Dear Families,

Thank you for a great Semester 1. With the first full and uninterrupted semester of schooling for our students since 2019, we are in a great place as a school community. The vast majority of our students come to school each and every day ready to engage in the learning and play that is their Yeronga State School. For some of our students they arrive at the gate each day not feeling as though they have the agency we so very much wish for them. This is where partnerships are so important and trusting relationships are built with school staff, parents and caregivers to collaborate and advocate on behalf of the child. Please know we value the opportunity to collaborate and work alongside our parents until we arrive at a shared vision together for each young person at Yeronga State School.

Our ultimate vision for all students, staff and community members is that we are connected, curious and community minded learners and citizens who make a positive difference to our world.

On Wednesday afternoon you will receive your child’s Semester 1 Report via email. Please understand the reporting of student achievement against a 5-point scale is a national requirement of schools across the country indicating how their child is progressing in relation to the Australian Curriculum end of year curriculum standards. It is a summative overall rating and does not capture the full picture of your child as a young person’s inherent strengths and talents. Please view the report in this context and if you do have any questions, raise these in the first instance with your child’s teacher. The opportunity to discuss further and in more depth will occur during the parent teacher interviews early next term.

I would like to thank and acknowledge the following staff who will be leaving us at the end of the term; Year 6 teacher Ms Middle-ton Pol who is embarking on a career change to secondary school. Year 2 teacher Ms Lindsey Jobbins who is taking up another teaching role in the department and Year 1 teacher Ms Cath Spencer. We have several teacher aides who work diligently in a temporary yet highly valued capacity who will be finishing up at the end of the term. We truly thank you sincerely for your dedication and commitment to our students.

I am taking long service leave for all of Term 3 (next term). My elderly mother lives with Richard and I. We are renovating a living space for her and I will need to take the necessary time to attend to the many middle of the day, week day tasks involved. We have a great leadership team here at YSS who will continue to drive the literacy, numeracy, inquiry and student engagement programs forward in my absence. I am excited to welcome the acting principal to our school for Term 3, I know they will bring their own passions and strengths add their own value to our great school. The incoming person will be shared with the community on Monday.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the Junior Athletics carnival and Under 8s Day next week.

Have a wonderful holiday with the children and I look forward to seeing you when I return in Term 4.

Eunice

Messenger Apps

Group chats are a great way for students to connect with their peers outside of school time.  We know that some popular Apps for group messages include: Messenger for kids, Messages and Snap Chat.  Students are still learning the online etiquette for this digital world, and may need your help.  The E-safety commissioners Website has some great resources that explore safety online.  https://www.esafety.gov.au/kids/i-want-help-with

You might also like to use the parental controls that are already on your devices to support your child, set screen limits, and limit content.

Energy Drinks at School

A Reminder that all energy drinks and soft drinks are not allowed at school.  Students may bring a water bottle to school to re-fuel throughout the day. 

Personal Property at school

A friendly reminder about bringing personal items to school.  If students choose to bring personal property to school (eg: balls, pokemon cards etc), it is their responsibility to look after them during the day.  We recommend keeping them in school bags where appropriate to keep them safe and sound.

Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Talk – Years 3-6.

We’re excited to welcome Denise and Bruce Morcombe from the Daniel Morcombe Foundation to Yeronga State School in term 3.  Denise and Bruce will talk with students in years 3 to 6 about being safe.  They will equip students with skills to trust their instincts, stay in control and be confident to use these skills if and when required.  Parents are welcome to join us for this session, held on 10^th August at 9am in the hall. If you’d like to know more about the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, or to access some resources to talk about safety at home, the Daniel Morcombe website is a great resource: https://danielmorcombe.com.au/

Winter Big Sing and Big Play

What a fantastic display of music making there has been over the past 2 weeks at the winter Big Sing and Big Play. Over two nights students, from years 2-6 who are involved in our amazing choirs, bands and string ensembles, came together to showcase their achievements over the semester.

The Junior, Senior and Chamber Choirs performed some of their favourite pieces, including Revolting Children from Matilda the musical, Oye and Play! from the musical Neverland. There wasn’t a revolting student in sight with all students in full voice and performing with great enthusiasm and excitement.

Junior band came together after just a few short weeks of practice together to deliver a stellar version of Twinkle Twinkle. Senior Band had everyone on their feet with their performance of the Ghostbusters theme and Mr Grodecki kept any ghouls at bay with his trusty backpack vacuum.

No one wanted to take their leave and run when Senior strings played Wellerman. Junior strings weren’t to be outdone with their energetic performance of ready, set, fiddle!, Chamber strings wowed is with their soaring strings and Mrs Eastgate even played the Viola.

