Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

Welcome back to the busiest term of the school year.  In fact, it all starts now.

Teacher changes

We bade a sad farewell to Mrs Williams at the end of last term as she retired from the department to move to the next exciting chapter in her life.  She has been replaced by two wonderfully talented teachers in Mrs Fleming and Mrs Bullot.  We welcome them both back from maternity leave.  

We also have a number of staff who are unwell at present.  Mrs Worland and Miss Mackay have been away from work and I very much look forward to their return when they are well again. Ms Coz takes leave for surgery and we also wish her a speedy recovery. Please note that their conditions are not at all COVID related.  

Parent-teacher interviews

Term 4 parent teacher interviews are next Monday afternoon.  

When:  Monday 11 October

Venue:  School hall

Note for 1W & 5C families: Alternate arrangements will be provided to families in Term 4.  

Book Week is here 

Book Fair (11-15 October)

We opened the book week activities with our annual Book Fair this week.  This week, children were able to wander through the sales area to create a wish list.  Sales of all stocks begin from Monday and conclude Friday morning.  Before school is a perfect time to make any purchases.

Dress up day (Friday 15 October)

The Book Week dress up day is next Friday.  The theme is Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds.  There will be a costume competition but unfortunately due to COVID restrictions, no assemblies to show them off.  Instead we will create a video to share with classrooms.  I really look forward to seeing the incredible creativity of our mums and dads each year.  

The costumes and make-up that will come out for this year's Spooky Disco will once again be amazing, showing the awesome creativity of our mums and dads.  May we ask when you begin your design phase that you do not plan to use additional props like tridents and toy weapons and the like.   We have learned from past discos that they will only get in the way.  Consequently we will need to keep props with parents or leave them at the door upon arrival.  

Free dress day (Friday 29 October)

Theme:  Day for Daniel (Wear RED)

Gold Coin Donation for the Daniel Morcombe Foundation

And the opportunities for students continue with

• Wakakirri performers on Tuesday 19 October
• AB Paterson College public speaking competitors on Tuesday 19 October
• Coomera Alliance debaters on Wednesday 20 October

Advice for drivers from the GCCC

The City of Gold Coast wants to ensure that motorists comply with school zone road rules at and around schools to achieve a safer environment for children and the broader school community. These rules also help to optimise traffic movement and safety.

Please take extra care and obey the signed parking rules when parking on the roads and streets around the school.

Park Safe Vehicles - Licence Plate Recognition (LPR)

As part of the City Parking Plan 2015 to improve parking behaviour on the Gold Coast, City Parking Officers will soon patrol the city (including key school zones) using vehicles, clearly badged as “Park Safe” vehicles. These vehicles use Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) which is camera technology fitted to Park Safe vehicles to ensure motorists are parking safely.

Park Safe will operate on school days at student drop-off and pick-up times focusing on pedestrian areas around schools. If a vehicle is found to be parked illegally the City will issue an infringement notice to the registered vehicle owner by post.

Offences to be aware of:

• stopping 20 metres before or 10 metres after a sign posted crossing
• stopping 20 metres before or 10 metres after a bus stop
• stopping within 10 metres of an intersection or corner
• stopping within a bus zone (bayed area)
• stopping on a footpath or nature strip within a built-up area
• stopping in a way that restricts access to a driveway
• stopping on a yellow painted line
• stopping in a loading zone
• double parking for any period of time.

Park safely and legally to avoid a fine. For more information visit www.cityofgoldcoast.com.au/parksafe 

Kind regards

Vic

Well done to these students this week!  Sensational work!

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.

This week, we kicked off the Global Innovators Program with our Year 5 classes. Students in 5EL, 5W & 5L spent the day in the hall and were taken through the entrepreneurial design thinking process by Mrs Pinnington to design solutions for the UN Sustainable Development Global Goals. Thinking creatively, working collaboratively and communicating effectively, students identified a global goal community problem, ideated possible solutions, contributed to the team decision making for which solution they would develop through to prototyping and marketing ready for the Trade Show & Pitch Event later this term. This program is aligned to the HASS curriculum and offers a deep understanding of the entrepreneurial process to create a social enterprise.

