Volume 5 - 31st March 2023

From Our Principal

What an exciting and rewarding term we have had at Leichhardt State School!

Our students’ attendance and engagement with school has improved significantly this year as a result of the collective efforts of our parents, guardians, teachers and support staff. Attendance at school is key to being successful academically and socially, and we are grateful to our parents and carers for open communication and support.

Report cards have been emailed to parents and carers this week. This term’s report card is an interim report, which means that it shows student progress at present time only and on a limited number of aspects of the Achievement Standard in a Learning Area. In Week 8 of Term 2, parents and carers will have the opportunity this year to meet with teachers as part of Parent-Teacher Interviews to discuss their child’s progress.

Our first Body Mind Character Day for 2023 took place today as we celebrated Harmony Day. Our students engaged in many fun activities and interesting learning experiences focused on developing different skills and learning about others’ cultures.

Next term, our students in 2A will move over to the STEAM Hub area, and the majority of their classes will be in the Science Room. Ms Everingham will send more information to parents about the movement and looks forward to welcoming the students in their new classroom for Term 2.  

Year 6 Market Stalls event took place on Thursday 23 March. The event was organised by our wonderful teacher Ms Ebert as part of the Humanities and Social Sciences Learning Area. As you can see in the photo below, everyone had so much fun!

Australian wide anxiety treatment study for 7 – 12 year olds

This treatment study is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council and is being conducted by Griffith University, Queensland. This study will determine if a computer delivered treatment designed to help children control their attention improves and reduces children’s anxiety compared to another computer-delivered treatment based on cognitive-behavioural therapy. Anxiety is defined as feelings of nervousness, worry and fear that is usually brought on by seeing or experiencing certain triggers or events, and/or by the expectation that this is too frightening or difficult to cope with. Anxiety can be helpful when dealing with new challenges and novel situations. However, if it occurs too often or too strongly, it can lead to children not coping in many situations. For many children and their parents, anxiety can be highly disruptive and prevent children from doing things that other children their age can do. This project will examine two treatment conditions and determine if they are as effective as each other in alleviating children’s anxiety disorders. 

For more information about our study and our team, or if you would like your child to participate, please contact us: (07) 3735 3351 or cadrp@griffith.edu.au

From Our Deputy Principal - School Culture

Positive Behaviour for Learning 

The PBL Team would like to thank all of the parents and community for their support throughout the term.  Today concluded with Mind Body & Character Day where students participated in Harmony Day Activities where they learned about different cultures and the importance of caring for their bodies, minds and characters.  Students in the senior school had fun learning traditional dances with Aunty Marly and Miss Emma in the Deadly Room.  Mr Woody had all of the students entertained learning traditional Malawi games under E block and Mr Bryce taught students traditional Thai games in the basketball courts.  The junior students made Indonesian Batik paintings with wax and water colours with Ms Rivett.  Ms Everingham was busy teaching students the Brazilian craft of making macaws in the library while Mrs Rae was teaching students Tanzanian games of Mbube Mbube and Kudada.  The jumping castles in the hall were great entertainment enjoyed by all of the classes. 

On behalf of Leichhardt State School and the PBL/Well Being Team we would like to wish you a happy and safe holiday. 

From Our Deputy Principal - Teaching and Learning

Dymocks Children Charities @ Leichhardt

During Term 3 last year each child in Prep to Year 6 received a book of their own choice to keep from the Dymocks Children Charities Book Bank Program.  On Wednesday of Week 10 each child in Prep to Year 6 will receive another book from the program.  Students will also each receive a free book bag to take home with their book.

The Dymocks Children Charity mission is to promote a love of reading through enabling students to access good quality books.  They believe that children who are exposed to good books and read regularly have better educational outcomes and lead healthier and happier lives.  Staff at Leichhardt hold the same belief.  That is why Reading is a priority at Leichhardt State School.

Leichhardt State School staff are very grateful for the Dymocks Children Charities Book Bank Program as it has provided our students with brand new books that they can take home to read, enjoy and cherish.

We are also very grateful to Ms Carolin who has spent many hours collating the orders for the books and organising the books into class sets ready for delivery to classes on Wednesday.  Thank you, Ms Carolin!

Thank you, Dymocks Children’s Charities!

Students at Leichhardt were absolutely thrilled to receive their special book and book bag from the Dymocks Children’s Charities Book Bank Program on Wednesday. The photos below certainly capture the students’ excitement. Thank you again, Dymocks Children’s Charities!

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NAPLAN @ Leichhardt

NAPLAN testing finished at Leichhardt on Friday of Week 9.  A big ‘thank you’ to the staff who ensured that the testing ran smoothly:

Mrs Anforth for timetabling the NAPLAN schedule into the daily timetable.  Mrs Bogicevic and the Breakfast Club Team for ensuring all the Year 3 and 5 students were well-fed and fueled ready for the day.

Ms Rae, Ms Fox, Mr Jack, Ms Curwen, Ms Carolin and Ms Brittney for set up and supervision. 

Finally, but most importantly, the Year 3 and 5 students who approached the testing positively and confidently.  Well done, students!  Well done, Leichhardt!

