Volume 17 - 28th October 2022

From The Principal

We continue to move from strength to strength this term with additional investments in human resources to assist our student and staff wellbeing as we approach the end of the year. As always, learning and working hard to achieve our best is non-negotiable at Leichhardt. We are so proud of our students for showing perseverance and gratitude for the opportunities they get. In this edition of the Newsletter, you will be able to see the new sports shirts we purchased for our interschool sport teams to say thank you for the efforts they put in every Friday afternoon.  

Wellbeing is key to student engagement with learning at school and we unashamedly prioritise it in everything we do. The positive impact of our approach is evidenced in the data we are seeing every day through attendance and effort, and at the end of each term through academic achievement.

We are lucky to have exceptional teachers at Leichhardt State School - true professionals who know their students and their curriculum areas. Today is World Teachers’ Day, and I wish to acknowledge the wonderful work, not only of Leichhardt teachers, but of all teachers who work in our great profession. Thank you!

We are grateful to our parents and carers for communicating with us frequently and openly about issues that may be affecting their child’s learning. It is through our strong partnerships with our community that we are able to thrive. On today’s Day for Daniel, we are reminded of the importance of the whole community working together to keep our kids safe. Our students wore red to mark the day and reflected on the importance of brave conversations about personal safety. Be Safe is one of our expectations and it is explicitly taught through our Positive Behaviour for Learning lessons.

Next Monday morning, we celebrate our students’ reading achievements at a special assembly. Mrs Finlay’s leadership in this area has seen a very high student engagement with reading in the classrooms and at home. In addition, we built a strong relationship with Faith Lutheran College whose students generously give their time to support our younger students’ reading development. It takes a village to raise a child!

I hope you and your family stay well, safe and strong!

From The Head of Department - Positive Behaviour and Learning

Leichhardt State School is a proud PBL School. Please see imagine below of the QR Code for a Podcast prepared by the Department of Education for parents to promote understanding of PBL.  

Well done to all of our PBL award winners, for showing respect and being kind! 

Happy World Teacher's Day! 

World Teachers' Day is celebrated on the last Friday in October and is a recognition of the positive impact our teachers have on communities and students’ lives. Thank you to all of our wonderful Teacher's at Leichhardt State School. 

From The Head of Department -Curriculum

STEAM News 

In Science, Year 5 have completed an experiment on what happens to a shadow when the light source changes position. They have learnt that the smaller the opaque object blocking a light source the smaller the shadow. They have also researched different shelter types that our First Nations people use to keep them cool. They have learnt about simple shelters, stone houses, pole and platform shelters and dome shelters.

Our Year 6 students have started their investigation on the growth of plants using different fertilisers. They are using ash and seaweed fertiliser on tomato and pig face plants. They have been researching the different physical conditions needed for living things to survive.

From The Head of Department - Teaching and Learning

Teaching and Learning

The Year 3-6 teachers have been busy introducing a 'Taking Notes' poster to our students. This poster assists learning by building the students thinking skills and allowing them an opportunity to develop an understanding of which organisational tool will assist with the task they are completing. It has been wonderful to hear the conversations that the Year 5 and 6 students are having when deciding which tool is best for their notetaking.

"It has been great to learn how to set up 2 column notes on our computers. We will use these skills in high school". - Nayah. 

"We used 2 column notes to write about cause and effect". - Tatiana

It is fantastic to see all students taking such great pride in their bookwork and their learning. They are so excited and proud to show off their work when we visit their classrooms, and we are looking forward to seeing this continue as they start to prepare for their assessments.

From The Head of Department - Reading

World Teacher Day

Friday, 28 October is World Teacher Day and it was lovely to hear the Year 6 leaders individually acknowledge this special day at Monday’s Assembly and thank their teachers for their support and hard work.

Spelling 

In Weeks 3 and 4, I caught up with the Year 4 students, Prep and Year 1 students to engage in spelling activities using the ‘Spell to Read’ approach.

