GOONDI STATE SCHOOL 78 Maple Street, Goondi Q 4860

Ph: 07 40 780 444 Student Absence Line: 07 40780466 Email: principal@goondiss.eq.edu.au

Web Address: www.goondiss.eq.edu.au Uniform Shop: www.goondissuniforms.com.au

NEWSLETTER

UPFRONT Dear Parents and Carers, As we come to the end of one of the most chal-lenging periods in memory, we are now making plans for the end of the 2020 school year! As mentioned in our last newsletter, we have already begun discussions about our Awards Night where we will have the opportunity to recognise those students who have exhibited academic excel-lence throughout the year at Goondi. This year, Awards Night will look different due to the Government guidelines in place for COVID-19. We will hold our awards ceremony for stu-dents in Years P-5 at a special assembly during the day on December 8

th. Unfortunately, we are

unable to invite guests to the event as we must adhere to the guidelines. A reminder, as stated in our last newsletter, the Year 6 awards will still take place on the evening of the penultimate day of school, December 8

th.

We will be running this as a COVID-safe event and therefore guests will be limited to 2 per stu-dent. In order to do this, the event will take place outside and we will require a QR code to be scanned by guests which will be monitored by school staff. Access to the school will be through one designated point. The students will still be able to have their leavers’ dinner at Roscoe’s, who also have a COVID safe plan. In the event of bad weather, our back-up plan will be to hold the ceremony for 1 class at a time. This would be in the hall, before joining the stu-dents together for the dinner. As we draw nearer to the event, we will send out further information to those involved. Once again, I thank our com-munity for their understanding as we adhere to the guidelines and am fully aware of the mixed feelings we all have about the guidelines set out and the situation of the virus here in FNQ. How-ever, we must adhere to Government directives. At this time of the year we commence our prepa-rations for the planning and organisation of clas-ses for the following year. Please help us to be as accurate as possible and minimise any chang-es at the start of next year by letting the office know if you are moving next year and are antici-pating not returning to Goondi in 2021. We will be engaged with staffing and class build-ing process from now, until well into the first few weeks of 2021. Preparation and planning is de-signed to limit any changes and adjustments to classes. May we ask that if you are aware of families who intend enrolling at Goondi next year in all year levels, please ask them to contact our office staff to obtain enrolment packages.

11th November 2020

Over the next few weeks our school leaders for 2021 will be selected. I have spoken to all of our Year 5 students about what it takes to be a student leader and the skills and qualities that this im-portant role demands. These conversations are also currently being conducted by our Year 5 teachers. Students in Year 5 who are hopeful of a position on the student council for 2021 are cur-rently writing their applications which will be pre-sented to the cohort in Week 8. I look forward to seeing this process once again produce some excellent school leaders here at Goondi State School. Regards, Peter Begemann Principal TERM 4 CALENDAR School Events New end of term date - Wednesday Dec 9

th

P&C Events Mon 16

th Nov – P&C Meeting

Extra-Curricula Events Thurs 12

th & Fri 13

th Nov – Year 6 ‘Plant Out’ ex-

cursion SWIMMING Swimming instruction was completed for the term last Friday. Our students have made some good progress over the past two weeks. Feedback from our staff indicates that there were good levels of ability and an improving skill from the groups. You may already be aware that the swimming in-struction program is only for two weeks with most students only taking part in 5 sessions. We all know that it takes a much longer time than this to develop competent swimmers. We encourage you to continue the great start that has been provided by enrolling your child in swim-ming lessons at the pool or taking them to the pool and teaching them the basics. As we say each year, we live in a tropical aquatic environment where we often take advantage of swimming pools, freshwater creeks, swimming holes and the beach. It is imperative that children growing up in the Innisfail district are taught to swim.

