Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

What a fantastic week this week has proved to have been!  Every student had opportunity this week to be involved in some wonderful activities, both in classroom learning and on the sports field.  Learning how to be part of a team and represent something bigger than the individual is an important life skill.  It comes from understanding spirit and a desire to contribute.  So this week alone, our children represented:

• Their sports houses by participating in the sports fun days
• Our school sport teams at the Coomera Cup
• Our school STEM team at the pentathlon competition
• Our school at the district chess competition
• Performing in the school 'Flash Mob' each afternoon
• Their class with experts visiting us

Thank you sincerely to the teachers who were behind the organisation and running of these events for our children.  Teachers are not paid for these roles - they just want our children to be able to experience the most that our school and community can offer.

Parent-teacher interviews

Term 4 parent teacher interviews are now open for bookings.  

When:  Monday 11 October

Venue:  School hall

Link:  www.schoolinterviews.com.au 

Log on code:  nnmyk

Please follow the prompts and mark the details in your calendar.

Note for 1W families: Alternate arrangements will be provided to families in Term 4.  

Important messages for all kids

Throughout Term 4, all students at Coomera Rivers State School will be involved in the Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Curriculum and the Respectful Relationships Education Program. Both programs have been developed by the Queensland Government and the Department of Education.  In addition, students in Year 5 and 6 students participate in lessons around puberty which are in line with the Australian Curriculum.

The best way for children to learn about these messages is by receiving small amounts of age appropriate, factual information from parents and teachers in a gradual and ongoing process.

The personal safety and protective behaviours and puberty curriculums are an important responsibility for schools.  Further communication regarding these lessons will be shared via your classroom teacher.

Parent information session

We will be holding a parent information session to provide as much information to our parents as possible.  We will cover:

• the lesson content
• Q&A session to answer any of your questions

Session info:

• Tuesday 5 October at 4:30pm in the staffroom
• Tuesday 12 October at 1:45pm in the staffroom

Please register your interest for one of these sessions with Michelle McMurtire mmcmu43@eq.edu.au or 55968333.

On-line supervision across the vacation

Children will be looking to maintain connection with their friends and classmates while on school holidays.  What they forget to realise is that everythig they post on any form of social media or messenger, is both public and permanent.  Please speak with your children regularly about your family expecations and values when it comes to online behaviour.

Head lice love your kids

Please use the vacation period to check all of your children for head lice.  These little creatures - and their eggs - thrive in warmer weather and multiply and spread at an alarming rate.

The ONLY way to fix the problem is to check every second day and treat every time you need to.  Queensland Health supports the 'Conditioner and Comb' technique and when it is done properly, it is incredibly successful and inexpensive.  

I hope that everyone in our community has a safe and enjoyable spring vacation break.

Kind regards

Vic

Well done to these students on earning their excellence awards this week.

With the completion of our school airconditioning and solar power projects, the P&C is now seeking feedback from families on what facilities or programs our fundraising should focus on next.  

At a recent P&C meeting, the members suggested some items for consideration and we now seeking community consultation on these ideas and any that you may have.

To provide your feedback and ideas, please complete the survey that can be found here.

The survey is open now and will close on Friday 8 October at 5:00pm.

Global Innovators Entrepreneurial Program

Last Thursday, 48 students and 5 teachers from four different schools came to Coomera Rivers to engage in an entrepreneurial program that will span two terms.

Mrs Pinnington lead the students and teachers through fun learning tasks to:

• Get to know your team members
• Mapping (visually representing) our Global Community
• Defining a problem with a problem statement and 'How Might We?' questions
• Ideating
• Empathising (customer value proposition)

Students and teachers will now head back to their schools to build prototypes of their design solutions, create their marketing materials and a trade display and prepare their shark-tank style pitch.

We will welcome them back to Coomera Rivers in Week 5 next term for the Trade Show & Pitch Event. Year 6 Coomera Rivers students who participated last week, will now become mentors when our own students in Years 5 and 6 complete the program next term.

The Innovation Hub

We have an exciting new learning space in our school. The Innovation Hub is located in the iCentre and opened its doors this week for some guided class sessions with Mrs Pinnington.

Housing a variety of innovative and creative tasks for all year levels, the Innovation Hub encourages teachers to learn alongside their students. Many ideas were shared this week for how the use of these new digital skills could be applied in the classroom to further leverage technology for accelerating learning.

Here's an example of the type of activity students have enjoyed over the last week. Have you ever wondered what some people are thinking? Using Green Screen Technology, students can reveal what new knowledge they've learned. This activity is called: One Shot Green Screen

It wasn't just students learning in the Innovation Hub this week though. Teachers who were able to book a time to bring their class were also spotted engaging in some professional learning as they explored some new tech tools they haven't used before.  Teachers demonstrating life-long learning and learning alongside students is a beautiful sight to see.

Ocean Stars impress Prep learners

Our Prep students very much enjoyed a visit from Ocean Stars this week, to consolidate their learning of 'Under the sea'.  They explored different sea creatures, including sea stars, sea urchins and sea cucumbers as well as shells, shark eggs and dental skeletons. They were also able to touch some of the sea creatures and learned about their important roles in our oceans.

Students loved being able to get up close to some ocean friends

STEM Pentathlon

Our team of six boys and girls from Year 5 competed at the STEM Pentathlon at Pimpama State Secondary College this week.

They started the morning with their first challenge to make a toilet. The design requirements were that the toilet had to be:  

• Constructed with cardboard
• Sturdy and hold a minimum weight of 50kg
• Waterproof

Our team design included a triangular-based bowl and a diamond shaped opening.  Our design, while comfortably meeting the strength requirements, struggled to maintain its waterproofing.  And that could be a problem for a toilet.  

