Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

It has been a week where work over the past term has culminated.  The Gold Coast Eisteddfod concluded and our music department shone brightly.  5 groups - 5 Honours awards - 2x 3rd place awards.  But more importantly, the students represented Coomera Rivers with pride and spirit and I am so proud of them all.  Well done to the music staff on their wonderful work preparing the students for this event.  

Our mathletes competed at the school Mathletics Live challenge (Year 5&6 are next week) and the speed and accuracy in number facts is mightily impressive.  Check out the story and year level winners later in the newsletter.

And last Sunday saw three talented young ladies - Lacey, Ava and Laila - represent us at Griffith University as they competed in the 2019 languages competition.  The results are later in this issue - but suffice to say that I am thrilled with each of them.

And it is with incredible pride that I can inform our community that Mrs Pinnigton has won the 2019 ACEL Keith Tronc Award for Outstanding Teacher Leadership.  This is a national recognition and Mrs Pinnington is a very worthy recipient.  She will receive her award at a gala event in Sydney in the coming weeks.

And last week Mrs Young and Mrs Walsh travelled to Sydney to represent Coomera Rivers at the Australian Education Awards.  While we didn't win in either of our two categories I remain so proud to be associated with a school community that competes with some of the best in Australia.  It is just so satisfying to see the outstanding work that happens at our school each day recognised and celebrated by these education groups.

Good luck

Good luck to the chess team this Wednesday when they compete in the regional tournament at Carrara.  We have been working hard and it will be good to measure our progress against the best players on the Gold Coast.  Thank you to Mrs Hardwick, Mr Burrows and Miss Nic for their continual support with our chess club.

Save the date (Parent-teacher interviews on Monday 9 September)

Bookings for parent-teacher interviews will go live next weekend.  How to make a booking will be advertised in the newsletter first so keep an eye out for the booking link.  

Newsletter treasure hunt

As a lead up to our Book Week celebrations in Week 2 next term, we will be hiding a character related to the Book Week theme, ‘Reading is my super power’ within an article in our newsletter each week.  When you find the character, simply email Mrs Artz and tell her what article you found the character in.  Be sure to include your children’s names and classes.

Each week we will be giving away a free slushy to a family (all school children in the family) and each submission will guarantee you a raffle ticket to go into the draw to win a $25 Book Fair voucher to be spent at our Scholastic Book Fair throughout Book Week.

This week, we have hidden this cute Harry Potter clipart.  Best of luck finding him.

     

Have a great weekend

Kind regards

Vic

Congratulations to the following students who received a Student Excellence Award this week.  There's always lots of fun to be had when we celebrate these awards down at the office.

At Griffith University

Congratulations to Ava, Laila and Lacey on their brilliant representation of Coomera Rivers at this year's languages speaking competition at Griffith University.  This year Ava won a 2nd prize and Lacey & Laila were highly commended.  I am extremely proud!  Thank you sincerely to Mrs Huang on her excellent mentoring and teaching.  

The past fortnight has seen our String and Band groups perform at the Gold Coast Eisteddfod.  As always we were extremely proud of our groups who not only did a great job with their performances but their behaviour was outstanding.  Results include:

• Junior strings:  Honours
• Senior strings:  Honours
• Extension strings:  Honours and 3rd place
• Junior band:  Honours and 3rd place
• Senior band:  Honours

Congratulations to Mia this week who has been recognised with the ACEL Keith Tronc Award for Outstanding Teacher Leadership for 2019. Mia was nominated for this award by the Queensland College  of Teachers following her success in the QCT Excellence in Teaching Awards last year.

As Australia’s key peak professional organisation for educational leaders, the Australian Council for Educational Leaders has a strong reputation for recognising, developing and celebrating excellence in educational leadership. ACEL presents this award to Mia as a teacher who has demonstrated outstanding practice in the classroom and as a result has made a significant difference to colleagues and the lives of students.

