Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the activities of this past week.  From the classroom, the sporting fields, inter-school competition and even Seaworld, our children have experienced the best we have to offer.  

The TITANS rugby league gala day was a success for our two teams this week where we won a collective total of seven from eight matches against a range of other schools. Thank you to Mr Raffin and Mr Bradley. The eSports teams, led by Ms Parker, represented us wonderfully well at Emmanuel College this week when they competed in the FUSE Cup competition. Photos and a report of the event are later in this issue. The students in the ACE project at PSSC received glowing reports from the college staff regarding their conduct and participation. I saw them return to school proudly wearing their new ACE Project shirts. Musical rehearsals continued and the band and ensembles are sounding great – despite my musical contributions. And Prep experienced their first excursion to Seaworld this week. The children were very excited and I was impressed with their knowledge of marine life.  Well done to the staff and volunteers for their support and supervision of the Preppies on this, their first excursion.  

The scale of shark v Preppie is a little frightening

Online gaming and Unwanted contact

The ease of connectivity makes social media and gaming very popular pursuits for children these days, and most of the time, this is no problem.  However, it is possible for things to quickly outweigh the maturity and awareness of our children, so we, as parents, need to be prepared and alert, especially with unwanted contacts. 

The most effective protection you can offer your children as they interact in cyberspace is your supervision and education.  We need to know what our children are doing so we can keep them safe from others, and in some instances, from themselves.  We need to be learners in this space as well, and we need to do our research on the possible pitfalls.   

Click here for a great link that provides excellent advice for parents regarding unwanted contact and online grooming.  I encourage you to read it carefully. 

At Coomera Rivers, we teach students about online safety but like traffic sense, cyber-sense will take a long time to develop.  They need us until their cyber-sense is ready.

Foxwell State Secondary College opens

Congratulations to Mrs Amor, staff and students of Foxwell State Secondary College following their official opening today by the Minister for Education, Grace Grace.  The ceremony was well constructed and the sense of community pride in the school was tangible.  Well done to everyone involved on this special day.

Coming in Term 4

Relationships education is coming

Last year and again earlier this year I spoke at the P&C meeting about the need to protect our children through education programs involving personal safety and sexuality.  Then coronavirus arrived... but these plans are still progressing.

In Term 4, we are planning for all classes to be involved in the Human Relationships Education lessons with TRUE. These lessons are age appropriate and are set to take place from November 5 - 25.  We are using the All School program that aligns with the Australian Curriculum.  Lessons will be delivered by the staff from True Relationships and our class teachers.  There will be a parent information session offered - probably electronically - and parents will have the opportunity to withdraw their children from the program should they prefer.  To find out more about the program, click here.

Book Week dress up day

The Coomera Rivers Literacy Festival is quite a huge event at our school, however, like most things, COVID-19 has seen these plans stopped for this year.  However, we are still intending to hold the annual book week dress up day.   The date is Friday 16 October (Week 2).  Students are able to come as their favourite book character or dress to the 2020 Book Week theme, Curious Creatures, Wild Minds. There won’t be any whole school assemblies but we will find a way to  showcase our students’ costumes.  Prizes will be awesome once again.

     

     

I hope that you all enjoy a great weekend

Kind regards

Vic