MIDDLE SCHOOL CAMPUS | Paradise Road | Slacks Creek Q 4127 | PO Box 2798 - Logan City DC 4114

JUNIOR SCHOOL CAMPUS | Borman Street | Slacks Creek Q 4127 | PO Box 2798 - Logan City DC 4114

Telephone: 3386 5333| Fax: 3386 5300 | email: admin@mabelparkss.eq.edu.au | www.mabelparkss.eq.edu.au Page 1

Every Student – Whatever it takes! Curriculum - Pedagogy – Relationships

Term 2 - 2020 Looking Back at Term 2

We finished Term 1 preparing our learning material to be sent home in Learning Packs for every student across the School in

Term 2. This extensive work continued for five weeks with couriers taking Learning Packs to our students’ homes every

Monday morning ready for the week of learning. The work our teachers completed in preparation for these Learning Packs

was a new way of working and certainly a learning curve that everyone needed to make with great haste.

I would like to acknowledge and celebrate all the great work our teachers did to ensure all our students were well connected

with their learning. I would also like to acknowledge and celebrate all the great learning our parents engaged in to support

their students, ensuring that home learning was being carried out during this time. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the

commitment our students made to their learning during the home schooling period. It has certainly been an extraordinary

time for everyone in schools, as far as education is concerned, and for everyone in ensuring we committed to keeping all

members of our school community safe.

Health and Social Distancing

We developed stringent health, hygiene and social distancing processes to commit to the Department of Education’s

expectations, ensuring everyone has been kept safe. We are still continuing to enforce these processes and will do so until we

are informed otherwise. While this was a very new experience that we all needed to adopt and commit to, we have all

worked diligently to keep each other and our community safe. Enormous thanks to all our parents who have committed to

these new guidelines.

From the Principal – Jennifer Skeahan

Page 2

Drop Offs and Pick Ups

We made some small changes in our Drop Off and Pick Up procedures during the

Term. The changes were made to encourage all parents to remain outside the

school gates and the purpose for the transitional change was to encourage all

our younger students to be responsible and autonomous learners.

Leadership Organisation

We made a small change to the Organisational Structure of the Leadership Team.

Omen will remain with his portfolio and Year Levels 4 -6 (unchanged)

Stacey will remain with her portfolio and keep Year 2 and Year 3 staff and

students

Alexis will remain with her portfolio and pick up Prep and Year 1 staff and students

Community Education Counsellor Aunty Vicki Campbell

Our wonderful Community Education Counsellor Aunty Vicki Campbell left us last week to join Regional Office to work

across a number of schools for the Semester 2. We were very sad to see Aunty Vicki go as she had worked so well in our

Community. We are also very proud of her in winning her new role and being recognised as a wonderful asset to the South

East Region. We wish Aunty Vicki all the best in her future aspirations and look forward to her joining us as a special guest

at our ceremonies in the future. Congratulations and good luck Aunty Vicki!

Reporting

Our reporting this Term will look different then it has ever been before. This will be because even though our Report Cards

will look the same, we know that the work going into the report cards was experienced through our Learning Packs and

from the time the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted we have engaged in Face to Face curriculum delivery.

Mabel Park SS is going Cashless

Our online ordering for the tuckshop progressed very well and is now a streamlined process. When the time comes to

reintroduce incursions and excursions we will also be requesting that payments are made online in future.

Tuckshop from Term 3

From Term 3 we will only be taking tuckshop orders for the first break. We are generally taking the bulk of orders at this

time and it is not financially viable to keep the tuckshop open at second break. Please be mindful of this change in moving

forward.

Thank you everyone for your continued support in this peculiar time in history, your commitment to our school is

outstanding!

Jennifer

Due to COVID-19 and current restrictions, School Events will not be advertised at this time.

Upcoming Events

Page 3

Welcome back!

After four weeks at school without students, it was absolutely fantastic to welcome our Preps and Year 1s back to school in

Week 4! Since then, our students have done a great job of getting back into the routines of classroom learning. It is really

important that students continue to attend school, right through the final weeks, as their curriculum learning will continue

to occur right up until the last day.

Change to transitions

One of the biggest changes to our school routines and transitions was the change to drop-off and pick-ups, with parents

moving from saying goodbye at classrooms, to saying good bye at the gate. While this was a difficult adjustment for some at

first, the resilience and growth shown by our younger students has been a joy to see. Parents should be so proud of the

independence shown by our Prep and Year 1 students, and the responsibility shown by our older siblings who often see their

little brothers and sisters to class.