Click here to visit the ACEL awards site 

Gold Coast Primary Science and Engineering Challenge

Last Friday, August 16^th, 12 of our Year 5 students were selected to participate in the Gold Coast Primary Science and Engineering Challenge at Dreamworld. During the day Year 5/6 students from public and private schools, competed in a variety of exciting challenges focused on the physics of theme park rides. These challenges included creating trebuchets, coding autonomous vehicles, building loop-de-loop marble roller-coasters, creating cipher wheels and becoming code breakers, as well as taking on the role of environmental scientists and testing the water quality of the Dreamworld lagoon. Our students certainly shone in many of the activities, demonstrating STEM problem-solving and collaborative skills, and being high-scorers. It was definitely a new way to experience a theme park, and lots of fun!

On Friday, teachers, students and parents were amazed by the incredible mental maths skills of the Year 1 - 4 Mathletics Live Competition finalists.  Over the last few weeks, students have been competing in class for a spot on the stage at today’s year level competition final . There were a few shaky fingers as the first round started, but by round 3 their fingers were flying across the screen to answer the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems. Congratulations to our four winners:
Year 1 - Izaiah
Year 2 - Tamara
Year 3 - Chace
Year 4 - Jason

The Year 5 and Year 6 finals will be held next Thursday.

Over the past three weeks 30 students from year 6 have been battling it out in Super Mario Kart Deluxe.   This week and next week students will be completing time trials.  Three students will be selected at the end of Week 7 to enter the Battle Area at St Hilda's in Week 8.  Week 8 will see some intensive practise in the lead up to the competition.

The competition so far has been amazing with the students demonstrating all the necessary skills of 21st Century learners.  These students have:

• shown great character such as resilience, perseverance, tenacity
• demonstrated good citizenship by showing a genuine interest & demonstrated concern for others
• worked collaboratively using a range of interpersonal & team related skills
• communicated effectively with their team mates
• allowed themselves and others to be creative, showing consideration and acting on ideas
• demonstrated critical thinking, making connections and solving problems

Here are the top 10 times from this week!

Did you miss the previous newsletter article about this?  Click here to find out more. 

Qld Schools eSports League Information

Sports Fun Days

Our annual Sports Fun Days (SFD) are coming up soon. The Senior (Years 3-6) SFD is on Wednesday 18 September. The Junior (Prep – Year 2) SFD is on Thursday 19 September. The broad timetable for each day is outlined below.

OzTag

A big thanks to David Kumar from Queensland OzTag for coming out and showing our students the fundamentals of OzTag during our PE lessons. Our local OzTag competition is played at the Coomera Sporting Complex on Beattie Road. The new competition begins in early September.

Year 5/6 Touch Football

Our Year 5 and 6 classes have been participating in a playtime Super 6s Touch Football competition. The kids have been playing improving their touch football skills and having fun. Thanks to our referees, Hannah, Chezaan, Perry, Alyssus, Zharnae, Diamond and Panatahi, they have been doing an exceptional job controlling our games. Current Ladder Leaders are the 6M Croissants, closely followed by The Blue Monkeys (5S & 5K).

         
Broadwater Cricket

Congratulations to Chris who was selected as a wicket keeper in the 12 years Broadwater cricket representative side.  Huge effort as Chris is only turning this 10 this year.  Good luck at the coming regional carnival, Chris.

CRSS Running Club

We have seen an increase in numbers at our Running and Fitness clubs in the mornings, maybe the weather is warming up? Awesome to see our Students, Teachers and occasionally Parents, out there exercising and having fun. Remember, it is free and there is no need to sign up, just join in. It is held on the oval every day from Tuesday to Friday from 7.45am.

Swimming Program

The Coomera Rivers swimming program has been expanded and will be conducted in Term 4. This involves a 10 lesson (10 x 30 minutes) ‘learn to swim’ program for Prep students at Rackley Pimpama. The Years 2 and 3 students will do a 6 lesson ( 6 x 40 minutes) ‘learn to swim’ program at Gullivers Coomera. The Year 5s will do a one day intensive Surf skills, safety and awareness program at Burleigh Surf Life Saving Club. Swimming Carnivals for Years 3-6 will be conducted on 9 and 10 December for Years 3-6. More information will be distributed about these events shortly.

Salaka African Drumming

If you've heard your child singing "Kilele, kilele, awo awo kilele" that's because students from Prep all the way up to year 6 have been listening to and playing instruments with some African music in their music lessons in preparation for our visit from Salaka in week 9. If you have not returned your child's permission slip or paid your $7 the final payment window day is this Tuesday August 27 or Thursday  August 29 if you are paying via Bpoint or Qparents.

