Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

The final two weeks at school are always the busiest of the year.  We will do our best to keep everyone organised by sending out information about the coming events.  Please check in with your teachers and the school's Facebook site regularly and enjoy the celebrations on offer.

Highlights from this week

Time to Shine:   Congratulations to the music department on an amazing showcase concert on Thursday evening.  Both the senior and junior concerts were very entertaining.  Thank you sincerely to our staff for their dedication and focus on making music so strong in our school.

Alliance debating competition: Well done to our debating teams on another successful debating night.  The finals are next week and Coomera Rivers has a team in every age division.  We are certainly being known for our strength in this area.  There are a lot of coaches who assist the students to hone their  debating skills and I thank them sincerely for their work.

Cluster chess: Great work to our chess club players who participated at the cluster competition this week.  We won two of the three age divisions and all of our players impressed with their levels of etiquette - they always do.  Thanks to Mr Burrows and Miss Nic for leading the team as well.

Fireworks will be missing

We usually hold a fireworks display with our end of year Christmas Concert and family movie night.  This year things are different.  Mrs Profke and I were contacted by the Gold Coast mayor to consider the fireworks in light of recent and current bushfire events.  It is clear that the responsible thing to do is not include fireworks this year and we have replaced this with a laser light show.  

Busy times ahead

There are just 10 school days remaining for 2019 and it is certainly going to be a busy time ahead as we celebrate the year completed and prepare for the next year.

The calendar at a glance:

Week 39

• Monday 2 December
  • Prep 2020 student orientation

• Tuesday 3
  • Prep 2020 student orientation
  • Year 5 surf safety (Group 1)
  • P&C meeting

• Wednesday 4
  • Prep 2020 student orientation
  • Year 5 surf safety (Group 2)
  • Alliance debating competition (FINALS) at Coomera Rivers

• Thursday 5
  • Prep 2020 student orientation
  • RI Concert

• Friday 6
  • Prep 2020 student orientation
  • Annual Sports Awards assembly (Years 5&6)
  • New families BBQ after school
  • Christmas concert
  • Outdoor movie night

Jobs for families

• Prepare uniforms for PLUS sales next week
• Finalise all 2019 school accounts

Week 40

• Monday 9
  • Swimming fun day (Years 3&4)
  • High school transition day (Year 6)

• Tuesday 10
  • Swimming fun day (Years 5&6)
  • Report cards available on QParents

• Wednesday 11
  • Junior school awards assembly (Prep - Year 2)
  • Report cards emailed home

• Thursday 12
  • Senior school awards ceremony (Years 3-5)
  • Year 6 graduation ceremony (Sharks function centre)

• Friday 13
  • Last day of school for 2019
  • Free dress day (Sell uniforms to PLUS)
  • RED day at the cafe (cash only day)
  • Year 6 day at Wet n Wild

2020 classes

Teachers will email families on Thursday 23 January, welcoming your child to their class for 2020.  The Privacy Act prevents the school from sending a list to families.  

Book drop off and meet the new teacher

The school will be open on Friday morning 24 January so families can drop in to the school to meet the 2020 teachers, find the new classrooms and drop off book packs.  This is designed to make the first day of school much simpler for you.  

School sores are about

Please keep an eye out for cases of school sores.  They are highly contagious and need to be treated with antibiotics.  Students who have cases of impetigo cannot attend school until 24 hours of appropriate antibiotics have been completed.  School sores on exposed skin need to be covered.  Wash hands well and often!

I have included below a copy of Queensland Health's Time Out poster.  

Enjoy your weekend

Kind regards

Vic

Congratulations to the following students who continue to impress their teachers with excellence.  A Student Excellence Award in Week 8 of Term 4 shows that these students are determined to leave a lasting impression for their teachers by finishing strong.

Wednesday evening was our final round of debating heats for the Coomera Alliance Debating competition. This was the second debating opportunity for our Team B groups which meant they could reflect and act on the feedback they received in their Week 4 debate. The improvement in confidence was impressive.

Our Year 4's came up against Coomera Springs, successfully arguing that boxing should be banned. They convinced the audience that boxing is a barbaric sport and had no place in the sporting world. Our Year 5 group actually have two Team B teams in the competition (Team 1 & 2) just to make it a little confusing. Their topic this week was that 'Honesty is the best policy.' While Team 1 argued that a little white lie never hurt anyone, Team B argued for the topic, explaining how one small lie can lead to a tangled web of lies that reflects poor character. We were up against Norfolk Village and Coomera State School for these two debates and it was our Team 1 that walked away convincing everyone that sometimes honesty is not always the best policy.

