A Letter to the Community

“Thought for the Week”

SCHOOL NEWS

No.23 31st July 2020

Covid-19

As the Queensland govern-ment has decided that all schools would re-open to all children as it was safe to do so, we are still insisting on good hygiene practises for all children and staff, and social distancing prac-tices with all adults. Our extra cleaning regimes for the school will remain the same as it has been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rathdowney State Primary School

143-155 Mount Lindesay Highway, Rathdowney 4287

Phone: (07) 5540 4333 E:admin@rathdowneyss.eq.edu.au

Principal: Tina van Bennekom www.rathdowneyss.eq.edu.au

Reporting to Stu-dents and Parents

Because our term has been interrupted by Covid-19, our end of semester as-sessments and the reports that go home to the stu-dents will be a little differ-ent this year. We are well into our assessments and reports are on track to be available by the early part of term 3 these report cards will be sent home on the 13 August. This allows the teachers the best op-portunity to report on all

subjects for this semester. With no parent-teacher in-terviews being scheduled parents are most welcome to make times to meet in-dividually with the teach-ers if they want to.

Block C Refurbish-ments

The builders/electricians are completing the last electrical fitting for the class rooms. The class-room are looking really lovely and modern. The painters are over half way painting ‘c’ block and should be finished by mid next week. The tidy

up has begun, with furni-ture being moved into rooms and turf being laid around the building and in Ms VB’s yard. Soon all works should be finished for this year.

The Students are really en-joying these lessons, the music is very varied and enjoyable.

It’s all looking great so far.

Dance Fever

Dance Fever continues to be a huge success with dance classes for all stu-dents. The lessons are on a Friday morning from 9:00-10:20. The Preps lesson runs from 9:00-9:40 and the 3-6 lesson runs from 9:40-10:20.

Super Spellers 3-6- Max, Linden, Laxon, Erin, William Super Spellers P-2 – Harrison, Noah P

Sight Word Smart-ies-

Dustin, Austin, Billie, Liam

Dear Parents,

My name is Simon Bliss and I am acting Principal for Ms Van Bennekom while she is on leave.

South East Region is my homebase and I have been

a small school Principal since 2010. I have just re-

turned from an oppor-tunity to lead a larger small school just off PNG called Saibai Island. I live locally through the week and our family home is in Brisbane. My wife Sylvana and 2 sons are at home and my boys

are attending Uni and high-school. Our older twin daughters are at Uni in Cairns and Melbourne.

I joined the staff last Sun-day morning for first aid which was a great way to meet everyone. You have

such a wonderful school at Rathdowney. It is so well

resourced and all the new

refurbishment work makes our school sparkle. I feel

fortunate to work with you all, your charming children

and the great staff here.

We conducted the School Opinion Survey in the Year 3-6 class this week and ap-preciate your parent sur-vey feedback. This week

we have commenced new units in History on the First Fleet in Yr 3-4 and Federa-tion in Yr 5-6. In Yr 3-4 Eng-

lish we are studying a novel “Matty forever” and imaginative narratives. In Yr 5-6 we are studying a

digital story about 2 main characters who have an

ethical dilemma.

It is a joy to see the Prep-Year 2 students reading to our Year 3-6 students each

morning. The P-2 class loved Dance Fever today and are learning about their family trees and

where they come from around the world. In Eng-lish P-2 are learning about Adjectives and Verbs this week. Thank you for your warm welcomes and I am looking forward to a suc-

cessful term ahead at Rathdowney. Please con-tact me if you have any-

thing you would like to dis-cuss.

Regards

Simon Bliss

All staff updated their

First Aid skills last Sun-day all passed with flying colours. Well done to all

Dates to Remember-August-September 2020

Monday Tues-day

Wednesday Thursday Friday

W K 4

3 FREE

Chaplaincy

Breakfast

4 5 Tuckshop

Sally Finlay Cakes: Rachel

Hardgrave

6 7 Dance Fever

Heathy Friday

Lunches W K 5

10 FREE

Chaplaincy Breakfast

11 12 Tuckshop

Janine Reilly Cakes: Emma

Williams

13 Student Reports

Available

14 Dance Fever

Heathy Friday

Lunches W K 6

17 FREE

Chaplaincy

Breakfast

18 19 Tuckshop

Amanda Lahrs Cakes: Cathy

Wieland

20 21 Dance Fever

Heathy Friday

Lunches W K 7

24 FREE

Chaplaincy

Breakfast

25 26 Tuckshop

Sorelle Jobson Cakes:

Kasey Grahl

27 28 Dance Fever

Heathy Friday

Lunches W K 8

31 FREE

Chaplaincy Breakfast

Dance

Fever

1 2 Tuckshop

Danielle Bass Cakes: Rachel

Hardgrave

3 4

Student Free Day

Headlice

We have noticed headlice within the school, please check your children for signs and treat as needed

INTRODUCING Inter-ACT our online drama classes for all students 7 – 18 years.

Students who live in rural areas don’t have easy access to programmes such as ours and we thought that

this could be of real value to them. Our online Inter-ACT programme con-

sists of weekly lesson plans, videos for the students to watch and Zoom sessions each week.Please contact:

Margaret Treuel

Term 3, Music News –

Rathdowney State School

What are students learning in music specialist lessons?

How will my child be as-sessed?

Our whole school will

begin to learn this year’s “Music Count Us In 2020 Event Song : You Won’t Bring Us Down” parents

can look at singing the offi-cial lyric clip here

https://youtu.be/C2C-bGFMX5A

Music Count us in starts as a song writing competition,

where the song is written by students, for students to sing and perform. Over

750,000 students regis-tered to sing last year’s

song on the same day usu-ally we have the entire

school sing it a few days early when Miss Bauer our

music teacher is here.

Prep/1/2 This term, students will de-velop aural skills by explor-ing and imitating sounds,

pitch and rhythm patterns and by singing and analys-ing simple songs. They will sing and play instruments (such as xylophones) on

the beat and rhythm. Stu-dents will continue to find their good singing voices,

keeping the beat and rhythm of easy nursery

rhymes. Assessment Tasks: Term 3 hold mallets correctly and

play the notes asked for on a xylophone and sing class

songs confidently and ac-

curately.

Year 3/4/5/6 Students in this class will work on some songs from the “Around the World”

music unit, listening to and learning to sing and play songs from various coun-tries around the world.

Students will have the op-portunity to develop their technical and expressive

skills in singing and playing instruments using ele-

ments of music including rhythm, pitch, dynamics

and form in a range of mu-sic. Students will have the

opportunity to practice some songs on xylophone, glockenspiel, recorder, pi-

ano and drums.

Assessment tasks: Perform

class songs confidently, with correct words, using good posture and perfor-

mance techniques. Playing task: play a simple melody

accurately with a good mallet grip on a glocken-spiel or play accurately a

recorder task with correct technique and musicality

(in a small group or individ-ually). Responding task: an-alyse different types of mu-sic and make comparisons between different types of

music.

Miss Suzanne Bauer Classroom Music Teacher