A special thanks to Matt Hesse and Ed Le Brocq for attending our concerts and playing with and encouraging our young musicians. It is always inspiring to have professional musicians support and motivate our young musicians to achieve their very best.

A big shout out to the volunteer parents who helped out with the student council sausage sizzle fundraiser at both events. Your enthusiasm for a sausage sizzle raised just over $1600 over the two nights and the much-appreciated money raised will go towards supporting the Instrumental and Choral music department. Watch this space for further details.

Missing out on the fun?

We have limited spaces available for students who aren’t afraid to have a lot of fun and sing their hearts out in one of our super Choirs. Email Mrs Truce at ctruc1@eq.edu.au for more details.

Regional Workshops

The year 4 strings and band students are participating in a regional ensemble workshop and performance this term, with the band students attending Southside Junior Band Workshop at Yeronga State High School this week and the strings students attending the Southside Junior Strings Workshop at Coorparoo State School on the last two days of term. Happy music making to all involved.

Term 3 rehearsals

All Band, String and Choir rehearsals will commence in week 1, term 3. Please see the table below for details. Please make sure you arrive before the start time, ready to begin rehearsal promptly.    NB Senior choir will now start at 7:30am instead of 755 due to upcoming disruptions to our usual Friday morning gatherings.

On Tuesday the students in Years 4 to 6 participated in the Senior School Sports day. It was an action packed day with great House spirit demonstrated across the 4 Houses. The glorious weather provided a fast track and perfect conditions for the field events. Congratulations to all the students on a fantastic day.

House Champions – Lawson House (Runners Up Paterson)

Age Champions

Record Breakers

Mollie W – 11 Years Girls 100m 14.68

Eve C – 11 Years Girls Long Jump 3.99m

Finn C – 12 Years Boys 1500m 5.23

Lachlan G – 11 Years Boys 1500m 5.14

Special thanks to Mr Sutherland for his efforts in getting the track up and ready for the day. Also, thanks to the P & C for sponsoring an upgrade to the PA system. Thanks to Hugh Webb for installing and fine tuning the new equipment needed in the PA system upgrade. A big thank you to all the staff involved for their efforts. Finally, a big thanks to all the spectators that came along to support.

Running Club

Running club has resumed and will continue until the end of the year unless the weather makes it impossible to run safely or public health restrictions return. Sessions will be held on Tuesdays, from 3:15 to 3:45 and Wednesdays from 7:45 to 8:15 with Mr Bateman. Mr Sutherland is now holding his sessions on Fridays from 7:45 to 8:15. Remember that all of these sessions will occur on the main, or years 3-6, oval.

Another Queenslander in our midst

Congratulations again to Lily Mc who was selected in the Qld 10 – 12 Years Girls Cricket Team and played very well in Darwin last week. Mollie W has joined her in being selected in a Queensland team. Mollie was selected in the Queensland AFL team. She is one of 20 Girls selected from 50,000 possible aspirants. Being selected for a state team is a fantastic achievement and a huge honour. Congratulations to Mollie and her family. Also commiserations to Aggie W who was desparately unlucky to miss out, but did captain the Met West Regional AFL team.

Regional Rugby League

Congratulations again to our Lily Mc who, this time, has been selected in the Met West Regional Girls Rugby League. Well done Lily!

Regional Softball

Congratulations to Patrick D who is following in his brother’s foot steps being selected in the 10 – 12 Years Boys Softball team.

Football Goals

Please remember, that although these goals are metal, they are not built to be climbed upon. Please do not climb on them as you will be endangering yourself, damaging the goals and be the unhappy recipient of a white slip.

Representative Sport Dates Release (Important)

The trial dates for term one of 2023 are listed below.

Yeronga State School (YSS) District Trial Selection Policy (Years 4 to 6)

The representative pathway for school sport is for children from 10 to 12 years of age. Yeronga is part of a very strong district which consists of 28 schools from Yeronga State School to the Calamvale area. In contact and skill team sports those aged 11 and 12 need to possess the advantages of size and speed, as well as skill on most occasions.  Selectors will choose those with the skill and the resilience to compete at a higher level. Remember that selectors give up their time for these trials meaning that it is important for us to send only those ready to compete at a higher level. Very seldom is it appropriate to send students for experience. An indicator of readiness for participation at a higher level would be being among the best 3 or 4 players in most games for your club under 12 teams.

