Coomera Rivers State School eNewsletter

Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

It is always busy at our school - even on the weekends. The newsletter this week is once again filled with some wonderful celebrations, achievements and important plans. Read on...

Free dress day (Friday 20 March)

We are joining forces with schools from all over Australia next Friday when we acknowledge Bullying - No Way! day. This is a national day of action against bullying and violence. I encourage parents to visit the website to learn more about what bullying is and isn't and ways that you can teach and support your child.

Our free dress day will cost a gold coin donation and all proceeds will go to our student council. So wear orange (or just free dress) next Friday!

Parent teacher interview bookings are open

Interview info at a glance:

Dates:

Monday 23 March (2:50pm - 7:00pm)
Tuesday 24 March (2:50pm - 5:00pm)

Venue:

School Hall

How to register:

Appointments can be made on-line. Registering is simple.

Click HERE for direct log in
Register your identity for interviews by following the prompts
Then select your child’s teacher and the appropriate time from the available list. Once you select a time it will be locked out. A confirmation email will be sent to you

Bookings close on Thursday 18 March at 6:00pm.

On the day:

Have your questions prepared
Be early for your interview
Finish on time so the next interview can begin promptly
Your child should attend with you

If teachers are away on interview day, you will receive an automated email. Teachers will contact you later to make an alternate plan to be completed as soon as possible.

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Traffic do's and don'ts at school

In order for the morning drop off and afternoon collection to be smooth and safe, I need every motorist to do their part. Cranky drivers make poor decisions and these could be disastrous for our children.

Never cut into the Kiss n Go line. Join the end of the line and wait your turn too. This applies to all cars going into the main car park of the staff car park.
Keep moving forward in the Kiss n Go line. The best place to collect your children is from the covered shed at the end of the Kiss n Go lane. This is where the supervision for safety is.
There is one Kiss n Go lane and one car park area. If you want to wait in your car, use the Kiss n Go and leave the car park for parking.
Do not leave the car in the Kiss n Go line. Help your children where necessary but never leave your vehicle unattended.

School photos next week

Make sure that you check out your child's photo schedule next week. You will find the schedule on class newsletters and on Facebook. The photo program runs over three days - 17, 18 and 19 March.

Disco

We tussled today with the decision around the disco in what is always a difficult choice to make. The primary concern for anything we do must be around student safety and well-being. The rain this week and the forecast for more this evening meant that we opted to not go ahead with the event. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this decision may have caused.

I am cooking up a sausage sizzle on Monday lunchtime so bring along $1 to buy yours. Only cash on the day can be accepted. It will be a good idea to bring a lunch as well just in case we sell out!

Hygiene at school starts at home

With the possible spread of some nasty bugs and viruses - especially the Coronavirus - we are focusing at school on regular and strong personal hygiene standards. Did you know that:

All of our classrooms have tissues and bins. Please teach your children how to use tissues. The bins are emptied every day.
All of our classrooms and bathrooms have soap dispensers. They get a lot of use so they do run out from time to time. That is why we check the content levels twice each day.
All of our classrooms also have hand sanitiser and we encourage children to use it.
My weekly video message to all of our students will explain the best way to wash hands. You can help by teaching your children good hygiene habits at home.

Year 1 excursion

Year 1 students and teachers had a fantastic time on their excursion to the Jacobs Well Environmental Education Centre. They had a fun day of learning in the mangroves and ponds, classifying and grouping living things - just like scientists!

Using podcasts

6K were introduced to Podcasting as an independent literacy activity this week. Podcasting goes beyond just passive listening. It provides information in a fun and entertaining way (thus, increasing student engagement). It extends student learning with critical links between content areas and allows students to visualise their learning. To engage at a deeper level, students completed a graphic organiser to demonstrate their new learning.

Year 4 students Design ~ Create ~ Share

This term, students in Year 4 have been using Keynote to create visualisations of their class novel. The ‘Shapes’ in Keynote make it easy for all students to have success in this task and create work that they are proud of.

Students have also been using PicCollage to create #booksnaps to demonstrate their understanding of texts read in class and for homework. They have also started creating Vocab Snaps of their STRIVE words. These are where we develop vocabulary.

ChatterPix has been an engaging way for students to record short clips of themselves reading. Once uploaded to Seesaw, these videos are a great way for teachers to monitor their reading fluency.

4K has recently started a Global Kindness collaboration project using Flipgrid.

4C has been working on using Green Screen to create a movie about ‘The Learning Pit’. Students were given a script, required to learn their line fluently, and then filmed their section. When these are ready, families will be invited to the ‘Movie Premiere’ where the students will show off their creation.

Please watch for...

