New Year 1 and 2 playground is open for business

On Thursday morning, just before first break, the announcement everyone was waiting for was made; our new junior playground is open. There was much anticipation during eating time and students’ lunches seemed to be eaten just that little bit faster to ensure they would be finished in time for play. The general discussion during eating was dominated by talk of the new play area. On the play bell, almost 300 pairs of young legs hit the oval and sprinted towards the slides to be one of the first to have a go. The honour of first slide went to our Year 6 Sports Captains who were given the opportunity before the break to find their House coloured slide, and give it a go. A couple of excited Year 1 students were also asked to join our Sports Captains at this time for a preview of the new area. By playtime, the playground was full of very excited and happy students who gave the new area an overwhelming thumbs up. Other year levels visited this playground in class time with their teachers so that they would not miss out on the excitement. I am extremely confident that all students love the new play area as I have been swamped with numerous appeals from students in other year levels to please put them back in Year 1 or 2 so they can play in this area each day. Thank you everyone for your patience during construction. There is a bit of new turf which will be roped off for the rest of term so it has an opportunity to become established and grow, but otherwise this area is now complete. This project was jointly funded by the school, our P&C and the Education Department. It has turned an eroding and desolate area of our school into a colourful and vibrant play area – thank you to everyone involved!

Carpark – how much is a child’s life worth?

Until last Friday, I honestly believed that everyone in our school community would do whatever it took to ensure the safety of our students. However, from what I witnessed last week, it appears that for many people (and there were many), students’ lives are not worth the little time it takes to follow some basic carpark safety rules. Friday morning, I was called out to our parent carpark because a child was nearly hit by a car. What I witnessed as I stood in the carpark was extremely disappointing and incomprehensible. Parents were stopping cars in the middle of the road ways and just letting students out on both sides of their car. While their cars blocked the road and dropped off students just anywhere, other cars tried to go around on the wrong side of the road, or themselves just let students out in the middle of the road where they were as the traffic was blocked. As a result, we had carpark chaos and students’ lives were at risk. Cars blocked the access way by stopping to make their own drop-off area, other cars moved onto the wrong side of the road to go around the illegal drop off vehicles, and even more just double parked permanently, waiting for an adult to return. In amongst this, children were being let out of vehicles just anywhere and were being encouraged to just weave their way between and around cars in the hope that fellow drivers would watch out for them. I had to call out to a student to stop and place myself in front of a car to prevent this child from being hit. The area in front of our hall IS NOT a drop off zone. What bemused me even more was when I looked over to the dedicated drop off area, it was empty. I wondered why would anyone choose to place children in danger when we have a purpose built area which was designed with student safety in mind. Are our lives really that busy that we need to compromise student safety? Driving into and using the designated drop off area is perhaps an extra 100m drive. At 20km/h this is approx. 3 minutes. For students walking in it is an extra 25m walk but all on a path with no cars. I also watched people enter and exit the school on foot alongside RPAC or in the middle of the admin road behind cars and crossing the driveway at a point which was not designed for pedestrians. Additionally, people appear to want to cross the cul-de-sac instead of walking around. You may feel safe, however the child who is alone and follows you is being put at great risk by your modelled behaviour. We can do better. Please stick to the paths and follow the parking rules. I opened this paragraph with the question; how much is a child’s life worth? I hope that the answer for us all is; ‘Much more than 3 mins of time or an extra 25m walk.’

School Council Nomination of Parent Rep.

As an Independent Public School, our School Council is responsible for guiding and shaping the strategic direction of our school. Recently, nominations have been sought from parents and carers for the parent/carer position on our School Council.

We only received one nomination and I am happy to announce that Mrs Sally Murray has been returned to our School Council. Sally has two children at our school in Years 2 and 5 and her nomination information included:

I have been privileged to sit on the School Council for the past two years and I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being able to support our wonderful school in this way.

My family have lived in Rochedale for 13 years now - and throughout this time we’ve developed a great network of friends and neighbours.  Rochedale State School is the absolute heart of our community, and the School Council is a great way for me to be able to give back. 

