Term 4, 2021 W6 School Newsletter

Acting Principal, Sonya Wilson

Dear Parents/Caregivers

It is with gratitude and pride that I acknowledge and celebrate the recent Carbrook School Community experiences of Movie Night Saturday 6 November and Year 6 Camp to QCCC at Mapleton 8-10 November.

Movie Night was the initiative of our hard-working P&C. Families had the opportunity for dinner, dessert and popcorn while enjoying the movie on the big screen. Our P&C provided complimentary face painting, glow sticks and lolly jars to add an extra special touch. The night had a marvellous community feel and was a great success. Thank you to the P&C Members and volunteers.

Year 6 Camp and the teachers who gave of their time provided our students with an amazing experience. The camp program was designed to teach students more about themselves as well as how to work with and communicate with others around them. The camp put students in challenging activities such as abseiling, giant swings, canoeing and mud challenge, allowing them to take responsible risks, learning how to handle different situations and working with their peers to overcome obstacles. Group Leaders were skilled in prompting students to reflect and acknowledge how they had stepped outside their comfort zone and to celebrate their personal achievements, building self-confidence and pride. Students improved significantly over the three days in working as a team, encouraging and supporting their peers, persisting and ultimately building memories to keep for a lifetime. Thank you to Mrs Petit for organising the Camp and the Team of Teachers Mrs Minty, Mrs Simone, Mrs Barnham, Mrs Wayman, Mrs Howe and Mr Reese for making this experience a possibility.

It is always a pleasure to witness students come together as a community to learn and grow. 

Sonya Wilson
Acting Principal

FREE DRESS DAY

Carbrook State School Virtual Tour

Remembrance Day 11/11/2021

Remembrance Day is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces who have died in the line of duty.

Yesterday, at 11am our students stopped for a minute's silence to remember the fallen. Mrs Reese read the ODE to the students through the intercom in classrooms. Some students made poppies in recognition of  those men and women that served our country.

Deputy Principal, Kerry-Ann Reese

On Thursday 4 November, the Year 5 cohort engaged in a full day leadership workshop with YLEAD.

The workshop ‘Lead with Heart’, explored what it takes to be a respectful, courageous and positive leader in the community.

This full-day experience aims to educate and empower students to be the best leaders they can be. Throughout the day students explored the acronym HEART in a series of fun challenges that summarise:

H elpful – looking out for everyday actions that enrich the lives of others.
E nergetic – promoting and sharing positive energy.
A ctive and Aware – becoming more aware of personal strengths and how they can be used to take positive action as a leader.
R esilient – the importance of having the courage to try new things, and learning to respond positively to challenging or difficult situations.
T eam player – the importance of working with others in an encouraging and supportive environment.

This program also emphasised that you do not have to have a badge to be a leader. This will assist students in understanding and avoiding disappointment if they don’t receive a leadership badge for 2022 and build their confidence in knowing that if they lead with heart they are a leader.

Our students had a full day of activities and thoroughly enjoyed the full day workshop.

Computer for Students Program

At Carbrook State School, we place value on developing our students as digital citizens in a community. That is why our school has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into upgrading the school’s wireless network, server, and bandwidth to allow students to utilise electronic devices such as laptops and iPads throughout all the learning spaces across the school.

In 2021 the school introduced a School Owned/Parent Pay Take Home Laptop Resource Scheme for Year 4 students with payment options over the program period of 3 years. Due to the success of this program, this program will be offered for our Year 4 cohort in 2022.

With the current world-wide climate, digital communication is more important than ever. Last year we were forced into a digital world of communication with the COVID pandemic and while uncertainty still exists around the longevity of this pandemic, there is a greater need to have a plan and response to learning that works across the school/home learning environments.

Students and parents/caregivers are asked to lend their support to this very valuable and innovative program. Strong support from parents and caregivers is paramount to ensure the program is successful and that students gain the maximum benefit.

What are the benefits of a computer for students’ program?

• Enables personalisation of student learning through access to online learning resources.
• Students can work on their own individual computer (reducing log in times throughout the day and ease of data retrieval) and have access to the digital tools when necessary
• Allows continuous access to educational materials, allowing learning efficiency to happen anywhere, anytime (home and school)
• Provides an engaging, interactive environment for learning
• Strengthens links between home and school, giving parents the opportunity to see firsthand, every day, what your child is learning at school and have relevant, timely, accurate and quality conversations around your child’s learning and progress

Please be advised that students will not be working on their laptop every minute of the day. Students will continue to engage in paper-based learning tasks, hands on activities, hand written tasks and utilise hard copy reading resources etc. The computer will be a device that students will utilise throughout the day when it supports a particular learning task. Students will be encouraged to utilise their devices at home for home learning and homework tasks. Therefore, traditional learning methods and digital learning methods will be used in conjunction with one another to support teaching and learning in the classroom.

