Our school is filled to the roof tops with opportunities for our children.  They must surely sleep very well at night from being so busy each day.  Just this week, we completed Harmony Day activities, held our first ever AIME BBQ for our indigenous families, completed the school photos, won three divisions at the cluster chess tournament,  attended the Future Schools conference in Melbourne, trained for the Kokoda schools challenge and more.  All of these are brought to you by your very own, very dedicated, school staff.  Read on into this issue of the newsletter for photos of recent events and information about coming events.    

There are a few events that are fast approaching. Make sure you have all the information you need.

• Parent-Teacher Interviews (25 & 26 March). 
• School cross-country (26 March)
  
  • What's your team? Your family is allocated to a sports house based on the surname of your oldest child. Eg Smith is Siganto house
    
    • Colman (A-E) Red
    • Foxwell (F-L) Blue
    • Pedley (M-R) Yellow
    • Siganto (S-Z) Green
• Colour Run (29 March)
  
  • Great wet, messy fun
  • This is the BIG P&C fundraiser so check the Colour Run news story to see what is involved.
• Year 6 camp (April 1-3)
• RI Easter Concert (Week 10)
• Prep Art Galleries (Week 10)
• Stem Olympiad (Week 10)
• Easter hat parade (Week 10)

Congratulations to the following students who received a Student Excellence Award this week.

The school cross-country is planned for Tuesday 26 March.  

Details:

• Normal school times apply for the day but we will be at the mercy of the event when it comes to break times.
• Children should wear their house colours for the day.  Please don't use hair colours or zinc creams as they will only be involved in the carnival for a session before they return for the announcement of the age champions and the champion house.
• All students are expected to compete for their house
• Students are to bring a drink bottle, clearly marked with their name on it.
• Sunscreen will be available in the house areas.
• Points scoring: 10-1 Points will be awarded to 1st through to 10th. All competitors earn a point for their house.
• Ribbons:  Ribbons will be awarded to 1st – 3rd at the recording area. The first 4 place-getters are eligible to attend the District Cross Country Carnival in the 10-12 year age groups.
• Please note:  Prep – Year 3 students will run in their year levels.  Older students will need to compete in their respective age groups.
• Parents and families are welcome to come along in their house colours to cheer on the teams.  

Program:

Courses:

There are 2 courses - a short course for the junior and a long course for the senior runners.

Colour Run registrations and donations have closed.  Thank you to our families for their support of our Colour Run.  With registrations and donations now closed we move into the organisation phase of the event day itself.

Families that have children participating in the Colour Run event next Friday will receive, from their class teacher, an email confirming participation, outlining what they need to bring on the day and what time they will on the course. This email will be sent to families by 3:00pm this Wednesday.  Please email your child's teacher if you have not received one.

If you have any questions about the colour run, please email the P&C at pandc@coomerariversss.eq.edu.au.  

Once again, thank you to our families for their support.  It is looking to be another amazing event.

Congratulations to everyone involved in the 2019 Harmony Day activities.  It was a fantastic day celebrating Australia's cultural diversity.  I was amazed to see the wide diversity that makes up our school community and am just so proud that we can celebrate this each day.  Students have been completing tasks in class across the week in the lead up to the event.  It was fun completing the people writing too.  Over 1300 people make up the HARMONY aerial banner shown below.  It was most impressive.  

Thank you to everyone for embracing the dress up day and special thanks must be extended to Ms Findlay, Miss Conroy and Mrs Dare for the incredible work they put into the planning of Harmony Day 2019.  Enjoy the photo gallery!

On Friday morning, the school Indigenous Champions, along with the team from AIME, hosted a BBQ breakfast for our Indigenous students and their families. This was a wonderful opportunity to continue to get to know our students, develop relationships with their families, and make connections with the community. Thank you also to our P&C for supporting this activity.  

Scroll through the gallery below.

Maths warm ups in Prep:  They made a number line, closed their eyes, Clifford is placed on a number and the child has to work out what the hidden number is.  Prep W and Mrs Walsh and Ms Nikki were really enjoying this.  This is a game you can play with a favourite toy and numbers written on paper.  Give it a go!

On Friday, Coomera Rivers hosted a Cluster Chess competition run by Gardiner Chess.  We were joined by Pimpama,  Coomera Springs and Highland Reserve State Schools. An important value of the Coomera Rivers Chess Club is player etiquette.  This was demonstrated by all our students throughout the day.  The competition was very tough, evidenced by the fact that every competitor encountered a loss at some point throughout the day.  Everyone should be proud of their effort we hope they all learned from their chess experience.

Congratulations to the age group champions:

• Junior Champion: Leo
• Intermediate Champion: Stella
• Senior Champion: Keagan

Well done and thank you to Mr Burrows and Ms Nic for leading our students.