Students practised the following approach:

1. Hearing the word.
2. Saying the word by producing the individual sounds within the word.
3. Writing the word by carefully matching the sounds to the letters.
4. Reading the word to check that the letters written were correct
5. Using the word in a sentence or other activity.

Students in Year 4 completed their spelling activity, linked to poetry terms, on laptops to gain more experience using technology for word processing.

Students in Prep completed their spelling activity on white boards, then as a class, read a letter from Santa that included the words they had spelt, ‘dear’ and ‘from’ and finished the session writing their own letter to Santa about their pet.

After practising the ‘Spell to Read’ approach with their report writing words of ‘diet’, ‘habitat’ and ‘animal’, the Year 1s practised a technique to help them remember the spelling of the irregularly spelt word, ‘because’.  The technique is to spell the word, ‘because’, to the tune of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’.  The Year 1s found this fun and effective and were keen to apply it when writing.

Prep Information Evening

On Monday evening, Ms Tanya Simonds (Early Years Co-Ordinator and Prep B teacher) and Mrs Elena Finlay (Head of Department: Reading), visited the Ipswich Early Education Centre and Preschool to talk about Prep at Leichhardt.  Parents were impressed to hear about the connection between the Early Education Centre and Leichhardt State School.  In particular, parents responded very positively to the Deadly Choices visits with Aunty Marly on Mondays and the Year 5 student visits to engage the ‘Kindy Kids’ with reading.  Parents also responded with interest to Prep students having access to Reading Eggs, the online reading platform, on enrolment in the year before Prep.

Prep Orientation mornings at Leichhardt State School began this week on Wednesday and will continue for the next two Wednesday mornings.  If you have not yet booked your child in for Prep, please make contact with the Office on 3813 3222.

Reading

It was great to have the Faith Lutheran College (FLC) students visit again on Wednesday to read with Year 2, Prep and Year 1 students.  On Wednesday, the 16 high school students read individually with 40 students!  Thank you, FLC!

Our Year 5, ‘Read with a Kindy Kid’ Elective students, visited the day care centre on Wednesday and read, drew and sang with their kindy buddy.  Their kindy buddies now know the sounds for ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’, ‘i’ and ‘m’.  These are the first letter-sound links that students learn when they arrive at Prep.  Well done, Year 5s!  Thank you for helping the Kindy Kids get ready for Prep! 

From The Community Support Coorindator

Our Student attendance has increased and keeps on improving each week. Please keep sending your children to school every day and on time. 

If there is anyway I can help you and your child with improving their attendance just get in touch with the school or email me pferg18@eq.edu.au

From The Early Years Coordinator

2023 Prep Open Day 

This Wednesday we had our first Prep Open Morning for our 2023 preps, there was some very excited little people. To start our morning we got to meet some very important people, including one of our new teachers. Mrs Anforth took us for our very first Positive Behaviour for Learning lesson and we learnt that we are kind, we are safe and we are learners but the best part was when we got to meet Leo!

After a very yummy, healthy morning tea break we went for an impromptu play in the Outdoor Learning Area where we tested our climbing skills and explored the instruments and hopscotch.

We then went to visit Aunty Marly and Miss Emma in the Deadly Room where we got to collage a fish and make a beaded necklace.

We finished the morning in the Prep room where Mrs Krings read us the story “Possum Goes to School.”

Thank you to all who made the morning exciting and fun, we look forward to seeing even more people for the next Prep Open Morning Wednesday 2^nd November, 2022 at 9am to 11am.

Prep Open Days 

Parent/Carer of 2023 Prep, 

Leichhardt State School would like to extend a warm invitation to all children who were born between 1st July, 2017 and 30th June, 2018 and their parents and carers to attend the Prep Open Days at Leichhardt State School on the follwing dates: 

Wednesday, 2nd November 9:00am - 11:00am

On arrival at the school, please gather outside the Deadly Room to sign in for the morning.  Please ensure your child is wearing enclosed shoes and has a hat and water bottle for each of the Prep Open Day visits. We are currenly in the process of holding "Getting to know you" enrolment meetings for children and their familes to assist with the transition to Prep. Please contact the office on (07) 38133222 to book an appointment for a meeting. 

