Issue 15 Friday 15 September 2023

End of Term 3

School starts back on Tuesday 3 October 2023

Principal Sonya Wilson

Dear parents and carers

As another busy term draws to a close, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of staff to the successes and achievements of this term.

Parent-Teacher interviews conducted over the last two weeks; I want to thank our teachers for being super organised during these recent parent teacher interviews.  These meetings provide an important opportunity to discuss your child’s progress with their teachers.

An action packed last week with students in Years 1, 3 and 5 attending daily swimming lessons and Prep, Years 2, 4 and 6 attending the Surf Awareness Program. The feedback from staff and students has been overwhelmingly positive. These programs reinforce the notion of students experiencing learning ‘out of school context’.

More opportunities will arise in Term 4, with students recruited into the instrumental music program and student leadership opportunities for our Year 5 students as well as Pre-Prep and Year 6 transition programs.

Thank you also to our P&C, while they are small in number, they are strong in resolve and commitment. I acknowledge  also the valuable contribution of the many volunteers at the recent Father’s Day Stall and Disco. We eagerly anticipate the Colour Run Thursday 19 October.

STAFF UPDATES

 Deidre Klatt teacher in 2/3 DK has extended her leave and will not be returning in 2023. Shauna Goddard has agreed to extend her contract for Term 4. Shauna has been a wonderful asset to Carbrook State School providing continuity for the class.

Miss Sarah Bingham has also decided to reduce her teaching load in Term 4 and will move to part-time teaching sharing the class with Mrs Christie McDonald. Mrs McDonald is already familiar with the Year 3 cohort as she has been the Inclusion Teacher two days per week this term. The arrangement will be Miss Bingham Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Mrs McDonald Thursday and Friday. Replacing Mrs McDonald as the Inclusion Teacher will be Mrs Sonia Gallagher. Mrs Gallagher is an experienced early years teacher previously having taught in South Australia. We will be welcoming Mrs Gallagher to Carbrook State School next term. 

Deputy Principal Liz Cook has been on leave for the last seven days of this term. I am pleased to advise that Mrs Sheri Walls and Miss Hayley Pattison have stepped into the role and shared the responsibilities. Thank you to both Mrs Walls and Miss Pattison for you taking on this role. 

Changes have also occurred to our Teacher Aide Team, with the resignation of Mrs  Colleen Waller earlier this year and Mrs Geraldine Hunt this term. This has allowed our temporary teacher aides to become  permanent at Carbrook State School. I extend my congratulations to Tiffany Wan, Tracey Mansell and Jacki Gill who have been made permanent  at Carbrook State School. 

With such a busy final term for the year planned, please see the date claimer attached below.

Wishing all our Carbrook State School families a safe and happy holiday.  I look forward to seeing you all again next term.

Kind regards

Sonya Wilson

Term 4 Date Claimer

Recent Letters Sent Home

Year 5 and 6 Talk About It

Lap Top Program

QParents

Dear Parents,

Starting in Term 4, Carbrook State School will be moving to using QParents for online consent forms, excursion permissions and invoicing.

The QParents web and mobile application provides an easier way for you to interact with our school. Parents will have secure, online access to their child’s student information, anytime, anywhere, through a smartphone, tablet or computer.

QParents allows parents to connect instantly with our school to access and manage their child’s student information, including:

• Attendance and absence details, as well as the ability to notify the school of an absence
• Academic report cards
• Viewing unpaid invoice details, payment history, and making payments online
• Viewing and updating personal student details, including medical conditions and address
• Enrolment details
• Upcoming events showing school events and excursions.

The benefits of QParents

Convenience and time savings for parents

• Parents can view or update their child’s details, to pay invoices and report absences without having to call the school or come into the office.
• Secure 24/7 online access.
• Available anytime, anywhere — access QParents on your smart phone, tablet or computer on a web browser or using the app (iPhone or Android).

Greater transparency of information

• Improves accountability between parents and schools by providing parents with timely access to their child’s information online.
• Allows parents to engage more deeply in their child’s schooling.

Improved administration efficiencies for schools

• Allows schools to streamline their administrative processes and cut down on printing.

What do you need to do to get started?

Within the next few weeks we will be sending out emails or letters inviting parents or guardians to become a QParents Account Owner (QPAO) for their student. QPAOs will be able to register for QParents to access and manage the student’s information online, view the student’s information and submit requests to update some of the student’s details.

