Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

Welcome back to the final term of 2019.  Term 4 is always the busiest term of the year and this one is planned to maintain that pattern.  There are many activities happening in next few weeks that families need to be aware of.  These include:

• Book Week dress up day (October 18)
• Book Fair (October 13-18)
• Free dress day (October 25)
• Disco (October 25)
• Public speaking and debating (Starts next week)
• Sport (Starts next week)
• Regional chess tournament (October 30) and more

Our young entrepreneurs

Good luck to the $20 Boss entrepreneurs at Saturday's Upper Coomera community market.  These resourceful students are running their business stalls at the community market and raising funds for important charities.  Great job!

Debating and public speaking

The school debating program and the AB Paterson College public speaking competition all begin next week.  We have a lot of students from Years 4-6 involved and I know that they have been preparing hard to represent us well.

Day for Daniel

We are holding our free dress day (RED theme) to recognise the Day for Daniel.  Gold coin donation.  Friday 25 October.  Please join us by also wearing red to work that day too.

   

FINAL treasure hunt

This is the final week to earn yourself tickets in the draw for the $25 voucher at Book Fair.  The winner of the $25 will be announced on Facebook on Tuesday evening.  

This week, avid train spotters will be on the look out for Iron Man.   Find him somewhere else in the newsletter and email Mrs Artz with the story title and your childrens' names before 4:00pm on Tuesday.  Winners receive a slushie for each child in the family and every entry earns a ticket into the draw to win $25 at the book fair.  This is what he looks like.  

Last week's winner (Captain Underpants)

• Hayden from 5S

    

Get ready for 2020

We are now in the planning stages for the 2020 school year.  Enrolments are filling fast and only 10 out of catchment positions in Prep for next year remain.  Please also make sure that you have settled all accounts held with the school as soon as possible.  

    

Staying at Coomera Rivers?

We will send home a paper note next week with every student in Prep to Year 5 asking families about their intentions for 2020.  Please complete by ticking the box and returning it to your child's teacher.  The first classes with all notes back to their teacher win icy-poles.  

     

Book packs 

The school and P&C conduct a tender process each couple of years to identify a preferred supplier for school books.  Kookaburra are the current suppliers after winning this tender process.  They offer a competitively priced and convenient option for parents however, you are still able to choose to visit the back to school sales to collect the items yourself should you prefer.  On-line ordering has opened.

Bookpack_Orders_2020.pdf

Bookpack_Orders_2020 _pdf 95.69 KB

    

Kind regards

Vic

Week 1 saw the grand opening of our Scholastic Book Fair!

Students have visited the iCentre in their library lesson time or during their lunch breaks throughout the past week. They should have come home with a 'Wish List' with a list of numbers and, to provide you with a clear picture of what books appeal to your child, we emailed home (last Sunday) a complete list of books housed in our Book Fair with their corresponding number and price. You'll also see that we have roughly categorised books into colour coded categories.

Book Fair

The Book Fair is housed in our iCentre and is open:

• Monday - Friday 7.45am until 9am
• Monday - Thursday 2pm until 3pm

Families are encourage visit the iCentre and take a look for themselves at the books on offer and make purchases from the books, stationary and posters on offer.

If you are unable to attend the event but would like to make a purchase form your child’s wish list you can make payments using cash, eftpos or by filling out your credit card details on the back of the 'Wish List' form. Students can then place their orders before or after school during the above opening time, during lunch breaks or during their library lesson time. Students who come to school with payment should let their classroom teacher know so that they are given an opportunity to make their purchase and their money/payment method is kept in a safe place while they wait for a suitable time to visit the Book Fair again.

Students will NOT bring home their BOOK orders on the day of purchase. We will endeavour to deliver most book orders on the Friday afternoon (18/10) or in Week 3. Any order that cannot be filled in its entirety, will be held until we can fill the complete order. We expect any orders that we need to make to complete these orders will be received during Week 4 of Term 4 and distributed by no later than the end of Week 5 of Term 4.

Please note - Stationery and posters will be given to children upon payment.

    
Book Character Dress Up Day

Now, for one of our favourite days of the year! Book Character Dress Up Day! Friday 18 October we encourage students to come dressed as their favourite book character or to the theme of Book Week - Reading is my Super Power! This doesn’t necessarily mean super hero's - your interpretation of the theme is what makes the day super interesting. We have some amazing prizes up for grabs for our best dressed!

Students not wanting to come in dress up should come in their normal uniform.

