Term 1

Please note that activity dates and times may change

School Office hours

Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

I am getting back into the swing of school life once more after enjoying a wonderful long service leave break across the first three weeks of this term.  Thank you sincerely to my Deputies for replacing me so capably and to the team of staff who acted as Deputies across this time as well.  I returned to a school in full swing and great spirits.

Conversations with students

From time to time I am asked by parents that they be present when staff speak with their child regarding an incident that may have happened at school.  Unfortunately, this is usually not possible for a range of reasons, both for privacy and timeliness.  It is important to know that conversations with students are treated as teaching opportunities.  Our focus remains on their well-being, their social learning and modelling respect.  We treat students as we would like our own children to be treated by their schools.  

We will always contact families for serious or extreme matters once we have determined what we believe to be the 'reality' of the situation (based on balance of probabilities).  We will usually phone parents in the first instance then arrange a follow up meeting if required.  It is also important to know that we remain non-judgemental in these instances.  

Our staff is incredible!

The number of activities that are on offer to our children before, during and after school is wonderful to see.  While our bands and strings groups have been preparing for a month of Eisteddfods, the Lego Club is up and running, the senior students are training for sport, Year 6 students played the staff in netball and running club is giving everyone the chance to get fitter.  Remember that everyone can join in with our running club.  Thank you sincerely to all of our staff who continue to contribute to our students.

Student protection

Like all parents, I was horrified with a news report this week of a case of someone being charged with over 1000 offences against children.  Our school, OSHC and P&C place student protection at the very top of our concern and complete a range of actions to increase the likelihood that this is maintained.  

• All staff undertake student protection training each year
• All school staff have criminal history checks completed
• All staff know how to report concerns regarding student protection
• All staff complete or update their first aid training each year
• All visitors to the school must comply with Blue Card requirements.  We have an officer at school who manages and monitors this.
• All children are offered personal safety education each year.  They learn about their bodies, touching (both good and inappropriate) and harm.  This extends into puberty and sex education in senior classes as well.  

There is no single strategy that prevents harm to children but when we build a culture of safety around our children, the likelihood of harm is reduced significantly.  

Should you have any safety concerns for your children, please contact the school.

School uniform blitz starts from Monday

Our school community developed the Student Dress Code when the school opened and each year, the standard is reviewed by both the School Council and the P&C.  Our students are required to follow the Student Dress Code each day and at enrolment, parents signed to agree that they would ensure that their children will wear correct and complete uniform each school day.  

Our weekly focus will be:

• Week 5 - Jewellery and hair
• Week 6 - Correct socks
• Week 7 - Correct shoes
• Week 8 - Hats

Jewellery and hair

Hair

Hair that touches the shoulders (or longer) needs to be worn back. 

• Girls need to use navy only OR navy & lime ribbons, bands etc. 
• Boys with long hair need it worn pulled back using hair colour bands.  This includes mullet style hair.

Contact your Deputy Principal if you would like special consideration made for your child

Year 4 camp

The Year 4 staff are putting the final touches to the camp to Tallebudgera next week.  I am sure that everyone will have an amazing time.  

AB Paterson public speaking competition

Year 4,5 and 6 students will be able to participate at the AB Paterson College public speaking competition.  I will send home notes with interested students next week.

Have you changed address?

Have you changed address this year?  Perhaps you have a new mobile phone number.  If this is the case, please make sure that you have updated these details at school.  Please contact Kylie Finch should you need to make any updates.

Lego Club has started

Thank you to our community for your kind donations of Lego. This has allowed us to start up Lego Club this term! Every Wednesday in the Cafe undercover area, students from Prep to Year 6 are welcome to join and build with Lego, before the school day begins. What a great way to start the day!

Have a great weekend

Kind regards

Vic

with Ms Waide

Congratulations to these students on their awesome achievements this fortnight.

Prep gallery:

with Ms Waide

Congratulations to these students on their brilliant achievements this fortnight.

Year 1 gallery:

with Mrs Gatti

Congratulations to these students on their outstanding achievements this fortnight.

Year 2 gallery:

Celebration of Learning 

2SH have been writing sizzling starts this term. We have worked hard this term to make our writing super exciting by starting with onomatopoeia words – SPLASH! BANG! BOOM! Last week we wrote about a rocket blasting into the air and created our own rockets! We then took photos of our rockets in the app ChatterPix and recorded our writing and it looked like the rocket was talking! 

with Mrs Gatti

Congratulations to these students on their sensational achievements this fortnight.

Year 3 gallery:

Celebration of Learning 

This week in 3M we have been practising our reading fluency by incorporating plays into our reading timetable. Students worked together in groups of 4 or 5 practising their lines about 20 times in order to perfect them. Their acting ability was to be commended. This group were doing a play called Perfect Parents whereby the students were bagging out parents (not real life) for all the little annoying things they do. It gave the class quite a laugh.  

with Mrs Gatti

Congratulations to these students on their superb achievements this fortnight.

Year 4 gallery:

Celebration of Learning

In HASS, the Year 4 have been identifying and describing how the environment supports the lives of people and other living things. Students created a freeze frame showing how our lives would be impacted if trees where gone. This HASS work also tied into one of our English writing activities where students wrote a persuasive paragraph on why we must stop cutting down trees. 

Students then went on to learn what sustainability is and why it is important.  They worked collaboratively in small expert groups to Identify and describe an environmental issue occurring around the world.  They then taught this information to three other peers and then their peers taught them about the environmental issue they became an expert in. 