Our Year 6's debated against the topic that we should prohibit gambling advertisements arguing that we should always gamble responsibly but it's gambling companies that contribute positively to communities. Coomera State School were a strong team and some great arguments were presented on both sides of this topic but our Year 6 students walked away with another win under their belt.

Next week all 3 of our teams have made it into the grand final. An absolute impressive effort. The challenge is on as our teams only have 6 days to prepare. Here's the draw - where do you sit with these topics?

Year 4
Topic: That teachers can be replaced by computers
Affirmative: Coomera Springs
Negative: Coomera Rivers

Year 5
Topic: That boys have it better than girls
Affirmative: Norfolk Village
Negative: Coomera Rivers

Year 6
Topic: That freedom of speech is a fallacy
Affirmative: Coomera Rivers
Negative: Pimpama State School

Best of luck to our debaters and coaches.

The annual Time to Shine concerts were held Thursday evening to very captivated and appreciative audience. The junior concert started proceedings and the performances from the Prep to Year 2 students in choirs, bands and dance troupes were very pleasing.  The talent of students was quite amazing. The senior groups showed just how much their musical abilities have matured across the year. The quality of sound was very impressive and this year I believe that we set an new personal best standard of performance this year.

While each act was incredible in its own right, the standout for me was the quality of MC leadership across the two concerts. Both Tiana and Sienna were naturals with their dialogue, directions and musical quizzes.

It truly was a great event!

On Friday, Coomera Rivers hosted the final Cluster Chess competition of the school year.  79 students from 4 schools participated in 8 rounds of chess. They were Coomera Rivers, Coomera Springs, Highland Reserve and Pimpama State School.  As always, everyone who came along was very well-mannered, played with etiquette and play to high standard of chess.

Coomera Rivers placed well in the final standings and we should be very proud of our achievement.

Junior winner - Winter 1B
Senior winner - Keagan 4K

This year, two Coomera Rivers students, Chloe and Armani, participated in the Chinese writing contest. There were 208 entries from 49 schools and we were delighted with the entries from the girls. Congratulations to Chloe on earning an encouragement award which is equivalent to a highly commended.

Students needed to complete two tasks. In both tasks they were assessed on their accuracy, neatness and appropriateness of the characters. Task A required writers to copy characters correctly and neatly. The second task, Task B, was a reconstruction of a sentence using Chinese characters.

Thank you to both girls for representing our school so well and thank you to Mrs Huang for her wonderful guidance.

Coomera Rivers cricket competition

Congratulations to the 5R Cricket Team who won the 2019 Coomera Rivers cricket competition.  It was a close game, but a big knock from Kade and some tidy bowling from Riley helped them get over the line.
Special mention to Dallin, Georgie, Hannah, Zharnae and Perry for assisting with games and umpiring.

• Bowler of the Tournament - Oscar 5W
• Batter of the Tournament - Kade 5R
• Fielder of the Tournament - Flynn 5K
• Player of the Tournament - Tess 6F

School swimming carnival

Year 3 & 4 - Monday 9 December
Year 5 & 6 - Tuesday 10 December
Venue:  It will be held at Coomera Anglican College swimming pool. $2 entry for spectators.  HATS must be worn to attend.

Interschool Sports Awards

On Friday 6 December we will award players with their premiership medallions as well as announcing players of the year in each respective sport at the inaugural CRSS ISS Awards. It begins at 8:30 in the hall. Parents and carers are welcome to attend.

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 are so lucky to be with our friends from Prep all the way to year six when we come to OSHC. It is important that we remember that some of our friends are younger than us, and some are older than us. We are all different in our own special way and this is what makes coming to OSHC fun and exciting.

Throughout this week, we have focused on respecting everyone, especially our friends and teachers when we are at before or after school care. Everyday we have the opportunity to participate in active play, challenges, puzzles, dress ups, quiet play and even sensory play if we would like to. While we love these options, we are learning to recognise that everyone has different interests and things they want to play or do. Sometimes it is frustrating if the person we are playing with doesn’t want to engage the same game as I do. However, we are developing into young people who are able to respect their opinion and let everyone make their own choices. Afterall, we can always come together again after we have both enjoyed our own activity!