Plastic Storage Tubs

The Arts department are currently reorganising past costumes and props from musical and Wakakirri productions and we need some containers with lids to keep them in.  If you have a 100L (or similar sized) plastic box with a lid sitting in your garage that you don't need/ would like to donate, we will gladly take it off your hands.  Please send it to either Music Room.

We are beginning the recruitment process for Instrumental Music 2020. Students currently in Year 2 are invited to participate if they are interested in learning a string instrument, while students currently in Year 3 can participate if they are interested in learning a band instrument. Following the mini-recruitment concerts which are being held next week, every child in Year 2 and Year 3 will be bringing home an expression of interest form. All students need to return the EOI form even if they are not interested in learning a strings or band instrument. An information session for parents will be held on Thursday, 5 September in the Music Centre at 3:30pm. If you wish to attend the information session or have any questions about the process, please email Cassi Zander .

1. Getting to know your iPad

2. Setting up your iPad

3. Getting connected

4. Restrictions

5. Managing access to websites

6. Customise your iPad - Vision

7. Customise your iPad - Interaction

8. Customise your iPad - Hearing

9. Keeping control of your child's iPad

10. Managing accounts - Apple ID & iCloud

11. Screen Time

One of the more heart-warming elements of each day at OSHC is seeing our children interact with one another.  To encourage this behaviour, educators have purposely incorporated team building exercises into our daily routine.  Many of our students already work together to build, play make believe games and finish puzzles, however, this week they were invited to embrace teamwork wholeheartedly. Some students have been participating in after school co-curricular activities such as Auskick and soccer that provide opportunities for them to work together as a team.  At OSHC, educators have been creating games that require team work specifically to make it to the end. They have even been set challenges in teams where if one person wins, the whole team wins.  These team building exercises have allowed students to recognise and enhance their sportsmanship and empathy for others.

Get your sporting house colours ready!

With our 2019 Sport Fun Days scheduled for Week 10 of this term, 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 Friday 30 August at 4:00pm.  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 4:00pm Friday 30 August.  For these email orders the deadline for payment is Wednesday 11 September - 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.

Are you getting your house colours ready for Sports Fun days?  We have house coloured wrist bands and hair ties available to purchases via Flexischools. Place your orders by Friday 13 September to ensure delivery before the Sports Fun Day for your children.

Our junior and senior Sport Fun Days are just around the corner 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.

If you are coming along to cheer along our children on the day then why not order one for yourself as well? Simply order an additional Subway Lunch Pack under your child’s name and it will be delivered to your child’s class at lunch time.

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

• Monday 16 September 4pm for Senior Sports Fun Day
• Tuesday 17 September 4pm for Junior Sports Fun Day

The 2019 cafe survey is now open.  We are currently gathering feedback via an on-line survey in relation to our Cafe. The survey is an annual feedback mechanism for the school. Your suggestions make a difference so please complete the survey before it closes on Monday 26 August at 4:00pm.

Click here for the cafe survey link.

The Term 4 VIP car park space is up for grabs.

The raffle to win the use of the VIP car park (located in the car park beside the hall) for Term 4 is now open on Flexischools.  For as little as $2 you can go into the draw to win!  The lucky winner will have exclusive use of our VIP car park throughout Term 4 on all school days and at all school events.

Raffle tickets are available through Flexischools now and close at 4:00pm on Friday 13 September.  

Administration Support Officer

Expressions of interest are invited for the position of an Administration Support Officer to join the Coomera Rivers State School P&C team.

Position:

• P&C Administration Support Officer - Casual position
• Coomera Rivers State School P&C
• 14 hours per week (during the school term)
  
  

As the Administrative Support Officer you will contribute to the effective and efficient administrative management of the P&C Association by providing relevant and timely administrative support.  To request an application pack please email Mrs Jacquie Bertram (P&C Secretary).

Application close at 4:00pm on Wednesday 4 September.

Are you considering becoming a volunteer in classrooms, at school or on excursion?  It is a great way to give to the school and all children. However, to volunteer in any part of our school or on school excursions you MUST be a registered and inducted volunteer.  It is super easy to complete.  All the details on how to do this are below.  We look forward very much to seeing you join our volunteer team.