Next week, 5C & 5SL will have their first day of this two-day program and all of the year 6 classes will participate later in the term.

Writers are published

Earlier this year, three of our talented writers Telicka-Starr, Nevayah and Ariana from Year 6 attended the Jacob's Well Writers Workshop. They embraced the opportunity to enhance their writing skills, with guidance from a well respected children's author, Anita Bell. This week they were very excited to receive a copy of their creative short stories, featured in a published book. The girls deserve to be very proud of their outstanding achievements in writing.

Instrumental Music 2022

Does your child want to play the trumpet? Or perhaps they’d like to play the violin or cello instead! Recruiting for the 2022 Instrumental Music Program is about to begin. In Week 3 there will be two recruiting concerts - one for students in Year 3 who are able to learn to play a band instrument in 2022, and a separate concert for students in Year 2 who have the opportunity to learn to play a string instrument in 2022. Following these concerts all students in both grades will receive a paper expression of interest form. The form must be returned so that testing can take place later in the term. There will also be a zoom meeting for parents in Week 4.  More details of this week be in next week’s newsletter. If you have any questions please email Cassi Zander .  

Netball success

The Coomera Rivers Netball team have proudly represented our school at the QLD Primary Schools Cup on the first weekend of the holidays.  It is always such a pleasure to see our children represent the values that we promote - fun, fitness and friendship.  

A huge thank you to Warren who not only umpired the team across the weekend, he mentored and trained with the group leading up to the event.

Also, as always, a big thank you to the parents who came along and rode the highs and lows of competitive netball. Your enthusiasm for the kids and the game was perfect.  

I would like to sincerely thank the coaching staff who, with Warren, gave the first two days of their vacation to the team.  The dedication of Mrs Walsh, Mrs Young and Miss King was remarkable and very generous.  Well done ladies.

First XI is in her sights

Congratulations to Annabelle on receiving an invitation to play at Metricon Stadium on the first day of the Australian Women's cricket test against the team from India. Cricket is Annabelle's sports passion and her club is Helensvale - Pacific Pines Hawks.  Wow!

Tennis success in September

Congratulations to Cruz on his recent tennis successes.  He played in two tournaments over the recent holidays.  In Rockhampton, he won the 10’s boys singles consolation and the 10’s doubles main draw.  And then in Gladstone, he won the under 10’a boys singles and was runner up in the 10’s doubles.  He has also been selected to represent Broadwater in tennis next week.  Amazing achievements and good luck next week.

At the end of last Term we had reached a distance of 1759.75 kilometres travelled which has us half way between Cloncurry and Mount Isa.

See the full Running Club report below.

If, for any reason at all, you would like to attend the Spooky Disco but can NOT meet the payment deadline, please email the P&C BEFORE the deadline and we will be able to assist.           

Unfortunately, once the deadline has passed no further tickets will be available.

PLEASE NOTE - Please take special notice of the information, on the flyer, around senior students NOT to be at junior disco and junior students NOT to be at the senior disco as well as the requirements for signing in and collecting students as, refusal on the night of the disco, may offend.     

Ticket price is $10 and includes entry, sausage sizzle and a drink.  There will be a range of other food available to purchase (with cash) on the night. We will also have a photo both available.       

If you would like more information please contact the P&C.

On Wednesday afternoon it was children’s choice for arts and craft! A group of girls chose to construct with some recycled materials, which caught the attention of a large group of children. We find that our children are often drawn to activities where they have the opportunity to create with open ended resources as this allows them to explore and manipulate materials and objects how they please. We saw egg cartons monsters, alfoil white boards and so much more marvellous creations come from this activity.  

The use of recycled materials also sparked conversations around sustainability and what that means to us. Miss Rachel explained to the children how the resources they were using had been recycled by our OSHC staff and how we can upcycle these resources to be used for another purpose.  

Save the date - our Slime Spectacular is coming!

Slime, coloured powder, slime crawl pits, obstacles, foam bits, inflatables and that is just the start!

Event Date: Friday November 26

Fundraising deadline to participate: Friday 12 November

More details next week!