Student Free Day

Monday 21 October

School resumes at 8:25 on Tuesday morning

Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

WOW!  What a great week we just had at school.  The highlight was the school book week dress up day on Friday where the creativity and ingenuity of parents really shone.  Well done to the teachers who costumed up as well.  They were very clever. 

18 students also competed at the AB Paterson public speaking competition with distinction and the finals are next week.  Then we had another 15 students involved in the Coomera Alliance debating competition.  3 debates for 3 wins for Coomera Rivers.  Our STEAM team participated in the cluster competition at Pimpama State School and did very well.  The school chess club championships were decided on Wednesday afternoon and the overall ability of our players has improved so much.  We have some very clever players - even in Prep and Year 1.  Read on for more details of these opportunities.

And next week is looking just as busy with:

• AB Paterson public speaking competition finals (Tuesday 22 October)
• Staff Appreciation Day (Friday October 25)
• Free dress day (October 25) - RED theme - Gold Coin donation
• Disco (October 25) - 80s theme or just come in your best fancy dancing kit.

And then in Week 4:

• Regional debating competition
• Alliance debating competition (Round 2)
• Year 2&3 swimming program starts
• P&C Meeting
• Regional chess tournament (October 30) and more

Day for Daniel (Free dress day)

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.

School Council elections

We have 3 parent representatives on our school council.  This year, one of these positions is up for re-election.  If you are interested in nominating or know someone who may like to be nominated, please read on.

Nominations Open:     Friday 18 October.  Nominations forms are available from Corporate Services between 8:00am and 3.30pm or by emailing the returning officer - Leonie Jenkins

Nominations Close:     Friday 1 November at 3.30pm.  Nominations must be received by the returning officer, via Corporate Services, before the deadline.  These can be emailed to returning officer or delivered to Corporate Service between 8:00am and 3.30pm school days.

Election Date:     Tuesday 19 November

Election Time:    Polling booth is open from 8:00am - 9.30am and 1.30pm - 3.30pm on Tuesday 19 November

Election Venue:     CRSS Corporate Services Boardroom

Treasure Hunt winners

Thank you to everyone who was in our Book Fair Treasure Hunt competitions across the past couple of months.  We gave away a heap of slushies to the weekly winners and the competition winner received a $25 voucher to the Book Fair.  Well done to the Limmer family!

House Cup results

Well done to Foxwell house on winning the 2019 House Cup.  Students needed to collect Rivers Rewards and place them in their house bucket.  Over 2000 rivers rewards were given out for excellent behaviour, service and work ethic.  The winning house members will receive an icy-pole next week.  

• 1st    Foxwell - 640 points
• 2nd   Siganto - 588 points
• 3rd  Pedley - 582 points
• 4th  Colman - 559 points

Kind regards

Vic

Congratulations to the following students who were the first recipients of a Student Excellence Award for Term 4!  What a fantastic way to start our final term for 2019.

Dress up day

After a whole week of celebrating Book Week, we finished with the finale, 'Our Book Week Dress Up Day.' This would have to be an all time favourite event and saw students and staff come dressed as some of their favourite book characters or to the 2019 Book Week theme "Reading is my secret power!" Harry Potter proved to be a popular choice this year along with princesses, Spiderman and Thing 1 and Thing 2. There were also some ingenious costumes that must have taken parents weeks of planning and creating. There were some real works of art.

A junior and a senior assembly was a special treat where we announced our overall year level winners – a really tough decision. Congratulations to all our students and parents for their efforts with costumes.

Our whole week of celebrating Literacy Festival was a massive success and by the Friday, we imagine many children and adults went home to curl up with a good book – activating their secret power and transporting themselves to a magical or exciting world within the story.

Dress-Up Day Winners

Prep
1st: Alana - Charlotte's Web
2nd: Willow - Book fairy
3rd: Cruz - Harry Potter

   
Year 1
1st: Archer - Transformer
2nd: Lily - Green Eggs and Ham - Sam I am!
3rd: Avei - Ella's Diary

   
Year 2
1st: Lincoln - Russell from Up
2nd: Aria - Book fairy
3rd: Aliya - Vaneloppe from Wreck it Ralph

Year 3
1st: William - Book vending machine
2nd: Zahra - Book fairy
3rd: Annabelle - The Lorax

Year 4
1st: Aiden - Billionaire Boy
2nd: Noah - Carl from Up
3rd:Michael - Klaus from A series of unfortunate events

Year 5
1st: Cruz - The Groot
2nd: Coe - The Titanic
3rd: Lucinda - Librarian

Year 6
1st: Ava, Laila and Lacey - The 3 Little Pigs
2nd: Cooper - Super Heroes for Dummies book
3rd: Ju Eun - Flying Book/Carpet

A special thank you to our P&C for sourcing some amazing prizes for our winners.

