MARCH

5 Prep and Year 1 Parent Session 6.00 pm in the library

6 4PB & 4SG Bunyaville Excursion

6 Junior Assembly

7 4TB Bunyaville Excursion

7 District Trials Girls Football

11 District Trials Boys Football

11 Met North Golf

12 Met North Basketball

13-15 Year 6 Camp

13 Junior Assembly

13 4LS and 4SO Bunyaville Excursion

13 Met North Australian Football

14 District Boys Rugby League

14 Year 2 Excursion

15 National Day against Bullying and Violence

18 District Hockey

19 Met North Squash

From the Principal...

A Safe and Supportive School

At Albany Hills State School, we value and are committed to providing a safe, respectful and disciplined learning environment for students and staff. In this environment students have opportunities to engage in quality learning experiences and acquire values supportive of their lifelong wellbeing. At Albany Hills, we take bullying very seriously. Our school anti-bullying program identifies that the disciplined teaching environment that we are creating is essential to:

achieving overall school improvement, including the effectiveness and efficiency of our student support procedures;

raising achievement and attendance;

promoting equality and diversity; and

ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all members of the school community.

What is bullying?

Albany Hills State School identifies that bullying is repeated inappropriate behaviour when there is a power imbalance between two or more people and that bullying can take many forms. The National Centre Against Bullying identifies five kinds of bullying:

1. Physical bullying When a person (or group of people) uses physical actions, such as hitting, poking, tripping, or pushing, in an ongoing way. Repeatedly and intentionally damaging someone’s belongings is also physical bullying.

2. Verbal bullying Repeated or systematic name calling, insults, homophobic or racist remarks, and verbal abuse.

3. Covert bullying Repeatedly, or in an ongoing way, lying about someone, spreading rumours, playing a nasty joke that makes the person feel humiliated or powerless, mimicking, or deliberately excluding someone.

4. Psychological bullying Threatening, manipulating, or stalking someone.

Tuesday 5 March | Week 6, Term 1

Albany Hills State School Herald A High Performing Independent Public School

Website: albahillss.eq.edu.au

Chris Hansen, Principal

5. Cyber bullying Repeatedly using technology, such as email, mobile phones, chat rooms, or social networking sites to bully verbally, socially or psychologically.

As you would be aware, the issue of cyber bullying is often highlighted in the media. Our school’s Procedure for the Appropriate Use of mobile phones requires student phones to be handed in to the school office each morning where they will be stored safely during the day. At the end of the school day, students are to collect their mobile phones.

Mobile phones must not be used in any manner or place that is disruptive to the normal routine of the school which will see phones being confiscated by school staff, with collection / return at the end of the school day where the device is not required for further investigation.

As a school, we will be highlighting, how we as a community, can work together to reduce bullying by taking part in the National Day of Action against Bullying on Friday 15 March.

2019 Annual Implementation Plan In last week’s Herald, I shared our identified actions and targets aligned to our improvement agenda, which is focussed on improving the quality of student writing.

This week, I have provided below our plan to ensure a whole-school approach to provide a safe, supportive and engaging learning environment for all students:

Improvement priority: Engagement

Chris Hansen Principal

Chris Hansen Principal

SILVER TICKETS Congratulations to all of our silver ticket

winners last week.

Claire 1KI

Laicey 2LB

Ryan 2LB

Jake 1SC

Maddie 4PB

Saphira 5HM

Nathan 5LB

Charlotte 6JW

Actions Targets

In consultation with the school community, review and revise the Responsible Behaviour Plan for Students (School Code of Behaviour).

New RBPFS developed; Communication to all stakeholders.

Continue to develop the role of the Engagement Team to implement strategies to promote and acknowledge positive behaviour and ensure consistent expectations and conse-quences are embedded across the school.

Continue to reduce the number of incidents and increase positive behav-iour recorded on OneSchool; Maintain a very low level of SDAs; S.O.S - 100% children feel safe at this school.

Implement a data cycle to provide a differentiated approach to meet the needs of all students by developing specific inter-vention and enrichment strategies.

Principal meets with ST:LaNs and HOC; A-E and NAPLAN targets as above.

Develop a case management approach to support disengaged students.

95% Student Attendance.

Review the Wellbeing Plan and implement key strategies.

96% Staff Attendance; Continued positive S.O.S responses (e.g. staff morale).

Unit 9/ 193 Southpine Rd, Brendale, 4500

From the Deputy Principals…

BULLYING. NO WAY!

Our school says ‘Bullying. No Way!’

On the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence to be held on Friday 15 March, our school will be taking a stand.

The National Day is an annual event where school communities across the nation stand as one against bullying and violence. Albany Hills State School is dedicated to creating safe and supportive school environment, free from bullying, harassment and violence. Together, we can send clear messages to young people that bullying and violence, in or outside the classroom, are not okay at any time.

