Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

By my very simple seasonal calendar, we have about 10 days remaining of comfortable temperatures and I am expecting the cooler winter period to arrive at the end of this month.  Please make sure that your children have their school jumper and sports jacket ready for when this starts.  The uniform blitz is continuing and the correct jumper is required at school each day.

Next week will see the second part of NAPLAN assessments for students in Years 3 and 5.  Please make sure that your children are at school, on time and ready to go with all they need. 

Construction is about to start

The Gold Coast City Council is about to begin construction on the covered area in the school Kiss n Go zone.  Work will commence sometime this week and part of the the footpath will be completely blocked.  This will remain in place for about four builder's weeks while construction is completed.  The diagram below shows the alternate entry and departure points for pedestrian access.  Most of the work will be completed between 7:00am and 2:00pm and the company completing the construction will do what they can to minimise noise and disruption.  General school parking and access to the OSHC will definitely be affected during this time.  I completely understand that this will be inconvenient but the long term gains will outweigh this.

Please take care around this area, be patient and allow extra time for drop off and collection.  And thank you sincerely to the GCCC for this addition to our school.

• Wakakirri,
• Debating and public speaking,
• Chess and
• Two IT club afternoons.  

Special recognition (Well done us!)

I am delighted to let our families know that Coomera Rivers has been:

• Selected as a finalist in the Australian Education Awards again this year in another two categories.  I will let you know the details once they are announced.  We were finalists in two areas last year as well and came second in Australia in  'The best use of technology' section.
• Recognised as an Apple Distinguished School for the second time.  We are one of 10 Queensland schools (Out of 1723 public and private schools) to be recognised with this award.  
• Notified that two staff will be recognised as Apple Distinguished Educators.  These teachers are the best of the best who utilise technology in their teaching and learning.  To illustrate the significance of this achievement, consider the following numbers: 
  • There are over 100 000 teachers registered in Queensland alone. 
  • Only 2447 teachers from around the world (and 692 in the Asia Pacific region) have received this recognition and I am delighted that
  • 2 of them are here at Coomera Rivers.  I will let you know the details of who they are once I am able to share the information.  

Have a great week

Kind regards

Vic

Vic Graham

Principal

Congratulations to our students who received a Student Excellence Award this week.  Keep up the great work.

Coomera Rivers State School is pleased 
to announce that it has been recognised as an Apple Distinguished School for 2019 –2021.  We are 1 of 10 Queensland schools (including 4 state schools) and 1 of 50 schools in Australia to earn this recognition.

We are here for learning and everything we do is focused on achieving this. We utilise the latest technologies and digital pedagogy to support and enhance student learning with the Australian Curriculum.

Apple Distinguished Schools are centers of innovation, leadership, and educational excellence that use Apple products to inspire creativity, 
collaboration, and critical thinking. They showcase innovative uses of technology in learning, teaching, and the school environment and have documented results of academic accomplishment.

Our school provides our community with an innovative, fluid and technologically rich learning environment that is committed to the learning needs of every student. Our myLearn BYO iPad program allows students to be productive, creative and innovative. It allows learning to be personalised and opens up a connection between home and school where students can learn anytime, anywhere.

The selection of Coomera Rivers State School as an Apple Distinguished School highlights our success as an innovative and 
compelling learning environment that engages students and provides tangible evidence of academic accomplishment.

Acknowledgement must be made to all; our staff for their enthusiam and innovation in teaching, our students for engaging in their learning in innovative ways and our families and community for supporting us in delivering our Digital Vision. 

Our Apple Distinguished Book will be published in the Apple Books store very soon.

This much loved annual event will take place on Friday 21 June with sign in starting at 8:00am and activities and performances from 8.30am until 10.30pm.

Grandparents will be treated to a morning with their grandchildren enjoying classroom visits, music performances, PE & STEAM demonstrations along with morning tea and a photo booth!

REGISTRATIONS ARE ESSENTIAL and registrations close on Wednesday 19 June at 2:00pm sharp.

Click here to register

Our Bingo Bonanza night will be held on Friday June 14 - please see full details on the attached flyer.  It will be a night filled with Bingo fun and much, much more!

