Teaching and learning

As we enter the end of our fifth week of the term I would like to thank our dedicated and committed staff for continuing the teaching and learning here at Bowen State School. Staff have been reflecting on the key work and what has made a lift for the students here at our school. During our Staff Meeting time and Year Level meetings we have collated all our evidence ready to share with the school reviewers in the upcoming full school review in Term 2. Our school budget has been finalised for the year, and classes have now been set. I would like to thank Erica our School BM for the hard work she has been undertaking to support the allocation of targeted funds in the budget this year.

Community support

I would like to thank families for supporting our school during a very difficult fortnight of COVID cases in our school. As per the daily table we have seen a massive decline leading me to believe we have had our spike and now are pleased to see the cases dropping significantly. Thank you to the staff and leadership team who had worked tirelessly to manage daily changes to staffing to ensure we could continue to deliver the curriculum smoothly. I am proud of the resilience in the students. They have demonstrated their love of being at school and hunger for the learning is inspiring.

With the reduction of restrictions starting after tomorrow we look forward to more whole school events such as playgroup, parade, reading hub, disco’s, camps and the removal of mask requirements. We will continue to ensure the additional cleaning occurs here at school and hand sanitiser and masks will still be available for staff and students if they wish to wear one. When the department releases the new guidelines we will communicate with families.

ARD Visit

Yesterday we hosted Helen McCullough for the first ARD visit for the year. We enjoyed meeting new staff and visiting the Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 classrooms. We shared our journey so far for the full school review and our resources and activities with staff to date. We saw calm, engaged students with welcoming classrooms and happy students. Helen was most impressed with the responses from the students about their learning and the alignment of whole school practices. We saw the confidence in the students to share where they are sitting in the unit of work and their next lift. Helen kindly linked into our virtual staff meeting to congratulate everyone on the visit. We look forward to the “next steps” for our school when we receive feedback on what she saw and heard.

School Grounds

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Relief Groundsman, Terry, for his hard work and commitment to get our school looking smart and tidy to start the year. Terry has been working hard on the internal gardens and ensuring the outside perimeters of the school are mowed and snipped regularly. The Gardening Club students have really appreciated the additional support to get the gardens going and a safe and clear space to prepare our vegies. The school is going to engage with a local tree lopping company to conduct a heavy prune of the larger shrubs and hedges enabling easier maintenance in the future.

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

Christien Payne
Principal

I believe in: Hard Work Honesty Transparency