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

Well done to this week's Excellence Award winners on their fantastic achievements.  

Prep and Year 1

Year 2 and Year 3

Year 4

Year 5 and Year 6

There has been a lot of action around the classes this week.  

Loose parts play

We are investigating how we can provide our students the opportunity to play with their natural creativity.  We will building this into our morning tea and lunch break activities as a regular choice for our children.

Hayden earns grade

Congratulations to Hayden on earning his 4th Grade in Taekwondo this week.  This is a great achievement.  

       

Preps visit Seaworld

Thank yopu to our Prep staff and their super volunteer helpers for making the Seaworld excursion experience so memorable for our Preppies this week. What a great culmination to their 'Under the Sea' curriculum focus for Term 3.

Cinderella and Rockerfella

All students involved in this year's musical have been working tremendously hard the last two weeks.  The backdrops are being painted, the props are almost completed and this week we had two students help with sound and curtains - it’s starting to really come together!  There are only 4 short weeks of rehearsals left until we are ready to share it with students from Years 4, 5, and 6 plus some super lucky parents!

The performance is going to be recorded as well and then that will be made available to families as a special memento of this year…a fantastic positive memory!! Please email any questions to Mrs Zander or Mrs Blyth .

Our annual athletics trials for students in Years 5&6 (as well as a few in Year 4) is being conducted this Tuesday.  The event will run all day and because we are still not able to have parents attend, we are planning to use Facebook Live to allow parents to see some of the action at least.  We are planning to use 6 windows of about 15 minutes duration each.  Please note that the times are indications only and we will do our best to be ready but sometimes things can run a little late.  

The planned streaming program is:

• 9:00: Boys long jump - 11 years
• 10:00: Girls high jump - 10 years
• 11:15: Boys shot putt 10 years
• 12:00: Girls high jump 12 years
• 1:30: Boys and girls 100m finals 10 - 12 years
• 2:10:  Presentations to age champions

We are assuming that all parents are providing their consent for this activity so please email Kylie Finch if you do NOT want your child shown on Facebook Live.  Good luck to everyone involved.

Our athletics fun days (House competition) are being held next term (Week 1) and if the video links are successful this week, we will look to do something similar for the house competition.  The general plan at this stage is:

• Wednesday - Prep and Year 1
• Thursday - Years 2,3 and 4
• Friday - Years 5&6

I will have more information in next week's newsletter.

Congratulations to the representatives of the Coomera Rivers Esports Team who this week participated in the Gold Coast School Esport finals at Emmanuel College.  The team represented the school very well and had a great time. 

The day was not all game play, the teams participated in a presentation on positive online behaviours, talked about cyberbullying and the importance of taking breaks from the screen.  

It is exciting that we are able to offer our students the opportunity to participate in Esports which in many ways helps them improve life skills. 

Esports encourages students to work together, use effective communication and build resilience under pressure. It also helps discipline students, helps them learn what responsibility is and develop leadership skills. When playing in a team, they need to be able to communicate and deliver critical information to teammates. 

Well done team!

Spring holidays are close

Hooray for spring - no more chilly nights and freezing cold mornings!

We are celebrating spring by doing fun activities for vacation care. If you’re joining us for our vacation care, I can guarantee that you will not be disappointed. Make sure that you have a close look at the program in this issue of the newsletter to see all that is on offer.  I’m super excited for our Disney Day.  Don’t forget to dress up accordingly (only if you want), for our in-club days too!  Remember though, when we venture outside of OSHC for our excursions you must wear your green OSHC Excursion t-shirt, a wide brim hat and enclosed shoes. And of course, lots of sunscreen! Slip, slop slap as the saying goes!  The educators are very keen to hang out and have fun with you all this spring vacation care!

Bookings are open now

Vacation Care bookings are open to ALL families of schools and limited vacancies are still available. Our current availability is:

• Monday 21 September - 16
• Tuesday 22 September - 19
• Wednesday 23 September - 10
• Thursday 24 September - 11
• Friday 25 September - 12
• Monday 28 September - 18
• Tuesday 29 September - 10
• Wednesday 30 September - 6
• Thursday 1 October - 13
• Friday 2 October - 13

There is no minimum number of days that you need to attend - just book for the days you need.

Price includes breakfast and afternoon tea.

All children require the following items every day of Vacation care:

• Morning tea
• lunch
• water bottle
• closed in shoes
• brimmed hat (no caps)
• Sun safe clothing (no singlets or stroppy dresses)

The details of the upcoming program are attached. The program colour code is:

Green = Excursions
Orange = Incursions
White - In Service days

Important Vacation Care booking dates:

• Wednesday 9 September 2020 Excursion t-shirt orders close
  – after this date your choice of shirt size will be limited to stock we have on hand.
• Sunday 13 September 2020 Last day to make changes to booking requests
• Monday 14 September 2020 Service begins processing booking requests and sending confirmation emails

For bookings or further enquiries please contact us:
Phone: 5596 8377
Mobile: 0455 968 377
Email: croshc@coomerariversss.eq.edu.au

Our Sport Fun Days will be held during Week 1 of Term 4 and Subway Lunch Packs are available to order for these Sports Days.

The cost is $8 and they include a Sub (with your choice of toppings), a cookie (choice of chocolate chip or double choc chip) and a choice of drink.

Our Sport Fun Day dates are:

• Wednesday 7 October - Junior Sport Fun Day (Prep and Year 1)
• Thursday 8 October - Middle School Sport Fun Day (Year 2 and Year 3)
• Friday 9 October - Senior School Sport Fun Day (Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6)

Orders are open now, via Flexischools and close on: (Strict deadlines)

• Sunday 4 October 4pm for Junior Sport Fun Day (Prep and Year 1)
• Monday 5 October 4pm for Middle School Sport Fun Day (Year 2 and Year 3)
• Tuesday 6 October for Senior School Sport Fun Day (Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6)

If you require any further information, please email the P&C.

Get your House colours ready!

With Sport Fun Days scheduled for Week 1 of Term 4, it is time to start thinking about those house colour accessories!

This year, not only do we have the hair ties and wrist bands available for purchase but we also have House coloured shirts through our partnership with Reklaim.

Orders of these shirts are open now via Flexischools and, to allow production of the shirts in time for the Sport Fun Days, orders need to close on Thursday 17 September at 4pm.

We understand that this order turn around time is less than our usual 4 weeks so, with that in mind, if you are unable to purchase and pay via Flexischools by the deadline we are willing to take orders via email - the deadline for email orders is also 4pm Thursday 17 September. For these email orders the deadline for payment is Friday 2 October - shirts will not be delivered unless full payment has been received.

House coloured Hair bands and wrist bands will be available to order via Flexischools right up until 2 school days prior to the event.

If you have any questions, please email the P&C

The 2020 Year Book is under construction now and, as with previous years, it is going to be a fantastic reflection of a year full of wonderful activities and memories for students to keep for years to come.
2020 Year Book orders are now available to order on Flexischools and the deadline to order is 4pm Friday 23 October. We will only be ordering from the printer the required copies from orders received so please be sure not to be miss this deadline!
If you do require a deadline extension, you MUST email the P&C before the deadline to request one.
* Please note - Year 6 students receive a complimentary copy of the Year Book at graduation (* Conditions apply)