Kurbaan Narayan

Tamati Isla

Rose Kastiel

Isireli Salina

Tazmin Sienna

Noorpreet Kiran

Peyton Christian

Tishani Abhi (Italian)

SCHOOL NEWS Continued PARKING/PICK UP A reminder that we ask that all parents obey the traffic and parking rules to ensure the safety of our students and other members of our school community. Please:

Do not double park

or park on footpaths or

driveways. This is an

extremely unsafe prac-

tice that hampers driv-

er visibility and puts the lives of students walking

to and from school at risk.

Use the 5 minute parking bays appropriately.

These parking bays are designated for parents to

collect their child from the pick-up area and then

leave. Parents intending to spend more than 5

minutes at the school should use the other park-

ing bays.

Refrain from having your child cross the road

at any point other than the supervised crossing

point.

ENROLMENTS for 2021 As you know, we have already begun to plan for classes in 2021. It is a great help if we know who will be enrolled at Goondi State School next year. If you are leaving the district, or if your child will be attending a different school next year we ask that you contact the office. This will be of great assistance to us as we build classes for next year. It will also assist us with the transfer of stu-dent records when your child enrols at their new school. Once again, we ask that if you know of anyone who is intending to enrol their child at Goondi State School in 2021, please ask them to contact the school and complete an expression of interest enrolment form. Our school is enrolment managed. This means that students residing within the school’s catch-ment can be enrolled once proof of residency is provided by the parents or carers. However, students outside the school’s catch-ment area can still be enrolled provided there are vacancies. The principal also has to retain a number of va-cancies in anticipation of in-catchment students which may enrol throughout the course of the 2021 school year. P&C MEETING The next general meeting of the P&C will be held on Monday 16

th November in our school library

commencing at 5:30 pm. All parents are welcome to attend.

BEFORE SCHOOL SUPERVISION A reminder that we are unable to provide supervi-sion for students before 8:00am and students

should not arrive at school before this time. Su-pervision is provided in the hall for all students from 8:00am. All students arriving to school at this time are to go directly to the hall.

Isabella Cohen

Jasleen Karina

Isabella Alahni-Skyy

Kaylee Lila (Italian)

Patrick Meleah

Allariah Piper

Samuel Trayzeke

James Addison

Community News

Let's teach our kids road safety

From 15 to 22 November, it is National Road Safety Week- a time to wear a yellow ribbon and remind our students how to be safe on and around roads. It is so important to teach our stu-dents how to travel safety to and from school each day but we need your help. Please encour-age your child to practice safe behaviours around roads. Our School Crossing Supervisors have some great tips to share on road safety:

always STOP, LOOK, LISTEN and THINK before crossing a road

wait for the School Crossing Supervisor to signal it is safe to cross

before crossing as a pedestrian (zebra) crossing, wait for all cars to stop

at pedestrian traffic lights wait for the ‘green man’ or the green WALK sign and never cross when they can see a ‘red man’ or the red DON’T WALK sign.

We also encourage you get involved by wearing a yellow ribbon and committing to road safety by:

Explaining traffic signs and signals with your child

Driving slow around schools and remaining attentive

Looking out for children and school crossing supervisors entering the road

Making sure all of your passengers are wearing a seatbelt. The safety of our students is our highest priority and together we can build a safer school commu-nity.

For more information view the school travel op-tions on the Transport and Main Roads website.

CLASSROOM CAPERS

Prep Week 6 and 7 are busy weeks here in Prep. We are completing our writing assessment task, an information report about snakes. Seeing Roxanne, the snake, at Daradgee was a highlight for many Prep students and we are looking for-ward to reading lots of fantastic reports. We are also busily working on our Science assessment task, which requires students to make a wind chime out of recycled waterproof materials. In Letterland we are learning about the boot and foot twins. They make the sound ‘oo’ (in boot and foot). In Maths we are reviewing our knowledge of teen numbers, practising our addition facts and comparing collections. Please continue to practise sight words daily with your child. Some students are very close to getting their special 100 sight word certificate on assembly. Regards, Clancy, Amanda and Jeanette and Sue and Anita