I have worked in State Government for 15 years both developing policy and in marketing and events. As a ‘big picture’ thinker and a bit of a data nerd, being the parent rep on the council is a great fit for my skillset.    

I would like to re-welcome Sally to our School Council and extend my appreciation to her for her willingness to continue to undertake this role.

Learner Profile: Attribute focus for the week – Thinker – Students should reflect on their term’s work, think of any improvement needed and set a new learning goal for next term. Students should share their learning goals with their teacher or ask their teacher for assistance to set their new learning goal.

Have a brilliant week.
Kind regards
Keith Graham
Principal

The Writing Process

Writing is a process that requires the brain to pull together many sub-components. Some of these sub-components would include…

• Text structure
• Paragraph structure
• Spelling
• Punctuation
• Sentence structure
• Language choices

At primary school, students are in the beginning stages of learning and investigating how to create all of these components. In the early years, students look at letter formation and their sounds and as they move into the middle school, sentence types and text types are explored and created. In the upper school, students become more critical with their writing and look at critiquing other authors and generating their own style of writing.

All of these aspects need to be taught and rehearsed. They do not become automatic straight away and for some students – this takes longer than others.  Some of the reasons students avoid writing include…

• They feel writing on paper is slow compared to technology
• They find it challenging to come up with ideas (ideation)
• They lose their line of thinking
• They are still building their knowledge of letters and sounds
• They feel anxious about the size of the task and find it hard to start
• They don’t feel as though it’s fun

We mustn’t forget the main reason for writing. Whether writing a list, writing a letter, writing a report or writing an email...they all have purpose. As a student, the purpose of writing must sometimes feel as though it’s to finish the activity or to get a good achievement on my report card…not really purposes reflecting real life scenarios.

As teachers and parents, one thing we can do to help motivate our students to write, is to provide real-world opportunities to create texts to share with an audience. You might like to ask your child to type an email to a relative, write a letter to your neighbour to say thanks or create a poem you can hang at the entry of your house.

As discussed earlier, writing is a tricky process – it’s not as straight forward as learning your timetables. Mentally, students develop skills over time and learn to automate these as they mature. The number one factor is motivation – creating a purpose for writing to ensure the reason we pick up the pencil is for a meaningful purpose, not always just for homework or school purposes.

Regards
Tom Grimson
Deputy Principal

Dear Parents/ Caregivers,

International Mindedness (IM) is a key characteristic weaving its way throughout every aspect of an International Baccalaureate World School. IM is focused on fostering children’s awareness not only of their immediate area – Brisbane and Australia, but also encouraging and fostering their awareness and appreciation for the world’s many different countries, cultures, customs, religions, histories, arts, landscapes and languages.

Through their exposure to and participation in world events, children slowly develop awareness of the many different aspects of our world. As they develop an awareness of the world, they begin to appreciate the many ways people express themselves, and how those aspects can be different and similar. They develop the building blocks that lay the foundations for the children to become open-minded, positive and active global citizens.

Some of the ways we at Rochedale State School promote International Mindedness include:

• our children learning about French or Mandarin languages and cultures,
• a display of flags in the library representing the countries some our families originate from and the many languages spoken within our school community,
• a display of flags from Commonwealth countries or those participating in the upcoming Olympics.
• the inclusion of books in different languages in our library,
• the inclusion of different resources from around the world in the children’s lessons,
• the local, nation and international focuses throughout the Programme of Inquiry,
• in their classroom inquires children have an opportunity to explore other countries and cultures,
• participation in fundraising through the Student Council activities (World Vision sponsor child in Kenya and for our new Smith Family child sponsor),
• celebration of Chinese New Year and French Bastille Day,
• world map/globes in each classroom,
• we fly the national flags of visitors to our school,
• Year 6 student’s exhibition topics often have a global perspective,
• a student closes the weekly parade in their home language.

Through simple family activities at home, you can also assist your children to develop their International Mindedness. You might choose to cook a meal from another country, or try a fruit or vegetable from another region in the world. You may find out about the flowers or animals that live in another country and compare them to those found in Australia. If there is a special family event coming up – How do they celebrate that event in another country? You may even like to share a story from another country.