QPAOs will also be able to invite other people (such as another family member), to view the student’s information. Once invited, these people can register for QParents as “delegated viewers”. A delegated viewer can see the student’s details, but cannot make updates.

When you receive your invitation email or letter, simply follow the instructions to register your QParents account. The process should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Initial registration and addition of students to your account must be done on a desktop or laptop computer. Once registered, you will then be able to access QParents using your mobile device (via web browser or by downloading the iPhone or Android App).

Invitations sent by email will only ever come from no.reply@qparents.qld.edu.au. You will not be invited to register from any other email address or organisation.

If you do no not want to register you can just ignore the invitation and your child’s student information will not be available to anyone through QParents. You may also wish to let the school know not to invite you in future.

Identity Verification

To obtain full access to student information, as part of QParents registration users must complete an identity verification process. QParents offers two options for identity verification – online and offline.

For fully online verification (the fastest option), you will need to verify 100 points of the following identity documents online:

If you cannot verify 100 points of the above ID documents online, you may still register for QParents, but you will need to attend the school to verify documentation in person after you have registered online.

Full instructions on how to verify your documents and what you may need to bring to the school will be provided as part of the invitation and registration process.

If you don’t have sufficient documents, or are unsure, you may still be able to register. For more information on the online identity verification process, see https://qparents.qld.edu.au/#/identityInformation .

Please note that QParents does not maintain copies or records of any identity documents used for account verification, either online or offline.

Safe and secure

QParents is a secure portal that meets strict industry standards. The Department of Education and Training considers student information to be confidential (it is classified as PROTECTED by the Department). Only people with the right to access information about their child will be given an account. Additionally, as part of the registration process, 100 points of identity or equivalent will need to be presented to prove that the person who is registering is the person the school invited.

Help and further information

For more information see https://qparents.qld.edu.au/#/about. For help, visit https://qparents.qld.edu.au/#/help or call 13 QGOV (13 74 68)

iHub Year 3 Social Skills

This term, the Year 3’s social skills learning has been centred around building and bettering our resilience. During scaffolded games and with the guidance of the teaching team, we have practised...

                                          • Not giving up
                                         • Continuing to try and giving things a go
                                          • Having courage and staying calm during moments where we feel unsure
                                          • Talking to ourselves positively
                                          • Recovering quickly from (and adapting to) challenges that may arise

The Year 3 students have participated in a variety of activities and games that have intentionally challenged them both personally and socially, encouraging them to fall back on the ‘resilience toolkit’ they have been learning about this term.
While these social skills lessons have been focused around building the student’s resilience individually, a significant focus has also been on fostering positive interactions and relations between the cohort as a whole. Through these scaffolded activities, students have been learning to...

                                             • Support each other
                                             • Encourage each other
                                             • Listen to each other
                                             • Accept each other
                                             • Trust each other
                                             • Respect each other
                                              • And negotiate and navigate differences in points of view, likes etc.

Throughout the month of August, to continue supporting positive interactions and relationships, all of the Year 3 students participated in a cohort wide ‘Kindness Challenge’. This Kindness Challenge presented students with a daily challenge, such as playing with someone different at lunch time, sitting with someone you’ve never sat next to before, writing to someone thanking them for their efforts and so on. Students were given time each day to reflect on their daily kindness challenge in their challenge tracker, sharing their progress with their class and teacher at the end of the week. The entire cohort took to this challenge with gusto and determination, excitedly sharing with their peers and the entire Year 3 teaching team when they completed a challenge... with students eager to recognise the efforts of others as well.

As a team, we look forward to setting another challenge to strive to complete in Term 4.

In addition, with the support of the Year 3 teaching team, students have also been able to ‘shout each other out’ when they have seen a peer demonstrating the High 5 strategy, the caring habits (listed above) or an act of kindness. As a teaching team, we have thoroughly enjoyed reading (and sharing) the shout outs students have written for each other throughout the week. The intent and specificity of these shout outs has grown as students have progressed through the term, with students now communicating with detail the exact reason, skill or event they are shouting their peer out for.

The Arts Kat Boobyer

In Media Arts, students have been busily snapping, editing and then superimposing their futuristic self-portraits on their chosen background. They’ve also tackled the third dimension, adding a soundscape to their masterpiece. No sample here would do their creations justice, as the sound really does elevate the work in a way students will reflect on at the beginning of Term 4 as they exhibit their artworks for each other and respond accordingly.