To acknowledge this special day, students are welcome to wear orange items of clothing or orange accessories to school. The usual school rules (such as shirts with sleeves, no hair colour, closed shoes) apply.

ATTENDANCE TARGETS

LEARNING WALKS

Over the past few weeks, we have been visiting classrooms conducting ‘Learning Walks’ where we ask students five questions about their learning. As our school improvement agenda is focused on improving the quality of student writing, we are narrowing the questions to explicitly focus on writing. The five questions are:

1. What are you learning about in writing?

2. How are you doing?

3. How do you know?

4. What do you need to do to improve?

5. Where do you go for help?

We were super impressed with the level of understanding shown by our students and thought we would share with you some of the learning walk answers.

FORMS & DOCUMENTS

Year 2 GOMA Excursion

Year 4 Bunyaville Excursion

Year 6 Camp

P&C Chocolate Fundraiser

Lunch Clubs

Term 1 Curriculum Overview

District and Met North Sports

Music events calendar 2019

Music Parent Music Committee Report

Parent communication document

Term 1 Year Level Newsletters

Uniform Price List

Tuckshop Menu

Enrolling at Albany Hills State School

ATTENDANCE TARGET : 95%

ATTENDANCE TO DATE : 96.5%

ATTENDANCE LAST WEEK : 95.9%

What are you learning? We are learning to write narratives about friendship.

How are you doing? It’s fun because I like writing stories. It’s easy for me writing characters and setting, but harder for the complications because it has to be interesting.

How do you know? I re-read my work because it’s my goal. It has capital letters, full stops and it is interesting.

What do you need to do to improve? Re-read and edit my work to check for errors.

Where do you go for help? - My dictionary - Ask the teacher - The word wall - There are words everywhere in the room

What are you learning? We are learning how to write a narrative. (a chapter for a new book)

How are you doing? I think I’m strong at descriptions, but what I’m working on is adding direct speech to add interest.

How do you know? When I do a piece of writing, my teachers tell me I’m good at descriptions but could be better at speech and adding words other than said.

What do you need to do to improve? Add direct speech and more interesting words when using direct speech to add interest.

Where do you go for help? - Posters of words around the room - Ask my teacher - Ask a friend - Look in my English book

3 4

What are you learning? We are learning about expanded noun groups and adding more adjectives so that we can write a story.

How are you doing? I’m going well. There’s only one thing I need to work on and that is trying to describe my characters and setting.

How do you know? Because my teacher has told me and it is my goal.

What do you need to do to improve? Adding more adjectives to describe my characters and setting.

Where do you go for help? - My teacher - Team mates at my table - Writing goals - Dictionary or word books - Bump it up wall

What are you learning? We are learning about the beginning, middle and end of stories.

How are you doing? Very good.

How do you know? Because my teacher tells me.

What do you need to do to improve? I have a writing goal. My writing goal is to write more sentences and give more information.

Where do you go for help? - Whiteboard - My dictionary - The word wall - My teacher

3 1

Beth Henderson Steve Wiedman Jodie Farley Deputy Principals

LEARNING WALKS

READING WITH YOUR CHILD PARENT SESSIONS

Thank you to those Prep and Year 1 Parents who attended this morning's session, it was great to see and meet with you. We covered these topics:

Turning reading with your child into a conversation (Dialogic reading)

‘PEER’ interaction technique

‘CROWD’ – 5 types of prompts (Supporting your child’s developing reading techniques – from the classroom to home)

This will be repeated tonight (Tuesday 5 March), 6.00-6.30 pm in the library.

Looking forward to seeing you and supporting you with this important and exciting aspect of your child's development.

Lindsay Hutchison Speech-Language Pathologist

IMPROVING STUDENT WRITING: DYNAMIC DIALOGUE

The fourth strategy in the Seven Steps to Writing Success is Dynamic Dialogue, which explicitly teaches students how dialogue can add to their story. This strategy is introduced in Year 3 and is consolidated each year after.

Just like any other aspect of writing, dialogue can either shape the story or detract from it, creating long and potentially dull paragraphs of text. Writing is NOT real life, and Dynamic Dialogue exposes students to the fact that writers cheat - they only include the interesting parts of the conversation that move the story forward without having to

explain in detail what has happened. Dialogue can move the plot, make scenes more dynamic, or can reveal characters, but dialogue can also be a great way to write a Sizzling Start! It can turn a story opener like Once upon a time there lived a wicked witch in a magical kingdom. She was trying to kidnap the princess so she could take over the kingdom. into something far more engaging like “Aaaaah-ha-ha-ha! I’ve found her! She’ll never escape this time!” cackled Grizelda. Dialogue, when used well, can have a powerful impact upon the reader and can make for far more interesting writing.

