17 May 2018

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Comment

Play it SAFE

Play It Safe

Succeeding With Teens With ASD

Succeeding With Teens With ASD

John Clark
School Principal

Deputy Principal’s Comment

This week in our school it is all about NAPLAN! This government mandated testing of literacy and numeracy for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 seems to create a lot of hype in the press and education ministers and others seem to live and die by the results.

Perhaps though, we need to reflect on the realities of NAPLAN in our school. What does it mean for us and how will it impact on directions as a school?

Firstly, let’s do a reality check. In the context of our school, it is a vast minority of students who participate in NAPLAN. This is particularly true in Years 7 and 9 where less than ten percent of our student cohort in these year levels participate.

Of the vast minority who do participate in NAPLAN, students are given several options. Firstly, they can attend our school here and participate under appropriate supervision on the scheduled testing days.

Alternatively some of our students may elect to go to their nearest state school and participate in tests there; in an unfamiliar environment with students that may never have met and teachers who have no idea about the student’s needs.

As a final option and only available to pre-approved students, some students can be posted the tests and can sit this under supervision by a parent or governess at home.

What does all this mean you may ask? Well firstly, it must call into question the integrity of the tests. A range of diverse test environments is neither consistent with an equitable system nor aligned to any form of validity of outcomes.

And what about those students who do not sit NAPLAN, remembering that this is the majority in the context of our school?

Are we expected to make decisions based on such a statistically invalid sample size? Remembering that such decision making would impact everyone.

Should we take any notice of NAPLAN? A scrutiny of individual student results could certainly help inform decisions about an individual student’s needs. This would only be valid though if used as one set of data where a multitude of other data sets are available to gain an accurate picture. Otherwise, the potential to make flawed decisions based on data anomalies would pose a significant risk.

While there are those who seem to believe that NAPLAN is the be-all and end-all measure of student achievement, the reality is that they are deluding themselves.

While we will all have our own perspective, the reality of NAPLAN is that for our school, it may be more of a political tool than an educational one. Make of it what you will.

Andrew Smith
Deputy Principal

Lesley Griffin – Parent Liaison Officer

Burge Foodworks Donation Reminder

To refresh the program - For every $50 spent at Burge Foodworks, customers receive a voucher to put in the box of the school that they would like to support. At the end of every 6 months Burge Foodworks tally’s the vouchers, and the total that each school receives determines their share of the $5000 cash for schools.

Be part of it and don’t forget to ask for your vouchers!

Dental Van

Please fill out the following forms if you are interested:

Facebook Page

Centrepay

WHAT CAN BE PAID FOR USING CENTREPAY?

Education fees and expenses.

• Deductions are made directly from your Centrelink payment to the schools bank account. This can assist the timely payment of bills.
• An alternative payment option that helps you pay your bills on time.
• Automatic deduction of nominated fees before you receive your payment.
• Centrepay is a voluntary service.
• You can cancel your deductions at any time.
• You must provide consent to authorise a Centrepay deduction.

HOW CAN CENTREPAY DEDUCTIONS BE REQUESTED?

• Online - customers can use the department’s online services at humanservices.gov.au/onlineservices
• By phone - customers can call their usual 13 number

Contact the school’s Finance Officer, Suzanne Wright for the school’s reference number which is required for you to set up Centrepay.

ANZAC Day

Rheannon Sayegh-Read – year 6 – was thanked dearly for participating in such a beautiful way at the ANZAC Day Ceremony in Pentland. Many of the audience commented about what an outstanding job she did and how she was a wonderful Ambassador to our school.

Country Music Parade

Friday afternoon on the eve of the Annual Charters Towers Country Music Festival, the town was alive with country music. Staff and students on our float roasted marshmallows while relaxing on swags and hay bales around a fire as part of a droving scene on The School of Distance Education float. The sounds of Lee Kernaghan’s Outback Club could be heard through the speakers and the mouths of staff and students alike who were waving and clapping and getting into the spirit of the festival.

Unfortunately our school did not place in the best school float competition however thanks to the wonderful artistic talents of our school staff and the outfits of staff and students Coleman’s truck certainly was looking the part.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the float in any way and thanks to Coleman Stock Feeds for lending us their truck, driver and hay for the day.

2018 Country Music Parade Committee

Colleen Purdie
Curriculum Writer

Hughenden Outreach

On the first beautiful Tuesday in May, teachers, parents, tutors and students arrived at the Diggers Centre in Hughenden for three fantastic, fun-filled days of Outreach activities. Worries about plagues of flies were thankfully unfounded, and a slight chill in the mornings just made us appreciate the sunny days all the more.

During our productive time together, the students learnt about and created many wonderful things. These included:

• Secret mother’s day presents (Shhhh!)
• Gymnastics skills
• Space Rockets
• Electric Circuits
• English skills
• Maths skills and much, much more…

Of special interest were the dances performed by the Years 1, 2 & 3 students at our final assembly.

A huge thank you to all the parents and tutors who travelled in for these three days and especially to Suzie Jonsson, the parent co-ordinator, who helped to organise the event.

Clermont Outreach

Busy Bees at Clermont Outreach - Year 1

Our lovely Year 1’s certainly had a jam-packed week at Clermont Outreach!