Year 1 Our focus sound last week was le. Magic ‘e’ shoots sparks on to Lucy Lamplight and turns her into a magic candle. Magic ‘e’ then becomes the candlestick handle. This week we are focusing on words that we tend to misspell in our daily writing. In Writing this week we are trying to convince our classmates that Healthy Food is better than Junk Food. This will be our last week to practice writing a persuasive text as next week it’s the students time to shine and write a persua-sive text all by themselves. In Maths we are adding different amounts of coins, practising addition and subtraction facts, revising half past and o’clock times and working with the Calendar. Just a reminder that next week will be testing week. Getting a good night sleep and a nutritious breakfast each morning will help your child concentrate better during this testing period. Have a great week! Hayley, Leigh and Fiona.

Year 2 We are already over half-way through an excellent term! In English we have been doing an excellent job on our persua-sive writing. We have been adding details to reasons and add-ing in some rhetorical questions. For Maths we are consolidating problem solving and revising maths concepts learnt this term, including number patterns and graphing. In HASS we are continuing exploring places of significance. We are discovering why they are important and should be pro-tected. Finally, in Science we are looking at how water is a very im-portant resource and what the consequences would be if we didn’t have any left. All our best, Miss Mollenhagen, Mrs Hollywood, Mrs Heard and Mrs Spataro.

Year 2/3 & 3 We’ve had a great time in and out of the classroom this last fortnight! We enjoyed a week of swimming lessons, and it was wonderful to watch the huge improvements students made in the pool in such a short time. If possible, please con-tinue this with visits to the town pool or one of the many beau-tiful creeks and beaches in our area, so students can main-tain what they’ve learned and improve even further. From this week we’re completing various assessments to show how much we’ve learned and grown this year. It’s vital that students are getting plenty of sleep and eating a healthy breakfast each morning to ensure they are prepared to do their best. Our classrooms have smelled so sweet as in Year 3 Science we’ve investigated how heat affects the viscosity of a liquid - honey! In Technology we are about to start building our pinball ma-chines, and can’t wait to see what the students come up with. In HASS we are exploring democracy, and have been work-ing together to come up with solutions to issues we’ve identi-fied. Melanie Worth, Janelle Wirth and Lizette Austin.

Year 4 We are past the halfway mark of Term 4! Students have been working hard during mid-term testing and teachers can now begin assessing the data in preparation for report cards coming home in Week 10. In other news, swimming was a success with many of the students passing their levels and enjoying the Friday Fun Day on the slides. Also, our Cairns Aquarium excursion was a blast with highlights including the underwater tunnel, croco-dile talk and the touch and feel tank. It was such a valuable learning experience and a real highlight of Year 4. Just ask your child about the barramundi’s life cycle! Back at school, we are beginning to paint our underwater scenes on canvas in Art using many of the photos from the Cairns Aquarium as inspiration. We look forward to gifting them as Christmas pre-sents later this year. On another note, with the increased heat during this time of the year please ensure your child brings a water bottle to school each day to keep hydrated with minimal interruptions to learning. Finally, a reminder that attendance is of the upmost importance during the final weeks at school, so lets maintain 95% or above! Thanks Kath, Lisa and Rhonda.

Year 5 With less than 5 weeks to go, we are heading towards the business end of the year. It is vital that students eat healthy food and get plenty of sleep at night in preparation for the upcoming Week 7 & 8 testing and assessment period. Students continue to work hard in English to improve their historical imaginative recount writing skills in preparation for this term’s Eureka Stockade writing assessment. Students have been putting themselves in the shoes of our early min-ers and striking it rich or feeling the despair of dashed hopes and shattered dreams. In Maths, students have been learning about solving fraction equations with unknowns, calculating volume and data repre-sentations. Revising Maths knowledge and skills learnt in class as part of students’ homework is beneficial for test preparation and academic success. Design Technology has provided opportunities for students to delve into experimenting with different types of clocks for this term’s unit: Tick Tock - Let’s make a Clock. Please ensure your child brings a water bottle to school. Warm regards, Marica, Rebecca, Emily & Kerry.

