6 December 2017

Newsletter Articles

Across the Principal’s Desk…

Farewell to 2017

I seem to always say that school and life become busier with each passing year, however it is true! This having only been my 1st year at Windsor, I look back fondly and proudly at what we have created together as a community. I am not sure how we can deliberately take things a little slower so we have the opportunity to celebrate and truly acknowledge all the great things that we see our children achieving, creating and improving upon each and every day. I think it is human nature to focus upon what we need to do better and how we can make things easier for our children than maybe we experienced growing up, yet the most learning we can have is actually when we make mistakes and learn from them. These too are the things we need to celebrate. For without failure there is no new learning and growth and it takes time to see outcomes and results.

I must extend my sincerest thanks to the School Advisory Council members for their guidance and counsel throughout the year. Also a massive thanks go to the P&C Executive team, sub-committee teams and the wider P&C members for the outstanding works which were undertaken throughout 2017.

To all of the amazing staff we have in our school, I can but only say a heartfelt thank you. I know unequivocally that the staff at Windsor are second to none. It is very hard to know this as parents, unless you have experienced your child attending another primary school and have a comparative experience. I guess you will just have to trust my judgment and experience. Needless to say, that no situation in life whether it be school, work or our social setting will be perfect. That is just an unrealistic expectation. The key factor to judge by is whether a school is prepared to continue in its growth with a real ‘growth mindset’. I believe that at Windsor we exemplify such. We work every day to improve what we do and model this for our students. We are looking forward to welcoming the new staff to our team in 2018, allowing us to expand our expertise in so many ways.

Remember that what makes our school and community truly special is the lifelong connections you have created with the school. For a school is not about the buildings, grounds and resources. It’s all about the relationships, the people and the learning!

In closing, I wish all of you in our school community and beyond, a safe and relaxing Christmas break. To all of our students, families and staff who are moving on for whatever reason, may your new experiences be full of excitement and learning. I cannot thank enough the families who are now seeing their last child through Windsor. Your support and involvement has helped to shape a wonderful community. See you in 2018.

Semester Two Report Cards

All Semester Two report cards were emailed to parents/carers on Monday afternoon. Please contact the office on 3386 4333 if you have not received your child’s report card and we will resend it to you. Any questions about your child’s report are to be directed to their teacher.

2018 Class Lists

Class lists were advertised this week – on display outside the library and also available on our school website (in the ‘class lists’ folder in ‘Forms and Documents’ section). Class lists have been very carefully considered all term by the teaching staff and School Leadership Team. No considerations will be given for any changes until our Day 8 figures are submitted to our District Office in 2018 when we will know exactly how many staff we will be allocated. This process is employed so that if class changes/restructuring are required, students will only need to make one change. Thank you for your understanding and commitment to this process.

Swimming Carnivals

Congratulations to all students who participated in last week’s P-2 and Year 3-6 swimming carnivals! Congratulations to all sporting houses, specifically Wilson House for winning the Swimming Carnival as we announced yesterday at the ACE Awards. Congratulations also to the age champions for 2017.

We were very lucky that the weather held off for the P-2 carnival! The efforts from our House Captains must not go unnoticed. They have done a wonderful job with assisting and organising students at each carnival, particularly the lower school. The way in which all students conducted themselves over each carnival, displaying excellent sportsmanship and determination to have a go must be applauded.

I must say a big thankyou to our HPE teachers Mr Adam Goddard and Mr Cameron Ross. The organisation which goes into these events is enormous and is a testament to their dedication to providing such quality activities for our students. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of these two gentlemen, with the organisation of all major sporting carnivals and Gala Days, as their roles are far greater than 9-3pm working hours. We thank them both for the great work they have undertaken over the year.

Outstanding Sporting Achievement

I’d like to share a wonderful end of year sporting achievement with you all. Year 2 student, Ethan G, and his team mate from City North Athletics, came second in the Under 9s high jump at the Little Athletics Queensland State Relay Championships on Saturday 2 December.

Their combined jumps were 212cm (106cm each). The boys who came first did combined jumps of 227cm (121cm + 106cm) - simply unbeatable!

Congratulations on this outstanding achievement Ethan! We are all very proud of your efforts.

Transitions – Taking Small Steps to Supporting Your Children Adapting and Coping with Change

I was reading through information last week and stumbled across a couple of really helpful articles on assisting students cope with change, change is a regular part of life, and we as parents, teachers and carers can normalise change with a few simple strategies.