In order to be selected to attend a District Trial children should make themselves known to me (Mr Bateman) for either a selection trial with the appropriate teacher or so that they may be given the appropriate forms. Remember that children must give at least two weeks notice that they wish to attend a district trial to allow for a school selection trial to be held in the event of a great deal of interest being shown in a particular sport.

Rebel Sport Community Givebacks

Just a quick note to publicise our involvement with this scheme and how it works. For some time now Yeronga State School has been part of the above mentioned scheme. The scheme gives the school credit for purchases of equipment at Rebel as anyone who purchases equipment nominates Yeronga State School as the recipient of Community Kickbacks. I have purchased cricket equipment, Footballs and Netballs with this credit. It is an easy way to contribute resources to our school especially if you enjoy spending time and money in sports stores like myself. Thanks to all of those who purchased at Rebel over the break. We have a very useful amount for equipment.

Important Sporting Dates Term 2 & 3, 2023

20 June – YSS Junior (Prep – 3) Athletics Carnivals

17 & 18 July – District Athletics

29 & 30 August – Regional Athletics

31 August – YSS Ball Games Day

Term 2 has seen all of the Prep classes attend Visual Art for the first time this year. Arriving each lesson with enthusiasm, humour and creativity, the Prep artists explored mark-making as they stamped, slide and scribbled with their choice of natural objects which were later made into paintbrushes. Students have created a mini folio of their processes using First Nations artists Mitjili Napurrula and Dolly Snell as inspiration for bold patterns, lines and shapes in their own artworks. 

Next term Years 3-6 will return to art and all classes will be focusing on projects for the whole school art exhibition at the end of the year. See you after the break! 

Ms Greenfield

Term Two in the Library

As Term Two ends, it is a perfect chance to reflect on our library activities.

These have included displays and book borrowing to acknowledge/celebrate the following special days/events:

Star Wars Day;

Mother’s Day;

National Simultaneous Storytime,

https://www.nla.gov.au/stories/video/alia-national-simultaneous-storytime-2023-national-library-speedy-sloth

National Sorry Day;

Reconciliation Week;

World Environment Day;

World Ocean’s Day;

The commencement of the annual Premier’s reading challenge for 2023.  https://readingchallenge.education.qld.gov.au/

Term Three is the biggest in the calendar year for any school library. As stated above we will participate in the annual Premier’s reading challenge for 2023.

We will celebrate the CBCA Book Week with all the excitement that it entails. Get those costumes ready!!

 https://cbca.org.au/cbca-book-week

We will also hold our first ever Where the Wild Things Are Book Fair.

 https://wherethewildthingsare.com.au/

Where the Wild things are is a local book store in our community. They will be offering a talk for parents on choosing books for your children, and then run a book fair for the following week. More details to follow.

Thank you for encouraging your child to be a reader and also supporting the care of our resources by supplying a book bag.

Scholastic Bookfair

A huge thank you needs go to all the parents who supported our Scholastic Book Fair. We sold $6500 worth of product which has helped us buy $1900 worth of decodable home readers for our Junior School. We could not have done this without you!

We are delighted to invite all Yeronga State School students to join in the 2023 Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC).

The PRC is not a competition but a way to encourage students to develop a love of reading for life. Students are encouraged to select a range of fiction and non-fiction books suited to their reading ability and record books read during the reading period, between 8 May to 25 August. Enclosed is a reader record form and a consent form informing you about how the school and the Department of Education (department) will use, record and disclose your child’s personal information and material.

To complete the challenge:

• Prep to Year 2 must read or experience at least 20 books
• Years 3 and 4 must read at least 20 books
• Years 5 to 9 must read at least 15 books.

Experiencing books can include shared reading, listening to stories, or reading picture books. The aim for the 2023 challenge is to encourage students to make time to read. Last year saw more than 130,000 children from around the state participate.

For suggested books or for more information about the PRC, please visit: readingchallenge.education.qld.gov.au or contact Debbie Cowie, dcowi11@eq.edu.au

Every student who completes the challenge, and returns the completed record reader form and consent form, will receive a Certificate of Achievement signed by the Premier. I look forward to seeing as many of our students as possible take part in the 2023 Premier’s Reading Challenge.

This section is to inform you about how the department will use, record and disclose you and your child’s personal information. The department, as the PRC organiser, often works with third party providers which may involve disclosing personal information to those parties. 

Due to the high volume of reader entrants in the PRC, the department utilises a third party organisation (Median Technologies Pty Ltd) for collecting the reader entries, printing the individualised certificates and mailing them to schools.  

