Welcome to the halfway point of term

More importantly, this week also marks the end of quarantine for many families associated with the Indooroopilly COVID cluster. While this cluster has been centred in the western suburbs of Brisbane, it has impacted families within our Rochedale community. While the world is so different in many respects, we are striving to provide a consistent, supportive and predictable learning environment for our students; learning must go on. I would like to congratulate students and staff alike for the work they continue to do in our classrooms each day. Our expectations remain high as we know our students are capable of achieving great outcomes if given the right opportunities. I would like to take this opportunity to send my best wishes to all in our community and hope all of our families are keeping safe.

COVID restrictions

For now, I need to ask parents to continue to remain off site during pick up and drop off times and minimise their time on school site. Due to ongoing restrictions, our arrangements for last week will continue to remain in place for this week. Again, I sincerely thank you for your ongoing support and understanding.

The ongoing COVID restrictions have impacted some school activities. Interschool sport has been postponed for Term 3 and extra-curricular activities such as camps and excursions along with activities involving large groups of students such as Choir and Band have been placed on hold. The P&C disco scheduled for this Friday, unfortunately has also had to be called off. Other school activities such as Book Week (26 August – please see below), Junior Sports Day (2 September), Year 6 Exhibition (Week 8) and Student Led Conferences (Weeks 9 and 10) will also need to be re-modelled to fit into the existing COVID requirements of these dates. The requirements are always evolving so please understand that it is not possible to give a detailed plan today as to what these activities will look like in the future as the COVID rules can and do change. Some restrictions have already been relaxed and we are now able to welcome back itinerant teachers, instrumental music teachers (and begin small group lessons again), and student teachers. I am hopeful that after this weekend, some more relaxations may occur. Whatever the rules we will plan our school activities within the restrictions and social distancing guidelines we have been given so that students will not miss out

Book Week

Next Thursday 26 August we will be celebrating BOOK Week and I am particularly looking forward to seeing our students and staff dressing up in costumes refelecting this year’s theme - ' Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds'. We are unsure yet what our COVID restrictions will look like in Week 7, however whatever they are we will make this event work for our students. All students are encouraged to dress up and will receive recognition for their costumes. Hopefully, in next week’s newsletter I can confirm if parents are able to attend or not. May I take this opportunity to remind parents to ensure student costumes are made in a way that students can take them off independently if needed and also to provide a school uniform for the rest of the day if the costume is impractical for students to remain in all day. Thanks to Mrs Erskine and Mrs Grinter, our wonderful library team, for organising our Book Week events in what are some very changeable conditions.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

They were delayed by a year, but they were a success. The Tokyo Olympics have ended but before we pack away our patriotic cheers, we need to prepare for the Paralympics which begin in Tokyo on August 24. To support all of our Aussie athletes, our Student Council has organised a Free Dress Day for this Friday. Students and staff are invited to wear green and gold and donate a gold coin to help buy some virtual seats at the Paralympic Games. All profits from this initiative will go towards suppporting para athletes across a range of sports. I look forward to seeing a sea of our national colours on Friday getting behind this worthy cause.

Learner Profile:  Attribute focus for the week – Open Minded – Students should demonstrate an open mind towards others and be accepting, considerate and helpful of others within our school community. Students may also help resolve conflict by seeing all sides or reconcile with someone they may have had an issue with. Students should share their actions with their teacher.

Kind regards

Keith Graham

Principal

Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability

The Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) is an annual process participated in by all Australian schools across the country. The aim of this process is to provide the Australian Government with consistent information about the number of students with disability in Australian schools and the type of adjustments they require in order to access and participate in education on the same basis as other students. 

Your child will be included in the NCCD if they require ongoing adjustments at school due to a disability as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (the DDA). This is a very broad definition of disability, which includes physical and intellectual disabilities, learning disorders such as dyslexia and dysgraphia, and mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

This week, all Australian schools, in the public and private sectors, will participate in this federally mandated collection of data.

The data provided to the Australian Government is aggregated data only. Please be reassured that the Department will not provide on to another organisation any data that can identify an individual student. The only data being collected at the school level to be reported nationally is the:

• the number of students who are provided with reasonable adjustments to address a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) and Disability Standards for Education 2005 (DSE);
• the level of adjustment that students with disability are being provided to meet long-term (10+ weeks) needs associated with a disability in the 12 months preceding the national data collection submission date;
• the broad category of disability.

At Rochedale State School, 126 students are provided with reasonable adjustments to address a disability according to the DDA.  All of these students will have a Disability Discrimination Act Personalised Learning (DDA PL) record created in OneSchool.  At Rochedale State School, most of these students will also have an Adjustment Plan in place, or a pending plan, in which the DDA PL will also be recorded for your information as a parent.  If a plan is not relevant (only a small number of students fall into this category) specific adjustments made through quality differentiated teaching practice are discussed with parents.  Often these are students who have a medical condition requiring active monitoring or regular administration of medication at school. 

Consultation with parents is important not only for the data collection but also to ensure you are aware of the adjustments being provided to support your child. While it is not possible for schools or families to ‘opt out’ of the NCCD, the privacy and confidentiality of all students and their families is treated with utmost importance.

For further information, please see link below:

Fact sheet for parents, guardians and carers – NCCD (PDF, 624KB)

Alternatively, if you have any queries about the collection or use of this data please contact me.

Jessica Rigby
Deputy Principal
Year 2 / Head of Diverse Learning and Enrichment

Editing is Key

Students will hear teachers frequently saying, “Edit your writing.”, “Check your writing before you hand it in.” The response of a student may be to simply skim read it, then hand it in. However, proofreading and editing are essential parts of the writing process from Prep to Year 6. Editing requires students to reread their writing, identifying issues and making improvements to increase the effectiveness of their writing style.

As adults we can be nervous about sending emails with mistakes, and reread them before sending it off for others to read. The reality is that all writers, no matter their age, can make errors. It is important that we develop and foster the editing process to support writing. Having a classroom that acknowledges that errors are normal is important for student growth mindset. Mistakes are opportunities to learn.

Some editing strategies:

• Read writing with a coloured pencil to search for one specific thing at a time e.g. capital letters and full stops, spelling, punctuation, vocab, meaning, structure.
• Read writing aloud to hear the structure of sentences.
• Read to a partner.
• Leave some time after writing the text, come back and reread at a later stage.
• Letting students practice editing on someone else's writing first.
• Read with a teacher/adult for valuable discussion and feedback.

At Rochedale we will continue to develop proofreading and editing skills, as an essential step in the writing process.

Happy writing and reading!

Natasha Floyd
HOD- Curriculum

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.