1 March 2017

Newsletter Articles

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

The 2017 school year has commenced with a great sense of enthusiasm and positivity. Our students are focussed on our school values of Respect for Self, Others and the School and are ‘making every minute count’ in their classrooms. When visiting classes this term, it is evident that teachers are focussed and committed to student wellbeing, success and improvement in literacy and numeracy, ensuring that all students achieve social, emotional and academic success in an inclusive and challenging learning environment. This is our purpose and “The Windsor Way”. This week, when awarding Workers of the Week on assembly, it was particularly pleasing to see the number of children “working tough” and practising persistence to consolidate difficult concepts in Maths, English and Science. Confident learners capitalise on their mistakes and take further risks to become independent, self-regulated learners. Independent learners need to know how to learn, not just what to learn.

As you would be aware, Mrs. Jude Fountain has been on sick leave this term. Many parents have enquired about Jude’s health and sent their best wishes. I know that Jude appreciates the community concern and support so am pleased to report that she has now recovered and will return to Windsor SS next week. Jude will remain in the role of Acting Principal for the remainder of Term 1. The position of Principal, Windsor State School has been advertised, the selection process is underway and should be finalised by the end of term. When the process is finalised, the community will be advised of the successful applicant.

Recently, I announced through our social media sites that, after four years of lobbying, we have been permitted to recruit an extra three people to join the crossing supervisor team at Windsor SS. We will now have crossing supervisors on both Constitution Road and Harris Street, a great result for our community. Joining Denise and Michele, our existing Windsor crossing team, will be Wendy Sherward, Michael and Robyn O’Hare. We welcome them to the Windsor community and thank all our supervisors for working hard to keep everyone safe. The crossing on Harris Street will be operational from the 9th March, 2017. Can I please request that all parents and community members do the right thing, park legally where permitted and check the signage! Please pay particular attention to the crossing supervisors who will assist everyone in crossing the road safely and read the information in this newsletter about Road Safety and driver obligations. We thank the Department of Main Roads and Transport for prioritising the safety of children and adults in our community.

Within the busy cycle of life, I encourage you take an active interest in your child’s/sibling’s school life and engage fully with them in their learning. Our young people rely on their parents/carers and family members to support them in their learning and I thank you all for continuing to support your child at home. I especially thank those who give up personal time to help in classrooms, in the tuckshop, on the School Council, P&C and in many other ways. It is the wonderful people that make the Windsor State School community truly special and I look forward to welcoming all families at our P&C Family Picnic, 2pm-5pm March 12th, on the bottom oval. Weather permitting, it will be a great community event!

Have a happy and successful week and drive safely around the school.

Matthew Keong
A/Principal

ROAD SAFETY

Information provided by the Department of Main Roads and Transport

How to use a supervised school crossing.

All pedestrians, both students and adults, are to wait on the footpath behind the “toe” line. When a suitable gap appears in the traffic from both directions, the supervisor will extend the STOP sign to face the traffic and proceed to the centre of the road with the STOP sign displayed.

The supervisor will ensure all traffic has stopped or is preparing to stop. The supervisor will blow TWO blasts of the whistle to indicate that it is safe for pedestrians to cross.

Pedestrians need to stay within the bounds of the red & white poles or on the white zebra markings until they reach the opposite footpath. When all pedestrians have cleared the crossing, the supervisor will return to the starting position.

For your safety, please take instruction from the crossing supervisor.

Crossing safely at a supervised school crossing

STOP - LOOK - LISTEN – THINK

WHEN USING THE SCHOOL CROSSING PLEASE REMEMBER THESE 4 WORDS TO KEEP YOU SAFE!

STOP- when you come to a School Crossing and there is a Crossing Supervisor, stop behind the yellow line. Stand quietly ready for the next step.

LOOK- at the Crossing Supervisor to see what he/she is about to do. Stand quietly and patiently while waiting for your supervisor to stop the traffic. Get off your bicycle ready to cross. When it is safe your supervisor will walk onto the road to stop the traffic.