In Science, Year Four students have been learning to understand the three different types of weathering and the difference between weathering and erosion. They created a weathering and erosion poster and participated in an experiment titled: What happens to rocks when we increase the amount of friction? 

with Mr Meijboom

Congratulations to these students on their terrific achievements this fortnight.

Year 5 gallery:

Touch games vs Rivermount

Well done to our boys and girls touch teams who played games against Rivermount, recently, at Coomera Rivers (and thank you to the parents who cheered our students on). Our students displayed great sportsmanship. The boys won 14-0 and the girls team won 13-0. Thank you also to Mr Burrows for training and coaching our Touch teams.

Year 5 Guest Speakers

Guest speakers visiting our school to speak with our Year 5 students, are inspiring them to be Good at Learning and Good Life. 5M students convinced their teacher, Mrs Morris, to clean up our school!

Soccer training on Friday mornings

This has now opened up for students in Years 3-5 with many Year 6 students assisting and also joining in. Congratulations to Kanha, our latest Subway award recipient, for not only showing off her talent but also for her enthusiasm and positive approach to training.

5B Celebration of Learning

Well done to 5B students who recently visited Mr Meijboom and shared their outstanding writing and advertisements.

with Mr Meijboom

Congratulations to these students on their wonderful achievements this fortnight.

Year 6 gallery:

Touch games vs Rivermount

Well done to our boys and girls touch teams who played games against Rivermount, recently, at Coomera Rivers (and thank you to the parents who cheered our students on). Our students displayed great sportsmanship. The boys won 14-0 and the girls team won 13-0. Thank you also to Mr Burrows for training and coaching our teams.

Year 6 Guest Speakers

Year 6 students continue to be inspired this term by our visiting guest speakers.

Representative Sport

Well done Zane

Congratulations to Zane who went to Harvey Bay at the start of term to compete at the State Cross Country Carnival. He raced against the best 6 runners from each Queensland region. Zane came 3rd (in the state) in the 1km run, and ran really well in the 3km challenge.

Congratulations to Zane, this is an outstanding achievement.

Congratulations Bailey

Bailey has had an excellent year on the footy field. She has been selected in the 12 Years Girls South Coast team who will head to Townsville in September to play against the best Rugby League girls in the state.

Coomera Rivers is very proud of Bailey for this achievement.

A HUGE achievement for Scarlet

Scarlet will be heading to Darwin for the Australian School Sport Touch Championships where she will play in the Queensland team. This is the highest level of touch in school sport, a huge achievement for Scarlet, and a great return for all the hard work she was been putting in. Good luck, Scarlet.

Inter-school Sport

Well done to all of our Inter-school sports teams who had their first day of competition on Tuesday.   All reports indicate that our school performed really well over all four sports. There are still another 2 competition days to go with opportunities to represent our school again.  

Touch football

Our Senior Boys and Senior Girls hosted Rivermount College for some touch footy friendlies in Week 3, in preparation for all of our upcoming touch football tournaments.  Both teams performed well, with the girls winning 13-0, and the boys winning 14-0.  Bot more importantly, they played with magnificent sportsmanship and teamwork.  Well done to our players and coaching staff and thank you to Rivermount for their great competition.

AFL Regional Cup

Our Senior Girls AFL participated in the Regional Cup, the 1st and 2nd progressing to the State Cup. We started strong, beating Lindisfarne, but unfortunately went down in the remaining 3 games. Well done to our girls, who represented us with great pride and team spirit.

The Australian Government has established the School Student Broadband Initiative (SSBI) to provide free home internet for 1 year for up to 30,000 unconnected families across Australia with school aged students. The Queensland Department of Education is partnering with the National Broadband Network (NBN) Co External link to implement this initiative in Queensland state schools.

To be eligible for the SSBI, a family must:

• have a child living at home that is enrolled in an Australian school in 2023
• not have an active internet service at home. Having a mobile internet service does not affect eligibility
• be referred by a nominating organisation
• agree to the child/children having access to a device at home and the skills to use the internet safely or be supervised when using the internet
• live in a premises that can access the NBN via a standard connection – this will be checked by NBN Co.

You can nominate here

Our online Father's Day stall is now open!

To order you can visit School24 to view our range of Father’s Day presents 

Our stock is limited so get in quick to make sure you secure your awesome gifts.

Orders close on Tuesday 29 August at 4:00pm if not sold out prior.

We would like to offer our Prep students the chance to create their own little masterpiece as a souvenir of their first year at school.

While saved artwork on paper can tear and fade, children’s art that is turned into any one of the products listed on the below flyer can be enjoyed for many years.  And they make a great Christmas gift!

The items on the below flyer are available to purchase now through School24.

Please find below the important dates in relation to this opportunity:

• Orders open: Now via School24
• Orders close: Friday 23 August at 4pm
• Templates completed in class: Wed 28 August - Tues 3 September
• Orders delivered: Friday 15 November

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

Orders now open

Each year we offer our graduating class the chance to purchase a signature bear as a memento of their time at Coomera Rivers.

The signature bears are available to order now via School24 with orders closing on Friday 23 August at 4pm. If you do require a deadline extension you MUST email the P&C prior to the deadline to request one.

Once the deadline has past, orders will then be arranged and personalised (with class of 2024 school logo) and will arrive in time to be distributed to class late in Term 4 with students offered the opportunity to have their bears signed by their peers and teachers before bringing them home.

If you require more information please email the P&C.