2024 Term 1 Week 6

From the Principal

Hello and welcome to our newsletter.

Every four years our school undertakes a strategic planning process to outline our plans and goals for the next four years. Attached to this newsletter is a draft of our 2024-2027 Strategic Directions. Over the coming weeks we will be undertaking consultation with students, staff and the community to gather further feedback on the plan.

A key part of our strategic planning is to listen to all members of our school community (parents, students, and staff) to develop a plan that will guide our work for the next four years.

The key themes for our plan are:

• High Impact Teaching and Learning
• Vibrant Learning Community
• Learners for a Global World

Our work in the next four years will be aimed at achieving these three key themes while maintaining a relentless focus on improved student outcomes.

P&C AGM

Our P&C AGM will be held on Monday 11^th of March at 6:00pm in our Administration building. The best access is via gate 7.

For those new to schooling in Queensland below is a summation of the purpose of P&Cs in schools.

Parents and Citizens' (P&C) associations work in productive partnership with their school principal and the community to promote the interests of the school, and facilitate its development and further improvement, to achieve the best possible outcomes for students.

P&Cs provide feedback and advice on school policies and activities, assist in providing resources to enhance student outcomes and are involved in a variety of school activities including fundraising, school functions, tuckshops and outside school hours care services.

At our AGM, all executive positions will be declared vacant and nominations called. I would encourage all of our families to come along and join our P&C as a general member or as a one of our executives. Once again, we call for nominations for the following positions:

• President
• Vice-President
• Treasurer
• Secretary

Our P&C does a great job of supporting our school and this year are looking for more people who feel they can contribute. If you think you can help, even in a small way, it would be greatly appreciated if you could come along and be part of our P&C.

Pick up and Drop Off

The safety of our students and our responsibility to be a good neighbour in our local community is of great importance for our school.

We are again asking parents to be mindful of arrival times in the afternoon. We are noticing numerous parents using the top of Rogers Street. This is causing St Pauls Tce to be blocked as multiple cars double park and cue up Rogers Street. Not only is this practice illegal it is dangerous and has the potential to cause harm to our students.

The safest pick-up area is our official pick up and drop off area, which is only accessible from Water Street. This is the only pick up point we support students to get to and from their vehicles.

Our staff do a great job getting students out to the official area safely and quickly each day. If you currently come down from St Pauls Tce we would ask you to start using the Water St access to assist us in making sure your child is safe at all times. This will also assist with making sure that we do not have BCSS families double parking and blocking residential driveways.

We regularly ask police and the Brisbane City Council to support us in our endeavours to keep our children safe. Parents have and will continue to be fined when breaching the road rules.

Congratulations to our Super Swimmers

Last week we had three students attend the Met North Swimming Trials. We would like to congratulate all three for gaining selection in the Met North Swimming Team to complete at the State Swimming Championships at the end of March. Amber and Melissa will be competing at their first State Titles, while Branner is returning after successfully gaining selection into the Queensland team in 2023.

Well done Branner, Melissa and Amber. We wish them all the best at the upcoming state titles and hope they can all swim personal bests.

Farewell Miss Sharon

We have been fortunate to have many great people working here at BCSS over the years. As with all workplaces we see people moving in and out of our school as they pursue new opportunities both professionally and personally.

I am writing today to let the school community know that Miss Sharon in the office will be leaving BCSS on Friday 1^st of March. Sharon has been a much-loved member of our staff since joining BCSS in 2018. Over that time Sharon has made a positive contribution to our school and school community and I would like to thank her and acknowledge her contributions over that time.

As principal, Sharon has been a great support and always willing to help where and when she could. Our school will miss her greatly and our office will not be the same in her absence.

As Sharon looks forward to her new role at Mt St Michael’s College we wish her all the best in her next adventure and are sure that she will make a positive contribution to that school community too.

Staffing Changes

With the departure of Sharon, we will have a new administration team to support students and families. Miss Victoria has joined our admin team this week and will be replacing Sharon.

Rachel will also be departing at the end of this term and will be replaced by Miss Nida (Mon-Wed) and Ms Mahtab (Thurs-Fri). We would like to thank Rachel for your contribution to our school since joining us last October and hope she finds success in her next endeavour.

As a result of these changes there will be further additions to the BCSS team at the beginning of term two. We will communicate those as soon as all staffing is confirmed.

Across the desk of the Deputy

Mr Nicholas Dargusch

Deputy Principal

Gardening Club

Prev

Showing images 1 - 8 of 9

Next

Our keen green thumbs went to work in our garden beds today. Mr McKee, Ms McVean and the gardening club have removed the weeds and have planted some sunflowers and mint. Very exciting for them all to see the germination process, in addition to building compost and maintaining a healthy environment for the garden beds. 

Clean Up BCSS Day

Today students participated in Clean Up BCSS day! All classes had the opportunity to ensure our school remains a healthy, safe and clean learning environment. Thanks to the Brisbane City Council for coming in and speaking with the students around the dangers of micro-plastics. Thank You to Artemis and Emmy for organising. 

CLEAN UP BCSS

Prev

Showing images 1 - 8 of 11

Next

Gala Sports Days (Years 4-6) 

Next term Years 4-6 will participate in our interschool Gala Sports Days. These three consecutive Fridays allow students to develop team-building skills through social sports, inluding soccer, netball and touch football. Over the next week, all students will choose their sport to participate in. 

Please complete the permission form attached below for your child to attend. 

NAPLAN (Years 3/5)

This week our Years 3 and 5 students completed their NAPLAN practice tests. Due to being online, the platform and exposure to a variety of questions is new to a lot of our students, therefore a few practices prior to the real event.

Brisbane Central will be conducting NAPLAN over the two week period to ensure that all students have the opportunity to participate in all tests. Please see below for the testing timetable. If you child is absent a catch-up session will be provided. All tests will be completed by Monday 25th March. 

Mrs. Maureen Kelly - Head of Curriculum

Learning Webs

Each term parents are provided with an overview of the curriculum that the students are learning for that term.  These are called the Learning Webs.  The Learning Webs also provide key school and class information.  There has been a technical difficulty for parents attempting to access the Learning Webs from the school website.  We are working to resolve this issue and apologise for the inconvenience.    

Library

It happens at times that the children leave their library books at home or in or around the classroom at library borrowing times.  When this happens parents will get an automated reminder email of any overdue books.  This email is generated by the Infiniti library system from the email address no-reply@concordinfiniti.com.  Parents may consider listing this email address in their email contacts to avoid messages being directed to the ‘junk’ email folder.  If a book has not been returned after a period of time, we ask for a library reimbursement fee to be paid by parents to help offset the cost of replacement books and help us keep a good collection in the library.  Parents will be invoiced through the school office in these circumstances.   

If a child has a book overdue on the system, they are not able to borrow any additional books.  Borrowing rites are restored when all books are returned or the library reimbursement fee is paid.  If there are special circumstance regarding the non-return of books, please contact the class teacher.    We try to apply our library policy and procedures consistently and this information is available on our school website for parents.  https://brisbanecentralss.eq.edu.au/facilities/library

Poetry and Short Story Writing Competitions and Art & Design Competition

Student may be interested in entering a range of competitions.  See the websites for more information. 

Library

Congratulations to Addie and Lasya for being elected as the 2024 Library Captains. The library captains would like to hear your ideas and represent your voice.  They have made a new and very exquisite student book recommendation box which is covered in your favourite book characters. Student book recommendation forms are next to the box.

Our new library bags with our school logo have arrived and can be purchased for $10.00 from the school’s uniform shop. Thanks P&C for all your help with the library bags.

New books have arrived and they are making their way to the shelves. Shortly there will be 92 new National Geographic books on the white rotating racks. Known by the students as the one and two green dot books. High demand and very popular this section of the library.

If you are wondering when our Junior Fiction Book - Red Lady Bug and carriages are arriving May is the expected delivery date.

The entries to the QLD Library Week competition are exceptional and the winning nominations for each category will be announced shortly. Queensland School Library Association will determine the prize winners.  All entries are on display in the library.

The next big event in the library is every child helping to prepare a ‘Tea Cup’ library display for Harmony Day. Your child will be given an outline of a tea cup to decorate to celebrate all the different cultures that come together in Australia, express their identity and help to continue delivering the message – “Everybody Belongs”.

The 2024 theme for Harmony Day is: What Can We Do?

Instead of using paint, coloured pencils/markers or pencils to decorate their tea cup we are going with Texture. Could you please assist by looking around and finding any unwanted: beads, buttons, ribbons, glitter, lace, fake fur, wool, string, little pieces of fabrics, leather, felt or anything you think would be suitable so your child can bring some to school and put on their class tea cup sharing resource box.

Message from Miss Emma McVean - Sustainability

Families are invited to bring containers to school or use our code to raise money for the school.

PBL Newsletter

Reading Eggs & Mathletics

Mathletics / Reading Eggs Invoices sent out recently.

Thank you the parents that have already paid their invoice.

Mathletics which is an online learning space the students use in the classroom and it is aligned to the Australian Curriculum Mathematics outcomes across the primary years and Reading Eggs is an online program that helps children learn to read. 

Both of these programs are used through the school from Prep to Year 6 for Mathletics and Prep to 3 for Reading Eggs and are Invoiced yearly.  You would  have been advised through the Enrolment process of this fee and signed the “Third Party Consent” for your students to use.

Thankyou in advance
Kind regards
BCSS

Year 1-6 Cross Country

Please find below for those who have not completed the permission for Cross Country this term. 

https://brisbanecss.schoolzineplus.com/form/42 

Yr.2 Excursion

please see attached permission for the Yr.2 excursion 7 March, 2024.

https://brisbanecss.schoolzineplus.com/form/45 

Running Club

Chess Club

Book Club Issue 2 - In your child's hands

Visit scholastic.com.au/LOOP or download the LOOP app. Please order and pay by credit card and your order will be electronically linked to the rest of your school’s order.

When the books arrive at school, they will be handed to your child to take home.

P&C News

P&C News

Outside School Activities

Aikido for Beginners