In Drama students have moved beyond their freeze frames which bookend their now finalised role plays. Year 5 and 6 students will add their digital soundscapes and projected images after the holidays. Year 3 and 4 students will be crafting their soundscapes using voice and body percussion and will also add narration including their poems they’ve been learning. All students from 3 to 6 will perform their group dramas in weeks 3 and 4, so please support them by helping them to remember to bring any extra costume or prop items they might find around the house or make over the holidays. There is no need to purchase anything, as there’s already a healthy collection in the drama studio at their disposal.

Year 4EW

Albert Einstein once stated that creativity is intelligence having fun. If this is true, then 4EW have truly outdone themselves this term as the room bustles with evidence of creativity and wonder. In Term 3, the students of 4EW worked hard to not only learn new concepts but also to pull together learning from previous terms as they transferred knowledge to their focus text The Twits. This was particularly evident in the Twits inspired poetry, which sprung to life through figurative language, descriptive vocabulary, and carefully crafted images. It began when the students sequenced The Twits story carefully recording each chapter through linked diagrams.  Next, they selected a favourite character and constructed a matching poem and artwork. From here, they moved on to writing a brand-new chapter, their imagination igniting as they came up with new tricks to entertain the reader.

In HASS, they expanded their study of Africa by undertaking an independent research task. Each student was allocated a country and armed with a list of inquiry questions set forth to create individual posters. Their digital skills shone as they used their knowledge of layout and colour to create truly striking presentations. In addition, they got their hands dirty making African inspired clay pottery and beads. In Science, the students made and tested a boat that would move and float, reflecting on their success to gauge their understanding of materials and force. In Social Skills, they expanded their vocabulary when discussing feelings through the use of their emotional thermometers.  While in Maths, students have explored proper, improper, equivalent, mixed number and decimal fractions, as well as money and mapping. All in all, it has been a very busy but inspired term! 

Library News

BOOK FAIR

WOW! Carbrook Kids really love reading.

Hats off to Reading was the theme for this year’s Book Fair. When you say 'Hats Off' about something, you are showing your appreciation for a job well done. So, Hats Off to every student, parent, grandparent, aunty, uncle, brother, sister, teacher and staff member that visited our Book Fair.

Hopefully, there are some new books tucked under pillows for tonight’s story time, or a cool new poster hanging on your child’s wall or maybe they are driving their teachers mad with some fun stationary. If your child didn’t get that book that they really, really wanted to read, don’t worry! A portion of the Book Fair sales benefits our school directly by allowing us to purchase loads of new books for the library. They will start creeping into the library next term. Thanks to everyone within the Carbrook Community. Sadly though, Book Fair has now closed for another year. I hope you all had fun visiting our amazing Book Fair. Start counting down – there are just under 330 days until Book Fair in 2024.

BOOK WEEK

Sadly, Book Week has also come to an end with the last two announcements to be made. Carbrook State Schools Book of the Year and the Read, Grow, Inspire Pillowcase designers.

We were so lucky this year to have many of The Children’s Book Council of Australia Shortlisted books available to read here at Carbrook. We had so many books that we decided to run a Carbrook State School’s FICTION Book of the Year and a Carbrook State School’s NON FICTION Book of the Year. Every student was given the opportunity to vote for their favourites books and they were very excited at Monday’s parade to hear the following winners.

                          THIS YEAR’S CHILDREN’S COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA SHORTLISTED BOOKS

Carbrook State School’s FICTION  Book of the Year is…Frank's Red Hat by Sean E Avery. Frank’s Red Hat is a story about never giving up on your talents, because even though what you do may not be appreciated right now, it may be in time. Hats off to Frank.      

 CARBROOK STATE SCHOOL’S FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR – FRANK’S RED HAT BY SEAN E. AVERY.

Carbrook State School’s Non Fiction Book of the year is …DEEP, Dive into Hidden Worlds by Jess McGeachin. Deep is a beautifully illustrated Non Fiction text that explores the hardest to reach places from deep inside your body to the depths of outer space.

All of the shortlisted books will be available to borrow next term in the library.

CARBROOK STATE SCHOOL’S NON FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR –

DEEP, DIVE INTO HIDDEN WORLD’S BY JESS McGEACHIN.

It was so great to see so many students eager to vote for this years Carbrook State School’s Book of the Year. Four votes were randomly selected to receive a book prize. Congratulations to  Oscar, Joshua, Georgie and Harshaan that received a book prize.

