Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

Remembrance Day 2023

We recognised Remembrance Day at school today.  We modified our play and class times to ensure that we could pay our respects at 11:00am.  Teachers led their classes through our service in classrooms and I would like to express my gratitude to them.  I was privileged enough to join 6E and 6WL as they learned about the meaning of Remembrance Day and paid their respects.  

Our Year 5 leadership camp was also in full swing today when the 30 students also stopped to recognise Remembrance Day.  They were on the bus travelling back to the Runaway Bay camp when 11:00am came around - the bus stopped and they completed their service while on board.  Thank you to each of them.

Here is how things looked across our school...

Chess clubbers V staff

Our chess club challenged school staff to matches at chess this week.  The students were really excited with the opportunity and were abuzz all afternoon.  Thank you sincerely to the staff who gave up their afternoon to help out once again.  And for the record, the teachers won 16 games to 14.

Mathletics LIVE challenge

I would like to thank Ms McLean and Mr Meijboom for running our Mathletics Live challenge this week.  Students from across the school represented their class in the speedy recall competition.  These are some very clever kids.

2023 Stationery lists, App lists and SRS

Next Friday evening, I will send a separate email to families with the stationery lists, app lists and Student Resource Scheme information for the 2023 school year.  Please keep an eye out for these.  

Principal's Breakfast

As part of Colour Splatacular day, we are holding a Principal's Breakfast for our families.  It is a free sausage sizzle to start the day.  I expect to be cooking up 1500 sausages and will serve them up to families, students, visitors and staff  from 7:45am.  We will include some dietry options for those who have them as well.  Thank you to our awesome P&C for providing the food and extras for this.   

Leaving in 2022?

Our plans for the start of 2023 are almost complete now.  If you are leaving Coomera Rivers, please let our school office know as soon as possible so that we can make preparations.  

Kind regards

Vic

with Ms Waide

Congratulations to these students on their great achievements.

Prep

Prep awards gallery

Year 1

Year 1 awards gallery

Commemorating Remembrance Day

with Mr Meijboom

Congratulations to these students on their great achievements.

Year 2 awards gallery

Junior Book Club

Junior Book Club continues to be a hit with our students. Thank you Mrs Fischer for leading it.

Girls Only Soccer

Thank you Mrs Barnes, Mr Meijboom, and Alfie (Year 6 soccer team captain and leader) for leading girls only soccer every Thursday morning before school, 7.45-8.15am. All interested girls are welcome to attend, there is no sign up.

Learning in 2T

Remembrance Day @ Coomera Rivers 11/11/22

with Mrs Gatti

Congratulations to these students on their great achievements.

Year 3

Year 3 awards gallery

Diamond promotions gallery 

Year 4

Year 4 awards gallery

Diamond promotions gallery    

with Ms Artz

Congratulations to these students on their great achievements.

Year 5

Year 5 awards gallery

Diamond promotions gallery 

Aspire Higher Program - Leading Without a Badge

Our 2023 leadership process has already begun with 77 students in Year 5 submitting their applications for a badged leadership position. However, leadership is not about a badge or position and our Year 5 students learnt this valuable message when they all attended the Aspire Higher session last Friday.

This program is run by the company Unleashing Personal Potential and saw our students engaged in a range of workshops and activities that taught them about the many aspects of leadership. From embracing their own personal leadership strengths and perceived limitations to appreciating their impact on others each and every day.  Students had an opportunity to participate in a variety of group challenges and needed to step outside their comfort zones by working with students they may not have ever worked with before.  

After students participated in this program, we selected 30 students to join us on Leadership Camp to the Runaway Bay Super Sports Centre. This selection was based on leadership applications, classroom observations and how they embraced the workshops. The camp is designed to challenge our students once again by taking them out of their comfort zones and looking at how they can value-add to the strength of a team. It is from this group of 30 students that 10 will be selected to attend an interview with the school leadership team to finally select our 2023 Heads of School and Head of Student Council. These 3 positions will be announced at our final Year 5 end of year Awards assembly.

The remaining badged position process then continues in 2023. It's a rather rigorous process but one that will see another group of leaders representing our school and their community well.

Leadership Camp

Friday provided the perfect weather for 30 aspiring Year 5 leaders to partake in a leadership day camp at the Shearwater Broadwater Park and then the Runaway Bay Super Sports Centre.  The camp is designed to further develop the leadership and team work skills of students who are seeking to gain a badged position next year, in particular, as Head of School or Head of Student Council.

Stand-up paddle boarding was probably the highlight of the day and saw students working in pairs to manoeuvre the board from one end of the beach to the other.  For a lot of our students, this was their first time on a paddle board and they took to it like a duck to water and showed no fear standing up in pairs. The next team challenge was to fill a bucket of water by forming a line of bucket ‘throwers and catchers’.  There was no pouring allowed.  Those without buckets needed to drip water into the buckets either using their hair, hats or even shoes!