Kids like routine. They thrive on knowing what happens when. But life doesn’t stay the same – people move houses, kids change schools, friends shift away or stop being friends, parents can separate and almost every year they have to face a new teacher.

According to a growing body of research, kids learn how to cope with change and ups and downs of life by developing resilience.

Today’s psychologists know that it’s one of the most important qualities parents and carers can teach their children along with compassion.

And how do they learn it? Apparently by watching us. Studies have shown that children as young as two years old copy the coping, stress-management and thinking styles of the adults around them. And they can sense if parents are anxious or worried and will tend to mimic that.

Other studies have found that there is strong evidence that good early relationships with parents/carers can help make children more resilient. And the earlier this resilience-building is started the better.

Reinforcing this “it starts at home” message, Andrew Fuller, consultant psychologist for The Resilience Foundation and author of Tricky Kids, says resilient parents raise resilient kids.

“When your child needs you to help them make sense of the changes that might be happening, that is not the time to confront your own inner demons,” he says.

“It’s a handy skill for parents to learn to hold their own anxieties in check.”

Fuller describes resilience as “the happy knack of being able to bungee jump through the pitfalls of life”.

Simple tips on helping kids to cope

• Give them a sense of being loved by their family and of belonging
• Encourage a diverse group of friends – both for them and the family as a whole
• Enjoy family rituals – like Sunday night dinner, or a weekend drive

Grant Baker

Deputy Principal’s Report

ACE Awards

Our final week launched today with our traditional ACE Assembly where we looked back over the successes of 2017 and recognised the achievements of students at Windsor State School this year. We presented awards for academic achievement, commitment to learning and citizenship. Congratulations to the following students who received awards this Semester.

Student Leadership

2017 has been an excellent year for developing student leadership at Windsor State School. Thank you to the Year 6 Student Executive Leaders this year for consistently modelling “The Windsor Way” to all students. Owen, Ava, Cohen, Leila, Alex, Jess, Ben, Amelie, Harry, Jaime, Rohan, Madison, Zavier, Patrick and Sasha have all been outstanding role models throughout the year and we wish them every success as they enter high school in 2018.

Recently, Year 5 students have been involved in the rigorous process of preparing a CV, responding to selection criteria, undertaking interviews and finally awaiting the results of a ballot. We congratulate the successful candidates on their election to the following positions. The Student Executive Leaders for 2018 are:

Academic Reporting

On Monday this week, Semester 2 report cards were emailed out to parents and will be made available on QParents at the end of the week. During Term 3 and 4, teachers collected and moderated evidence to make overall judgements in order to award final ratings on the end of Semester 2 report cards. Each semester, Queensland State Schools report on student achievement against the requirements of an Australian Curriculum Achievement Standard for all implemented Australian Curriculum subject areas. The Achievement Standards relate directly to content/skills that have been taught and assessed during the Semester 2 reporting period. This ‘on-balance’ judgement is based on evidence of student performance in assessment folios (DET, 2016). It is important to recognise that the Australian Curriculum clearly outlines the expectations of a ‘C’/‘Sound’ standard. If your child achieves a ‘C’ they are operating at the year level standard/expectation. A ‘C’ means that the student is achieving everything required at their corresponding year level at school. Therefore, attaining a ‘C’ for Achievement means your child is on target for their age and year level.

When making ‘on-balanced’ judgements, teachers use all relevant areas of the Achievement Standard to arrive at an overall result. For example, to receive an overall ‘A’ for English, the student must show evidence of achieving an ‘A’ standard in both the receptive (listening, reading and viewing) and productive modes of communication (speaking, writing and creating). The same applies to Mathematics, to receive an overall ‘A’, students must demonstrate an ‘A’ standard for the proficiency strands of Understanding and Fluency as well as Problem Solving and Reasoning.

Pastoral Care & Behaviour

Students at Windsor State School strive to be Confident, Persistent, Organised, Resilient and they Get-Along with Others. This is evident in the number of students persisting to achieve and maintain their Gold, Silver and Bronze levels of Behaviour in 2017.

