ANZAC Service and March

Last Friday we held a whole school remembrance service for all families and students in the school  hall. A huge thank you to Mrs Conway for her organisation and planning prior to the day. A highlight for me were the unique wreaths created by the students and speeches from various children including some from the lower grades. I was most impressed with the respectful behaviour shown by all and active participation from all students. A special thank you to the students in the school choir. You were amazing! This year we were fortunate to come together as a community to reflect and pay our respects at dawn services and community school march. I believe we had close to 100 students attend the march on Sunday which is outstanding. Check out the school Facebook page to view the gallery of photos. Looking forward this school event returning each year and such an important and special event for us.

Acting ARD Term 2

Graham Foster the Assistant Regional Director assigned to our school will be taking long service leave for this term. Toni Robinson will be the acting replacement. Toni has been a principal on the Gold Coast for the last 11 years at Tallebudgera SS and Elanora SS.  Previously she was the principal of Vincent SS and deputy at The Willows SS and Kirwan High in Townsville. We welcome Toni back to North Queensland and are looking forward to working with her this term and sharing the current work in our school.

School priority Writing in Term 2

This term has been a very busy and an exciting time already for students and staff. We have collated our first level of achievement collection for the year and will use this as our base line data. This term teachers will be choosing marker students to track and provide feedback around specific goals aligned to writing as improving writing is a whole school focus. The North Queensland region has selected effective moderation practices around writing as a priority which aligns nicely to the direction we are focusing on. This week teachers and leaders from Bowen state School, Merinda State School and Queen’s beach State school met in staff meeting time to moderate and view writing samples across the three schools. We are committed as a community to ensure that all students move forward in their learning and that individual feedback sets our children up for the next steps in their learning. Valuable opportunities to reflect on teaching strengthens our staff capacity to be great teachers and this is truly the most important space to invest.

Looking forward to sharing more great stories around the teaching and learning this term. Until next fortnight have a great couple of weeks.