After beach games,  students then headed back to the Sports Centre to change and have lunch. Competition was fierce in our boys vs girls game of beach volley ball however all students clearly demonstrated the main aim was fun and friendship. 

The final activities for the day were the team building challenges where students moved around 4 different  tasks. These challenges required our aspiring leaders to not only think strategically but also to communicate effectively, consider and be patient with their team mate and when something didn't work, reflect on how to improve. 

Staff from the Sports Centre were once again blown away with the calibre of leadership qualities these students already display and we are very confident that the role of our 2023 Heads of School and Head of Student Council are in good hands  The next step is to short list this group of 30 to just 12 students who will then move on to an interview phase.  To say this is a difficult decision is an understatement.

Year 6

Year 6 awards gallery

Diamond promotions gallery 

Humanity award ambassador

The Fred Hollows Humanity Award recognises Year 6 students who follow in Fred’s footsteps by making a positive difference in their community. It celebrates students who show compassion, integrity and kindness in their everyday lives, just as Fred did.  And being recognised as an Ambassador this year is Annabelle F.  We are so very proud of her achievements and agree that she is very deserving of this recognition.  Well done! 

On Wednesday evening, 22 debating teams from eight neighbouring schools returned to Coomera Rivers to compete in the final debates for the 2022 Coomera Alliance Debating Competition.  Each team was competing for a place in the grand final which is set to take place in Week 9. Our Year 4 team was challenging the idea that a social life is more important than your academics while our two Year 5 teams supported the topic that graffiti is an art form.  We also had our three Year 6 teams arguing both sides of the topic that ‘Boredom breeds trouble’. 

Keeping with tradition, Coomera Rivers students and their coaches have once again excelled in this competition and now have  three of our teams making it to the grand final.  In fact, our two Year 5 teams will now go against each other in the final. 

We wish all our teams the best of luck next week as they take on the following topics:

Year 5

Topic: Boys have it better than girls

Coomera Rivers A vs Coomera Rivers B

Coomera Rivers - Affirmative & Negative!

Year 6

Topic: Australia should become a republic

Coomera Rivers B vs St Josephs

Coomera Rivers: Negative

It’s important to note that our Year 4  and Year 6 Reserve team both walk away from the competition undefeated and our Year 6 Team A actually lost by only a few points this week to St Josephs, so technically they finish in 3rd place.

Congratulations to all our 2022 debaters and coaches.  What a remarkable debating season we’ve had!

All Schools Touch Football Carnival

Coomera Rivers was represented with three teams at the All Schools competition in Redland Bay last weekend.  The carnival, to see which school has the best touch teams in Queensland, was played across both Saturday and Sunday, and each of our teams performed admirably against the other teams in their divisions.  Amazingly there were a total of 183 teams participating.

Results:

• Year 5 Boys team was unfortunately eliminated from their round of 16 on Sunday morning.

• Year 6 Boys team lost the semi-final 5-4 to Redland Bay on Sunday afternoon. Redland Bay went on to win the Grand Final.

• Senior Girls team made the Grand Final, losing in a drop-off to All Hallows.

We were so impressed with the students who competed with great sportsmanship and positivity over the weekend.  A huge thank you to Mr Liam, Mr Bradley, Mrs Profke, Mr Burrows and all the mums and dads who supported us over the weekend.

Gold Coast Table Tennis

Coomera Rivers will be sending some students to the Table Tennis State Finals after we ran our Table Tennis tournament on Wednesday. They kids have been training every week to improve their table tennis skills and their improvement is amazing to see.

Doubles Champions

Girls: Mariyae and Harmony
Girls: Remmy and Maya (Runners up)
Boys: Julian and Bodhi
Boys: Cruz and Keanu (Runners up)

Singles Champions

Girls: Mariyae
Girls: Remmy (Runner up)
Boys: Cruz
Boys: Bodhi (Runner up)

              
Big 3 Basketball

Our Big 3 Basketball competition has come to a close and it was very close between our Grand Final teams - The Ballers and The Greenbeans. However, The Greenbeans were too strong in the final and have been crowned the Big 3 Champions. Well done to Memphis and Kiahna for being named players of the tournament.

Thanks to everyone that supported us with our Colour Splatacular School Run 4 Fun! Fundraising has now closed and it is time to order your prizes?

Prize ordering opens on Saturday 12 November and closes at 4pm Friday 18 November.

Every student who has raised $10 or more can choose a prize ?! Pick a prize from your highest category, or mix and match smaller prizes.

Prizes must be ordered online.

Please note:

• if you selected prizes when setting up your profile, you MUST go back in and confirm that prize order based on your finalised fundraising amount. 
• students that do not select a prize by the prize ordering deadline will have a random prize selected on their behalf.

Congratulations to all our fundraisers! ?

#schoolrun4fun #funrun #australianfundraising #fundraising #coloursplatacular

We are super excited to welcome the TODAY Show to Coomera Rivers as part of our Colour SPLATacualr.