Art Club

At lunch times, some of our student have been attending the Art Club run by one of our wonderful teacher aides, Mrs Smith.

This week, Mrs Smith conducted a lucky prize draw for all of the students who have completed a piece of art work so far. The

lucky winner of this draw was… Zaw Zaw in 2.1. Congratulations to Zaw Zaw, and well done to all the creative Art Club

participants!

Deputy Principal – Ms Alexis Bell

Page 4

Welcome back to all of our families! It has been fantastic to hear the positive feedback from students and parents around

the Learning @ Home packs – our teachers put in a huge effort to ensure we continued to deliver a high quality education

to all of our students. The combined efforts from all sides means we have had a smooth transition back to school and are

able to move ahead confidently in our continued learning of the Australian Curriculum.

IMPACT incursions

For some of our Year 3 students, as well as our Year 5 classes, we have been engaging in virtual learning through the

IMPACT Centre. To complete this round of learning, these students will participate in IMPACT incursions on school grounds

during Week 10. This event will be at no cost to families. These sessions will involve our students meeting some of their

virtual teachers in real life, and bring together the range of learning experiences they have had during their engagement in

the IMPACT programs. We look forward to welcoming these IMPACT teachers to our school for this exciting event, and

showing them how focused our Mabel Park learners are.

Information for parents about student wellbeing

A range of free resources are available to support student mental health and wellbeing. The following information is

available on the Education Queensland website and provides details of organizations who provide information and support

specifically for our young people.

Parents play a crucial role in developing resilient children who enjoy positive mental health and wellbeing. It is important

that parents have access to accurate information and feel confident about managing the emotional and social wellbeing of

their children.

The following links provide practical information for how families can promote positive mental health and wellbeing, factual

information about mental health conditions and community agencies that can provide support.

BeyondBlue is a National Depression Initiative that gives a range of information on depression and supports available to

people suffering depression and their family.

CYMHS (Child Youth Mental Health Services) provides information about referral requirements and includes opening

times and contact information.

Headspace provides helpful information for parents about boys and girls, adolescents, emotional development, parenting

practices and how best to support children and young people.

RAP-P (Resourceful Adolescent Program-Parent Program) is designed to help parents promote the optimal family

environment for healthy adolescent development.

For more information, visit https://www.qld.gov.au/

Deputy Principal – Mrs Stacey Wood

Page 5

Today Show

When students across Queensland returned to school on Monday 25th May, Mabel Park State School was featured in a

‘live-cross’ with breakfast news program The Today Show. Our Principal, Jennifer Skeahan, was interviewed on national

television with a special appearance from Mabel Park Courageous Lion, welcoming our students back after Learning at

Home for 5 weeks during the COVID-19 crisis.

Senior Shirts

Our 2020 Year 6 Senior Shirts have arrived and they look fantastic! The distinctive shirts feature the same artwork and

design as the popular Attendance HERO Shirts, with the school values TRUST, COURAGE and RESPECT and the word

SENIORS clearly displayed to identify our Year 6 Students. Wearing a 2020 Senior Shirt brings with it the extra

responsibility for our Year 6 students to be ambassadors for our school and positive role-models for younger students.

Deputy Principal – Mr Omen Facto

Page 6

ARD Visit

This week, Assistant Regional Director Kate Bentley visited Mabel Park State School, stopping in to speak with students and

teachers in several classrooms on the Middle Campus. Mrs Bentley acknowledged the hard work of our students, teachers

and parents through the Learning at Home phase and was very impressed with the excellent teaching and learning taking

place in our classrooms now that all students have returned to school.

From the Head of Curriculum – Student Services – Teresa Radicke

Attendance

Congratulations to 1.1 for achieving 93.6% for their class attendance in Week 8.

Congratulations to 5.3 for achieving 94.4% for their class attendance in Week 8.

Our overall school attendance at the end of Week 8 was 83.5%.