Your entry price will include 15 games of Bingo, light supper, drink on arrival, lucky door prize and your chance to win one of the two $1000 jackpots on offer! One of these $1000 jackpots is guaranteed to be won on the night! Each round of Bingo has been sponsored by a local business and the prizes on offer will be sure to impress!

We will have drinks available to purchase on the night along with raffles and your chance to be 'In It To Win It'

This is our annual adults only event but to help with the little ones we do have baby sitting available.  To book your baby sitting place please go to Flexischools.

Tickets and baby sitting reservations are available to purchase right now - this event is open to your friends from outside of our school community - simply purchase their tickets through your Flexischools account.  Tickets close on Wednesday 12 June at 4:00pm sharp so start organising now.  We would love it to be YOU who takes home a cool $1000. 

Please contact the P&C if you would like any further information.  And of course, profits are directed towards our 2019 air-conditioning goal.

On Monday the Year 6 students were invited to participate in a STEM session that was organised by Pimpama State Secondary College’s STEM teacher Nahdia Graham, in conjunction with Griffith University. The two focus groups were based around the design projects of:

• Prosthetic legs and
• Water filtration.

Prosthetics:   

Aim - In small groups, choose different materials (rope, rubber bands, sticky tape and a cardboard tube) to help design a prosthetic leg for one team member. It must be able to stay in place and withstand weight.

Outcome- Our students had a lot of fun designing these prosthetic legs and showed a lot of teamwork when discussing different options in the making process. It was a difficult task but we had some successes.

Water Filtration

Aim - Using the materials (sponges, small pebbles, small rocks, sand, chux cloth), place them strategically in a funnel where dirty water enters and is filtered through the materials to clean and filter the water.

Outcome - Only a few groups organised their combination of the three materials right to filter the dirty water into clean water. The students were amazed at how this works and started thinking globally about how many countries water filtration could help.

It was a very engaging session which tied in nicely to the Year 6’s Ministers Climate Challenge that they are working on in their Digital Design class and also a great introduction to Semester 2’s HASS unit on Global Goals.

Thursday afternoons are buzzing in the DigiDesign rooms with the Year 3 and 4 after school Lego Innovators Club.  Mrs Hadfield and Ms Muller support students in either Lego Master-builders, Lego Robotics or Lego Animation. This weeks challenge was particularly interesting for the Lego Master-builders.  Their challenge - building by touch. Students were tasked with building a Lego car in 5 minutes whilst they were blindfolded!! Lots of laughs and smiles. Their designs were very interesting too.

This week we are celebrating the United Nations International Day of Families. Through our art activities we have been focusing on what makes our families great! Educators have engaged in meaningful conversations with children about families, how they spend their time and what makes their families special. What a diverse range of families we have at Coomera Rivers OSHC! We recognise how important our families are and have enjoyed learning about the uniqueness of our families. Through our activities and discussions, students have been provided with abundant opportunities to recognise and appreciate the differences of those around us and to respond to diversity with respect and develop confident self identities.

Please remember to be patient and courteous when driving and parking around the school.  Please never:

• Push into the traffic line that is entering the school.  Join the end of the line and be patient.
• Block cars from parking in the car park so your friends can access the space.  We use first in first served.  

Woolworths has just launched their Earn & Learn program, and we're joining in again. For those parents who aren't aware of the program, if you shop at Woolworths between 1st of May and the 25th of June, you can earn stickers. Our school will be collecting those stickers which we can then swap for new school equipment; things like art and craft supplies, sports gear, teaching aids and much more. There are thousands of things we can choose from.

So for any parents who shop at Woolworths, please collect the stickers and drop them in to our collection box, which is located near the volunteer sign in iPad in Corporate Services.  Thanks for helping us out!

It's been a big few weeks for our volunteer community.  We managed to close out a few massive tasks (The Colour Run and Mothers Day events) and overcame some short term challenges in the cafe. A great big thank you to everybody who stepped up on short notice to help out.  It was very much appreciated.

Bingo Night/Woollies Earn and Learn: 2 Volunteers, Tuesday 21 May  8.30am in the Staff room.

Cafe:          We're looking to get a few new faces familiar with the cafe', so if anybody is interested, please let us know and we can slot you into a morning that suits you.