Volume 19 - 25th November 2022

From The Principal

Our students spent the last couple of weeks finalising assessment tasks and working hard to show what they have learned over the course of this semester. Looking at their engagement in classroom, I am sure that they will continue to show improvements in all learning areas. I look forward to sharing our data with you in the next newsletter.

One of the highlights for me was a visit to Year 3 classrooms, where I had a pleasure of listening to the students read poems they wrote this term. I was so impressed with the poetic language they used to describe different seasons, emotions and events! Their confidence and belief in themselves were so obvious, and are a great testament to the fantastic teaching that happens in their classrooms every day. To make the experience even better, the students wrote Thank You cards to the Leadership Team in attendance. We are all so proud of them!

We are very lucky at Leichhardt State School to have such a supportive community of local organisations who are always willing to assist our students to achieve great outcomes. This support comes in many ways, including donations of goods and services. We know that our students and their parents truly appreciate the support, and our school is always happy to facilitate these connections. As the old proverb says: It takes a community to raise a child.

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

From The Head of Department - Positive Behaviour and Learning

From The Head of Department - Teaching and Learning

We are coming to the end of a very busy, but wonderful Term 4 and it has been fantastic to see students showing such pride and enthusiasm towards their learning. When visiting classrooms it has been fantastic to hear conversations of students asking how they can edit and "bump up" their tasks. What great initiative! Year 4 to 6 students have worked hard this term to build their understanding of note-taking across each subject, including understanding the organisational tool that best assists them with a given task. Recently the students in years 5 and 6 have provided feedback on what they have learnt in AVID this year through a survey. It is excellent to see the results that they are feeling more organised and prepared for highschool with the skills they are learning. These lifelong skills including general organisation, reading timetables, setting up bookwork and building confidence in the STAR notetaking strategy are so important for our students as they continue their education journey both at Leichhardt and beyond. 

From The Head of Department - Reading

Partnerships @ Leichhardt

On Wednesday afternoon, Week 7, Leichhardt State School had a special ‘Thank You’ Assembly to acknowledge the Faith Lutheran College Service Team’s amazing dedication to the Term 4 weekly ‘One-On-One’ Reading Project with the Prep – Year 2 students at Leichhardt State School. 

The 25 High School students were each presented with a Principal’s Award and a beautifully hand-painted stone by Aunty Marly, Miss Emma and students especially for the occasion.  The High School students were thrilled with their award and the hand-painted ‘Leichhardt’ Country keepsake.

The Faith Lutheran College Service Team presented Leichhardt with a pack of beautifully illustrated children’s audio books for the library and thoughtful gifts for each of the students.  Included in the gifts were hand-written notes by the High School students for each of the Leichhardt students with whom they had worked over the term.

Below are pictured students from Prep A with gifts from Faith Lutheran College.

Below are pictured Year 2 students proudly displaying their hand-written notes from the Faith Lutheran College students.

We are very grateful for the partnership with Faith Lutheran College and would like to specially acknowledge Mrs Kerry Bayfield for her passion for community partnership and engagement.  A big ‘thank you’ to both Mrs Kerry Bayfield and Mr James Rogers for supporting their students, in supporting our students, with the ‘One-On-One’ Reading Project.

We look forward to seeing Mrs Bayfield, Mr Rogers and the Faith Lutheran College Service Team return in Term 1, 2023 to continue the ‘One-On-One’ Reading Project.

World Nursery Rhyme Week @ Leichhardt

At the Monday Week 7 Assembly, Leichhardt celebrated World Nursery Rhyme Week with several musical items being performed.  World Nursery Rhyme Week activities promote the importance of young children engaging with rhymes as rhymes have been shown to play an important role in developing early literacy skills.  In fact, research has shown that if a child knows at least 8 nursery rhymes well by the time they are four years of age, they are among the best readers by the time they are eight years of age!

It was lovely to see the Preps perform ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ and the Leichhardt State School Jarjums put their Indigenous Language studies into practise to sing in Language, ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Feet’!

Reading @ Leichhardt

Monday’s Week 7 parade was very exciting with October’s Reading Eggs Awards being announced.

The following students were acknowledged for their commitment to completing maps on Reading Eggs for the month of October.

What made the Assembly even more exciting three of our 2023 Preps receiving October Reading Eggs Awards!  It was lovely to have Erin, Tyson and Tyrone and their parents join us for this special assembly.

Tyrone also won the award for most books read for Reading Eggs in October, reading 31 books.  Well done, Tyrone!

The three 2023 Preps also received special Reading Awards from Principal, Mrs Bogicevic.  Erin was also very excited to be wearing her Prep uniform for the special assembly.  Well done, 2023 Preps!

The November Reading Eggs Awards are only a few weeks away.  We look forward to celebrating the achievements of our students and staff at the next Reading Eggs Award Assembly!

Year 1s Excursion @ Leichhardt

The Year 1s enjoyed an excursion to the Ipswich Little Theatre on Friday of Week 6 to see the Christmas pantomime, ‘A Grouchy Christmas’.  Students thoroughly enjoyed the bus ride to and from the venue as can be seen from the picture below.

The Year 1 students found the mischievous main characters pictured below absolutely delightful.

The students, and adults, enjoyed singing familiar Christmas songs with the pantomime characters during the performance.

Students were sad to say good-bye to the Christmas friends but were excited by the prospect of the return bus ride back to school!

Thank you to staff and extended family helpers who supported the Year 1s to have such a successful and enjoyable excursion. 

From The Early Years Coorindator

On Wednesday 7^th December we will be holding a morning session for the 2023 Preps to come into their new classroom to meet their teacher and classmates. This will be a wonderful opportunity to begin to settle into the routine of school. The morning will be held in the B Block Prep classrooms between 8.50am and 10.20am, morning tea will be provided during this time. Please remember to bring a hat and water bottle with you. We look forward to seeing you then.