Next week, parents of upcoming Year 4 students will be sent specific information regarding the program for 2022 outlining the cost, payment plan, device specifications, expectations of usage, storage and responsibility of devices at school and at home.

SEP, Fiona Broquesa

This year a number of programs have been run by the Speech Language Pathologist to support a range of students across P-2 years. 

OLEY: The Oral Language Early Years (OLEY) program ran over Term 1 and Term 2 in all Prep classes this year. This program has been developed by Speech Pathologists to support all students' abilities to use oral language (what they can say). Good oral language skills are strongly linked to successful literacy development. Students completed games that supported students to use full sentences and directional language while speaking e.g. 'put the apple in the bottom of the fridge'. By the end of the program all students had made great improvements in what they could say and understand. 

PMAP: The Prep Meta-Linguistic Awareness Program ran over Term 2 and Term 3 in all Prep classes this year. The program has been developed by a Speech Pathologist to support all students' sound awareness skills. The students worked on skills such as identifying the first sound in words e.g 'b' for 'bat' and being able to segment and blend the sounds they hear e.g. 's' 'u' 'n' = 'sun'. Sound awareness skills are an important component to learning how to read and spell effectively. All students have shown great improvements in their sound awareness skills over the course of the program. 

Tell It Again: The Tell It Again program ran over Term 3 and Term 4 this year for selected students in Year 1 and Year 2. This program was developed by Speech Pathologists to support students' abilities to retell a story. Retelling stories is a key component of the curriculum in all grades and requires good oral language skills to be produced well. Students have listened and retold short stories each week with great improvements in their story length and complexity.  

STEM, Sheri Walls

This week in STEM all classes have continued to work on writing and solving problems using an algorithm.

Prep and Year 1 have been working on writing an algorithm and checking to see if their algorithm works. They have continued to work with the BeeBots. There is lots of fun when the BeeBots are out!

Year 2 have continued to learn how to code using block coding. This week they started to use block coding using Scratch. They were amazed at what they could program their sprite to do. They were changing colours, sizes and adding sounds.

Year 3 have been working on block coding in Scratch. They have learnt how to make a popping game and this week they made a game where they coded a character to move using arrow keys. The most exciting part was adding sound to their characters!

4A have started to work with the Lego robotics kits. They have made great progress into            building their dancing person and next week will begin coding it to move. 4B have started their work on coding in Scratch. This week they made a simple game and were able to add their own elements to it. They added sounds, colours and moving items. We can’t wait to play some of them in the coming weeks!

STEM Gallery

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Books for Breakfast

Carbrook State School’s morning reading programme, Books for Breakfast, has now finished for 2021.

BOOKS FOR BREAKFAST has provided an opportunity to enhance the reading skills of the junior participants, it has instilled a love of reading, provided exposure to high quality literature, as well as providing a fun experience with books.

Young children naturally have a capacity to dream big and use their imaginations. Reading aloud to children helps them to use their imaginations to explore people, places, times, and events beyond their own experiences. Reading as an imaginative activity can open doors to all kinds of new worlds for children.

Reading is one of the keys for lifelong learning, and if you can instil a love of reading at an early age, then a commitment to lifelong learning can begin.

Reading aloud presents books as sources of pleasant, valuable, and exciting experiences. Children who value books are motivated to read on their own, and will likely continue to practise independent reading throughout the rest of their lives.

Our senior students have done an excellent job of motivating, sharing and building relationships with our younger readers. 

Their diligence and commitment to the Books for Breakfast program has been admirable. 

Carbrook junior students have thoroughly enjoyed being read to by the ‘bigger kids’, and could be seen totally engrossed in stories, poems and pictures each Tuesday morning. 

Mrs Simone, Miss Bernie and I have enjoyed watching the development of reading skills, comprehension and text appreciation this year. 

I would like to thank the Senior students for their patience and commitment to Books for Breakfast.  They have proven themselves to be excellent story tellers as well as fine examples to the younger students. 

To the younger students, I thank them for attending and for the smiles and excitement they have shown to both other students and teachers as members of our club.