From Student Services

Lost Property 

Our lost property box is starting to pile up, please check to see if any of your child/ren's belongs are under the Admin Building next to Student Services. Please remember to name all belongings that  come to school. 

From Our Teachers

Prep A

In Prep A we have been working hard on writing letters for English. We were very excited when we received a letter from the Tooth Fairy this week! We decided to all wrote her a letter back. Once we finished writing our letter, we posted it in the mailbox in our classroom. Next week we will be writing a letter to Santa. Hopefully everyone is on the nice list!

We have also been busy learning our ‘Under the Sea’ dance for The Arts. We have been doing lots of dancing and we even made our very own sea animal headbands to wear when we do our performance. We used lots of different materials such as cellophane, pom poms, patty cake holders, rhinestones and of course, GLITTER!

Prep A and B Dance 

For part of our dance unit this term the Preps have been learning how to move their bodies the way different animals would on both the land and in the sea. Recently our Preps performed a dance they have been practicing with Miss Toolis and Miss Sarah on parade for the whole school to enjoy. All students have enjoyed learning and practicing their new dance moves.

Year 1B

1B has been learning about the effects humans can have on the environment.  We went outside and stomped on sections of grass.  One section Noah stomped on 10 times, another section Paton stomped on 15 times and the last section, Bison stomped 50 times.  The students observed the changes in the grass that happened immediately and we were all surprised that these changed occurred immediately!

Year 5 English 

This term, the Year 5 students are reading and writing ‘I Am’ poems.  Students have written their base poem and are now working on ‘bumping up’ their poems by adding more figurative language devices such as similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia and alliteration.

Below are some examples of students ‘bumping up’ their writing using onomatopoeia.    Onomatopoeia is the use of descriptive words that sound like the noise that is being described.  This device helps the reader to imagine the noise while they read.

At Monday’s Assembly the Year 5 students shared the ‘I am’ themed song, ‘I am Australian’ by The Seekers.  Well done, Year 5! 

Day For Daniel 28/10/2022

Day for Daniel is a fun day with a serious message, where schools, businesses and communities participate in activities aimed at making the world a safer place for children. The main objective of Day for Daniel is to raise awareness of child safety. Today staff and students supported Day for Daniel Day by wearing red. 

Extra-Curricular

Swimming Lessons 

Students are thoroughly enjoying their swimming lessons and are improving their confidence and skills. The Prep students are showing great perseverance and even the most reluctant ones have been very brave in the big pool! 

If you have them, please send a pair of thongs or slides in your child's swimming bag so they can walk to and from the pool without having to navigate socks & shoes 😊

Thank you from Mr Woody, Miss Carolin & Miss Brittney.

Interschool Sports 

On Friday 14th of October our Junior Boys Team had their first win of the season against Hattonvale winning 11-4. Our Senior Boys, Senior Girls and Junior girls are all improving with each game they play.

Today our Leichhardt Lions touch football teams played games against Karalee, Churchill and Hattonvale. Our Senior boys went down 9-5 to , our junior boys went down 2-1. 

Our Senior girls were down 4-0 early in the game but fought gamely to come back, eventually going down 5-3. Our junior girls tried their hearts out agaisnt a very skilled team and lost 7-0.

For most of our players it is their first year playing competitive sport of any kind. They should be very proud with how far they have come in the season. Well done.

Come and cheer on our Leichhardt Lions at Jim Finimore oval each Friday, commencing at 12:40pm! 

Playgroup at Leichhardt State School

Leichhardt Play Group is held every Thursday in the hall during school Term @9am untill 11am. Free group with morning tea included. For more information please call or text Channon on 0475798198. Please see below the timetable for Term 4. 

Out in the Community