Dear Parents and Carers

This is the last newsletter for the year so I will take this opportunity to wish all of you a restful holiday and a happy Christmas. To those families leaving Yeronga – all our Year 6 families and a few other families, best wishes for the future and I hope that you take with you happy memories of your stay at this school. I would also like to farewell one of our Year 6 teachers, Alex McShane as she takes up a teaching post in Cambodia. All the very best Alex and thank you for your work and dedication. We look forward to your return and your stories.

2020 threw many challenges our way. I choose to look at the glass half full and celebrate the amazing things that the students and community have achieved. Necessity helped us step onto a platform of educational delivery that most of us were not familiar with. Students and parents were also confronted with new ways of working. Innovation and creativity flourished and it was wonderful to see the students tackle the challenges. Thank you to everyone but especially the teachers who had a week in which to turn their way of teaching around.

We were lucky in Queensland and here at Yeronga, once students came back to school, we ensured that every opportunity was taken to continue on despite the pandemic. I am proud to say, that despite Term 2 being thin on the ground with events, we managed to fit most of them into Term 3 and 4. Students in Years 4-6 went on camp. Students went on their incursions and excursions. Sporting events continued even though they looked slightly different. More recently, we have had music concerts and performances. We are all familiar with QR codes and completing COVID declarations!

Can I congratulate the music staff, Lauren Easy, Tamsyn Eastgate, Robyn Rosewarne and Alec Grodecki on the three concerts organised for Week 7 and 8. The standard was exceptionally high. It was a celebration of fabulous music and students able to perform to a real audience.

We had 25 students enter an online language speaking contest, across 7 languages and are very proud of the students’ achievement. They achieved 4xElite Awards (the top award) in Spanish, French, Korean and Chinese, 8xGold Awards, 7xSilver Awards, 5xBronze Awards and 2xCredit Awards. One student entered 2 languages and attained an Elite and a Gold Award. This year we had the highest number of students take part. Thank you to Cathy Hegarty and Andrea Bueno for their passion and commitment to teaching a second language. 

The Green Team, with the support of our volunteer, Nicole won the BCC WasteSMART Awards AGAIN!!

Congratulations to the P&C for winning the Band 9 P&C awards for 2020. The hard work and commitment to the school was acknowledged through this award.

Finally, well done to all Year 5 students who nominated for a leadership position and congratulations to those who were successful.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers at the school. The work of members of the P&C, the volunteers in the tuck shop and classrooms is highly valued. This year you might have felt a little ‘locked out’ but I hope that in the year to come, things will go back to usual. The partnerships between the school and families cannot be underestimated.

Last week, Tracy Freeman and I attended a two-day Primary Principal’s Association conference. The main theme was Re-Imagining Education. The common theme included: let children be children, creating an environment where curiosity is nurtured and all students are important, wonder and schools, curiosity, questions, concepts, listen to student voice, be brave, trust, problem solving, being vulnerable, authentic, ask before tell, think big, focus on pedagogy, teacher learner.

Having read this, I hope you see the alignment between the work YSS has embraced and continues to build on and what is now seen as teaching with a moral purpose.

I would like to end with once again wishing you all a good holiday. Thank you to the staff for a mighty effort this year. You are champions. Thank you to the students who stepped up and showed the resilience that was required and thank you to the community for standing by the students and school. We will gladly welcome 2021!

Community, Staff and Student Safety

We continue to remind some parents that they cannot enter the staff car parks for drop-off purposes or to park. Recently, parents entering the staff car park in a dangerous manner were aggressive to other parents who were following the rules. This kind of behaviour is not appropriate and not accepted at this school. Please do the right thing.

Student Code of Conduct

The 2020 Student Code of Conduct was ratified at the last P&C meeting. It has been uploaded to the school website. Please become familiar with this important document. Thank you to all who helped develop this piece of work. Next year, will see the implementation and embedding of a few new items. Most of the described behaviours in the matrices have been part of the Yeronga ethos for the last four years.

Quadrennial School Review

The completed, ratified and signed strategic plan for 2021-23 has been published and uploaded to the school website. Please read and enjoy. Thank you to all the parents, staff and students who contributed to the consultation and development of this plan.

Michelle D’Netto