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Welcome back
Welcome back to all our existing and new families to 2021. We enjoyed the connections made for all at the annual Meet and Greet BBQ. Children enjoyed meeting their class mates and teachers for the year. We have again received positive feedback from parents on the opportunity the morning provides and takes away the additional stress off dropping of resources to classrooms on the first day of school. It was great to welcome all of our families back into the school campus and grounds and see parents in our school once again. Children have settled in exceptionally well into all classrooms. Walking through each room I could see positive relationships being build and important time being spent on setting up classroom rules and expectations for the year. Our classrooms are very calm and positive with inviting spaces. Important artefacts such as the learning walls in the classrooms are ready to support the learning. I wish everyone the best of luck for a great 2021 and am looking forward to tracking and celebrating the growth of all our students this year.
Holiday infrastructure upgrades
During the holidays many projects occurred and have been completed on time and to a high standard. The roof replacement of two building at the front of the school have added greatly to the image of the school from the main front road. Solar panels now cover three roof spaces and will reduce the schools carbon footprint immensely. Can I thank Luke Brazil for his skilful completion of the school vegetable garden beds and additional time in labour donated to the school in completing this project. Additional external repainting of school building will occur at Easter. All these great projects have certainly added some shine to our school. We will continue to work hard this year with the school P&C and department to continue to upgrade the facilities for our students.
2021 School priorities
You will see driving past that our school sign is official advertising our whole school priorities for 2021. “Promoting High Quality Teaching in Reading and Writing across the Australian Curriculum through Intentional Collaboration, Stronger Alignment & Greater Precision”
Our data collection is pointing to a focus on writing and reading this year and what good first teaching around this looks like in the classrooms. This is the last year of actions taken from the school four year plan. Next year the school community will undertake a review to set the actions for the next four years. Staff are already engaging in the domains of the national school improvement tool to support their teaching and the direction for our school.
Day 8 and Day 20
It was great to welcome approximately 25 new students enrol to Bowen State School this year. We are currently tracking our student numbers in order to collect this data on the 8th and 20th day of this term. We will keep our families up to date of any impacts or changes to class ect in this time. 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
Welcome Back from the DP
Welcome to all of our new and returning families to Bowen State School for 2021. Our teachers and students have been working exceptionally hard for the first two weeks getting back into learning and establishing new classroom routines. After visiting every classroom, I'm pleased to say that every student has settled in well and are truly engaged in their work. An excellent start to the year!
With 2020 now a thing of the past, 2021 is set to be a cracker of a year with many schooling events back on the calendar including school camps and sporting carnivals. Be sure to keep an eye out for future school newsletters and our school’s Facebook page to ensure you are up to date with what’s going on at Bowen State School.
Attendance
Like last year, our 2021 school-wide attendance target is 93% and with hopefully a less disruptive year in stall for us that means achieving this target is possible. There are lots of great incentives for students to come to school including 100% attendance wrist bands awarded every 5 weeks, and classroom prizes for collective efforts.
If you are struggling to get your children to school for whatever reason, please call the school and we can offer assistance. You’ll be surprised at what we can do!
Student Leadership
Applications have now closed for our 2021 School House, Environmental and Cultural Captains. Thank you to all of those Year 6 Students who put in the time and effort to apply for these positions. We had an overwhelming number of students put their hand up and apply, which is fantastic.
Applications are now being taken through the selection process and will be finalised over the next 2 weeks. Students and families will find out results on our special Leadership Awards Parade to be held on Friday the 19th of February at 9am in the school hall. Please join us and our special guests to celebrate our newly appointed school captains for 2021.
Jeremy Callaghan
Deputy Principal
P M
During this early part of the term, we are establishing routines in Prep and familiarizing children with our school’s code of behavior. Children are also learning phonemic awareness – the ability to hear and identify sounds in words. They are becoming familiar with the SSP (our phonics program) monsters which will assist them in the early stages of blending sounds to make words. Another big focus is on oral language – encouraging children to express themselves as well as comprehend what is being said/read to them. This is done through reading stories, drawing and writing to encourage children to express themselves, participating in discussions and fostering the social interactions that occur during indoor play.
