3rd March 2020 Issue 6

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

You are invited to attend

We are looking forward to your company. Please take the time to be part of this meet and greet, show and explain school event. We are committed to empowering our connections with community, family and parents/carers. Using our 2019 School Opinion Survey (SOS) data to provide some guidance around strategic thinking and planning, I acknowledge that this is a great opportunity to provide useful feedback about teaching and learning, your child’s curriculum. (SOS parent satisfaction was 89.5%) as well as to listen to questions and grow stronger understanding around the ‘extra’ and interesting activities that are on offer to every student. Bring along other family members, older or younger siblings, grandparents. We take great pride in how we build community. Kind regards Mandy

PHOTOCOPY PAPER

Parents please remember if buying paper to bring to school please purchase

REFLEX PAPER It is available for around $5/ream at lots of suppliers

including Woolworths, Big W, or your local post office. Thank you

Parents are asked to contact the school and

provide an explanation each day their child

is absent from school.

This can be done in person by

visiting the school, via phone call or by leav-

ing a message on the 24hr Student Absence

Line 46986860. We thank you for your

cooperation with this.

DATES TO REMEMBER

All Aboard Greet and Meet Afternoon Wednesday 4th March 2.30-4.00pm

R.I Performance - Quiz Worxs Monday 9th March 11.45am

Year 5 Students Amaroo Wednesday 11th March

Harmony Day - free dress day : wear orange no donation needed Tuesday 17th March

National Day Against Bullying Friday 20th March

School Photo Day Tuesday 24th March

Show Holiday Thursday 26th March

School Cross Country Friday 27th March

Year 6 Amaroo Tuesday 28th April

Gowrie State School P&C values

consultation and community voice. The

meeting agenda and minutes are

uploaded and can be found on the school

website www.gowriess.eq.edu.au

EFTPOS To assist parents, the school has EFTPOS facilities for fast, efficient pay-ment of school fees & other payments. No cash re-quired, $10 min transaction.

Voluntary Contributions 2020

Thank you to the 27 families who have paid the voluntary contributions and for the continued support of our

school.

Prep $50 Years 1 to 6 $15 per child

*Respect * Resilience * Relationships * Rigour * Responsibility* all lead to a great * REPUTATION *

The work being undertaken with the Student Leadership team revolves around building the resilience of our students through active and positive relationships with students, staff, parents and community. It is part of a whole school approach and is certainly beyond the perimeters of student leadership as we believe that there are many other students across every classroom who contribute on a daily basis to valuing and giving towards a Gowrie caring learning environment.

Weekly Messages from our Student Leadership Team. We are proud of the responsible behaviour and care given by our students to-wards the continuing transformation of our school library. There are always inter-esting displays and the students have a voice and a hand in designing the various learning spaces. We found these two looking for a book or two.

Cultural Officers: Charlotte and Vincent The National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence (NDA) will be held on Friday 20 March 2020. Australian schools are invited to register and get involved. Our school has registered and we will be involved in this very important day. The theme for 2020 is Take Action Together. Bullying is never ok. It's hurtful and can impact someone for a long time. The Student Leadership team will be playing a big part in this school event. All of the Gowrie State School Student Leaders have stepped up. We need every student to step up and be responsible for their words and actions. Bullying is never ok. Student Council Coordinators: Emily and Hannah Keep an eye out for the new display in the Office coming soon.. As Student Council co-ordinators we were asked to design the display that visitors will see when they come into the Administration building. The theme is Student Voice: Involve us. Involve stu-dents. We are strong learners. This is an exciting project for student voice and only one of the projects that will be done by many of the student leaders.

Our positive behaviour focus for this week Respect: Student Leadership Team Our school expectations are Be safe. Be respectful. Be a learner. Respect looks like this at our school: The School Captains and School Vice-Captains will be putting a display on the notice board near the Prep classroom. It will tell us what respect looks like at our school.

The Gowrie 5 R’s: Resilience Rigour Respect Responsibility Relationships

Congratulations to Melody, Cooper, Alice, Liam, Lexi

and Zoe on receiving

Principals Awards this week.

It is a wonderful thing to see. I have noticed that each of these students know that it is important to engage and connect with their learning. It is inspiring to also see that each of these students are giving time and value to respecting the time and support given by their class teacher, teacher aide, the other students in their class and their family. The learning behaviours of each of these students tell us that they know they are cared for by people at our school, feel connected to their learning tasks and are building a healthy motivation to grow their learning achievement.

We have notified Infrastructure Services of a shared concern about car parking at peak times, road safety and all of us taking responsibility for abiding by respectful protocols and legal obligations. This concern has been heard and our Infrastructure Advisor, Department of Education has indicated that the matter has been referred to the regional Infrastructure Manager who will take the matter to the School Traffic Working Group. Adding an extra layer of clarity.

ClassDojo is a communication app for the classroom. It connects teachers, parents, and students who use it to share photos, videos, and messages through the school day. ClassDojo's policy states that it does not allow minors to post content to share publicly, and that no student’s account, profile, or Student Story is made available or visible to the public through ClassDojo Their policy indicates that only the student, the student’s parents, and the student’s teachers or school leaders can see the student’s profile and Student Story. At the moment we are evaluating the privacy and safety protocols associated with the use of ClassDojo to ensure a clear understanding of best practice.