LISTEN - for the whistle. When it is safe to cross the road your Crossing Supervisor will blow the whistle 2 times. Walk smartly, do not run across the road. Wheel your bicycle across the road.

THINK- about what you are doing, walk do not run, watch and listen to your supervisor in case of emergency. Your supervisor may put one hand up to stop you coming across the road to allow the traffic to have a turn.

Driver Obligation at a Supervised School Crossing

A School Crossing Supervisor is trained to judge the safest time to stop traffic and enter the crossing. When doing this they try not to inconvenience the motorists any more than necessary.

As a motorist, we must stop when the supervisor places the ‘Stop Sign' at a 45 degree angle into the traffic, and remain stopped until all pedestrians and the crossing supervisor has returned to the kerb when traffic is queueing (e.g.. at an intersection or entry to a car park, do not stop across the crossing environment). Whilst a vehicle is within the red and white barber pole area, for the safety of the pedestrians a supervisor cannot allow pedestrians to cross the road. Always keep the crossing environment clear.

Driver Obligation at a Flagged Unsupervised School Crossing

At times a school crossing may be unsupervised but flagged with the orange banners “Children Crossing”. As motorists, we must stop when there are pedestrians waiting to the cross the road and remain stopped until all pedestrians have reached the kerb.

If you would like more information on this or any other road safety issue, please phone Transport and Main Roads on 1300 360 135 or visit our website.

PARENT/TEACHER INTERVIEWS

Parent Teacher interviews will be held for all year levels from 3.10pm to 5.30pm and then 6.10pm to 7.50pm on Thursday 16th March 2017. Interviews will be of ten minutes duration.

For these interviews we are once again using the internet-based booking system called Parent Teacher On-Line (PTO).

To book your interview you can go to the school’s website and click on the PTO icon. If you do not have access to a computer you will be able to receive assistance in booking an interview time from the office staff.

You will be able to book your interviews on Monday 6 March from 10.00am.

ALLERGIES & INTOLERANCES

As it is the start of the year, this is just another reminder to be wary of what you pack for your child’s lunch. Windsor State School cannot enforce a nut or egg free policy; however, we can appeal to your goodwill and request that you do not send products that may cause severe allergic reactions. It is important that all students can feel safe whilst eating. Below are some links to give assistance in understanding food related allergies and intolerances and how it can affect one’s child.

Recently, the P&C Retail Sub-committee called a meeting to discuss the inclusion of egg in the tuckshop menu. After much consideration and information from Education Queensland, Healthy Kids, Allergy.org and the ASCIA Guidelines - Prevention of Anaphylaxis in Schools, the school and P&C have decided to take the following actions, in the tuckshop, to ensure that all possible risk to students with egg allergies is minimised:

• An 'egg-zone' has been introduced to the tuckshop kitchen for preparing all egg recipes with colour coded chopping boards and a step-by-step process is now displayed in the area to guide all staff/volunteers to thoroughly wash up the area using hot soapy water to avoid cross-contamination.
• A quick allergy plan reference guide, for all students with food allergies, will be available for tuckshop staff/volunteers. The school has provided this information to the tuckshop convenor to ensure safety of students.

The tuckshop makes every effort to accommodate students with food allergies and minimise risk. Classroom Teachers and Admin are aware of all students with allergies in the school. If your child has a food allergy, and will be using the tuckshop, please take the added measure of contacting our tuckshop convenor, James Fardon 38664333, asap so that every precaution can be taken and a plan put in place to safeguard your child.

BEFORE SCHOOL

Children at school before 8:30am should be enrolled in Helping Hands, our before school care program. Between 8:30am and the first bell students are to sit under the main building where they will be supervised by the school leadership team. This is not a time for play. The school offers no supervision of play areas before or after school and parents are asked to help make our school safe by all students not using play equipment before school.