There are four levels of conversation that can happen in a story:

cliché, or body language – you can “say” a lot with body language. For example, “Paige took one look at the opposition soccer team, rolled her eyes and flicked her hair back over her shoulder. This was going to be fun!”

fact – “This was it,” I thought to myself. “It was now or never. I had to win this game or Jack would win the championship!”

opinion – “You’ll never make it in time, Penelope!” spat Celeste. “Besides, Lucie and Isabelle have a MUCH stronger routine!”

feelings – “I can’t believe you’re leaving the school!” sobbed Ellie.

In next week’s Herald we will outline the Show, Don’t Tell strategy.

Christie Meiklejohn Head of Curriculum

TUCKSHOP ROSTER

TUCKSHOP DONATIONS

The tuckshop would appreciate any donations of pasta spirals or penne, Jatz or Aldi Eton Crackers. Pop any donations into your child’s tuckshop box.

Thanks Sharon

PARENT MUSIC COMMITTEE MEETING

The next Music Committee Meeting will be

held on Thursday 2 May 2019 at 2.00 pm in

the Music Room. All welcome to attend.

Tuckshop Roster

Week 7 of Term 1 11—15 March

Monday

Leanne

Tuesday Rowena Marijka

Wednesday Trudi Brenda Gwen

Thursday Michelle Merryl Cheryl Kirst

Friday Kirst Kim B Jodi Elisha

SCIENCE IN PLH

PLH have been learning about the needs of living things in Science. We have had 2 budgies and a rescue possum called Haloumi spend the day with us. Our class have enjoyed observing and drawing scientific diagrams of these animals. Here are some of our observations:

Blair – We fed Haloumi a special milk because he has no mother. She is very tiny.

Mollie – Haloumi eats carrot, sweet potato and apple. She is cute.

Jasmin – Haloumi sleeps in a pillowcase. It’s like a pouch. When she grows up she has to go back to the bush and see her family.

Edison – Budgies like toys to play with. They have sharp claws to climb in their cage.

Thanks Leigh-Ann Hastie PLH

P&C News…

AHSS PARTNERED WITH CONTAINERS FOR CHANGE

Albany Hills State School has partnered with Containers for Change to increase recycling of drink containers whilst collecting a 10c refund per eligible container.

At school, children may participate by placing their drink containers in the designated buckets located in the lunch areas. Our tuckshop staff and volunteers will collect and sort the containers and arrange the drop off and refund for the school.

The second way to participate includes students collecting containers at home and taking them to a local container return point. Unfortunately this option is not yet available as we are waiting for our registration to be approved. The P&C will advise the school community of our Scheme ID and other information once our registration is verified.

If you have any questions about the recycling scheme please email the P&C on pandc@albahillss.equ.edu.au.

https://www.containersforchange.com.au/how-it-works

Dee Steel P&C Committee Member

P&C News… CHOCOLATE FUNDRAISER Freddo and friends chocolates went home last week with the youngest family member. Chocolates are sold 2 for $1.00, with each box worth $60. Please return money to the chocolate draw in the office by Friday 22 March. With thanks, Helen Mills Fundraiser co-ordinator

ELIGIBLE CONITAINERS

Staff profile of the week…

JESSE GADISCHKIE—YEAR 5JG TEACHER

Where did you work or study before you came to AHSS? Before moving to Brisbane and Albany Hills back in 2017, I worked up in Gladstone, Central Queensland. That was where I began my teaching career and I taught there for four years in two different schools. I am originally from Bundaberg, which is where I attended university straight out of high school.

What accomplishment fills you with pride so far this year? (Or since you have been at AHSS) This is a tricky one! I was initially a bit ‘afraid’ of the older primary kids since most of my experience was with the early years, but since teaching Year 5 I really enjoy it! So I guess that is an accomplishment – overcoming what I thought was a fear.

If you could pass on any wisdom to your students, what would you share? There is a quote from Napoleon Hill I have outside my classroom this year that has really stuck with me for a while: “Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” I think this is important all throughout life – set goals and work hard to achieve them.

What is one of your hidden talents? (or hobby) It might not be particularly ‘hidden’ to my students, but I am very creative and love to draw!

What are some pets you've had or would like to own? Growing up we had everything from budgies and cockatiels to guinea pigs, mice, fish, hermit crabs and dogs. Dogs are my favourite! I would like to have my own in Brisbane someday soon. For now, playing with and ‘dogsitting’ my friends’ dogs will have to do!

What song do you know all the lyrics to? I have the memory of a goldfish – so none!

What do you think makes AHSS such a great school? Having worked in a few schools, Albany Hills is by far my favourite. It is such a privilege to work here. I love the team of people I get to work with every day from the admin team, to the teachers and support staff. Everybody is approachable and I feel supported to do my job every day. Oh, and most importantly, the children are delightful! I remember being new and having so many lovely children welcoming me and asking me how I was going; that is something not too many schools have. We all know it ‘takes a village to raise a child’ and I think we are doing a marvellous job here at Albany Hills.

MONDAY CODING CLUB

ROBOTICS CLUB IN THE LIBRARY