference is a free educational event for language teachers and young language ambassadors (YLA). On average, schools are invited to select up to 6 YLA students to come to the conference. We encourage students to be active participants in the conference and invite some to present at the event. Abstract form is attached. Morning tea and lunch is provided to all participants. Places are limited – registration will close Friday 18th May or earlier if full.

At the conference they will give you a YLA 2018 badge and copies of students' certificates.

Here is a draft copy of the 2018 conference program:

Here is a video of the 2017 conference:

This is a very rare opportunity to show your leadership, commitment and networking with other fellow languages learners.

If you are interested in participating the YLA conference please contact your languages teachers ASAP.

Yukari Doi
HOD of Languages Department

Student Council

First of all, congratulations to the winner of the Lolly Jar Competition, Year 3 student Emmerson O’Sullivan, who successfully guessed there were 153 lollies in the jar. At the same time, thank you everyone for your continued support of our student council, the students raised almost $100!

Our next fundraising endeavour is the Easter Raffle which will be drawn during the CTSDE’s Inter-House Swimming Carnival on the 29th of March. Thank you to everyone who has already donated to the student council’s Easter Raffle. Your generous donations help the student council raise funds to purchase a gift for the school each year. In previous years they have purchased buddy benches, sporting equipment, etc. However, if you haven’t purchased a raffle ticket and you are interested, time is running out! So get in quick and buy a raffle! Tickets are $2 and can be purchased at the front counter of our administration office and at the swimming carnival. There are up to 9 prizes to be won! So don’t miss out!

Earn and Learn Program

We have received our prizes from the Woolworths Earn and Learn project for last year! With our points the school received:

• Two coding games
• Board games
• Tennis balls
• Soccer Balls
• Volleyballs

Once again thank you to everyone who participated and submitted stickers!

Gawai Cheng
Student Council Team

Education Support

Modified 5 Science

This term, in Science, we have been investigating the structural and behavioural adaptations of various animals. For our assessment Mrs Shaw’s superstars have created some truly terrifying creatures! Everyone has worked so hard this term, and should be congratulated on the fantastic effort they have put in.

Here is a sample of some creatures we have created! Let’s hope we don’t see them on our weekend adventures… eeekkk!

Chloe Shaw
Educational Support Teacher

9 Core English

This term in English we are developing our understanding on the rules of grammar. Ms Hunt’s champions are producing some superb work. If you need some tips, check out these amazing work samples!

Work Sample 1:

Capital letters are used for only proper nouns and the beginning of all sentences. Some sentences will have at least a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb. Every sentence should have a comma, a full stop (period) or a capital letter. It is very important that you always use apostrophes when it is a personal belonging or used of combining two words. Always use a conjunction when joining two parts of a sentence but never use it at the start of a sentence. Make sure to use the correct tense word (past, present, future). Try not to repeat sentences that you have already used. Keep in mind that every paragraph must always have three to five sentences containing all of the above. There are always three to five paragraphs in a story, the names of the paragraphs are the introduction, the body (one to three parts) and the conclusion. Incorrect gramma can easily confuse how the person reads the sentences or paragraphs.

Work Sample 2:

The rules of grammar are important to enable people to clearly understand what has been written. Not following, or ignoring the rules of grammar, makes the message that you are trying to put across less easily understood. It can also lead to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and it makes the message less powerful. Incorrect grammar, which includes spelling, punctuation and paragraph construction, can also cause the reader to have a negative opinion of the writer and the subject matter.

Jennie Hunt
Educational Support Teacher

IT Support

Computer Requirements

The minimum specifications for computing requirements for Distance Education are listed in the PDF document available below. Additional recommendations are also listed to improve your digital learning experience.

Voice Recordings

If you need to create a voice recording to be sent to the teacher or uploaded into Blackboard, you can use the free Hi-Q ap-plication. It will record your voice to a .mp3 format file which creates a good quality recording that is small enough to email as an attachment. Additional information on voice recordings will be found in the PDF document below.

Audio Setup

There are two parts to configure for your audio settings to make it work for your best learning experience. First part is setting it up in Windows and then second part is inside of Blackboard Collaborate. For the full audio set up guide, click on the PDF document below.

Internet Security

The internet will open you up to a wealth of great information and learning options, however being connected can also put your computer at risk from malicious people. You must make sure you have internet security / antivirus software installed to protect yourself. The following PDf will highlight the most suited internet protection software for your computer.

Microsoft Office 2016

While enrolled at Distance Education, you can download and install Microsoft Office 2016 on up to 5 devices (Mac or Windows) for free. Microsoft Office 2016 is the most current version and is backwards compatible, meaning it will open office files from a previous version. To find out how this is done, click on the following Microsoft Office PDF.

ICT Technical Support

While enrolled at Distance Ed you will receive an Education Queensland or EQ email address that is paired to your username. Additional information on an EQ email is found in the PDF document below.

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