Their second challenge was to make a boat that could hold the weight and size of at least 25 marbles without sinking.  It also had to be waterproof and stable in wavy waters.

While our teams didn't win the competition, they certainly had an absolute blast and represented the values and standards of our school incredibly well.  

Chess results impress

Congratulations to the two teams who represented our school chess program this week.  We played against many of the state and independent schools in the northern Gold Coast and once again, acquitted ourselves very admirably.  Thank you also to Mrs Hardwick for leading the team at the event.

Sports Fun Days

After three days of intense participation and competition, we were able to find the champion athletics house for 2021.  Congratulations to Pedley house on a great victory.  Even more impressive than the competition was the team spirit.  You could see it in the faces of the children each and every day.

Thank you to our wonderful staff - especially the sports staff for organising and running the event.  A job well done.  Thank you also to the facilities staff and P&C for their fantasic support across the three days and to the many families who shared this experience with their children.  Well done!

The scoreboard

The gallery

Coomera Cup

Our annual Coomera Cup sporting events were conducted on Tuesday. We have established a tradition where we compete with our neighbours from across the M1, Coomera Springs in a range of sports. This year we competed in rugby league, touch football, netball and basketball. The matches were very competitive but also played in good spirit. The results were split evenly:

• Rugby League we defeated Coomera Springs 32-4, player of the match was Si’u
• Netball we defeated Coomera Springs 28-19, player of the match Ataahua
• Touch Football we were defeated by Coomera Springs 5-4, player of the match was Paysin
• Basketball we were defeated by Coomera Springs (score and PotM TBC)

Team spirit was high at OSHC Thursday morning for the final sports day for the year! The before school care children got to warm their legs up for their sports races this morning, practising some relay races. After roll call, the children got to represent their house colours and their teams war cries. All the children and even educators got involved, cheering their peers on. The energy in the hall this morning was at an all-time high and could be heard from miles away! The children set off to school pumped and ready for whatever was about to come their way. We love to see our children come together, showing their support, and of course a bit of friendly competition!

 What a fantastic way to finish up Term 3, we look forward to what exciting things come in Term 4!

As part of our school’s commitment to reducing our waste to landfill, we are holding a waste-free lunch day for students in Years 3-6 and, as the name suggest, we will hold them on Wednesdays in Weeks 2 to 10 across Term 4.

What is a Waste Free Wednesday?

• Pack lunches in a reusable lunchbox or bag
• Put food in reusable containers rather than wrapped in disposable packaging
• Have drinks is in a refillable bottle 
• Use fruit and vegetable scraps (e.g. apple cores and banana skins) in the compost bins at the school through our compost and worm farming system.

Why is this important?

Our school produces about 3kg of waste per student each year.  This means that combined, everyone in our school creates over 3.5 tonnes of waste from our lunches every year.  But with your assistance, we can make a great contribution towards avoiding this and protecting our world.

By helping your child pack a waste-free lunch you will help fulfil a number of goals:

• Learn about waste avoidance and recovery, including reuse and recycling
• Reduce the 13 million tons of lunch waste currently going to landfill in Australia
• Reduce the cost of waste disposal so the school’s resources can be put to better use
• Minimise litter around the school due to less waste becoming litter
• Encourage healthy eating by avoiding pre-packaged foods which tend to be high in fats, sugar, sodium and artificial ingredients
• Help you save money – an average waste-free lunch can save you $10.50 per week or $397.50 per year per child

Please visit our Facebook Page on tips to creating a waste-free lunch.  Thank you for supporting our school waste program and we look forward to seeing the impact this will have on our school and students at Coomera Rivers.

Litter and sea life do not mix well

Prep B had a visit from Ocean Stars to consolidate their under the sea learning this morning and further learned about how and why we should be caring for our environments - and making sure rubbish doesn't end up in the ocean!

The children were very pleased with their efforts and it was lovely to see and hear their enthusiasm while collecting rubbish around our school knowing that they were also protecting the local environments.

Our Deadly Choices Good Quick Tukka program, that some of our Year 5 and 6 students have been fortunate to be involved in wrapped up this week. Students were able to list the many healthy food facts they have learnt along the way and have gained some new favourite healthy snacks from trying delicious food each week. 

The Solid Pathways program also finished for Term 3. The online program is an extension program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Year 4-6 and will recommence in Term 4. Students who were engaged in the program in Term 2 received certificates and some medals for their efforts. I am sure there will be more medals on the way for Term 3!

Our Spooky Disco will be held on Friday 29 October.

Tickets will be released very soon!

2021 Year Book Sponsor.

Do you own or know of a local business that would be interested in advertising in our 2021 Year Book?

Year Book advertising opportunities are now available.

You can secure your business advertising in our 2021 Year Book for as little as $50!

Advertisers can choose (from the available class pages at the time of payment) which page or pages they would like their advertisement to appear on.

This sponsorship opportunity closes on Tuesday 5 October.

Advertising spots are limited so be quick to reserve your spot!

For more information, please email us at pandc@coomerariversss.eq.edu.au

Thank you to Vuly who have provided our school community with TWO bikes to raffle!

The first opportunity for our students to be in the draw to win one of these amazing bikes, will be our upcoming Rivers Reward Raffle. Stay tuned for all the details.

The other bike will be part of our Birthday Party raffle. As you know, due to COVID restrictions our planned event had to be postponed but a new date, in early 2022, will be announced shortly.

We are super excited and very grateful to Vuly for this kind donation.

To check out the full range of Vuly products, click here.