ACTIVE SCHOOL TRAVEL LAUNCH

Active School Travel’s colourful ‘AST Crew’ will be special guests at assembly next Monday 6th March when we launch our Active School Travel program. Students will learn how they can actively travel to school by walking, cycling, scootering, carpooling or using public transport. Each child receives a “passport” and a stamp every Walking Wheeling Wednesday when they actively travel to school. The more stamps they accumulate, the more rewards they receive! Why not help your child improve his/her road safety awareness by actively travelling to school with them?

Wednesdays at Windsor will never be the same. We are asking everyone to really think about how they travel to school as we launch Walking Wheeling Wednesday as part of our Active School Travel program. We know that everyone is different, so there are lots of ways you can actively travel to school. How will you actively travel to school?

Walk

Leave the car at home and walk your kids to school. If you live too far away, drive part of the way and walk the rest. We call that “Park and Stride”.

Cycle or Scooter

Ride with your children to school. It’s legal to ride on the footpath and remember to always have your helmet secured.

Public Transport

Public transport is easy once you know how. For bus, train and ferry timetables, visit the TransLink website, or phone 13 12 30.

Carpool

Find a friend and carpool to school. It’s an easy way to save money and time. Talk to other parents in your child’s class or at music and sport to see who is going your way.

So get started and remember that EVERY Wednesday is Walking Wheeling Wednesday.

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Last week, the House Captains planned and implemented a program for HPE Week that promoted the importance of being healthy and active. HPE Week is designed to promote and celebrate HPE in a fun and engaging way. From Tuesday to Friday last week, the House Captains ran activities for Prep-Year 2 and Year 3-6 each day. These student leaders displayed impressive organisational and leadership skills to provide an engaging program for all of the Windsor SS students to participate in at break times. Congratulations to our House Captains, Alex T and Jessica C (Lutwyche); Ben F and Amelie G (Maynard) and Harry K and Jaime P (Wilson) for running such a successful HPE Week! Our talented Alana S (Year 6) generously spent her break times last week documenting the HPE Week celebrations. She has created an iMovie to showcase the fun had during the week. Watch the video below to see how HPE Week unfolded at Windsor State School.

Students are invited to apply the Seven Steps to a stimulus provided each week on parade and place their writing in the Writers’ Box outside the office. Persuasive texts and narratives have filled the Writers’ Box this fortnight. Our Week 4 winners, Amelia (Year 5) and Dominique (Year 5), were very convincing when writing to persuade students to attend the Student Council Disco. Last week, Tia (Year 5) and an anonymous author wrote entertaining narratives responding to the prompt: Imagine you wake up in your favourite book or TV show. Use the links below to read all of this great writing! This week, students are challenged to write a description of a new invention that would help make students’ lives easier. Including a labelled diagram is also an option.

Tia with her persuasive text

Although not necessarily taught in the below order, the Seven Steps to Writing Success are:

1. Plan for Success
2. Sizzling Starts
3. Tightening Tension
4. Dynamic Dialogue
5. Show, Don't Tell
6. Ban the Boring
7. Exciting Endings

If you would like to know more about each of the Seven Steps to Writing Success, follow the link below for a description of each step.

Roxanne O’Donoghue
A/Deputy Principal

WSS Cross Country and Cross Country Training

The Windsor State School Cross Country will be held on Wednesday 22nd March 2017. Further information about the program for the day will be sent home shortly. Please see below for the distances for each age group:

Short Course Fun Run: Preps
One Lap Fun Run – 1000m: 8, 7 and 6 year olds
Two Lap Cross Country – 2000m: 9 and 10 year olds
Three Lap Cross Country – 3000m: 11 and 12 year olds

In preparation for Cross Country, optional training sessions are being held on the bottom oval on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8.00am – 8.45am until Friday 17th March.

Active School Travel

This year, Windsor State School has been selected as one of 17 new schools joining Brisbane City Council’s Active School Travel (AST) program.