Thank you to our special sponsors

Our Book Week character dress up prizes were provided by the sponsors listed below.  We would like to thank all of our Literacy Festival sponsors for their support of this event and our community.  We encourage families, when in the market for goods and services offered by our sponsors, to consider supporting a local business that supports our School community.

Author visit

Gold Coast local author Jayde McKay came to visit Coomera Rivers State School on Tuesday 15th October. Her book ‘Rocky the Rocket Dog’ was published in 2018 and the story is about her own pet dog called Rocky. Prep, Yr 1 and Year 2 students were able to listen to Jayde read the story to them, they were able to ask questions about her dog, how she created the book and the story line from a sketch she drew in her ‘ideas’ book.

Year 3 and 4 students were able to learn more about the planning and editing side to writing a book and getting it published. Jayde shared photos, sketches, planning pages with the students from her ‘ideas’ book. She also discussed how she worked with the publishers to create illustrations that worked with the story line.

Miss Katie in the library was presented with two signed copies of ‘Rocky the Rocket Dog’ by Jayde and they will be available for students to borrow in the coming weeks. We look forward to Jayde visiting more students and classrooms again next Tuesday.

On Tuesday evening we had 18 students from Year 5 and 6 step up and participate in the A B Paterson public speaking competition. This is a competition that saw over 330 students compete from both the public and private sector. It's a competition that is renowned for its calibre and showcases some of the most outstanding speakers from schools all over the Gold Coast. Coomera Rivers uses this as a platform to further extend our school's mySpeak program and it's open to any student who is willing to give it a go.

Our students did an amazing job in delivering their speeches that varied greatly from one speech to the next even though there were many students talking about the same topic. While some were very thought-provoking and had the audience learning something new about themselves or the world, others were quite comical and entertaining. However, it takes more than a great speech to get through to the preliminary finals. It also takes a whole heap of confidence, conviction and passion. Our students didn't disappoint.

Like in any competition, not everyone will move on to the next level however we were extremely proud to have 5 students win their heat and go on to compete in the preliminary finals which will be held next week. Congratulations to the following students who will head back to A B Paterson College next week:

Year 5 - Ruby (5K)
Year 6 - Kilarney (6F), Isabella W (6L), Isabella L (6M) and Imogen (6W)

All students are to be congratulated for their courage and hard work in preparing for such a prestigious competition. There's certainly a buzz of excitement and feeling of accomplishment after the event, regardless of who makes it through or not. We look forward to seeing them participate next year.

Congratulations to the following students for representing our school so well:

Year 5: Oliver (5R), Christian (5R), Porshe (5M), Hannah (5S), Tiana (5S), Abbey (5S), Ava (5S) and Kai (5S)
Year 6: Georgina (6I), Eden (6L), Maddison (6L),Haylie (6M) and Tawhiri (6M)

Good luck to our students next week as they take on the preliminary finals.

This is the second 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 night saw a total of 18 teams from Year 4 to 6 compete in our first round. Coomera Rivers Team A students from Year 4, 5 & 6 were up against schools from Coomera Springs and Highland Reserve. For our Year 4's and for some Year 5 & 6 students, this was their first time participating in a debate however this was very hard to pick.

The Year 4 teams debated whether every home should have a pet and our Coomera Rivers team presented a very strong argument, outlining the many benefits households reap with pet ownership and why this is a very good suggestion.

Our Year 5's argued that playing competitive sport does more harm than good by emphasising why our school's value of 'We play sport for fun, fitness and friendship,' is a better focus than playing to win.

Finally, our Year 6 teams agreed with the idea that 'The best things in life are free,' arguing this proverb explains that money cannot buy things like family, friends, hugs etc.