From The Community Support Coorindator

Every day counts! 

As we approach the end of the year, it is still very important that we are at school every day and on time. Keep up the great work! 

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 Our Teachers

Prep A and B

Last week we got to be part of the Ipswich City Councils SEAL Pool Program. Miss Tracey taught us an action song to help us remember how to be safe in and around pools. We then got to play a fun game where we had to work together as a team to find the person with the matching card to our own and then work decide what category of SEAL it came under, this was tricky because and made us think because some of the cards could go in more than one. At the end of the session Miss Tracey gave us bag full of goodies to take home, including a workbook and a frisbee. We were so excited that we could not wait until we got home we started colouring in and tracing the way through mazes straight away.

From Miss Simonds 

I would like to take this opportunity to  say thank you and goodbye to all of the students, parents and staff. The Qld Education Department has a policy keeping teachers mobile to enable them to share their knowledge and experience with more students and schools, after seven wonderful years at Leichhardt it has been requested that I move to another school. I have really enjoyed my time here and feel privileged that I got to be a part of the lives of so many wonderful students and support them on their educational journey. Thank you for all of the support I have received over the years, I will truly miss the Leichhardt Community.

From Miss Toolis 

Hello everyone,

My name is Wasie Toolis and for the past 2 years I have been the Prep A teacher here at Leichhardt State School. I have had such a wonderful time and have met lots of amazing people here. I have loved teaching Prep and watching how much they grow and learn over the year. I am very sad to say that unfortunately I will not be returning next year. I will be moving to Melbourne with my family and I am looking forward to a new adventure. I would like to say thank you to all the amazing students, families and staff here at Leichhardt State School who made me feel so welcomed. I will miss you all. 

Year 3 Music 

In music the year 3’s had so much fun learning nursery rhymes on the xylophone in music. We were able to learn it and teach the preps how to play ‘Three blind mice’. They had so much fun playing it and teaching students different notes and lyrics. The excitement one everyone’s faces were so enjoyable to see!

Year 6 HASS 

This term the Year 6 students have been learning about consumer decisions and advertising as a part of their HASS subjects. They decided to create and sell products to our Preps and Grade 1 students with fake money but real products. These items included paper planes, rock pets, insect pets and fuzz balls made of wool. We held a market day through the week and the Preps and Grade 1 students arrived and received fake money to then spend at the stalls. Students had a great time shopping while also practicing their money counting skills and our Year 6 students got to learn about expenses, profit and advertisement while having fun.

Year 6

During week 8 a selected group of Year 6 students participated in a Story Sports competition on Wednesday hosted by the Ipswich Libraries. We headed into the library and versed schools both private and state from around Ipswich. We had two teams that competed. They were asked to create opening lines to interesting books, dialogue conversations with the future, suspenseful monster stories, love letters that looked like they had been run through google translate. This is where we had great lines like ‘Your hair is as silky as a fireplace’. The students received points around creativity, length, following the theme and the presentation of the product. The students were also given strict timers for each level. On the first day we achieved second and third place. That placed us in the finals for the next day where we battled the top 5 teams. Our Leichhardt groups had an amazing victory taking out both the 1^st and 3^rd place spots. The students were ecstatic and received prices as well as a big trophy to be presented at assembly. Our students showed great perseverance and creativity throughout this competition.

Extra- Curricular

Year 6 Camp

This week the Year 6 students went on a camp at Runaway Bay Sports and Excellence Centre. The camp was focused on providing leadership skills to our Senior Students and helping them build skills and abilities to meet challenges in their futures. The camp focused on Communication, Resilience, Empathy, Self-Regulation, Creativity, Positivity and Collaboration. The students all took this on board and referred back to each value throughout the activities, constantly trying to improve in their abilities to lead and work together. On arrival students were taken to the beach and began their first task of stand-up paddle boarding. Students were quick to be kneeling and not long they were standing with only a few shaky legs and a couple of face plants. Students had night time games and indoor swimming before ending up in bed. Day two started out with many tired students and a walk to the beach where we were greeted with a pod of dolphins. We found ourselves working together on the beach to build rafts. Many rafts may have separated in the water but the students picked up the pieces they could and rowed back to the beach with whatever they could find. Students had a great time before joining the Amazing Race and practicing their Archery skills in the afternoon. We ended day 2 with a movie, many falling asleep well before the movie ended. On the last day our students woke up ready for a big day of obstacle course team work, where they moved through lasers and saved each other from a sinking ship. Lastly, we had a game of Laser Tag with Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Jack taking lead and showing the students how it’s done.

Japanese Elective 

Konnichiwa everyone! In the Japanese elective our kids are learning many different aspects of the Japanese language and culture.

The students practised their Japanese writing skills and wrote some great Kanji characters!

Playgroup At Leichhardt State School

LEICHHARDT PLAY & LEARN DISCOVERY GROUP

I am sad to say there are only 2 groups left for the term. However, what a term it has been.

We have had some pre preps attend who have been learning lots of skills so they are ready for school in 2023.

We have been learning about following routines, how to take turns, the Zones of regulation, making healthy lunch boxes, story comprehension, participated in World Nursery Rhyme week & more.

On the last group of the term on Thursday 8^th December, we will be having an end of year celebration party & those pre preps who have been coming to the group through the term will graduate from the Skills for School & receive a backpack with lots of items in it so they are ready for school in late January.

If you haven’t brought your child along, it’s not too late to join in at the last 2 groups for the year.

Please contact Channon Schiemer from Mission Australia to find out more information on Facebook messenger or call her on 0475 798 198.

Yr 7 Enrolments at Ipswich State High School

Out In The Community