To the parents of participants, thank you for getting your child to BFB each Tuesday morning, and for the many kind words we have received from you about the program.

We look forward to doing it all again in 2022.

Music, Melissa Dillon

Instrumental Music

The recruitment process has begun for 2022.  Strings notes went home to students during week 5 and the band notes will be going home very soon.  Please ensure you return these notes to your class teacher or Mrs Dillon as soon as possible, even if you are not going to participate in the program.  Please feel free to email me if there are any questions. (mbudd20@eq.edu.au)

On Wednesday November 3, Carbrook was lucky enough to have our strings ensemble perform before school.  This group consists of 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th year players.  It has been two years since the strings group were last able to perform in public due to the pandemic.  Please find two videos attached of the performance pieces.  Congratulations to these students once again!

Strings video 1 - https://youtu.be/W_UZ0yCTgE4

Strings video 2 - https://youtu.be/3R3Qb1Tdlf4

Christmas concert 2021

This year the Christmas performances will be filmed in class at the end of the term and sent home for parents to view.  Each class will prepare a performance instead of an entire year level.  These videos will be sent out in final newsletter of 2021.  These videos are only able to be viewed via the newsletter links.  Please note if your child does not have permission to be photographed or filmed, they will be sat out of frame during the recording sessions.

Band, Grant Johansen

Fire Engine 2nd Visit

Today the students in Years 1 and 2 had their second visit from the firefighters from the Beenleigh Fire Station. 

The visit is part of the Fire Ed program for schools. 

Today the students learned all about the equipment on the fire truck and what each piece is used for.  The firefighters explained how they were able to rescue people trapped in cars using giant claw like cutters. They also demonstrated the breathing apparatus worn, as well as special suits worn for chemical spills. The students were intrigued to see the many and diverse pieces of equipment needed to handle the various situations that fire fighters attend to.

The highlight of the morning was when each child had the opportunity to hold the fire hose and squirt water onto the oval. It was wonderful to hear the students laughing as they squirted the water and were rained down upon from the spray of the hose.  As a Year 1 student stated, ‘that was epic!’.

The session was completed with a blast of the siren as the truck left the school. 

Again, we would like to thank Robert and his team for visiting today and providing us with important information about fire safety, as well as bringing the fire truck in for us to investigate.

Fire Engine 2nd Visit Gallery

Child Care Visits

It is with great pleasure that Carbrook State School has resumed its visits to our local Child Care Centres. 

Every Wednesday, Mrs Turgeon and I visit two of the local centres, Play and Learn Cornubia and Play and Learn Vincent Street.  The Bright Horizons students visit us on campus each Wednesday also.

This week we spoke to the students about Carbrook State School and the many wonderful opportunities that our school provides. 

We asked the students about their expectations for their Prep year in 2022, and were encouraged to hear that writing was high on the list of activities that they were looking forward to.

We showed the children the Carbrook State School uniform and discussed the importance of wearing a hat each day so that they could safely enjoy our playgrounds and open area play spaces. 

The students were intrigued by the school desk and chair that we took with us on our visit.  Many of the students asked for a turn at sitting at it, to practise for ‘big school’.

Mrs Turgeon and I up-fronted some of the ‘Carbrook Way’ language with the children, including ‘lock your eyes in’, ‘lock your ears in’ and ‘sit like a learner’.  We were very impressed by the way students from all three centres could sit quietly, listen intently and follow directions successfully. 

We are both looking forward to our weekly visits and being able to showcase Carbrook State School as a school of excellence in academic achievement and expectations.

Leonie Barnham, Academic Performance Coach, Sarah Turgeon, Prep A Classroom Teacher.

2B, Amanda Kennedy

4A News, Erica Witt

In Year 4, students use media technologies to create time and space through the manipulation of images, sounds, and text. This term, the students in the 1:1 laptop class have been investigating the elements of photographic composition. Students have experimented with the laptop’s camera function, focusing on framing the subject, the rule of odds, angle framing and lighting. They have also dabbled in extreme photography with great success.

4A Gallery

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6A News, Amy Pettit

A Letter from the Prime Minister

During Term 3, students in 6A read the book “If I Was Prime Minister” by Beck and Robin Feiner. This book was used as a writing prompt for students to write their own letter to the Prime Minister about an issue that they would like to see addressed by the Australian Government.