While the competition isn't about who wins and loses, it's about the learning, we're happy to report that all three 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 see a great turn out of parents, teachers and leadership teams from not only Coomera Rivers, but also our neighbouring schools (Coomera Springs, Coomera State, Upper Coomera, Norfolk, Pimpama, Highland Reserve, Picnic Creek and St Joseph's). Next fortnight Ormeau State School will also join us.

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.

Congratulations to our $20 Bosses who didn't let the rain dampen their enthusiasm last Saturday at the Upper Coomera Community Fair.  Luckily they scored a position inside the Upper Coomera Community Centre to showcase and sell their products.  Some of the young entrepreneurs reflected on their last adventure at the school fair and made some minor tweaks and some continued their success with the same product offerings.  A great learning experience and much money raised again for their chosen charities.  Thank you sincerely to Mrs Pinnington, Mrs Clifton and Mrs Silcock for their support on the day.

Congratulations to Mia Pinnington for receiving the ACEL Keith Tronc Award. She was presented with this award over the recent school vacation period.  Mia was nominated by the Queensland College of Teachers for this award which is given annually to teachers who have demonstrated outstanding practice in the classroom and as a result have made a difference to colleagues and the lives of students in their care.  This is another outstanding achievement for her to add to her growing tally which also includes an Apple Distinguished Educator award earlier this year.  

Upcoming events:  

• Thursday 7th November- Music Count Us In Celebration Day.  Our whole school will sing the same song at the same time as all school's around Australia to promote music in schools. Link attached for students wanting to practise at home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYUwYAxF4VA
• Thursday 28th November- 'Time To Shine' end of year celebration concerts.  Groups involved: All choirs, bands and string groups plus Year Level dance groups. More information to come on this event, please mark on your calendars.

Seven students from year 5 and 6 participated in the annual STEAM pentathlon held at Pimpama State School this week. The students, Tori, Jueun, Alyna, Anahera, Flynn, Axel and Dylan, were in a battle to complete 5 challenges across the areas of STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Maths. The theme for the day was ‘Cities of the Future’ and students completed designs had to reflect this. Using a variety of materials, students designed, created and shared their responses to the challenges ahead.   While we didn’t place, the students had a great day and worked extremely well together to complete all 5 challenges in the time given.

Your recyclable containers can make a real change!

By recycling your plastic bottles and soft drink cans at school, not only are you helping the environment, you are also helping us raise funds for our school.

The Environmental Warriors have been reinvesting the funds raised from our recycling efforts this year into a range of environmental initiatives around the school. in fact, they are working on another one right now! Watch this space!

Our recycling bins are located near the flags each morning for your donations.

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.

Our next Woolies Breakfast will be held on Wednesday 30 October and the lucky recipients will be Year 1.

This week we threw ourselves into creating real, fun and engaging learning experiences. Students improved their fine motor skills through sensory play and sports that require hand-eye coordination. Students loved mixing corn flour, water and food colouring to create their own funky gunk. They loved using their fingers to pick-up and feel the unusual texture. Funky gunk is crazy to our students because it looks like water, it feels like a solid but then it drips through your fingers when it gets picked up. Don’t forget the highlight of this messy experiment, poor Harper ended up covered in cornflour after Miss Emma opened the bag and it exploded!

During our sport time we raced in relays where we had to dribble a basketball and then a soccer ball to our team mate. This was so much fun and helped students put their hand-eye coordination to the test! We even got to plant our very own veggie and herb patch this week too. Basil, pumpkin, rosemary, mint are just a few of the plants we have started with.

Chloe and Isobel were fantastic helpers for our collage craft activity. Students got a paper plate that read ‘My Favourite Meal’. Using lots of supplies such as wool, patty cake tins, buttons, paint and paddle pop sticks students created their ideal meal. Let’s just say there were lots of lollies and cupcakes!

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.

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)

Join us at our next P&C meeting to be held on Tuesday 29 October at 5:30pm.  If you have an agenda item please email the Secretary with the details by no later than 9:00am Monday 28 October.  The early start is for a special guest from True who will be discussing our student safety programs and plans for 2020.  The the meeting will commence at 6:00pm.

P&C meetings are a great way to keep up to date with what is going on around our school. They provide our families with an opportunity to provide input and feedback on matters relating to school and community life.  Meetings are open to all families and we encourage families to come along and contribute to your school community which forms a vital part of your children's educational journey.

We look forward to seeing you there.​