Soccer:    Congratulations to Chloe for making the Broadwater District 12 Years Girls Soccer team! Good luck at your upcoming regional carnival.

Hockey:    Congratulations to Natahlia, Chloe, Spencer and Trey who will represent Coomera Rivers at the Broadwater District Hockey trials this week.

Running Club:    Our Running Club has expanded to four days a week this year (Tuesday - Friday).

Athlete of the Week:    Amity is the Coomera Rivers Athlete of the Week for Week 8. Amity is a strong long distance runner and told us she wants to improve her short distance running too. She has been down to nearly every session (4 days a week!) since it began in Week 3. Congratulations Amity on your dedication and hard work!

AFL:    Great to see our CRSS AFL team still training for their Schools Cup later on in the year.  Thanks to Mr Cope and Mr Longworth for volunteering their time to help train the kids.

Inter-school Sport:   In Term 2, Coomera Rivers will be participating in Semester 1 Inter-school Sport. The sports on offer are Soccer(mixed), Netball(girls), Touch(girls) and Rugby League (Boys). It will be open to Year 5 and Year 6.  Inter-school Sport season commences Week 6, Term 2.

Maths / Physical Exercise:   This week, 1J were exploring 'growing patterns' in Maths, they displayed their patterning skills with some relay races using coloured markers to represent their patterns. Well done 1J.

Diving to great heights:    Congratulations to Abbey on her achievements at the Queensland School Sports Diving Trials - her first major diving competition.

In the 4 dives she completed, she came 4th in the under 10’s, with a score of 75.25. Abbey was offered a spot to go to national competition later in the year. She is so excited and is prepared to put in the hard work over the next few months to further improve her already wonderful skills.

Passwords are not going away anytime soon. Our kids must learn basic password management skills for the devices, apps, sites and games they use.   

During our recent Cybersafety Presentations students were asked to go home and ask a trusted adult in their life to help them ensure they have strong passwords and check the profiles of their accounts.

• Teach your child how to create a strong password. Passwords should feature a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.
• Encourage the use of passwords for online accounts that differ from school, banking or email logins.
• Make sure they keep their passwords to themselves and have a routine for changing/updating them.

Effective Privacy

• Ask your child to regularly update their privacy settings.
• Make sure their profile is private and only accessible by people they know.
  Limit the personal details your child shares in online accounts. For example, remove identifying photos, full name, date of birth, home address and telephone numbers. Sharing these can lead to misuse of this information by others.
• Ask your child to use a cartoon avatar for their profile picture or share a photo that doesn’t show their face. 
• Encourage them to use an online nickname that doesn’t contain their full name or give away too much personal detail. 
• Teach them to protect their identity.

“BE QUICK - Limited spots available” 

Coomera Rivers State School is excited to offer two new after-school programs in Term 2 for students in Years 3-6 who are interested in design and technology. The two programs will run on separate days from 2.30pm - 3.30pm and will commence in Week 2.  

Year 5 & 6 : Tuesday afternoons from 2.30 - 3.30pm - $60.00 for the term *FULL*

STEAMIE : Inventing & Entrepreneurship with STEAM - (20 places only)

This Tuesday program is based on the $20 Boss Program.

$20 Boss participants move through a series of phases designed to promote critical and creative thinking. Within the Problem Space learners identify the problem they are aiming to solve through their social enterprises and the positive impact they are seeking to have in their local communities. The Solution Space is where learners design, prototype and test their innovative product or service ideas, in readiness for business trading. Students will be given a $20 budget to purchase their materials to create their product or service.

Years 3 & 4 : Thursday afternoons from 2.30 - 3.30pm - $60.00 for the term

This Thursday program has a LEGO Focus.  30 students only will choose one of the following groups to join.

1. LEGO Masterbuilder : Creative lego engineering challenges. Different challenge each week.

2. LEGO Robotics : Creative robotic design challenges using LEGO We-Do. Different challenge each week.

3. LEGO Animations : Creative stop motion animation. One term, one animation.

To register:

Go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dream-design-innovators-club-term-2-2019-tickets-56540501161

Use the password: CoomeraRivers

Select one program for your child

Please register using the name of your child and class (eg: Molly 5T) and use your own email address.

Parents will be invoiced $60 per participant after registration

Permission forms will be sent home via students to finalise registration

Please note: that the listed 'free' amount on the registration page is not accurate - this is simply the default price on this free version of Eventbrite

Numbers are strictly limited and payment is required before participation can be confirmed.

Materials will be purchased in advance so once the program has commenced, no refunds will be possible for non-attendance as we can't start new students part way through the programs.

