Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

It has been an incredibly busy week with Parent-Teacher interviews on Monday evening, public speaking competition on Tuesday evening, debating competition on Wednesday evening and Book Week dress up day today.  The next few weeks will continue this trend as well with Spooky Disco being the headline event.

Acting for others

Orlando in 1M decided that he wanted to raise awareness for breast cancer this October by colouring the tips of his hair pink for the month of October. Breast cancer awareness is something that is very important to his family as he lost his Nanna last year to the disease, less than 2 weeks before starting Prep.  Great work Orlando!

Tackling alert

Our kids love to emulate their sports heroes, especially in rugby league, and a couple of students have brought tackling into their lunch break games at school.  Unfortunately, this is fraught with danger and we have had three injuries as a result of a tackle.  

Please reiterate the dangers of tackling to your children that you know that they will receive detention for breaking our 'No tackling' rule.  

Kind regards

Vic

Congratulations to these students on earning awards this week

The winners list for 2021

Gallery

This is the 3rd year that Coomera Rivers has organised and hosted our very own Coomera Alliance Debating competition. A competition designed to bring our local schools together to learn the valuable skill of presenting and defending a side of an argument in a friendly competition.

Wednesday evening saw a total of 14 teams from Year 4 to 6 compete in our first round. Coomera Rivers Team A students from Year 4 & 6 were up against schools from Upper Coomera and Picnic Creek State School. For many students in the competition, this was their first time participating in a debate however this was very hard to pick.

The Year 4 teams debated whether schools should be allowed to have pets at school and our Coomera Rivers team presented a very strong argument against the idea, stating that 'pets at school weren't cool!'

Our Year 6 teams agreed with the idea that 'School hours should be extended' stating the many benefits this would have for students, families and teachers! 

Our Year 5's are yet to present their debate on whether 'Naplan should be banned'. Given Picnic Creek Year 5's were on their school camp, this debate is one that is being held over for the following fortnight. In Week 4, we will see the next 18 teams debating new topics against a new group of students.

While the competition isn't about who wins and loses, it's about the learning, we're happy to report that both of our teams won their debates. This of course has ignited a real fire in some bellies and we're sure our teams and that of the cluster will continue to improve.

It was wonderful to welcome our neighbouring schools through our school gates(Coomera Springs, Coomera State, Upper Coomera, Norfolk, Picnic Creek and St Joseph's).

Congratulations to our team coaches for having our students well prepared and to parents who brought them along in the evening. It was a wonderful event for our cluster.

Developing and encouraging our students' public speaking is a skill we truly value at Coomera Rivers. This year we selected students who had performed well during our school's mySpeak competition to compete in the annual and prestigious A B Paterson Public Speaking Competition. Unfortunately we saw a clash of dates with the preliminary finals falling on the same day as our Wakakirri performance, so some students needed to withdraw from the competition. However, we were well represented by three of our Year 6 boys, Max, Tyler and Emerson. 

While Max impressed the audience with his speech on 'The Real Superman', Emerson took his audience around the world exploring the many 'Unsolved Mysteries'. Tyler's comical speech on 'Not many people know this' had his audience quite amused. In fact, all three students were entertaining and held the attention of their audiences.  We are happy to announce that Max and Emerson have successfully made it through to the preliminary finals and return to do their speech next week at A B Paterson College. A massive congratulations to Max, Tyler and Emerson for stepping up to the challenge and really demonstrating what talented public speakers they are. We are incredibly proud of them.

Working in the third dimension

1/2MC have been busy learning about 3D shapes this week. During this activity, students used soft clay and matchsticks to create a cube or a pyramid. Then, they took a photo and used the app Seesaw to describe the features of the shape including faces, edges and vertices. Students used the add text feature to label or used the pointer as they recorded their voice to demonstrate their learning.

Year 2 - STEM Challenges

This term, our year 2 students will be given a bunch of challenges to complete as a small group. This term's inspiration comes from Sir Harley Houndstooth III who was shipwrecked on a deserted island and needs to build certain things to survive until his rescue. Students need to follow a brief each week and over this last week, needed to make Sir Harley a hut to provide shelter. They had a certain number of popsticks, straws, paper and string to help them with the challenge.

Year 5's Youth Anti-Discrimination Program

Our year 5 students have been the lucky year group to be selected to participate in a five week program about Youth Anti-Discrimination. This program is run weekly and is organised and facilitated by the Multicultural Families Organisation here on the Gold Coast!

Each week we welcome Karri Bakken, Wai-Yin, Kevin Dando and their team to our school, along with community engagement coordinators and liaisons from the QPS, Gold Coast Suns and AFL QLD. They deliver hands on presentations about:

• Beliefs and culture,
• Racism and discrimination,
• Laws, rights and responsibilities
• Leadership skills
• How to be a proactive bystander

This week, students spoke with a QPS Police Liaison Office, Darwin Huang about some laws that surround discrimination and consequences of these actions.

Goodstart

We welcome back Daphne Santos and her team to our school for the facilitation of our Goodstart program. This term, students are learning about the importance of water for our bodies and health and the sugary drinks to avoid!

Virtual reality is fun

To inspire the kids further with their Space Science unit, Professor Michael Cowling from CQ University will supported the students through a Virtual Reality experience. Imagine cruising through the solar system and walking on Mars. This experience is of no cost to families. A big 'Thank you' to Mr Cowling for providing this opportunity to our kids.

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.

Netball achievements

During the holidays, Maia and Ataahua competed in the Junior State Championships for the Netball Indoor Federation of Queensland Cup. Their Wolf Pack team went through the tournament undefeated, winning the grand final in a tightly contested, exciting match. Hard work and dedication really pays off. Congratulations girls.

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.

Mrs Karen had a wonderful craft idea that she wanted to facilitate for our children on Tuesday afternoon, making paper Mache fruit bowls! The children were excited for this activity as most of them had never done this type of activity before. They started off by blowing up their own balloons and ripping strips of newspaper. Mrs Karen explained to the children the process to the group and then began the messy process! Some children loved the feeling of the glue mixture stuck to their hands, while others weren’t too keen on having sticky hands. Each child worked hard to complete their bowls on Tuesday afternoon so they could dry overnight and be ready to paint the following day.  

 On Wednesday afternoon, the children were so excited to see what their bowls looked like after it had dried and to start decorating. Mrs Karen pulled out some paint and encouraged the children to put patterns and colours on their bowls how they pleased. The children were so eager to show their parents their creation when they were getting picked up that afternoon, and couldn’t wait to use it!