Buddy Reading and Writing @ Leichhardt

With assessment completed for the term, Year 6s enjoyed spending a session with the Preps and Year 1 students on Thursday afternoon.  The Preps and Year 1s thoroughly enjoyed sharing their reading and writing skills with the Year 6 students.  The Year 6s enjoyed the opportunity to read to the Junior School students and hear about what they had been learning during the term.

Prep and Year 1 Sight Word Reading Achievements for Term 1

At the Week 9 Assembly, the Prep and Year 1 Sight Word Reading Achievements were celebrated.

The Preps have now met the following letters and their associated sounds:  s a t i m n o p b    and by the end of Term 1 should know 3 sights words.  The below students from Prep A were thrilled to receive their Term 1 Sight Word Award.

L to R:  Kaedan, Tyrone, Noah B, Avah, Cayde and Tyson.

The below students from Prep B also were excited to receive their Term 1 Sight Word Award for achieving their sight word goal.  Well done, Preps!

L to R: Leah, Kevyn, Kobe, Leon, Hendrik and Riley

The below Prep students were very pleased to receive their Term 2 Sight Word Award as they already know 15 sight words!

L to R: Mia, Jasper, Skylar and Ziyah

The below Year 1 students achieved the Term 1 Sight Word goal of being able to automatically read 100 sight words.  Well done (from left to right) Jack, Hunter and Kaluaka!

Phoebe and Johnaton (1A) received awards for Notable Gains in Reading over the Term.

Konnor (1B) also received an award for Notable Gains in Reading.  Well done, students!

If you have any questions regarding how your Prep or Year 1 student is progressing with their sight words, please contact your child’s teacher.

From Our Head Of Department - Teaching and Learning

Well done, students on such fantastic learning that has been happening this term. This term has focused on how to organise equipment as well as books. Students' have been learning STAR note taking with the focus this term being on the letter ‘S’ (Set up our notes). Our posters in each of our classroom spaces help remind us to use a margin, date and learning goal every time we write in books. We have also heavily focused on the organization of belongings and look forward to building on this next term. We will also continue to unpack STAR note taking as part of our AVID strategies.

I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday. We look forward to continuing to share more amazing learning when we return.

Important dates for Term 2

Term 2 - First day starts back Monday 17th of April 2023

From Our Community Support Co-ordinator

We need you! 

We are looking for Breakfast Club Volunteers. Can you spare some time of a morning between 7:45am and 8:30am to ensure our students start their day with a nutritious breakfast. It would be greatly appreciated if you could also help clean up after. 

You will need to have a current Bluecard. If you are interested in volunteering or would like more information please call  on 3813 3222  or email Trish at pferg18@eq.edu.au

From Our Teachers

1A

1A has been doing an eggcellent job this week completing Easter themed activites. We even had a visit from the Easter bunny on Thursday who gave us lots of goodies. Happy Easter! 

1B 

We have been working very hard in Year 1 to finish our assessment and continue our reading and writing. Here you can see photos of the Year 1’s using a Venn diagram in HASS to compare planes from the past & present! The students were so interested at looking at the similarities and differences and were very impressed with their Venn diagrams!

We are encouraging students to continue practicing their sight words, reading and writing over the holidays. Reading eggs and Mathseeds are also great, fun programs to engage with.

Yr 3 HASS

As part of our HASS unit this term students have been learning about Harmony Day, in particular the 7 different countries of birth our Leichhardt State School students hail from.

Our students have engaged in learning by brainstorming things they already know about the country and researching information on what they would like to know. For example, the types of food that is traditional to that country, their language, where it is located, what their houses are made from, weather etc. We have watched videos of different cultures, learned to say hello and thank you in Thai and learned traditional games.

One game our students particularly enjoyed is called ‘Len Choa’, a Thai board game. Students drew up the board and used bottle tops in two different colours, one for the tiger and 6 for the leopards. The aim of the game is for the leopards to surround the tiger with no option to move while the tiger wants to take the leopards one by one from the board by jumping over them. The discussions around strategy from our students was infectious.

Year 5/6 maths

This term, Year 5 and 6 students demonstrated excellent skills in solving maths problems using the CUBES strategy. The students were very proud when they were able to solve problems independently and accurately.

Year 5 students enjoyed doing more complex addition, subtraction and multiplication sums this term. The students also learned how to make equal partitions and write fraction sentences using examples from real life situations.   

Year 6 students got great opportunities to practise decimal operations and understand the benefits of learning decimals in everyday life situations such as dealing with money and measurement. The students also learnt how to find the area of compound shapes.  

The students were also able to collect and interpret data using colourful spinners.

Thank you and have a safe holidays!!

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Mind, Body and Character Day 31st March 2023

ICC - April School Holiday Program

Out in Our Community

QPS Ipswich District - April newsletter 2023

School Watch

With the school holidays starting on Friday 31st March, empty schools provide an opportunity for criminal activity – becoming targets for unlawful entry, arson, stealing, graffiti and property damage offences.

All of these have the potential to delay term 2 starting off.

The School Watch Program is a partnership between the Department of Education and the Queensland Police Service (Protective Services).

The program aims to reduce criminal activity in Queensland schools and encourages everyone to look out for after-hours crime in our schools.

If you see anything suspicious, please don’t attempt to intervene. Instead, call the School Watch number of 13 17 88. If you see a crime in progress, please call Triple Zero (000).

Let’s all work together to help create safer school communities and ensure children get off to a great new year of learning.