For English, we practised writing character descriptions daily and on the last day, we wrote about what we enjoyed at Outreach. Check out some of our awesome writing below.

Halle

At the end of the story, The Blue Thingamajig was happy because he had a friend. He wasn’t plain anymore. He had blue skin. He had a pair of waxy wings. He had spikes and was flying and flapping his wings in the sky.

Addison

At the end of the book, The Very Blue Thingamajig was colourful and happy. His body was not plain anymore. His waxy wings were flapping in the sky. He felt brilliant because he had a friend.

Addalyn

At the end of the book, the Very Blue Thingamajig was shiny. He had yellow, waxy wings, tail spikes and pink stripes. He opened his wings and he glided through the sky. He was happy because he had a friend.

Kyle

My favourite thing was soccer. We played at lunchtime. I was the goalie. I was an awesome goalie.

Thomas

I liked playing soccer and PE, but my favourite thing was seeing my best, best teacher.

Amity

My favourite was skipping and making necklaces. I liked hammering on the board too. I made a horse out of string.

Mathematics

In Maths, we used tens frames and playdough to practise our adding and subtracting and counting to 100. We used cards and blocks to show different counting patterns.

We also explored 2D and 3D shapes. We made shape animals and 3D mobiles, but perhaps our favourite maths activity was making 2D shapes using toothpicks and marshmallows. They were delicious!

3D Shapes

In the afternoons, we enjoyed our craft activities and made a jewellery tree, necklace, bangle and card for our mums to celebrate Mother’s Day.

With the help of our Year 5 friends, we were able to make some beautiful string art creations. Keep a look out at the Clermont and Charters Towers show for these master pieces.

Clermont Outreach Gallery

Primary Cross Country

Charters Towers Primary Interschool Cross Country

On Wednesday the 9th of May, students represented our school in the Primary Interschool Cross Country Carnival at Millchester State School. Sally Broad, Georgie Spurdle, Lochie Appleton, Tom Ramsay and Brianna Spurdle represented our school on the day.

The 9 - 10 yr division ran 2km, while the 11 – 12 yr division ran 3km. All students who attended are to be commended on their efforts and sportsmanship. A big congratulations to Sally Broad and Georgie Spurdle who have been selected to join the Charters Towers District Primary School Cross Country team and compete in the Northern Region Trials in Townsville. We wish both students the best of luck and hope they enjoy the day.

Thank you to all the parents for making the effort to attend the Cross Country trials.

Sports Committee

Library

Let’s Get Reading!

Languages

Konnichiwa, my name is Akira Goto.

I was born in Japan. I have one younger sister and one older brother. I am the only person from my family who lives overseas because none of my family members can speak English.

I came to Australia in 2008 after graduating from university in Japan, where I completed a Bachelor of Arts. I majored in Japanese and sub-majored in English.

Before I became a teacher in Australia, I worked as a customer support for Jetstar and Expedia. I also did some farm work such as looking after alpacas and picking fruits. Before I came to Charters Towers, I lived in Victoria. I completed the Graduate Diploma in Education at Victoria University in Melbourne at the end of 2012 and found a teaching job in a little town called Warracknabeal. I lived there for four years and the town is much smaller than Charters Towers so Charters Towers is quite big for me. One of the biggest shocks I have had since I moved here is that a snake sneaked into my house one night. Another thing is that geckos are everywhere, especially at night. This is quite different to where I grew up in Japan and where I lived in Victoria.

This year, I teach Years 5, 6, 8 and 9 Japanese. I thoroughly enjoy working with our Languages team members and teaching Japanese in a distance education setting. It is obviously my first year to teach through this setting and I am keen to learn new things. It is quite different to how I taught previously but I have been impressed with how technologies are overcoming barriers in distance learning and isolation.

I have made quite a few good friends in town and I love hanging out with them. In my spare time, I enjoy cooking, singing, watching movies and surfing the internet. I love travelling to new places when I have long holidays, especially Asian countries. So far, I have been to Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Maldives, Canada and various cities in Australia.

Of course, I miss my family and friends in Japan. However, as much as I miss my country, I love Australia. Teaching Japanese has been my dream job since I was a high school student and I am extremely lucky to have been given this opportunity to work here in Charters Towers. I am looking forward to meeting more people and getting to know them.

Akira Goto
Language Teacher

Year 1 Inreach

We’ve had a fabulous start to Inreach! The Year 1’s have been busily making rhyming rockets, practising counting in 2’s & 5’s to 100, learning some creative dance moves off the talented Miss Sophie & creating some beautiful dream catchers in our craft session.

Wow! What a hardworking group! Check out some of our photos below.

Warm up stretches with Miss Baron

Miss Weston & Mrs Langham
Year 1 Teachers

Junior Inreach Gallery

Language Class Fun!

Secondary Townsville Visit

Secondary students who attended the Townsville Visit on May 10th were treated to a unique experience thanks to Chris the lab technician, at Central Queensland University.

Students got the opportunity to look inside the nursing labs at CQU. The space simulates what working as a nurse in a hospital actually looks like. Chris, the lab technician, showed us how technology has enhanced the nurses in training. The manikins came complete with latex designed wounds and plastic created to feel like skin.

Celia North
Secondary Teacher

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