School sores. We have had at least one confirmed case of impetigo (School Sores) reported to the school. These are very contagious so please follow the exclusion requirements shown on the poster below.

Queensland_Health_Time_Out_Poster.pdf

Queensland_Health_Time_Out_Poster _pdf 685.46 KB

Kind regards

Vic

Well done to everyone who has earned an excellence award this week. These are very hard to earn and take a great deal of persistence and grit to achieve.

The Year 1 students have been busy learning how to code with Scratch Jr. Each week, students are introduced to new coding blocks that have different functions. They have to use these blocks in their coding to move their characters. Year 1 students have picked up the coding quite quickly and enjoy coding to give directions up, down, forward and backwards, make their characters do somersaults, flips and record noises.

The photos below are of students working on their coding and some screenshots of their coding in the coding bar. Please ask your child to show you their other coding work in Scratch Jr on their iPad.

70 students from across the local cluster of schools met today to compete in the Term 1 cluster chess tournament. We had players of all levels of experience from Prep to Year 6 compete in a friendly and supportive tournament. It was lovely to watch the children interacting with new friends.

Congratulations to:

Jason (Senior champion)
Taylor (Junior champion)
Leo C (Arbiter's choice for best etiquette)

Thank you to the coaches and Gardner Chess for coordinating the tournament.

Music In Year 4

Music in year 4 is always a treat for parents as students begin learning what is commonly referred to as the instrument of torture, otherwise known as the (dreaded!) recorder!! Students, however are always excited to learn how to play this beautiful instrument. So far we have been learning how to breathe gently into the instrument - we NEVER blow as that’s what hurts our eardrums!! - as well as holding the instrument and using our fingers to make notes. We’ve also had a blast playing the game Staff Wars (costs $1.50 from the App Store) which helps to reinforce notes on the staff.

2020 Production - Cinderella and Rockerfella

Today we met with a very large group of year 5 and 6 students who are interested in being involved in this year’s school production. Audition packs were handed out and students can only audition if they return an EOI to Mrs Blyth. If your child missed the meeting, please ensure they get an EOI from Mrs Blyth (eblyt9@eq.edu.au) as auditions will be taking place in weeks 8 and 9!

Busking at the Cafe

A reminder that our busking at the cafe will take place in two weeks! Junior Band, Year 1/2 Choir and Year 3/4 Choir will perform on Tuesday, 24th March, Senior Band and Year 5/6 Choir will perform on Wednesday 25th March while Beginner/Senior Strings will perform on Thursday 26th March. Each busking session will commence at 2:10pm make sure you’re there early to score a seat!

Broadwater District Rep Teams

AFL: Mason and Flynn made it to the second round of the Broadwater District AFL trials conducted on Thursday this week. Congratulations Flynn for being selected in the Broadwater team.

Rugby League: Si’u, Koby, Eru, Verco, Maison and Noah were invited back to the second round of Broadwater District rugby league trials to be conducted Monday. We wish them every success.

Netball: Kapreyce, Symphony, Kaysiyah, Ataahua, Mia and Maia trialled for the Broadwater District netball team Thursday. Ataahua and Mia were successful in making the second round.

Hockey: Spencer and Trey trialled for the Broadwater District Hockey team. Both were successful.

Soccer: Boys (2008 0r 2009) interested in trialling for the Broadwater District Soccer, we have school trials on Monday, 23 March.

Cross Country

The Coomera Rivers Cross Country isn't until Week 1 of Term 2 but keen runners need to come to Running Club to learn how you can practise running the X-Country track.

Inter-school Sport

Students in Years 5 and 6 are invited to trial for an inter-school sports team. The teams will play a season against other schools from Broadwater District. The first fixtures are on Monday 25 May. There are four inter-school sports on offer:

Rugby League (mixed),
Soccer (mixed),
Touch Football (girls) and
Netball (girls).

We do also have an AFL team but they play in a different competition. There will be a meeting later this week for all interested students to give out more information.

Fitness Club

Wet weather has meant that we haven’t been able to conduct much training. We managed to get sessions in on Tuesday and Friday. Our champion skippers on Friday were Alyna and Judd with Alyna taking the overall award.

In the Nerang Forest

Last Saturday, our Coomera Rivers Crusaders met just before 6:00am at bottom of the Nerang Forest for our 2nd training session. Our goal was to work on our strength, endurance and to encourage our partners to keep pushing. Everyone gave it their best effort and really pushed themselves.

Some of our students ran just under 10km in 1.5 hours - very impressive considering the steep, rocky and slippery terrain. Our teachers were very impressed with how well our students performed - their effort, determination and teamwork. Just like Mt Warning, there were slips and falls, but they got straight back up and kept going. The attitude we want to see!