Active School Travel promotes clean and green, active and healthy school travel modes such as walking, cycling, carpooling and public transport. Over the next three years, our school will receive a range of free resources, tools, incursions to enable active travel to and from school.

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!

The AST Crew will visit our school assembly to launch the Active School Travel program very soon. We strongly encourage you to be part of this great initiative to change our school environment and culture.

Start thinking how you can use your car less travelling to and from school this year.

Follow Windsor SS on Facebook & Twitter!

Get the most up-to-date information and school alerts by following Windsor State School on Facebook and Twitter @Windsor_SS

You can also access important school information and alerts, including Facebook/Twitter, via the QSchools app! Download it now and keep informed of everything that is happening at our school.

QParents

Our school also has QParents. Parents will receive an invitation email or letter to register this week. Prep parents will also receive a Student ID card containing an EQ ID number to register.

If you do not receive an invitation (QPAO), please advise Admin asap. QParents is one of the ways we communicate with parents, get on board to enjoy the ease and convenience that QParents offers.

QParents is also the means by which parents access Student Reports. It is important to register now as printed reports are no longer sent home at the end of each Semester. Help us become more ‘paper-less’ by registering for QParents now!

RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOUR & CODE OF CONDUCT

How Well Do You Get-Along with Others?

Social Responsibility

Social Responsibility means thinking that it’s important to be caring, to try hard to do your best, to be fair to others, to make sure that everyone has the freedom to say what they think and feel without fear, to be honest and tell the truth, to have integrity by making sure that you do what you say you’re going to do, to respect others and have nice manners, to act responsibly by making good choices, to sort out problems without fighting, to care about nature and other living things, and to be understanding and include others who are different.

Playing by the Rules

Playing by the Rules means thinking that by following school rules, school will be a better place to live and learn, and that you will stay out of trouble and be more successful if you do.

Thinking First

Thinking First means that when someone acts badly or unfairly, before you take action, you (a) think of the alternative courses of action; (b) think of the consequences of different actions you can take; and (c) predict the impact your actions may have on the feelings of the other person.

Being Tolerant of Others

Being Tolerant of Others means thinking that, when someone is mean to you or is different from you, he or she is not a totally bad person. It means thinking that you need to find out more about the person. It also means not wanting to “get back” at the person.

PREP VISION TESTS

Children’s Health Queensland, which is a Queensland public health service for children, is running a new vision screening program for Prep children. A Registered Nurse will be visiting Windsor State School during school hours on 15th – 17th March to provide this free screening service. Good vision is important for children’s educational, physical and social development, so the earlier a problem is detected, the better the treatment outcomes.

All prep parents will receive a Vision Screening & Privacy Consent form next week. The completed form will need to be returned to the office by 20th February.

ROOKIES2REDS

This term, Queensland Rugby is offering the Rookies 2 Reds program Monday afternoons 3.15pm-4.15pm on the Windsor State School bottom oval from the 20th of February to the 20th of March. Download the flyer below for more information about the program and how to register your child.

Master Teacher’s Report

Master Teacher / STLaN Update

Reading: Fluency

Regardless of the grade, we always have students who need to work on fluency. Students need to understand that fluency is not about reading fast, but about making our reading smooth and expressive, so it sounds like a real conversation.

Strategies to improve fluency:

• modelling
• adjusting the pace during reading
• reading “good fit books”
• understanding and using punctuation when reading
• reading together
• role playing – dramatize stories (turn the story into a play)
• backup and reread
• encourage voracious reading for this increases vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and accuracy.

Attached is a Parent Pipeline which highlights using voracious reading as a strategy to increase fluency.

When considering fluency, there are three important ideas to keep in mind.