Dress up day assemblies

There will be two assemblies, a junior and senior assembly, when we will announce our best dressed year level winners. Each year level and class will have their own little parade where students can flaunt their creative costumes. Teachers will put forward 3 winners from their class that will then be judged against students from other year levels by our school executive team. This has never been an easy feat. The announcement of these winners will be revealed at these assemblies and families are very welcome to attend.

• Junior School (Prep - Year 2). Friday 11:15AM - The hall
• Senior School (Year 3-6) Friday 1:30PM - The hall.

If you would like any more information please email the P&C at pandc@coomerariversss.eq.edu.au

Lunchtime sports competitions

Super6s Cricket Comp
With the success of the Touch competition in Term 3, we have decided to something similar for cricket.  Starting in Week 2, we have 6-a-side cricket, 12 overs for each innings. It's a great opportunity to learn the game and play with, and against, your mates!  15 teams have been nominated! It's going to be exciting.

Basketball and Soccer signs!
This week, we designed new signs for Soccer and Basketball that will soon be put up around the school. We were lucky enough to have Eden (6L) and Dallin (6I) help out with our basketball posters, and Mackenzie(6M) and Joel(6M) help with the Soccer. Well done!

Soccer Rules Video
Thanks to Lacey and Mackenzie from 6M who were the stars of the video in our Soccer Rules video that will be coming out shortly! We want to make sure that we play safely and fairly at school, and those 2 helped us get the message across.

Fitness / Running Club

• On Tuesday and Thursday morning this week we were straight back into Running Club! Great to see so many students down getting their morning fitness.
• On Wednesday, we had cricket stations out, as kids were learning to Bat, Bowl and Keep!
• And on Friday we held our Skipping Day, and the 2 sisters took out our Last Skipper Standing competition for the Juniors and Seniors!  Well done to Imogen(6WY) and Mylah(2R)!

Brianna was at South Coast cricket regionals representing Coomera Rivers last Sunday - Wednesday in Toowoomba. The team didn’t come first but they had great team spirit and played really well gaining a wealth of experience out of it, and lasting friendships. They played 7 matches across the 4 days and Brianna received player of the match for one of the games, made some great runs and took a great catch also.. Well done Brianna.

Prep, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 5 have the opportunity for swimming lessons this year.  The lessons are heavily subsidised from the department grant of over $16 000 but there is still unfortunately a cost to families for transport.  Information will be sent home so please beat the response and payment deadline.

• Prep $55 - November 18th to 29th - Monday to Friday - 2 weeks - Rackley Swimming Pimpama
• Year 2 & 3: $35 - October 28, 30, November 11, 13, 18 and 20 - Gullivers 
• Year 5 Surf Safety: $15 - December 3 & 4 - Burleigh Heads Beach

Tickets on sale until Wednesday 23 October at 4:00pm

Come along in your best fluro gear and leg warmers and join us at our 80’s Disco. Whilst there might be the occasional moon walk, the majority of the music will still be that hip, cool and rad stuff the kids think is AWESOME!

Junior hipsters (Prep to Year 2) starts at 4.30pm and goes to 6.00pm with the Senior groovers (Year 3 to Year 6) starting at 6.30pm and finishing at 8.00pm.

Ticket sales now open on Flexischools and the footloose deadline to purchase your 80’s Disco tickets is Wednesday October 23 at 4:00pm.

Please note - if you require a deadline extension, you MUST email the P&C before the deadline to request one.

A brighter, bolder future for Australian girls

Earlier in the year, Mrs Pinnington and four students from year 5 participated in the co-design of an entrepreneurial school for girls at Griffith University.  We are pleased to announce that the Academy for Enterprising Girls had it's launch this week and we are very proud to have contributed in a small way to this wonderful initiative.

• Entrepreneurship and innovation are considered essential future workforce skills, yet 23 per cent of Australian girls ( involved in our codesign workshops) did not know what an entrepreneur was, and
• 40 per cent could not name a female entrepreneur or business person.  Of those who could name a female entrepreneur, family and friends marginally outranked Hollywood reality TV stars.
• The girls reported the biggest barriers to pursuing entrepreneurship were a lack of access to education and mentors (27 per cent), lack of confidence (24 per cent), and lack of female business role models (12 per cent).
• STEM jobs in Australia are growing at a rapid 1.5 times the rate of other jobs in recent years[1], and boys still outnumber girls 3 to 1 in physics and almost 2 to 1 in advanced math classes.[2]
• In the workplace the divide is even greater, with women making up only 16 per cent of the STEM-skilled workforce in Australia.[3]

Today’s 10-18-year-old girls will be the entrepreneurs and innovation workers of 2025. We must take action now to show Australian girls that anything is possible with the right skills, attitude and support.