Thank you very much to our families, past students and teachers who gave up their time support our CRSS Crusaders!

Research project introduced at OSHC

We have recently updated our homework plan and introduced an OSHC research project to the weekly schedule. In week 6 we started researching native Australian animals. Each year level had the task of finding out what animals are actually native to Australia and sharing facts about each of them.

We saw children working collaboratively in big groups, small groups, individually and in pairs. Educators reported that it was great to see the children put all their efforts into this research project. Children were excited to know that we were continuing to work on the research project over the coming weeks.

We learned some really great facts about many native Australian animals. The top three were kangaroos, dingoes and koalas. Some children chose to write down their facts, while others chose to make a slide show and present this to the group. We also saw some children making a collage of all the different native Australian animals and some took screen shots on their iPads to send them to the OSHC iPads and we spoke about them as a group.

By giving the children the opportunity to work individually or collaboratively on this project, we were able to promote the children’s agency and allow them to build on either their sense of independence or interpersonal skills. While we all worked on the same project, the students were able to use a range of resources and technologies to find the information, giving children the opportunity to express themselves in a medium that is most suitable to them.

Children's Health Queensland is running a vision screening program for Prep children in all Queensland schools. Envelopes containing further information and consent forms have been sent home this week with students. If you would like your child to participate in this free service please return the envelope with the consent form back to school by the 1st April. A registered nurse will visit the school in term 2 to provide this free screening. For any questions regarding the vision screening program please call 1800 687 372

The dental van is currently at Coomera Rivers and is offering free dental check ups for all students, even if you don’t qualify for the Child Dental Benefits Schedule! This means every student can have a free dental check up and all general dental treatment done in a facility conveniently located at our school, thanks to the Queensland Government. We are a service that only treats children, so we are accommodating to the extra time some children need.

The dental van is at our school until April 13 so book in now as appointment slots fill fast! Ring 1300 300 850 to book. Click here for more information.

Our Colour Explosion is coming....

There is nothing better than fun fundraising and what could be more fun than a Colour Explosion? This term, in conjunction with Australian Fundraising, we will be holding a Colour Explosion on Friday 27 March.

Last week, your children should have come home with a sponsorship and information booklet that outlines how the program works including how to set up your online fundraising platform and how to order your prizes! We have also attached below a Parent Information letter to get you started.

All profits from this event (and all P&C fundraising activities) will be invested back into classroom air-conditioning so please get behind this donation drive, share it with friends and family near and far!

Important dates:

Please find the important event details and deadlines below:

Fundraising start date: Today!
Fundraising deadline: 3pm Friday 20 March
Prize orders open: Monday 23 March
Colour Explosion event day: Friday 27 March
Prize orders close: Friday 3 April
Prize delivery: Early Term 2

Important info:

To be eligible for a reward (prize) and to take part in the Colour Explosion, each student must raise a minimum of $10 before the fundraising deadline and be registered online (even if doing paper based donations). Students participating will also receive a pair of Colour Explosion sunglasses and rainbow wrist band.
Raise $20 or more and students will also receive a rainbow head band!
If, for any reason at all, you would like to participate in the Colour Explosion but can NOT meet the registration or donation deadline, please email the P&C BEFORE the deadline and we will be able to assist.
Unfortunately, once the deadline has passed no further registrations or donations will be able to be accepted.

Good to know:

Whilst online fundraising is preferable, families that do not wish to do fundraising online do have the option of a paper based donation. Please refer to the sponsorship and information booklet for more details.
If choosing a paper based donation option, you still MUST register your child online
When setting up a student profile you will need to enter your child's full name for administration purposes however, when sharing the profile, only your child's first name will display online.
The highest fundraising class (per capita) per year level will win the chance to have a water balloon fight with Mr Graham (and the sector Deputy) and their classroom teacher.

On the day - Colour Explosion event day information:

Teachers will confirm what time your class will be participating in the Colour Explosion by no later than Tuesday 24 March.
Families are more than welcome to come along and cheer their children on!
Children participating in the event will need to bring along on the day white or lightish coloured old clothes to participate in, thongs (we participate in bare feet but use the thongs to transition from class to the oval) towel to dry off with and a garbage bag to bring the colour explosion clothes home in.

If you have any questions please contact the P&C. Happy fundraising!

PC_Colour_Explosion.pdf

PC_Colour_Explosion _pdf 1.42 MB

For just $20 you can buy three Ultimate Car Washes valued at $25 each. Total value $75!

Limited vouchers available. Orders will open at 4:00pm Monday 9 March via Flexischools. Hoppy’s Car Wash Pimpama is donating all proceeds from the sale of these vouchers to our P&C Association.

Terms and conditions apply: