Term 4 Week 8

Mr Micheal Grogan

Welcome to our penultimate newsletter of the year. We have a lot happening around the school these past two weeks and the next two weeks are also exciting as we celebrate the year that has been while also working towards what 2024 looks like.

Today’s Colour Run was another great day. Our students, staff and you, our supportive school community have once again come together to provide our students with a great school experience.

All of the funds raised will be put towards the re-development of our bitumen court into a multi-purpose court in the near future. We are slowly building towards our goal and hope to start taking small steps towards this in 2024.

I’d like to acknowledge Ms Stainer, Mr D and Ashton for their efforts in coordinating the event this year and setting up the course for the day. It made for a wonderful experience for all.

Music Celebration Concert
It was with great pleasure that I attended the Music Celebration Concert on Tuesday evening at the Fortitude Valley State Secondary College Performing Arts Centre (PAC). We are fortunate at BCSS to have there of the best music teachers anywhere. Mr McIntyre, Mrs Shephard and Ms Edwards put an enormous amount of time, effort and expertise into supporting our students with our music program.

Tuesday evening wa the culmination of their years’ work for our year 6 students in the senior band and their performance was outstanding.

Our choirs sang beautifully, as always and their combined performance was one of the highlights for me.

Thank you to everyone who came along, the PAC was certainly full. I’d also like to thank our amazing music teacher along with Miss Sami and Mr Shephard for their efforts in supporting our music program this year.

Away for the Day – Mobile Phones and Wearable Devices.
From the beginning of 2024, all Queensland state school students will have their mobile phones switched off and ‘away for the day’.

'Away for the day' will support our school to maintain a strong focus on educational achievement, and student wellbeing and engagement by:

• providing optimal learning and teaching environments
• encouraging increased face-to-face social interactions between students
• promoting the health and wellbeing of students through increased physical activity at break times
• reducing the potential for students to be exposed to the negative impacts of the digital world, resulting from unsafe or inappropriate technology use.

At BCSS our policy will remain the same. Students will be expected to turn their device off and leave it in the administration. We will have a new cabinet for storing student devices installed for the beginning of the 2024 school year.

For more information and frequently asked questions, visit the department’s website.

2024 School Calendars
Plan your 2024 with the new school calendar and school planner (featuring the weeks of term). Visit the Education website’s calendar page to download or iCalendar to add dates to your device.

Mr Nick Dargusch / Deputy Principal

Last Friday our Year five students presented their leadership speeches to the senior school, articulating their strengths and reasons why they believe they will make a worthy leader for their peers in 2024. We had over 15 school captain applications, as well as five for each of the sport houses.

A big congratulations to all students who presented as there were many stand-outs. For most, this will be their first taste of leadership, and we know for many will not be there last.

All other positions will be announced in the first week of 2024.

Our school leaders for 2024 are as follows:

Transitions
Transitions into both primary and high school are crucial milestones in a child's life, and they can significantly impact their overall development. The importance of these transitions lies in their potential to shape a child's academic, social, and emotional wellbeing. Below are two podcasts to assist in supporting parents to navigate their way around these different stages in both the child’s and families lives.

Podcasts for Transitions:
Transitioning into High School

https://soundcloud.com/dete-4/helping-your-child-transition-to-high-school-with-maggie-dent

Transitioning into Prep

https://bit.ly/47AzhQN

Playgroup
We have our final week of Playgroup next Friday 1^st December. I want to thank you all for participating each week and supporting our Playgroup session. Ms Maile has done an amazing job in engaging families in our early childhood program. We look forward to welcoming you all back in 2024 for another year of early learning.

PBL Newletter

Mrs Jo Gawne / HOI

Debating 2023

That our grandparents had it tougher than us; That teachers should have to wear uniform; That we should ban contact sports. Are you for or against these arguments? Our teams didn’t get to choose. Allocated an affirmative or negative side, they had to argue a case, regardless of their perspective. Our Year 5’s and 6s presented some pretty convincing arguments to back up their stance on these and other topics this season. Triumphant in 8 out of 12 debates against other schools in Brisbane, all our students excelled. A massive thank you to all our coaches, Mr Perkins, Ms Coleborn, Ms Culverhouse and Ms Kelly, who dedicated their time and passion to support our debating students this year.

Looking forward to a great debating season next year!

Reading Club 2023

This year, students from two of our community partners, Brisbane Girls Grammar School and Brisbane Grammar School, have been volunteering to read with our students with the aim or procuring a greater love of reading. Our students have also had the opportunity to interact with a consistent buddy student through board games. Board games are a great way to develop oral language through questioning and answering, as well as developing social skills such as turn taking and resilience.