At Windsor SS, Behaviour is not simply about compliance. It is not about how quietly children sit in the classroom or whether they go about their work unobtrusively. Behaviour is rated according to each child’s ability to make appropriate choices for themselves. This includes their determination to develop Confidence (by being independent, taking risks and developing self-acceptance), Persistence (by giving effort, working tough and demonstrating a positive “I Can Do It” attitude), Skills to Get-Along with Others (like being socially responsible, playing by the rules, thinking first and making appropriate choices and showing tolerance), Organisational skills (planning their time, looking after their belongings and setting short and long term goals) and most importantly, Resilience (which involves self-regulating their emotional thermometer, not catastrophising and bouncing back after a set-back).

I commend all student for their determination to develop and achieve these positive characteristics of a happy and successful person this year. Some children may have had set-backs along the way, moving up or down levels due to choices made. Life is not always easy or fair and we, as human beings, often make mistakes which require us to re-think the choices we make. Students at Windsor learn from mistakes, carefully self-reflect and try to make the right decisions in the future. It is evident from the results below that, throughout the year, students have remembered lessons learnt from Pastoral Care, identified areas for improvement and set goals about how to improve. This year, at the end of Semester 2:

• 70% of student achieved their Gold level, an “A” on their report cards.
• 22.7% of students achieved their Silver level, a “B” on their report cards.
• 6.3% of students maintained their Bronze level, a “C” or satisfactory on their report cards

Congratulations to all students on achieving these outstanding results in 2017.

‘Save the Children’ Christmas Tree

‘Save the Children’ works to support families, throughout the Christmas season, to ease the worries of financial pressure. Each year we, as a school community, give generously by placing a gift under the school Christmas tree so that others can enjoy a happy Christmas. Traditionally, each family provides a present to be placed under the tree and, this year, these will be donated to ‘Save the Children’ at our final Christmas concert. Please wrap the present and write on the tag the gender and age of the intended recipient. Next week, the Christmas tree will appear outside the office; however, presents can also be brought in on the last day of school to be placed under the tree at the Christmas concert. We thank you for your past generosity and seek your support again this year to help those less fortunate. For further information about the work of ‘Save the Children’ in Queensland, you can visit the link below.

End of Year Concert

On Friday, 8th December we will hold our annual Christmas concert from around 10:00am. A sausage sizzle will be held after the concert. If you intend to take your child home after the concert, please ensure that they have been signed out with their class teacher.

Windsor’s Got Talent!

The final Windsor’s Got Talent performance is on Wednesday 7th December (Week 10) from 11.40am. Parents are welcome to come and watch the show!

QParents

Our school now has QParents. Parents should have received an invitation email or letter by now and it’s great to see that so many parents have registered already.

If you have not received an invitation, please advise us immediately. QParents will soon become an integral part of how we communicate with parents. Get on board to enjoy the ease and convenience that QParents offers.

Help us become more ‘paper-less’ by registering for QParents now!

School Stuff

There are three simple methods for filling orders through Schoolstuff:

• ONLINE: Go to www.schoolstuff.com.au at any time to place your order. You can either have your order despatched to your chosen address or it can be collected from our warehouse. Orders are despatched on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays.
• PHONE: Call us on 33917000 and we will place the order for you.
• RETAIL STORE: Visit our store at 81A Caswell St East Brisbane for an instant service. Our staff will pick and pack your order for you while you wait. The store is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays 9am -4pm throughout the year, including school holidays.

Officeworks Update

The Facilities Committee and School Council have been busy over the past few months furthering the School’s interests in the development of the Officeworks site. The site is still planned to be returned to the School on the 1st of July next year, however before this occurs there is a fair bit of design, planning, approvals and procurement to be finalised to allow an immediate start to the redevelopment.

To progress the management of this process, DET have assigned a dedicated Project Manager who has already commenced early planning and investigations into the development approvals that may be required.

The initial concept of transforming this area into green space, multi-purpose courts and an improved integration of the pool complex has been maintained and enhanced over the past few months, e.g. redesign of the Officeworks carpark to facilitate a new drop off zone. The simple green space development has now been incorporated into the School’s Master Plan with additional multi-story classrooms with shaded undercrofts also proposed in this location. This will allow the many temporary classrooms to be removed and returned to usable play space.

The final scope of the development and its integration into the Master Plan was reviewed and accepted by the School Council and the P&C this month ahead of the expected DET Master Plan review scheduled for 2017/2018.

What now? Over the school break we will receive confirmation on the development approval requirements and the detailed scope of the works. The first term will focus on tendering and obtaining quotations. It remains the goal and vision of the School Council, and the P&C to progress these works such that construction commences as soon as the land is handed back in July 2018.

Steve Allan
Operations Manager
Civil Engineering