Students selected a variety of issues to write letters about including: climate change, natural disasters, refugees, whaling, COVID-19 and gender equality. Students worked independently to research, draft and publish their letters which were then posted to Parliament House. Many students were sceptical and believed that their letters would not be read by the Prime Minister and doubted  they would receive a reply letter.

About six weeks after sending their letters, we received official correspondence from the Prime Minister addressed to one student in 6A, Tyler Lovelock. This was very exciting news for the whole class, as it proved that their letters had indeed reached the Prime Minister.

Interview with Tyler
What was your letter to the Prime Minister about?
My letter to the Prime Minister has about conflict happening in Afghanistan with the Taliban. I asked the Prime Minister to consider sending more troops to Afghanistan to help rescue people. I also asked the Prime Minister to allow more refugees to come to our country so they have a safe and happy place to live.

How did you feel when you received a reply letter from the Prime Minister? 
I felt excited and lucky that I got a reply letter from Scott Morrison, especially as I was the only person in my class to get a reply letter. When I got home, I showed the letter to my family and they told me to keep it safe. My parents said we might even frame my letter from the Prime Minister. 

Year 6 School Camp

 QCCC Mapleton, Sunshine Coast Hinterland
From Monday, 8 November to Wednesday, 10 November, our Year 6 cohort attended their highly anticipated school camp to QCCC Mapleton, in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. After a two hour bus ride from Carbrook to Mapleton, students participated in a Welcome to Country ceremony and learnt about the traditional land owners of the area we were visiting, the Kabi Kabi, Gubbi Gubbi and Jinibara peoples.

Across the three days, students participated in five action packed group rotations: abseiling, the giant swing, orienteering, canoeing and the Legends and Larrikins role playing game. Many students challenged themselves during these activities by facing their fears, learning to work as a team and interacting with a variety of peers from across the Year 6 cohort.

After each activity, students came together in their groups and were asked to reflect upon how they engaged with the camp values which were to:
- be an encourager
- be humble
- be respectful
- be generous
- be a team
- be courageous

On Tuesday afternoon, we came together as a Year 6 cohort to tackle the Mapleton Mud Challenge. Students completed team challenges to collect Bunya Nuts (balls) to feed their families. The challenges included: spear throwing with a woomera, obstacle course, river crossing on a raft and bridge building. After the team challenges, all teams came together to play a giant game of Rob the Nest in the mud pit. The aim was to try and steal Bunya Nuts from other teams. To conclude the afternoon, students were able to race each other down the giant slide. We then begain the massive task of cleaning mud off 73 children.

We asked our Year 6 students to share some of their favourite moments from their camp experience:
Siobhan, 6A: One of my favourite activities was the giant swing. You had to work as a team to get everyone up to the top of the swing. It was fun but also scary to swing out of it.
Kaleb, 6A: My favourite activity was canoeing on the lake with Zane. We splashed everyone in our group with the paddles, including Mrs Pettit.
Noah, 6B: Camp was a really inspiring experience for me and my peers to enjoy. While it was tiring, it was also really fun!
Isaac, 6B: My favourite activity was the giant swing because of the suspense you felt and how quick it went.
Matthew, 6C: I enjoyed going away for camp and hanging out with my friends for three days.
Taylor, 6C: The mud challenge was my favourite activity. We worked together as a team during the challenges. It was so fun! The giant mud pit was definitely the best part of the mud challenge.

Our Year 6 Camp to QCCC Mapleton was filled with lots of laughter, thrills and excitement. It was a great opportunity for our Year 6 cohort to bond together as a group and develop a greater level of personal independence and maturity before they graduate from Carbrook and begin their Secondary Schooling journey in 2022.

We extend a sincere thank you and acknowledgment to all people who were involved in the successful delivery of this Year 6 camp experience, including:
- Our attending Carbrook State School Staff: Mrs Pettit, Ms Minty, Mrs Simone, Mr Reese, Mrs Barnham, Mrs Howe, Mrs Wayman and Mrs Wilson
- Our support staff back at Carbrook who always work hard behind the scenes for these events to happen: Mrs Reese, Mrs Liddell, Mrs Kelly, Mrs Finnimore
- The amazing QCCC Mapleton Group Leaders and Support Staff who were patient, organised and enthusiastic
- Year 6 parents and families who helped prepare and support their children to engage with this experience

Year 6 School Camp Gallery

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2022 Booklists

Carbook State School booklists will be available of their website under 'Enrolments'.      

                              Carbrook State School's Website              www.carbrookss.eq.edu.au

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