Girls can now sign up to become Enterprising Girls by registering here .    Here they can find advice, tips and guidance from some of Australia’s most successful female entrepreneurs, presented in a fun and engaging way.  When the full program launches later this year, they will be able to participate in an innovative digital program developed to cultivate their skills in design thinking, coding and entrepreneurship via self-paced online learning, or as part of a national in-person workshop program. This will provide late primary school and high school girls with a pathway to further education and future employers.

If you, or a business you know of wants to be involved in the program, go to www.enterprisinggirls.com.au/industrysupporters to find out how.

[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics – “Qualifications Paying off in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths”: 

[2] Australian Government – Advancing Women in STEM report: 

[3] Australian Academy of Science, Women in STEM Decadal Plan

This week, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students had a meeting with Dr Dee and Ricardo from the Regional Indigenous Support Team. They shared with us the purpose of a Yarning Circle and the process and protocols to follow to design one for our school.  The session ended with the students jointly constructing an invitation for Local Elder, Uncle Brian, to visit our school and consult with the students and staff.  We look forward to his reply, and welcoming him to Coomera Rivers.

Wow! Term 4 is rolling around already. It seems like only yesterday that we opened our doors and started as Coomera Rivers Outside School Hours Care. This week we have focused on settling back into the swing of school and sharing the exciting parts of our holidays. We have re-discovered some of our favourite resources we forgot about and have loved creating mini cities, the tallest tower ever and of course, weights to prove how strong we are! We have started our busy school mornings with the most important meal of the day, breakfast. Pancakes, egg cups, quiche and french toast have filled our bellies so we are ready to be a learner.

The 2019 Year Book is under construction now and, as with previous years, it is going to be a fantastic reflection of a year full of wonderful activities and memories for students to keep for years to come.

2019 Year Book orders are now available to order on Flexischools and the deadline to order is 4:00pm Friday 1 November. We will only be ordering from the printer the required copies from orders received so please be sure not to be miss this deadline!

If you do require a deadline extension, you MUST email the P&C before the deadline to request one.

Please note - Year 6 students receive a complimentary copy of the Year Book at graduation (* Conditions apply)

Is it time to update your family portrait?  If it is, well then we have the fundraiser for you! For a $20 donation to the P&C, you will receive 20 minute photo session and a 10 x 13 portrait of your family.

In addition, you can, at time of viewing your images, secure additional poses and copies at some REALLY discounted rates. They even have a lay by option!

That said, purchasing additional images is NOT a requirement of this special $20 family photo promotion. You can simply come along and have your​ photo session and then, at time of viewing, select the image you would like to receive for your donation. There is absolutely NO obligation to purchase any additional images.  What a wonderful way to update your family portrait for just $20! To book and pay for your session visit Flexischools to reserve your time slot.

The photo shoot will take place on Saturday 26 October with bookings close at 4:00pm Wednesday 23 October.  For more information please contact the P&C.

Important information for Coomera Rivers parents regarding changes to Individual Curriculum Plans for 2020.

The Department of Education has released a new Individual Curriculum Plan (ICP) policy which may affect your child. You may read the policy document here: https://education.qld.gov.au/curriculums/Documents/individual-curriculum-plan.pdf

Our review will be factoring in the key recommendation that students with an Intellectual Disability may continue with either a partial or whole year ICP. Students who do not have an Intellectual Disability may be able to access whole year level ICPs however this decision will be reached through consultation with teaching staff and families. 

Consequently, we wish to advise our families that our school is required to review all students’ current ICP plans and some plans will need to be changed. These changes may include either implementing a whole year level ICP or for some students, the decision may be to focus on targeted intervention programs and have no ICP in place. 

Please note, we will make the ICP decisions based on our professional judgement of your child’s learning skills and strengths, and through close consultation with families. 

Below is a list of Case Managers that you may wish to contact directly to discuss any questions you have arising from the updated ICP policy changes due for implementation from  2020 onwards. 

 Learning Support (STLaNs)

• Years 2-3   Samantha Fischer
• Years 4-6   Jody Ward

Student Support Centre (SSC)

• Year 2   Tracy Voce
• Years 3-5   Valen Dyson
• Head of Special Education:  Jacqui Walker

In Week 4 of this term, we will be holding a parent information session where you are welcome to discuss these changes with us and gain further clarification. We will provide more information about this session via the newsletter and email.   

Thank you very much for your support and working in partnership with us.