Have a great week
Paul Kelly
PYP Co

Hi Rochedale State School community,

I’d like to share with you the topic of Patience that we covered with our Year 5/6 lunchtime SUPA club students last week. I seemed to have had extra lessons in it all week long. Patience is defined as the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious. There are many times when it feels like our ‘capacity’ has been put to the test. Patience has two friends called waiting and timing and they seem to go hand in hand when it comes to building character in our lives. Whether you are waiting for test results, a new job, a baby to be born, a house to move into, the daily commute to work and school, etc, etc, patience is needed. 

Patience is another lesson we can teach our children to be successful in. We can demonstrate the right way to respond and keep a positive attitude toward challenging situations. The truth is that though many things are fairly instant these days, the important and worthwhile things definitely take patience. If we are quick to get angry and impatient it makes the wait uncomfortable for everyone around us and never speeds up the process. It takes a humble, patient person to calm a situation. Being patient helps us to love our families, ourselves and our communities better. At RSS ‘Always our best’ is our motto, so today I encourage each of us from the youngest to the eldest to be patient, it is always the best option with the best outcome. 

Below is a link to some staying home holiday fun activity ideas from ‘Big Life Journal’.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U26PKLsQ-FpPrx3OUzDDkLqK27-fbDhG/view?usp=sharing

Kindest regards
Chappy Sue
RSS chaplain
sue-ellen.murphy@suchaplaincy.org.au | www.suqld.org.au

Welcome to Week 9 of Term 2!

Brain Teaser

Q. Who doesn't turn out the lights before bed?

A. A lighthouse keeper.

Congratulations to Cecelia L in 3B for figuring this one out.

Q. How many sides are there to a circle?

A. Two - the inside and outside.

Congratulations to Lakelan B in 4F for cracked this one.

Q. When the kid's jacket fell on the floor, why did it make such a loud noise?

A. The kid was still wearing it.

Congratulations to Serena Z in 3B for working this one out.

Captain Read It

Congratulations to our Captain Read It Winners from Weeks 8 of Term 2

Prep D           Walter F
1A                  Honor R
2C                  Hannah L
3A                  Ryan H
4P                  Lucas T
5A                   Alec G
6N                  Abdelah A

Have a great week!
Jackie and Lorraine

ABSENCE LINE 3340 8388 or

text 0427 890 693 (24 hours)

*******IT IS NOW A REQUIREMENT THAT ALL STUDENT ABSENCES BE REPORTED ON THE DAY OF THE ABSENCE TO THE SCHOOL OFFICE*******

To report a student absence, please call the absence line on 3340 8388 or text our SMS line on 0427 890 693.  These lines are both open 24 hours a day.

When recording an absence on either our phone line or SMS line, please state the following:

1. Your name
2. Student's name
3. Student's class
4. Reason for absence

Please speak clearly and slowly and help us with spelling of names when calling the phone line.

Please find attached school routes which will be impacted by changes from Monday 12 July 2021 Term 3

Translink have approved our School RSP (Route Service Plan) changes to school routes 4412-4465

The following changes have been made to these routes:

• 4412 AM This route arrives at Rochedale State School 6 minutes later at 8:30 am
• 4465 PM This route arrives at Rochedale State School 2 minutes later at 2:57 pm

Attached is the routes with new times & left and rights.

Information Flyers will be going out on affected routes starting Monday 14 June to advise students of these changes – these are attached.

Translink Journey Planner will be updated from Monday 28 June with these new routes.

Any queries please direct correspondence to our office via email info@clarkslogancity.com.au  where our customer service staff will assist you.

ROCHEDALE WILDCATS BASKETBALL CLUB INC.

We are looking for new players for under 7 mixed (5 or 6 in 2021) to 17 under boys and girls (16 or 17 in 2021) for the new season that starts in July.

we are holding a sign on day on

Monday 21 June from 3:30pm till 4:30pm at Rochedale High School gymnasium.

If your child is interested in playing basketball and you would like more details please send an email to

rochedalewildcatsbasketball@gmail.com