Total fire ban in place until midnight Saturday 9 November

Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

You will see from the header to this edition of the school newsletter that conditions around bush fires are extremely dangerous at the moment.  The destruction they cause is immense as we well know so please do your part in prevention.

The week has been very busy once again with special guests visiting, learn to swim and awards assemblies  as well as our OSHC rating process keeping us busy at school.

Assistant Regional Director visit

Mr Ragh, our Assistant Regional Director, visited our school on Monday and left impressed with the learning - especially in Year 3.  He spoke with teachers and students in some of the Year 3 classes about their learning, their learning goals and their capacity to explain what they need to do to continually improve.  And explain they did.  Well done everyone!  

School Council elections

There will be no election process required based on number of nominations received matching the number of vacancies.  the nominations will be presented to the school council in the coming fortnight for ratification and I will let you know the outcome in the next newsletter.  Thank you to the nominees.  

OSHC 

I am very proud of the service that the P&C has built with the OSHC.  I see the children often and the activities they complete under the excellent guidance of the educators is brilliant.  When you consider that the service is operated by paid staff but led by dedicated volunteers, the achievements they make are even more significant.   Congratulations to them on what was an excellent service rating process as well.  

I am also excited with the free basketball program that is now on offer at OSHC too.  There were lots of engaged athletes there yesterday.

Ambassadors

Congratulations to Mr Raffin and Mr Burrows on being chosen as Cricket Ambassadors for November by Queensland Cricket.  This is wonderful recognition for them both.  The cricket program is really thriving at Coomera Rivers - before school and break times - with training and competitions for fun, fitness and friendship.  

Calendar of key events

Week 9

• Alliance debating competition finals
• New families BBQ
• Christmas concert, fireworks and movie night

Week 10

• Swimming fun day (Years 3&4 - Monday)
• Swimming fun day (Years 5&6 - Tuesday)
• Report cards sent home
• Annual awards assemblies with the announcement of the Head of School and Head of Student Council 
• Year 6 Graduation (Thursday evening)
• Year 6 celebration excursion (Friday) to Wet n Wild
• Free dress day - (Friday) Last day of school to allow families opportunity to sell PLUS supplies
• Red day - (Friday) Sales at the cafe to use up the last of the stock.  We use cash on this day.

Be ready for school in 2020

Please make sure that you have prepared for 2020 by:

1. Completing the returning to Coomera Rivers slip and send it back to your teachers
2. Preparing for book lists.  If you wish to order on-line through the school's supplier you will find the details at the end of this newsletter
3. Understand the Student Resource Scheme details for 2020.  The details of the scheme can be found at the end of this newsletter.  The good news is that we have been able to reduce the price.

Have a great weekend

Kind regards

Vic

Congratulations to the following students who came down to the office to celebrate earning their Student Excellence Award. The reasons are varied but the one common element is, these students have impressed their teachers.

The 2020 student leadership process has already begun with Year 5 students submitting their formal applications. However at Coomera Rivers, we feel it is important that every student be provided with an opportunity to develop the appropriate skills that will enable them to thrive in leadership. Regardless of whether students are considering a leadership role in our school, we see these skills as transferable in that they will help students not only in future careers but also everyday life.

On Wednesday our entire cohort of year 5 students participated in the 'Aspire Higher' program run by the company Unleashing Personal Potential. Through a series of workshops, the message of 'leading without a badge' was reinforced. Students engaged in a range of activities that relied on building and extending trust, getting to know one another and appreciating the strengths of others, to teaching them about the power of teams and how to work effectively in a team. The Great Race proved to be quite the highlight and really tested grit and patience.

The program was certainly an opportunity for teachers to see all students develop their communication and problem solving skills and of course, see them all shine as leaders. Twenty-eight students have now be shortlisted from their applications, general everyday conduct and how they performed at the workshops and will attend Leadership Camp next week. Best of luck to all students in their leadership journey, whether that be as a school badged leader or their own personal leadership.

Awesome news for parents

You will no longer need to purchase a ticket to the 'Time To Shine' concert. The wonderful folks at Marquee Event Hire have offered to sponsor our chair hire so therefore there is no need for tickets. Please simply take a seat once the doors open.

Your child should have by now received their permission slip for the Time To Shine concert. Please return these promptly so we will have an indication of how many students in our groups will be attending. If you require a note, please email Mrs Blyth .

Junior Concert:

Doors open 3:45pm
Concert time 4:00 - 5:30

Courtesy Reminder: Please remain seated for the whole concert, students will be supervised and you may collect your child from their waiting zone on conclusion of the concert.

Junior program - Groups involved

• Prep Choir
• Prep Dance
• Year 1 Choir
• Year 1 Dance
• Year 2 Dance
• Junior Strings
• Junior Band

    
Senior Concert:

Doors open 5:45pm
Concert time 6:00 - 7:30

Courtesy Reminder: Please remain seated for the whole concert, students will be supervised and you may collect your child from their waiting zone on conclusion of the concert.

Senior program - Groups involved

• Year 2-6 Choir
• Year 3 Dance
• Year 4 Dance
• Year 6 Dance
• Senior Strings
• Extension Strings
• Senior Band

Thursday saw us hold our first 'Great Book Swap', raising money for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation to enable them to purchase quality books for children in remote Indigenous communities. It was a very successful event, raising $360 to donate, but the best part was hearing students talk about books and seeing them start to read their new books straight away.  Thank you to the Indigenous Champions, Miss Conroy, Mrs Walsh, Mrs Dare, Ms Chapman and Mrs Caswell for organising and running this vey worthwhile event.

On Tuesday morning, we were fortunate to have Uncle Brian, an Indigenous Elder, visit our school to consult with us regarding the development of Yarning Circle at CRSS. Uncle Brian shared how Yarning Circles were used as a place to have important discussions leading into decision making, and to pass on knowledge to younger generations.  A number of students from Year 4, 5 and 6 have opted to be a part of this process, and were very excited to meet with Uncle Brian.  This was a fantastic experience, with students really becoming knowledgeable and proud of their culture.

It’s week five already? Wow! This week we made use of the beautiful weather outside and really enjoyed natural materials. We spent our mornings out in the sunshine in the courtyard eating breakfast, discussing where we’d like to travel and playing with our friends.  Some of our favourite activities have been creating realistic scenarios with our nature table and noughts and crosses.  Staff built upon our students’ interests of the nature table by making a clean sand box.  Students used the animals, natural resources such as small wooden stumps, pine cones and even some branches that have fallen off trees in our garden to create a natural landscape. What the students created from these natural materials blew our minds.

A picture speaks a thousand words, but we wish you could have heard the discussions the students were having too. They talked about the importance of having shade, water for sea animals and food so the animals could survive. Our students also used the sand as an art and craft activity.  They painted Indigenous symbols using a glue stick before dipping the paper into the sand so it would stick. We will hang these in OSHC room and would love for you to take a peek.

I can hear the jingle bells already!  Friday December 6 will see us celebrate all things Christmas!

Gates open at 4.30pm with class performances starting at 5:00pm.

After the concert concludes at 7:00pm there will be a fireworks display followed by an outdoor screening of How To Train Your Dragon - Hidden World.

We will have a range of food options available to purchase one the night.

So get the family together, bring some chairs and a picnic rug and sit back and enjoy a very merry Christmas family night out.

We would like to invite our 2020 families to our playground party.  We encourage new families joining our community in 2020 or existing families with a child starting in prep in 2020 to join us.

This is a great opportunity to meet other families and for your children to become more familiar with our school.

If you would like more details or if you would like to RSVP to this event please email the P&C. 

The raffle to win the use of the VIP car park (located in the car park beside the hall) for Term 1 2020 is now open on Flexischools.  Imagine having access to your very own car park for the bust start to the school year!  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 1 2020 on all school days and at all school events.  Raffle tickets are available through Flexischools now and close at 4:00pm Friday 6 December.

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

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.

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.

Save money and access the Student Resource Scheme for next year.  This scheme applies to classroom learning activities.  All students MUST have these items.  You can join the scheme or organise your own.