                  CONGRATULATIONS TO STUDENTS RANDOMLY DRAWN TO RECEIVE A BOOK PRIZE

Lastly, to finalise the festivities of Book Week, the READ, GROW, INSPIRE pillowcase designers were also announced at Monday’s parade. It was a very difficult decision with lots of beautiful designs entered. Thank you to everyone that created a pillowcase design. Congratulations to Stella, Kiearra and Layla, who will have their designs printed onto a pillowcase to be displayed in the library and then to take home to keep. They also received a book prize.

Unfortunately, that also brings Book Week to an end. Thank you to everyone who participated in an activity during Book Week. We hope every student will continue to Read for fun, Grow their minds and be Inspired with literature.

Carbrook State School First Nations

The Carbrook State School First Nations Committee acknowledge and pay respect to the Gugugan of the Yugambeh language region as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Carbrook State School is built and where learning takes place. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging and recognise their continuing connection to Country and ways of learning over thousands of years.

Jingeri!  This week was Indigenous Literacy Day, an annual event celebrating First Nations stories, cultures and languages.  The plural is prominent here as there is diversity within stories, culture, and language across the First Nation peoples.  This was evident in the live stream direct from the Sydney Opera House.  Students were able to hop on a virtual plane travelling north to Barunga in the Northern Territory, west to Rubibi (Broome) in north Western Australia, before looping back to Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland. Along the way they were introduced to various local communities who had worked together to create traditional stories in local languages.  The plane eventually arrived back in Sydney and students joined Indigenous Literacy Foundation ambassadors Australian actress Justine Clarke and author Gregg Dreise as they celebrated Indigenous culture. 

Students participated in the live stream from the Sydney Opera House.

A short 15mins introduction video of the 2023 Indigenous Literacy Day is now available to view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wudyO3y6KQ

Carbrook State School’s First Nations Committee (FNC)members are working hard behind the scenes to honour our commitment to acknowledge, foster, and maintain meaningful relationships. This term, the FNC  has discussed plans to commence Carbrook State School’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). Next term, we will meet officially to begin this process. Our aim is to ensure that our actions are purposeful and measurable and as such we welcome community input.  The FNC is endeavouring to build community capacity for recognition and understanding of the special place and culture of Indigenous Peoples as First Australians.  If you would like to participate, please feel free to join us at our monthly meetings.  The next meeting is for scheduled 14 September at 8:00am in the Resource Centre.  If you’re undecided but would like to learn more, we welcome you to come along and introduce yourself and get a feel for what we do. If you decide to join us that’s great!  If not, we appreciate the interest and are happy to welcome you back anytime. 

Please email if you require further information or you wish to let the team know that you will be attending the next meeting:  ewitt13@eq.edu.au

Committee Members: Sonya Wilson (Principal), Erica Witt (FNC Team Leader), Tegan Simone, Sarah Bingham, Julianne Lee, Kat Boobyer, Lauren Connelly, Lara McDonald

Student Absences

Our goal at Carbrook Satte School is to have 100% of students absences explained. Any absences or late arrivals must be reported to the office so it is recorded electronically before going into class. It is a courtesy to also let the teacer know however teachers are unable to input the absence data. Parents can contact the student absence line on 3209 0860 and leave a message giving an explanation for their student's absence. 

If an absence has not been explained by 9:30am a text message will be sent to the parent or caregiver seeking an explanation of the absence. Parents are able to respond directly to this text message. Please do not include emojis in the reply as it will make the message unreadable. 

Late Students

When parents know their child will be arriving later than 9:00am please advise the school office on 3209 0888. Students will still need to report to the office to be signed into school and collect a late slip as this accurately records the time of arrival. 

Long Absences

For absences longer that 10 school days parents must complete an exemption request form for each student. You can collect the exemption form up at teh school office. 

P&C News Colour Explosion Fun Run

Colour Explosion Fun Run is a fun activity to fundraise, organised by Carbrook State School's P&C.  Letters and booklets explaining the event have been sent home with your child and emailed to all families. 

Please see a copy of the letter and How to Create a Profile Page below. 

Creative Dance

Donation to Carbrook State School

 Thank you Logan City Council and Councillor Miriam Stemp for the donation of a bird nesting box. This bird nesting box was donated to Carbrook State  School for the National Threatened Species Day on Thursday 7 September 2023.

Community News