We are looking for expressions of interest from students / families of students that would be interested in being a part of the TODAY show visit.

 To be eligible to be considered you must:

• be available to be at school from 4:15am until 7.45am on Friday 25 November
• have a parent or guardian that can attend the event with the student/s (must remain onsite with the student/s)
• be willing to provide a media release.

If you can meet the above criteria and would like to be considered to take part, please email the P&C. 

We have limited spots available for this opportunity and students / famileis of students will be selected randomly from the expression of interests received.

Expressions of interest are open now and close at 9am Friday 18 November.

Successful applicants will then be notified on Monday 21 November.

If you have any questions, please email the P&C.

As you may already know, the TODAY show is visiting our Colour SPLATacualr and will be conducting their morning weather crosses from our school.

Filming is estimated to finish at around 7:40am and, to ensure compliance with media consent, the gates for school will open once the filming has been completed at 7:45am.

Students will then be able to attend our FREE Principal’s Breakfast sausage sizzle!

Please see the flyer for all the details.

Nation Recycling Week in Australia runs from the 8th-14th of November, and aims to encourage recycling and reusing items to minimise waste and material resources responsibly.

During these activities, we discussed the importance of taking care of our environment, and ways that we can help reduce our waste.

The School Locker

The advertised price increase to uniform items by the provider, The School Locker, is about to occur. Since being notified of the rise, the P&C has been very active in its negotiations with the company to limit the increases. And while there is still an increase, the final amounts are lower since the negotiation. The table below explains the OLD price, the expected price, and the new re-negotiated price. Thank you to the P&C for doing this for our community.

As part of the negotiation, we decided that we would only open the on-site shop for two days each week during Term time. The closure of the shop on the third day was turned into price reductions. The School Locker will still offer extended on-site shop trading in the lead up to the 2023 return to school. The details of the trading dates and times during return to school will be provided as soon as to hand. During Term time we believe we can manage with two days on-site shop trade as most of the sales are completed online. We encourage families to continue to order online and utilise classroom delivery of orders wherever possible.

Happy Families premium account available to our families

Our P&C has invested in the emotional support for our entire community this year and has engaged Dr Justin Coulson to share his expertise with us. 

You may have seen Dr Coulson on television. He talks regularly about parenting, education and psychology issues for The TODAY Show, The Project, Studio 10, Mornings, The Daily Edition and Parental Guidance.

Families have FREE access to his Happy Families website. The P&C has paid the 12-month account membership for all of our families. You are welcome to access it when you wish.

The link to access your FREE Happy Families account can be found here.  Further details can also be found in the flyer below.   If you have any questions, please contact the P&C.

As we near the end of the 2022 school year, it is time to start considering your Before and After school care needs for 2023.

All current 2022 BSC and ASC bookings will cease after close of business Friday 9 December 2022. Bookings will not roll over to 2023.

Existing OSHC families must complete the re-enrolment process as advertised on OWNA.

Families looking to enrol for the first time in 2023 please send your enquiry to the service email address crssoshc@outlook.com. Once we have received your enrolment enquiry, we will send through our ‘Enrolment Information’ document with a link to our enrolment form.

Places are limited and families looking for care in 2023 are encouraged to book their places as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

It is with great excitement that we open the orders for our 2024 seniors shirts.

Our Year 5 students have been involved in a design development process that culminated in six designs being presented to the cohort. Every Year 5 student was then able to vote on their favourite with the design with the most votes becoming our 2024 senior shirt design.

An image of the finalised design for 2024 can be found below.

Important information - What you need to know.

• Orders are open to our current Year 5 (Class of 2024) students only
• Orders are open now via School24 and will close at 4pm Friday 17 November
• The cost of the shirt is $35
• REALLY IMPORTANT! When determining sizing, please refer to the size charts available below (and on the School24 site) or you can email the P&C to book a time to try on sample sizes. Please ensure that you check and order the correct sizes as there is no exchange of sizes available once your order has been placed.
• Families that would like to purchase but, for any reason, are not able to make full payment before the deadline date, can email the P&C to request a payment plan.  Please note - to be eligible for a payment plan your school credit rating must be in good standing - meaning you have no outstanding payments to school or, if you currently are on a school payment plan, your payments are up to date.
• The school requires that a minimum of 100 student orders are received for the senior shirt to proceed. If orders do not reach this target, we will process refunds and not proceed with the order for this year.
• The 2024 Senior shirt can be worn on sports days at school.
• Students will still need to have a standard "green" shirt as these must be worn when representing our school off site requires full sport uniform.
• 2024 Senior Shirts will be handed out in Term 1 Week 4 of 2024 after confirmation that students have the full correct "blues" and "greens" uniform.
• The seniors shirt is not able to be signed at school at the end of the year as a memento     

If you have any questions, please email the P&C

Please email the P&C at pandc@coomerariversss.eq.edu.au for a TEAMS link.

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

We look forward to seeing you on-line at our next meeting.