Thank you to all parents for supporting this initiative this year.

Assembly Certificates

Library News

Toy Sale
I spied with my little eye a colourful Toy Sale at BCSS. Toys and books and all sorts of the most wonderful things were donated by our students and the community for the Toy Sale.  During three mornings sessions an enormous number of students from Prep to Year 6 set up, supervised and packed away the Toy Sale. Thank you all for your generous donations and support.

Our BCSS Library in 2024 will have the full Book Worm (I Head, 8 Carriages and 1 Multi- Coloured Corner piece) for the Junior Fiction books.  So, who won the vote?  The Lady Bug came in first with the Lion a very close second and the Frog finishing with a bronze medal. Thanks to the SRC for purchasing 1 carriage and the P&C for purchasing 2 carriages.

The Centre Against Domestic Violence and Peggy’s Place will be giving ‘Children Without a Christmas Present’ a wonderful surprise this Christmas.

Book Fair
During this week students have been attending a Book Fair during their regular weekly library lesson.  Every student has been given a ‘Wish List’ for purchasing books they would like to have for reading at home.

The Book Warehouse provided a huge range of books that were sourced from publishers in Australia and overseas. The books were all discounted in price and represented a fantastic value. Some books started at a crazy $2.00.

Please look at Schoolzine, Facebook or your childs Wish List for all the details you need to order books. You can still place orders online until midnight on Sunday. Books ordered online will be delivered to school and collected by your child from Miss Cidnii to take home.

BCSS BOOK FAIR ID IS:   75945
Thanks to the student helpers and the community for making the Book Fair a success.

“The more you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go,” – Dr. Seuss

AST - Active School Travel

Lost Property

Our lost property bins are overflowing!

If your student has lost anything from a lunch box to a water bottle to a hat to swimming clothes, you will most likely to find them in the various lost property bins around the school.

What isn't claimed by the 8th December (school's last day for 2023) will be donated or thrown in the Skip bin.

Early and Late Arrivals

We have noticed a significant increase in the number of students arriving at school before 8:30am. Some students are arriving as early as 7:30am, students are not permitted on school grounds before 8:30am and MUST be picked up at 3:00pm.

We do not provide supervision of students prior to 8:30am and after 3:15pm.

If you are needing to drop your child at school earlier or unable to pick them up late, you can access the OUR PATCH after Hours School Care facility to ensure the safety of your child.

Email brisbanecentral@ourpatch.education

Website www.ourpatch.education

We would appreciate this attention to the above.

Swimming Carnival Jnr & Snr

Please find below permission form for your completion if you haven't already.

Or thru schoolzine

https://brisbanecss.schoolzineplus.com/form/29

https://brisbanecss.schoolzineplus.com/form/30

BCSS Sustainability

Hi BCSS Community!

Thank you for participating in the Food Waste Audit! Your time is very much appreciated! We found that bread, rice, vegetables and fruit are the foods that we waste the most.

Do you have any recipes to share with us using these items?
-yoghurt
-bread
-rice
-banana
-blueberry
-strawberry
-apple

You can send in any recipes for small-large meals, traditional foods or desserts. Please send your recipes to Ms McVean emcve0@eq.edu.au or Miss Pafflin jpaff2@eq.edu.au

We are making a recipe book that will be available for our whole school community. It is our hope that familes can use these recipes as inspiration to make things instead of throwing away foods. 

Thank you again for helping us stop food waste.

Yr.5 Students

As part of the our inquiry unit "How we organise ourselves," year 5 students had the opportunity to meet federal Greens member of parliament, Mr Stephen Bates. 

In this unit, students learnt the values and systems of democracy, alongside running their own campaigns for various positions of school leadership, whereby other year levels, staff and their peers, voted democratically to elect their school leaders for 2024.

We were thrilled with the visit from Mr Bates, who answered a lot of student questions such as - Is democracy fair? What do you do to overcome public speaking nerves? Can democracy ever go wrong? What are you biggest challenges as a parliamentarian? 

The discussion with Mr Bates gave students a lot of insight into the processes they were engaging in, within the unit of learning and we look forward to welcoming Mr Bates back again in years to come to continue to link our learning in leadership processes to the real world.

Yr.6 Student Information

With the end of year fast approaching alot going on around the school for Yr.6 students, please ensure you complete and return all permission forms and RSVP to the students graduation night.

Graduation Night invitation has been sent out via Schoolzine, check you app for details. 

FVSSC graduation walk & Yr.6 Celebration Day permission forms are attached however also in the schoolzine app.

Christmas Concert

Australian Literacy Assoc

Our Patch

Lord Mayor's Christmas Carols

UQ Autlnsight