The National Future Schools Expo which was held in Melbourne this week and brought together world-leading education experts. Ms Parker and Mrs Pinnington attended the two day conference exploring how to leverage technology to enrich and deepen learning experiences for children, while meeting curriculum outcomes and keeping school communities safe and productive. Thank you to both teachers for representing our school and community.  

And while in Melbourne, and to make the most of the visit, they also visited another Apple Distguished School.  The visit to Wonga Park Primary School, in the South East of Melbourne was extraordinary and although we saw many things similar to our school, there were a lot of exciting ideas they took away. A strong connection was made with the team there, and with further support from our friends at Apple, plans are already in place find opportunities to collaborate, share and learn with and from each other. 

     

Australia is home to some of the world’s most iconic and breathtaking natural landscapes and wildlife. But climate change is putting all this at risk.  To protect our unique species and their habitats, we need Australia to step up now and take stronger action on the promise we made at the 2015 Paris Agreement. The latest government data shows that Australia will miss its 2030 targets. We risk losing our beautiful natural heritage - forever.

On 8:30pm (local time) on Saturday night,  March 30,  millions of people all around the globe will switch off their lights to help our planet. We want our families to play their part in this too so plesae join Earth Hour 2019.

Plan 2

Our school is collecting your empty plastic water bottles and soft drink cans.  Not only will you be helping the environment but you will also be helping us raise valuable funds for our school. Please see the details on how you can get involved below.

From our Environment Warriors (Isabelle, Isabelle and Ava)

Each week we will provide families with an insight into our OSHC Service. This week the focus is on child-led challenges.

We are seeing children at OSHC create building challenges with their peers.  They are using a variety of construction resources available in the service, to create tall towers. This is an activity we have seen stretch over many sessions, and has engaged many children of all ages.  This is a fantastic opportunity for our older children to guide and support our younger children’s learning too.  This week's photo gallery shows some of the tower creations.

That very important day of the year is fast approaching and, with that in mind, our Mother’s Day stall vouchers are now on sale on Flexischools.

Purchase a voucher via Flexischools between now and the deadline of 4:00pm Wednesday 24 April and your child will then visit the stall with their class, during the week starting Monday 29 April.

There will be an amazing variety of gifts from which children can select that special gift for their mum.  We love watching the thought and consideration that children take when considering what to purchase for their mums and grandmas.

We will be holding the next Woolies breakfast on Wednesday 27 March  and this time the lucky recipients are Year 6.  Full details on the invitation below.  Thank you to Woolworths Coomera East for their ongoing support of this event and our school community.

ANZAC Day Community March registrations now open.  We would like to once again offer all our students the opportunity to represent our school in the Upper Coomera Community and School ANZAC Day parade on Thursday 25 April, 2019.  The atmosphere at this march is incredible and I know families feel a great sense of pride watching our school remember those who have given their all for Australia.  

Students are to wear their blue formal school uniform, including school hat.

The school assembles at Coomera School of the Arts, Gawler Place, Upper Coomera at 8.10am. This is when we organise our students into their lines.  The march through the street then commences at 9:00am and proceeds along Reserve Road onto Oxenford-Tamborine Road to the cenotaph.  A memorial service will be held at the cenotaph at Charlie’s Crossing Road, Upper Coomera at 9.30am.

The RSL provides mats and water for our students, however they have advised for students to bring extra water on the day.  Our school leaders will lay a wreath on behalf of the school community at the service.  We encourage all students to attend and support our school to have a notable presence at this significant community event.

Please click on https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/lestweforget to register your children to march with us this ANZAC Day.  Registrations close 4:00pm Tuesday 23 April.

Last chance to get your Term 2 VIP Car park raffle tickets.  The raffle to win the use of the VIP car park (located in the car park beside the hall) for Term 2 is now open on Flexischools and 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 2 on all school days and at all school events.  Raffle tickets are available through Flexischools now and close at 4:00pm Friday 29 March.

Thank you to everyone who gives a helping hand at school.  You really make a difference.

Prep Art Show:   We require a volunteer to collect donations for the Prep's Art Show between 2:00pm and 2:30pm on the following days:

• Monday 1st April
• Tuesday 2nd April
• Wednesday 3rd April
• Thursday 4th April

iCentre Book Covering:   Miss Katie has bags of books for book covering ready for collection from the iCentre.

Colour Run:   Tuesday 26 March we need some volunteers with lovely handwriting to assist with writing certificates for our participants from 9:00am.

If you are interested in assisting with any of the above opportunities please email volunteers@coomerariversss.eq.edu.au 

And remember, ALL volunteers will need to have completed the 2019 induction and registration process in order to be able to volunteer at the school, this of course includes excursions. So if you have not already done so, request an information package on how to become registered for 2019.

Have a great week

Kind Regards

Vic

Vic Graham

Principal