Coomera Rivers Outside School Hours Care is now taking bookings for our Summer Vacation Program.  Vacation Care bookings are open to ALL primary school students including students that do NOT attend Coomera Rivers.  Vacation Care bookings are also open to our families that do NOT use the before and / or after school service.

There is no minimum number of days that you need to attend - just book for the days you need.  Bookings for primary school aged students are encouraged so please share with friends and family that may be looking for an exceptional school holiday care option.

The details of the upcoming program are attached - the program document also includes a ready reckoner that shows an estimation of families out of pocket expenses for our Vacation care days after your Centrelink CCS is applied. Please note that this is a guide only. CCS benefits vary, and benefits for multi-day bookings will depend on approved activity hours. Please contact our Service Director for a personalised quote.

For bookings or further enquiries please contact us:

Phone: 5596 8377
Mobile: 0455 968 377
Email: croshc@coomerariversss.eq.edu.au

Bookings are open now

As we near the end of the 2019 school year, it is time to start considering your before and after school care needs for 2020.

Booking requests are open now for and placements are limited and are filling fast!  Click here to enrol for BSC and/or ASC in 2020 and submit your booking request.  Booking offers for BSC and ASC in 2020 will begin being emailed to families in Week 9 (Monday 2 December 2019).  Families need to accept and confirm bookings offers within 48 hours to finalise the booking process.

Please find below a guide to completing the booking request for your convenience.

Please note - QikKids website is not optimised for use on mobile devices, including iPads and mobile phones, so the enrolment process will need to be completed on a computer.

Join us at our last P&C meeting fro 2019 to be held on Tuesday 3 December at 6:00pm.  If you have an agenda item please email the Secretary with the details by no later than 9:00am Monday 2 December.  

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.

Would you like to sell your no longer required school uniforms but need them right up until the last day?  Well we have the solution!

Friday 13 December - the last day of school - will be a NO GOLD COIN Free Dress Day!

This gives families the opportunity to get together all their laundered, no longer required uniforms and drop them into school on the last day for processing.

When dropping your uniforms off please ensure:

• You leave adequate time to complete the necessary paperwork when dropping off (or, please email us and request a form so you can fill it out before you come)
• Have your bank account details on you. We are unable to process any uniforms if we have not received bank details.
• You can drop off your uniforms to the back of Corporate Services from 8am on Friday 13 December through until 2pm.

Uniforms will be processed in order of receipt and, whilst every effort will be made to process all uniforms on the day, please understand that processing may not be finalised until the end of the first week of school holidays.

At the end the school year we need to turn off all of our fridges and freezes so to clear all remaining stocks, we hold an annual Red Day Sale at the cafe.

Items are sold at cost or lower.  We only use CASH on this day.

These sales are available for students to purchase at 1st and 2nd break on Friday or until stock runs out.

Tickets on sale now!

Tickets in our annual Christmas Hamper Raffle are now open for sale on Flexischools and close on Wednesday 4 December at 4:00pm.

The lucky winners will be announced at our Christmas concert on Friday 6 December.

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 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 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.

Supported by the Google Women Techmakers program, and the Griffith University School of Engineering, we will be presenting a full day series of mini workshops, for students from years 4-6, and years 7-9. These mini workshops will feature four different, hands-on activities, representative of the four most prominent engineering fields.  And our girls are invited.

The day itself will be competition-based in a round-robin style, and the girls will be encouraged to work in teams to complete the challenge tasks. These tasks include:

• Building the strongest bridge or most stable tower, to learn about statics and structural design
• Constructing a rubber band car, to learn about energy transformations
• Following circuitry design, to learn how electricity flows
• Programming a robot to exit a maze, to learn basic algorithmic design through trials

The details of the event are as follows:

• Date: Thursday 23rd January 2020
• Time: 9am - 3pm
• Who: Grades 4-6 female students 2020
• Where: Griffith University Gold Coast Campus

As of the start of Term 1 in 2020, the Surfside afternoon school buses will display a new school number which will be different to the morning and current afternoon school numbers.  We advise all students and parents to check the Surfside School website for updates before Term 1 starts in 2020.