Eating times during our school day. Honestly, when I am doing playground duty, specifically eating time supervision, I wonder at the wonderful lunches, morning tea and snack items that are packed in student's lunchboxes. There is a high level of commitment to ‘nude food’ packaging. Nude Food is food without excess packaging. This reduces the amount of 'stuff' that needs to go in bins to be sent to landfill. Durable, reusable containers are very popular in packaging at our school. There is minimal plastic wrapping. We do not encourage tins with pull tops as they present as a dangerous item to have around large groups of children and in the bins. Please be mindful of this. We have heard your voice around students not eating enough of the packed lunch and morning tea food items. We asked the students the reasons behind their actions of not eating the sent food. Majority said that they are not overly hungry at morning tea because they filled up at fruit snack time (10 am or there abouts). For the next three weeks we are trialing: Every class has snack time around mid-morning, we will encourage students to eat some of their morning tea items (usually more substantial with cheese, crackers, yoghurts, sandwiches, vegetable sticks). It is a sit down time, within the class context with teacher monitoring. At First break, which is an hour after snack break, the students usually move to outside eating areas (P-2 and 3-6 so large numbers) the students can eat the snack items and more (if they choose to do so). Eating time is a social time. We are finding significant food waste, students rushing to eat so they can go out to play, or eating very slowly because they are full from snack time and then have reduced play time. There are large groups of students to monitor for healthy eating behaviours. We will monitor this proposal for three weeks and get back to you. Thank you to many parents/carers who have supported our observations with your feedback.

Many new signs have gone up around the school.

MOBILE DENTAL CLINIC NEWS The Mobile Dental Clinic 42A is at Gowrie State School and we have sent registration forms to all families. If you have filled in the registration form and have sent it back, we are phoning those families now. If you still want to fill out a registration form could you please complete the form and return it to the school office as soon as possible. All families are eligible to come to the Dental Van for dental treatment, the only criteria, you must have a green or blue Medicare card. Please contact Dental Van if you have any questions. The Dental Van is open each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 8.30am until 4.00pm and closed Thursday and Friday. Our phone number is 0408 767 779 Appointments will be made with parents/carers so they can attend with their child/children at times that are suitable with the Dental Van and parent. For your Dental appointments you need to sign into the school office and bring your Medicare card. If there are any concerns please contact the Dental Van. Thank you Karen and Deborah Dental Staff

Hi Everyone, My name is Justin and I will be starting as the new Director of the Gowrie State School – Outside School Hours Care. I have a Diploma in Early Childhood and have worked in various roles throughout my career in child care, I have mainly worked in the OSHC industry since 2008 with a large company, across the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast regions. I have been privileged enough to work across multiple services, experiencing some of the best centres on the coast, and learning their ideas and styles. My wife and son and I have recently moved to Toowoomba and are still learning where everything is! I am very excited to meet each and everyone one of you, as my family starts this new chapter in beautiful Toowoomba. Please feel free to come and say hi!

BSC opening time: 6:30am - $13/ breakfast included

ASC closing time: 600pm - $19/ afternoon tea included

Vacation Care – 6:30am to 6:00pm - $56/child/day

Incursions and Excursions - extra

Direct debit is the only accepted method of payment using Debit Success.

We are now licensed to take 60 children so spaces will always be available. Casual bookings are available. Unwanted bookings for Before and After School Care must be cancelled 24hrs prior to booing so that we can staff accordingly. Vacation Care cancellations require 7 days notice. Failure to cancel bookings in time will result in being charged for that session. For further information please contact us on 46 307 710 or alternatively you can email bookings and cancellations to oshcadministration@gowiress.eq.edu.au If your call is not answered please leave a message. We routinely check our messages.

Inner Downs Boys and Girls Softball Trials - 4th March 3.30-4.30pm Pittsworth State School Nominations due 2nd March Inner Downs Girls Basketball Trials - 10th March 3.45-5.15pm Highfields State School Basketball Courts Nominations due 6th March Inner Downs Boys Basketball Trials - 11th March 3.45-5.15pm Highfields State School Basketball Courts Nominations due 6th March Inner Downs Netball Trials - 16th March under 11’s 2.00-3.30 under 12’s 3.30-5.00pm Nominations due 11th March Inner Downs Boys and Girls Touch Football Trials - 25th March 3.30 5.00pm Highfields Sport and Recreation Park. Nominations Due 20th March Inner Downs Hockey Trials - 1st April 3.30- 4.30 pm Highfields State Secondary College Nominations due 27th March Inner Downs Boys and Girls Tennis Trials - 6th May 9.30am - 1.30pm Pittsworth Tennis Club Nominations due 30th April (See Mr Hohn if you wish to nominate)

Artist of the Week: Week 6 Fantastic Fireworks

Snip the edges of a cardboard tube or small box to create a stamp and make fantastic fireworks, fluffy

flowers and funny animals.

Criteria: Can use cardboard tubes, and a variety of small boxes (flaps removed) to create stamps.

Can use white, black or contrasting coloured papers.

Explore different paint colour combinations.

Can add (draw, paint or glue on) additional features ie stems, leaves, facial and body features etc..

Clever images and creative use of colours and additional features.