1. When a student becomes an in-the-head reader and we ask them to read aloud for an assessment, they may find it difficult to do so. Their accuracy, fluency, and even comprehension can be negatively affected. Think about yourself as a reader. Do you read faster aloud or silently? If something like this shows up when we assess an in-the-head reader, we have them read silently and then check their comprehension.
2. People can read only as fast as they can speak. This can greatly affect a child's fluency score. So if you have a child with slow speech, know that their fluency score will not surpass their normal speech pattern.
3. Often, fluency is merely an indicator that there is something else going on. For example, if children are having a difficult time comprehending what they are reading, they may find themselves backing up and rereading, pausing and even stopping their reading to think and consider. If this is the case, the low fluency score is a result of comprehension challenges.

In each of these cases, we would not want to focus on fluency instruction as our starting point. Instead, we would determine if the root of the problem is comprehension, accuracy, or expanding vocabulary.

Before school Reading Intervention

Below is the timetable for the before school reading programs. These programs are all running smoothly. At the moment, we do not any vacancies.

Our Playgroup, the Windsoroos

Keep spreading the word – Windsoroos has started! We now have 14 families on our books. Below are some photos of the exciting activities that we have been doing.

Remember, Windsoroos runs on a Friday afternoon from 1:30 -3:00pm. We start in the Helping Hands area under Constitution Building.

2017 Timetable for the Windsoroos:

For more information about our playgroup, please click on the attachment below.

We look forward to having fun and growing with you and your child/children at the Windsoroos Playgroup.

ENRICHMENT 2017

ICAS

It’s ICAS time again.

Your child will be bringing home the ICAS information letter that outlines the test papers they are eligible to sit. Year 3 – 6 students can sit all test papers and Year 2 students are eligible to sit: Maths, English, Science and Spelling. Science is compulsory for all students and this was included in the School Stuff Booklist. If you organised your booklists independently, you will be invoiced at a later date.

It is a slightly different process this year. No payment is necessary at this stage. We ask that you indicate which tests you would like your child to complete, send this back to the office by March 15 and you will then be invoiced. Payment must be received for your child to participate.

A copy of the letter is also attached.

Please check the Windsor State School website for the ICAS dates. As usual these are subject to change.

COMMUNICATION

I am creating a mailing list for parents who would like to be kept informed of extra curricula activities that often become available to high achieving students. If you would like to be kept informed please email ekemp14@eq.edu.au with MAIL LIST as the subject headline. Please advise your child’s name and class.

Thanks everyone.

MUSIC

PETROL SHOP FOR YOUR SCHOOL EVENT

Tickets are now on sale for Shop for your School!

Women of Windsor – gather your crew and grab your tickets for this great event run by our P&C in conjunction with Petrol Boutique.

Held at Petrol, 289 Given Tce, Paddington on Tuesday 21 March 6:30pm – 9:30pm.

Purchase through munch monitor, or via the invitation sent home with your child. A glass of bubbles on arrival, gourmet nibbles and 3 raffle tickets valued at $10 are included with your entry.

What is Shop for your School?

Shop for your School is a really fun night where you can mingle with the ladies. So if you’re new to Windsor don’t be shy, we know you’ll have a great time! The fashion parade showcases the new season’s fashion modelled by real women – our gorgeous Windsor mums and teachers. Includes a live makeover on the night. In addition, be served by the best looking bar staff we could summon – our male teachers!!!!

Cash bar on the night and an opportunity to shop in store after the parade. 15% of the Petrol takings are given back to the P&C. All proceeds from ticket, raffle and bar sales also go to our P&C. Generally it’s a great excuse to socialise, as well as shop for a good cause.

Raffle Prizes

We are continuing to hunt down amazing raffle prizes for our evening. If you are a Windsor family with a business – why not promote it to the Windsor community? Our raffle is a great way to get your name out there. Contact Lisa Brewster 0450 554 007 raffle@windsorsspandc.com.au.

Thank You

A big thank you to graphic designer Kylie Bottomley for her amazing work putting together both the save the date and the invitation at short notice.