Everleigh State School eNewsletter

Principal's Message

School opinion survey 2023

Thank you to all of those who have already completed the Parent/Caregiver Survey. If you have not had a chance to complete the survey yet, please note that the online surveys will remain open until Friday, 18 August 2023.

To date, only 16.5% of families have completed the survey. This is your opportunity to provide feedback about what our school does well and how we can improve.

To have your say, check your email for an invitation from the Department of Education titled School Opinion Survey for parents and caregivers, 2023.

Can’t find your invitation? If your family has more than one parent/caregiver, check that they haven’t received the invitation and/or check your junk email folder.

Every minute, every day counts

Each fortnight, the attendance statistics for year levels is published in our newsletter by our Deputy Principals. This data is important, as it highlights the large percentage of students who are not attending school all day every day. While I acknowledge illness, appointments and other events happen that impact on a child’s ability to attend school, it is vital for children to attend school regularly. As the writing of this, our attendance rate is 89.4%. 22.6% of students have an attendance rate less than 85%. Our best day for attendance on average is Wednesday with 90.8%, followed by Tuesday at 90.6% and Thursday at 90%. Monday and Friday are both below 90% attendance. The average attendance for a Friday is 86.3%. A school week is five (5) days in length, not the optional four (4) for a long weekend away.

Did you know that if your child was to miss every Friday, they could be missing up to 40 days per year, which is 8 weeks across a school year. Given that a school term is generally 10 weeks in length, that is nearly a whole term off. Over the course of 13 years of schooling, missing a day per week would equate to your child finishing Year 10.

How many unnecessary days does your child have off school?

Every_day_counts_.pdf

Term 3 Parent -Teacher Interviews

A reminder that bookings for Term 3 Parent-Teacher interviews are now open. Information has been shared via SeeSaw and there are posters around the school with a QR Code.

Bookings close at 2.30 pm on Friday 25 August. Bookings can be made using this link or the QR Code below. https://eq.sobs.com.au/pt3/parent.php?schoolid=70955

parent_teacher_interviews_term_3.pdf

Deputy Principals' Message

Sticks and Stones Presentation

On Tuesday 22^nd August, Brainstorm Productions will be presenting their student wellbeing performance ‘Sticks & Stones’ for students in Prep to Year 6. ‘Sticks & Stones’ is an educational theatre performance that promotes resilience, respect and responsibility. ‘Sticks & Stones’ is part of our student wellbeing curriculum and has been developed by teachers and psychologists. This exciting live theatre experience provides students with practical social and emotional skills, and encourages students to build positive connections at school, at home and online.

Brainstorm Productions is one of Australia’s most experienced and respected theatre in education companies, performing to over 260,000 students every year and endorsed by the eSafety Commissioner as a Trusted eSafety Provider. Learn more about Brainstorm Productions by visiting their website (brainstormproductions.edu.au), or following them on Instagram (@brainstormproductions_) or Facebook (@Brainstorm.Productions).

Sticks_and_Stones_K_6_promo_poster.pdf

School Photos

Our school photos will be taken on Monday 28th August 2023. Photos will commence with our Prep and Year One classes first thing in the morning when they are fresh and clean. It is vital that students arrive to school before the 8:30am bell in full school uniform including black shoes and white socks.

Every Day Counts!

Attendance at school every day is critical for long-term success. Our school target for attendance is 95 per cent. This is based on our understanding that illness, injury and personal circumstances sometimes arise. An attendance rate of 95 per cent equates to ten (10) missed days, or two weeks, of learning per year.

Cohort	% Year to date	This fortnight
Prep	91.08	93.4
Year 1	90.53	92.3
Year 2	89.78	90.9
Year 3	87.15	85.9
Year 4	87.04	86.3
Year 5	87.52	89.2
Year 6	84.96	89.2

Congratulations to this edition’s Attendance Champions – Prep!

It is reassuring to see our attendance rates increasing again. Let’s keep striving for attendance all day every day!

National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence

Friday 18^th August it is Bullying. No Way! and the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence (NDA). The NDA is Australia’s key bullying prevention initiative for schools, encouraging whole-school communities to work together to implement evidence-informed positive and proactive solutions to prevent and address bullying. Classes will be involved in teaching and learning activities to help children and young people to identify and grow positive connections with their peers and school community. Whether you're a parent, teacher, student or member of the broader community, everyone has a role to play in preventing bullying. Our schools anti bullying pack shows a commitment to staff, parents and children working together to report and respond to bullying quickly at Everleigh State School.