The department needs to receive consent in writing before it uses or discloses an individual’s personal information or materials to a third party organisation. The attached form is a record of the consent provided.

Our school is participating in the PRC and is assisting the department with collecting the reader record forms and consent forms.

By completing and returning the reader record form and the signed consent form to us, you agree to your child/children participating in the PRC and their personal information (their first and last names, year level, class name and school name) to be collected, used and disclosed by the department for the purposes of registration of their entry in the PRC, and printing and issuing a Certificate of Achievement to your child. This information is collected and disclosed to Median Technologies and held for a period of one (1) year in their online database (https://prc.median.com.au) which is based in Australia (using local Microsoft Azure Cloud Services). Any data held by Median Technologies is deleted within one (1) year after the PRC is completed.

 Duration of consent

The consent lasts for one year. If you wish the department to update or remove your child’s/children’s data before one year has expired, you can contact reading.challenge@qed.qld.gov.au or call 07 3328 6628.  For more information, please see section 3 of the enclosed consent form, our Terms and Conditions at https://readingchallenge.education.qld.gov.au/how-to-register/terms-and-conditions and our Data Collection Notice available at http://prc.median.com.au.

If your child wishes to participate in the PRC, please retain this letter for your records and return the completed record reader form and the signed consent form to Yeronga State School Library

Yours sincerely,

Debbie Cowie

Teacher Librarian/ HODc STEAM

Dear Parents and Guardians 

We are delighted to inform you that Yeronga State School, will be participating in the ICAS competition this year.  

We will run these sessions before school from 7:45am.

What is ICAS?  

ICAS is an online academic competition that is designed to assess students’ higher order thinking and problem-solving skills in English, Mathematics, Science, Writing, Spelling Bee and Digital Technologies.  

Each assessment celebrates students’ accomplishments by providing opportunities for recognition and development. Every student who participates will receive a printed certificate and an online results report. Top performers will be eligible for medals.  

At Yeronga State School   we offer students the opportunity to sit the ICAS test as an option, by providing an assessor and space to sit the test.

Learn more about ICAS here. (https://www.icasassessments.com/products-icas)  

How to participate in ICAS  

If you wish for your child to participate in ICAS this year, please:  

1. read about ICAS subjects and prices here: (com/products-icas) 
2. read the terms and conditions here:(icasassessments.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2023-ICAS-Assessments-Parents-PPS-TsCs_final.pdf) 
3. go to Parent Portal to purchase tests here: (shop.icasassessments.com/pages/pps) 
4. enter our school’s access code –CZP999
5. enter your child’s details, select the tests you would like to purchase, then proceed to payment. 

     NB. Parent registrations close by 17 July.

Please note that the ICAS tests shown for selection are at the school’s discretion.   

After payment is made via the Parent Payment System, you will receive an order confirmation email, please keep this for your records.  

ICAS Results and Certificates 

We will notify you of the date(s) that we run ICAS at the. Once we have received your child’s ICAS certificate, we will send it home with your child. The back of the certificate shows ICAS results and the login details, “TAP ID and Pin”, that you and your child need to enter the Results Portal orti.icasassessments.com/ortiStudent  

 Privacy Collection Statement  

The following information is a privacy notification about how your child’s data is kept private and secure.  

Janison is aware of our responsibility to protect the identity of, and all information relating to, children, and students in general, from disclosure and consequently Janison does not:  

• collect any personal information or data of children other than as required for the purposes of completion of the assessment, test or exam; 
• transfer any personal information or data obtained during the delivery of assessments, tests or exams conducted in Australia to any jurisdiction outside of Australia other than with the specific consent of the person, or his or her parent or guardian; 
• transfer any personal information or data obtained during the delivery of assessments, tests or exams conducted in other international regions out of the child’s jurisdiction other than with the specific consent of the person, or his or her parent or guardian; 
• share any personal information or data relating to children or students with any third parties (other than a third party whose services are necessary for servicing our products, g. print/distribution companies, medal engraving, etc.) except with the specific consent of the person, or his or her parent or guardian; 
• use any personal information or data relating to children or students for marketing purposes. 

 Janison may retain personal information and data relevant to a child for their future purposes or for research purposes by Janison for the duration of the school life cycle of the child. However, if you or your child at any time wish to have their personal information or data removed from our systems, they or you may opt out by simply contacting our Privacy Officer at privacy@janison.com.  

We are proud to offer ICAS and look forward to some fantastic results later in the year.  Please do not hesitate to contact the school office if you have any questions.  

  Kind regards,  

  Debbie Cowie

ICAS Coordinator

Dcowi11@eq.edu.au