Congratulations to our entire community for such a great start to the year. Parents, school staff and students have all worked hard to establish great routines and behaviour expectations that set us up for a positive year of learning.

We have had a Year 3-6 and P-2 assembly in the first two weeks and it was great to see old and new faces at the Prep Welcome Picnic after the first week.

Active School Travel

Active School Travel promotes clean and green, active and healthy school travel modes such as walking, cycling, carpooling and public transport. By leaving your car at home, at least one day a week on our active travel day, we can reduce traffic congestion at the school gate, improve our students’ road safety awareness, create a cleaner environment, and improve our health and fitness!

As part of the Active School Travel program, students participate in their weekly active travel day - Wednesday. EachWednesday, students who actively travel get their passports stamped. When students reach target trips in their passport, they are eligible for an Active School Travel reward. There are lots of great rewards for your children – highlighters, bouncy balls, etc.

Come on, let’s get active!

Student Council

Each year the students in Years 3 - 6 have the opportunity to vote for a class representative to join the student council. This election process took place last week and the successful representatives will presented with their badges as part of the forthcoming leadership induction ceremony (Thurs 20^th Feb @ 9.00am).

Miss Vaggs and Miss McDermott  are eager to work closely with this year’s Student Council Representatives to enable this group to provide a voice for the students of Yeronga State School. These students will also be invited to be part of the Halogen Young Leader’s Day, held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Monday 24^th February. This is an exciting leadership opportunity for our students to hear from a variety of high profile speakers and develop their future leadership potential.

Bridge Builders

Bridge Builders is the school’s conflict resolution and peer mediation program. This program is used in every class and in the playground. The aim of the program is to teach students the nature of conflict, behaviour is a choice, how to respond to conflict, how to manage emotions, how to work out conflict and the role of others in conflict.

Each classroom has the Bridge Builders posters displayed for students and staff to refer to. The Bridge Builder strategies are taught to students through classroom lessons and are reinforced during weekly assemblies. The Peer mediators also help our junior students to remember the strategies during lunch breaks.

The Bridge Builders Peer Mediators are a selected group of Year 6 students who are rostered to be in the junior playground during lunch breaks to assist junior students to care for others and resolve conflict with each other in the playground. The program helps in developing responsible learners who have ownership for their problem solving and focusses on positive relationships.

Assembly

Assemblies have started for the year. These are a wonderful opportunity for parents and the school community to come together and hear about the happenings in our school.

This year we will continue to operate our weekly assembly as two groups:

Juniors (Prep – Year 2) – Thursday 1.45pm (even weeks)

Seniors (Year 3 – Year 6) – Thursday 1.45pm (odd weeks)

Parent Information Evenings

During Week 3 and 4 we will be holding parent information sessions to provide an opportunity for parents to find out year level specific information for the year ahead. Details are as follows:

• Junior School (Prep- Year 2) 6pm Wednesday 12 February. Session to start at 6pm in the Hall, followed by ‘break out’ sessions in classrooms from 30-7.30pm.
• Senior School (Yr 3-6) 6pm Wednesday 19 February. Session to start at 6pm in the Hall, followed by ‘break out’ sessions in classrooms from 6.30-7.00pm.

Parent Information Evenings are a perfect opportunity to build relationships with your child’s teacher and hear information about the year ahead. Topics to be discussed include school priorities, Curiosity and Powerful Learning, communication between parents and teachers, home learning, year level curriculum, BYOD (Year 2, 3 and 4), leadership opportunities (Year 5 and 6), camps and excursion information, assessment, reporting and NAPLAN information (Year 3 and 5).

Time Year 3/4/5/6 (including Before and After School Arrangements).

All students who are not attending Yeronga Outside School Hours Care (YOSHC) should aim to arrive after 8:30am. If students arrive between 8:15am – 8:30am they need to sit under C Block to read or talk quietly. No students should be in the school grounds before 8:15am. Parents who need to drop students at school before 8:15am need to enrol in YOSHC. It is a great safety concern to have

children who are unsupervised in the school grounds. YOSHC is open every morning from 7am.

After school all students need to be collected by parents/carers at 3pm. Students remaining at school after 3pm must be with a teacher (e.g. sports training), their parent or attending YOSHC.

Parents who are later than 3:15pm collecting their children, will need to collect them from the school office. Please note that the school office closes at 3:30pm. All student and parents who are not part of the YOSHC program need to have left the school grounds no later than 4pm.

We understand that family life often involves unexpected changes to routines. We appreciate the efforts our families make to manage their schedule to work within these times and thank you for your understanding around this very important safety matter.

Help keep our children safe

For your child’s safety please ensure that students only enter the school grounds via the pedestrian gates (not the through any of the car parks). Cars are not to park in the school grounds. Street parking is available for parents. We also have a 2 minute – Stop, Kiss and Go area on Park Road.

The safety of our students is our priority, as these spaces have continual vehicle movement it is imperative that no student, even with and adult, walk through these areas. We thank you for your assistance in keeping our school a safe place to learn, grow and have fun.

Upcoming Events

We would love to see you at our upcoming events at the start of this term.

They include:

• Student Leader Induction Ceremony: Thursday 20 February 9am
• Senior Cross Country: Tuesday 10 March 9am
  
  

Tracy Freeman and Louise Vaggs

Deputy Principals