Book Week

Children's Book Week is celebrated in week 7 and brings children and books together across Australia. During this time our school will spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian children's authors and illustrators that are shortlisted for this years CBW awards. Our students with their teachers will create displays and participate in activities to highlight the importance and joy of reading. On Thursday the 24^th August we will host a Book Week Dress Up Parade with students dressed as their favourite book characters. The Theme of the 2023 Book week is Read Grow Inspire. We hope that you will come and celebrate the joy of reading with us on this day.

Messages from Executive Services

Attendance Data Collection

Attendance data for Semester 1 2023 will be extracted by Central Office on Friday 18^th August. It is important that any outstanding unexplained absences are updated. Each Monday we send home letters to families who have unexplained absences. We kindly ask that you advise the reasons for the absence and return these letters as soon as possible.

We remind parents/carers to ensure absences are notified by 9am on the day of the absence, to avoid creating an unexplained absence.

Student Absence Procedure

If your student will be absent, parents/carers have a legal obligation to notify the school, including advising the reason for the absence. We kindly request you let us know by 9am on the day of the absence. We have two preferred methods for advising absence:

Via the Q-Parents App – please see reception if you require information on this.
Via our dedicated Student Absence Line – (07) 2899 5160, where you can leave a message any time of the day or night. Please save this number in your phone.

Reminder: You will also need to advise YMCA if your child is booked in and will be absent.

YMCA absences should be advised before 2:15pm via email aev@ymcabrisbane.org or via text or phone call 0459 905 087.

Don’t forget to also cancel your canteen order if you have pre-ordered ahead: (07) 2899 5125

Spare change of clothes reminder

With the colder weather we are seeing more toileting accidents in our junior years. Please ensure you have a spare change of clothes in your child’s bag just in case. Please include underwear, black shorts/skort and socks.

Lost property

Name labels make all the difference in helping us to returned lost items to the correct students. We kindly remind parents to name jackets, lunch boxes, water bottles, containers and also hats. We really appreciate your assistance with this. Please see the attached photos of recent treasures waiting for their owners to claim them.

We also have a table near the front entry gates where we leave other lost property such as lunch boxes, water bottles and non-Everleigh jumpers and tracksuit pants. Those will be donated or binned at the end of each term.

We invite all parents and carers to set up their Q Parents app. This app is our preferred option and is a one-stop location to check on your account or pay invoices, as well as to report absences. It is quick and easy to use. If you require any assistance to set this up, please contact executive services.

QParents_registration_quick_reference_guide.pdf

Library News

Book Fair

A BIG thank you to our school community for supporting Book Fair. It was amazing see so much support.

Also, a BIG thank to the families that purchased a book and donated to the Resource Centre - Luna, William, Phoebe, Arva, Oscar and Max.

I hope you are all enjoying your purchased items. We will be able to purchase lots of new books for our Resource Centre.

Those who are waiting on their order, we will deliver it to your student class when it arrives.

STEAM News

Firstly, congratulations to Benjamin and Caolan in 4A for achieving a Highly Commended for their digital Art Entry into the Art in Agriculture Bee Competition.

Well done to Jemma-Leigh also for her awesome digital collage entry!

Year 5 and 6 have been creating a buzzing sensation with their pranks and games and our 4 and 3’s have been learning about food technologies by investigating if salt will stop the food from rotting and designing drink bottle insulators.

Our wonderful juniors have been super busy investigating forces and movements and creating creatures of the deep, while preps have been busy little farmers fixing the fences and learning about farms.

Here is a picture of our junior STEAM club having fun making a shoe that needed to stay on their foot.

Lastly, SCIENCE WEEK is next week! We’re very excited to be able to show off some of our Science learning with our school community during the week. We are setting up some of our Science displays in the ground level classroom on the junior side of the school closest to the library. If you would like to check it out, you are welcome to before school on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 8am.

The students also have our Street Science Show on the Friday.

Instrumental Music Notes from Ms McCullough

Instrumental Music (SCIM) Camp

In week 3 Isaac Hobelt represented Everleigh SS as our we joined the Southern Cluster Instrumental Music (SCIM) Camp for the first time.

Hosted by Park Ridge SHS, this 3-day intensive workshop had students mingling with other instrumentalists from local schools. Students focused on challenging new concert band repertoire and enjoyed both large group rehearsals (with over 100 musicians), as well as small group tutorials run by student leaders from PRSHS. The event concluded on the Friday afternoon with the young musicians performing outstandingly at the concert.