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Community support
Thank you to our wonderful Bowen State families for supporting some of our recent whole school events. The Neon disco was a major fundraiser for the student council and well supported by the entire school. It was wonderful catching up with so many families and seeing the excitement throughout the evening. A highlight was certainly the juggling performance and can I congratulate the team of students, Mr Dunn and Mrs Conway for your support and planning leading up to the disco. Thank you to the P&C for coordinating the fundraising component and looking after the catering. Best hot chips ever! Over $2500 was raised on the night! Well done everyone!
Yarning circle update
Last week Pilcher Industries removed the last of the temp fence from the yarning circle space. We have much work to still complete however it is exciting to see the wharf piers and flag poles being utilised. A huge thank you to Jeff Pilcher and his team of builders who have been donating time and resources daily for over a week. We are so grateful for the amazing donation and commitment to Bowen State School for this unique and exciting project. The next phase will be art work to completed by local Juru artists and a new mural to be completed against the wall behind. Our signage will explain the history of the timber pillars and connection to the school and wharf. Protocols for the use of the yarning circle, cultural significance and thanking our extensive list of sponsors.
School security
Recently our school has been the target of senseless and selfish acts of vandalism and attempted forced entries. This targeted crime has been consistently occurring of late and the school is currently working with the Queensland Police Service and Education Queensland to counteract and brainstorm ways to prevent further attacks. Can I please ask families to be vigilant and report any suspicious behaviour seen on school grounds to the local police and or contact school watch on 13 17 88. Together we can do our best to monitor and report inappropriate behaviour around our school to try and deter this senseless behaviour. Thank you to staff and families who cleaned up the large mess left behind and giving up their time to ensure all our children had their classrooms ready for learning on the following day.
Looking forward to sharing more great stories around the teaching and learning this term. Until next fortnight have a great couple of weeks.
Attendance Trending Downwards
So far in Semester 2 our overall student attendance data hasn’t been great. At present our overall attendance rate is at 89.4%, which is almost 4% below our target of 93%. Compared to last year, at this stage of Semester 2 our attendance rate is exactly the same at 89.4%. This is good news because we managed to turn it around as the weather started to warm up and I know that we can turn it around again this year. Fingers crossed that we are through most of the illnesses for this year and students can start coming to school again every day.
Unexplained Absenteeism
Unfortunately, the number of students being away from school without notifying the office is increasing over the past few weeks. Please remember that it is vitally important that you let our school office know of your child’s whereabouts and reason for being away. If you do not let us know, our duty of care is to follow up on your child’s whereabouts and to eliminate the chance that your child was sent to school, but something happened on the way. As you can understand this is a difficult and stressful scenario, which nearly always ends up being a waste of our valuable time. Please call office to notify them if your child is not attending school.
PL
In HASS Prep L are learning about special places. We have been investigating features from different environments. On Tuesday we looked at what features may belong in a playground. We went down to our playground to investigate what features we could find. Once we came back to the classroom, we used a checklist to tick or cross what features we found.
1/2I
1/2I have been busy counting this term. We have been counting by ones, twos, fives and tens. We have also been placing numbers on number lines.
5B
As part of our Science unit we have been looking at light. This term we created light mazes where we used mirrors to reflect the light through a maze. We then changed the properties of the light by changing the colour of the light or by making a shadow on the maze exit. Students enjoyed making their light mazes and learning about the properties of light.
Year One recently received a visit from the Queensland Fire Service. We went through some ways to keep us safe from fires.
We learnt:
GET DOWN LOW AND GO, GO, GO!
GET OUT AND STAY OUT – DON’T GO BACK IN.
DON’T HIDE - SCREAM AND SHOUT ( so we can be found if there is a fire in our house)
STOP. DROP. ROLL. (cover your face with your hands)
CALL 000.
OUR HOUSE NEEDS TO HAVE SMOKE ALARMS
WHAT IS A GOOD FIRE AND BAD FIRE
We practised all of these ways to be safe and we had some homework – learn our address!
When the Fire Brigade Officers came back, we were lucky enough to be able to have a turn at the fire hose.
NQ Athletics Trials
Congratulations to our 6 athletes that competed at the NQ athletics carnival in Townsville on Tuesday. I was lucky enough to be there for the event and see many of our students compete. In very challenging, cold, wet conditions, they all did an amazing job and should be very proud of themselves. Congratulations to Kerry A, Emma S, Megan D-A, Charlee S, Taijanah N and LJay B.
Megan: 16th 100m, 6th 200m, 6th 800m, 4th High Jump, 13th Long Jump
Kerry: 6th 100m, 5th 200m
Emma: 19th 100m
Taijanah: 4th 800m
Charlee: 3rd 800m
LJay: 10th 100m, 17th 200m
Juggling
There is a separate write up on our juggling day and disco in this week’s newsletter but I just wanted to say how proud I am of this group of students who have worked so hard and given up so much time to make Friday possible. It was an incredibly successful day and considering juggling is a new thing to Bowen State School what a show it was!!
Boot Camp
Boot Camp continues to occur every Monday and Wednesday in the hall from 8am. We have had good numbers in attendance and it’s already showing how much fitter and stronger this group of students are becoming. If you are in grade 5 or 6 and would like to join in please get a notice from the office.
After School Basketball
After school basketball is coming to and end at the end of this term. The girls teams are in a 5 game series with the Lady Lakers currently leading the Bowen Suns 2 games to 1. The boys will start their 2 week final series next week. Keep an eye on Facebook for all of these details.
Our latest MVP’s for games played on the 1st September were Cody H, Emma S and Anthony C. Congratulations to these players.
GO Update
Staff at Bowen State are committed to high quality teaching practice.
Over the past two weeks another three of our staff trained as Classroom Profilers. Classroom Profiling training helps teachers to reflect on their practice of the 10 Essential Skills for Classroom Management. It upskills teachers in the use of the essential skills and provides a lens of increasing learning time and discussions with students through great classroom management practices. We are committed to providing high quality best practice teaching. Classroom profiling is best practice and backed up by research from Hattie, the Australian Professional Standards to teachers, Positive Behaviour for Learning and Staff and Student Wellbeing.
Check out the 10 Essential Skills for Classroom Management
Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)
Hi Team. Over the last couple of weeks the PBL team have had some Pop Up rewards for a trade of a gold gotcha. Students trade 10 blue gotchas (tickets or do jo points they receive for on task behaviours) for a gold gotcha. Students have been buying into sports and tug-of-war celebrations with gold gotchas. The years 5 and 6 receive their celebration opportunity this coming Thursday. We have our end our term rewards coming up in week 10, four gold gotchas to buy in.
Our focus for the next two weeks is:
Responsible: I follow adult instructions
PBL Achievers
Congratulations to our weekly PBL Achievers
Week 7 : Ryder, Ezra, Peter, William, Grace, Connor, Kaylee, Roman, April, Ada, Bryce, Sefton, Claire, Malachi, Reygan, Jamahal, Megan, Heidi