Please continue to contact the school if your child is unwell by:

Ringing the school – 07 33865333

Replying to the SMS sent by the school

Writing a note explaining the absence

Year Level Attendance

PREP 77.1% YEAR 4 83.3%

YEAR 1 79.5% YEAR 5 90.1%

YEAR 2 85.5% YEAR 6 88.1%

YEAR 3 79.5% Overall Middle Campus 87.1%

Overall Junior Campus 80.4%

From the Head of Curriculum – Student Services – Teresa Radicke

Page 7

Walking to and from school safely

• plan your walking routes

• avoid busy roads, if possible

• choose a place to cross the road where you can clearly see it is safe to cross

• walk the extra distance to use a pedestrian crossing, traffic island, pedestrian lights or overhead bridge, if available

• walk on the far right-hand side of the road facing oncoming traffic, when there is no footpath

• never approach unknown dogs

Before you cross the road:

• unplug your earphones and put away your phone

• avoid crossing between parked cars or at the front or back of buses and large vehicles

• at intersections, check for turning vehicles before you leave the kerb

• look out before you step out

Using pedestrian crossings

• stop at the kerb until cars have completely stopped, as drivers don't always see you

• try and make eye contact with the driver before you cross, so you know they have seen you

• when safe, promptly walk across the road, continually scanning and listening for oncoming traffic

It is full steam ahead for the remainder of term 2 as our teachers create engaging and inclusive learning experiences for our

students. At Mabel Park, our teachers plan and deliver their lessons using an EAL/D lens. This involves developing our

students’ oral language skills through regular facilitated talk, co-constructing Learning Walls with our students and

embedding kinaesthetic strategies such as hand gestures to support the progression of learning.

This term in English…

Prep Our Prep students have been exploring word patterns and rhyming words. Students are learning to create

rhyming sentences and respond to a rhyming story.

Year 1 Our Year 1 students have been reading and listening to the story, Tiddalick. Students will create an oral

and written retell of the main events and characters of the story.

Year 2 Our Year 2 students have been learning about informative texts and Australian animals. Students will write

an information report about the Northern Blossom Bat.

Year 3

Our Year 3 students have been reading and listening to the story, Kumiko and the Dragon. Students will

examine the word choices used in the text, explore how authors establish the mood and answer a variety

of comprehension questions.

Year 4 Our Year 4 students have been reading a variety of traditional stories and learning about the structure of a

narrative. Students will write their own narrative which teaches a moral or lesson for a younger audience.

Year 5 Our Year 5 students have been reading and listening to the fantasy story, The Forests of Silence. Students

will write their own fantasy story involving a good and evil character.

Year 6 Our Year 6 students have been exploring how advertisements persuade an audience. Students will create

their own persuasive holiday poster and explain how they have created persuasion.

From the Head of Curriculum – Danielle Finlay

Page 8

Inclusive Education - Middle Campus

Rainbow Room’s Writing Station

A writing station is a physical area (or centre) designated for specific learning purposes. It is designed to provide

appropriate materials to help students work independently or collaboratively (with partners or in small groups) to meet

literacy goals.

Effective literacy centres allow for student choice, have explicit and ongoing routines. Literacy centres promote student

collaboration, facilitate student motivation, and provide targeted practice for students (Daniels & Bizar, 1998).

The goal of our writing station is to provide students with meaningful independent tasks in order

to practise writing skills, daily.

As readers and writers, we want our students to:

Read with comprehension Decode new words successfully Read fluently Talk and write about what they read Expand their vocabularies

Inclusive Education – Vickie Hart

Above is an example of a co-constructed Learning Wall for the Year 2 information report unit. To demonstrate their

learning, students designed their own Northern Blossom Bat habitat diorama and then used oral language to explain

Northern Blossom Bat facts.

Page 9

Share meaningful ideas through writing Write with correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation

Writing with children provides opportunities to engage children in meaning-making using multiple modes of

communication. For example: visual, auditory, tactile, verbal, and written.

Writing experiences provide endless opportunities for developing children’s artistic, as well as written expression.

Our inclusive educators provide space, materials, and writing inspiration/stimulus to engage our students in writing.

Children create their own texts from beginning to end, drawing upon skills and knowledge gained in other literacy experiences.

Teachers may provide support or scaffolding as needs arise, but children are almost entirely independent.

Through emergent reading and writing experiences, children learn about how texts work, and the main differences between text types (genres).

Hello dear families at Mabel Park State School.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you.

I am Chappy Bernie, the new school chaplain at Mabel Park Primary School.

I am very excited to be working at Mabel Park and over the past few weeks have had

the opportunity to get to know some of the young people across the two campuses.

On Tuesdays I am on the middle campus and on Thursdays I am on the junior campus.

I look forward to meeting parents and getting to know everyone more in the future.

Blessings

Chappie Bernie

Chappy Bernie

Page 10

Advertisements and Notifications

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13