CLASSROOM CAPERS

Italian Italian classes in Years 5 and 6 at Goondi State School are pro-moting students’ knowledge of the Italian language by consoli-dating their speaking, writing and listening skills with known and new words, phrases and sentences. Year 5 students are presenting scripted role plays in Italian in groups of 3. They are using nouns and first, second and third-person pronouns with verbs in questions and sentences. Year 6 students are using their knowledge of Italian nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to examine an example of school life in Italy. Both year levels are learning songs to enhance their pronunciation, confidence and engagement in the language. The bookwork standard shown in their exercise books is pleas-ing. Feedback and assistance is given to students regularly. Continue encouraging your child to speak Italian with you and discuss what they are learning. Arrivederci (Goodbye) Signora Lazzarini

Year 6 Week 6 is here! Perhaps the most notable session for the week was online PAT testing which was well received by the year 6 cohort and preferred to paper testing. How environmentally friendly considering that for our excursion this Thursday and Friday we are taking part in identification, propagating of and plant-ing trees! The very matter that paper comes from. The ex-cursion teams are busy developing their team name and dying their bandanas/flags. In maths we have been extending our number and algebra concepts of fractions by working out the discounts on selling price. It is showing how important it is to know ALL of the times tables as most maths concepts we learn involve them. So keep practicing. In English the focus topics for writing are ‘Cyberbullying’ so please help your child discuss ideas on this topic. Many students after reading ‘Black Snake’ have decided that Ned Kelly is either a hero, victim or villain already. In Science we explored reversible and irreversible changes to materials for example baking a cake, burning wood and composting. We wish we could have conducted an experi-ment on cooking corn kernels to see the irreversible change resulting in popcorn. Our business plans are coming along steadily with students completing a business name, logo and park name. Also there have been many map drawings of their parks with icons and research into other nature parks. Many people have completed their budget to receive their million dollars! So the nature park development begins for them. Congratulations to those selected in the league tag team. This is an exciting sporting opportunity to participate in. Thank you kindly for your support, Rachel, Aaron and Rhonda

Library News Junior classes have enjoyed reading Tilly by Jane Godwin and Anna Walker. It was shortlisted by the Chil-dren’s Book Council of Australia this year. Tilly finds a secret place to hide her precious treasures but when the house is renovated something unex-pected happens and Tilly cannot find the words to tell anyone about her problem. Year 4 students listened to Searching for Cicadas this

week which was also shortlisted by the CBCA. This inspired a great discussion about cicadas and the different species found in Australia. The children shall be keenly looking for the empty nymph cas-es which are often discovered on trees at school. If you are interested in the CBCA 2020 winners, click on the link and watch the video. All titles are available for reservation! https://youtu.be/exhgUxGp-Y8

After attending Crick-et trials in Ingham last month, Karina has been selected for the 10-12yr girls Cricket team. This is the first ever com-bined Peninsula and NQ Schools team to be formed consisting of 12 girls from Atherton to Ayr. They will be competing in the Queensland School Sport State Champi-onships in Bunda-berg from 22-25 No-vember. Well done Karina!

Reminder If your child is absent from school, we have a dedicated ab-sence line to call, as our main office line can be extremely busy in the mornings. Please call 40 780 466 and leave a message stating students name, class and reason for absence. These messages will be checked before our ‘Unexplained Absence’ SMS is sent to parents/guardians. This is our preferred method of reporting absences.

NAIDOC Week This week we had Joseph Drahm visit our students to show them the Didgeridoo, the breathing techniques involved and how they are made. The differ-ent sounds that can be produced are incredible. Here are some of our Indigenous Leaders posing with Joseph.