1 W/P
1W/P have established some classroom rules together. Here we are demonstrating whole body listening because one of our rules is “Listen when others are talking”.
2 M/G
We've had a top start to the school year, sinking our teeth into creative Science and Technology lessons. Students explored the forces of push and pull and demonstrated their understanding of these forces flying their personalised paper planes and working with toy cars.
It's been great getting to know new students and families to the class - a warm welcome to everyone from the 2MG teachers - Mrs Moore and Mrs Gallagher.
4 A/M
Students in 4AM are enjoying reading their Unit 1, English novel The Twits. Author Roald Dahl’s character descriptions paint a picture of two of the most disgusting people you could ever imagine. Our learning is focussed on writing an engaging and entertaining new chapter for this novel. To improve our punctuation we have daily Kung Fu practice with short sharp moves that remind us to add capital letters, full stops and commas. We can’t wait to read their humorous new chapters.
5H
Students are reading and interpreting the fantasy novel, The Forest of Silence’ by Emily Rodda. They are demonstrating the ability to analyse the development of the main character through a written response.
Sports News
Hello to the Bowen State School Community. I have thoroughly enjoyed my first week at Bowen State School, the brilliant kids and awesome staff. I look forward to meeting the wider community as time goes by and if you ever have any questions in regards to sport please don’t hesitate to get in contact with me.
It has been a busy start to the sporting year behind the scenes setting different programs up and preparing for our sub district trials.
Sub District Trials
Sub District Trials will be taking place throughout the year and the appropriate year levels will receive notices home in regards to these trials. These are competitive trials where the goal is to try and find the most skilled students from each sport. The sports that students can trial for are, swimming, soccer boys and girls, netball, rugby league, cross country, touch boys and girls, tennis, softball, athletics, cricket. I have also just received information about golf trials and if there’s any students who are interested in possibly trialling for AFL football please let me know ASAP.
Sports Excellence Program
This term we will be setting up a sporting excellence program for students in Grade 5 and 6 who are passionate about their sport and want to challenge themselves in a competitive, hard working environment. The sport we are going to be focusing on will be basketball. Students have been informed about this program and those interested will receive a notice early next week. The aim is to involve more students from different year levels as the year progresses.
Swimming
This term the Grade 1, 2, 3 and 4 students will be completing their annual swimming lesson. This is a very important component of the HPE program and I am hoping that we will have all students in attendance. There will be a notice coming home in the coming days in regards to swimming. Lessons will begin in week 4, Tuesday 16th February. We would really appreciate any parent helpers for swimming so if you are able to help out please let me or the school know. You can email me on lrdun2@eq.edu.au. Please note you must hold a Blue Card to be able to help.
Cross Country – Running Club
Next Monday 8th February we will be having our first running club from 8am. There has been a lot of interest for these sessions which is fantastic. Cross Country will be happening at the end of term and this is a great way for students to increase their fitness. Running Club is available for all students from Grade 3, 4, 5 and 6. Students should have brought a notice home. If you need a new notice either contact the office or myself. Parent helpers would also be great for these sessions. If you can help out once again email me lrdun2@eq.edu.au or contact me at school. You do require a Blue Card to be able to help.
Have a wonderful week everyone and as I say any questions about any of the above or any sport in general please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Leigh Dunn
HPE Teacher
We Need You
What we want to achieve
Sustained, respectful and inclusive engagement– means having a voice in the outcomes for our students.
At Bowen State School we are committed to improve better results for our children.
The Bowen State School wants to work alongside our children and their families. The purpose of this is to learn from you parents so we know what our students need:
• how to create and maintain respectful, high quality and culturally appropriate behaviours and ways of learning and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities
• invite and empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities to inform, collaborate with, and co-design initiatives with the department
• support departmental staff to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, students, families, stakeholders and communities
• position these engagement activities as a critical means of improving education outcomes and services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and
communities.
