Good afternoon Parents and Caregivers

Teaching and Learning

Last week saw me enjoy my first full week of teaching and learning across Dayboro State School. Each and every school has its own unique rhythms and ways of working, and whilst an incoming leader can look at data sets to find student achievement outcomes, the burning question is always ‘how’ is the teaching and learning supported, and consistency enabled and maintained across the school. Last week, I had this question answered as I participated in the school-wide CASW process (Collaborative Assessment of Student Work.) where Dayboro year level teaching teams come together each fortnight with our Head of Curriculum to discuss teaching and learning sequences, student achievement, and ensure consistent teaching and assessment across the classrooms. Not every school carves out time for this, so it was wonderful to see the work of teachers being valued and supported through the provision of time for such important collaborations. As the old saying goes, ‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating’. Student achievement data across Dayboro is most certainly a ‘well-made pudding’.

Students – Respect

Last Week on assembly, we refocused on the ‘Respect’ rule across Dayboro State School. One of the loveliest things upon entering Dayboro SS, was the number of students who made eye contact and greeted me with kindness in my first few days. This is an important element of respect, leading into how we treat others, and our own standards for respectful interactions. Schools are busy places with a variety of age groups, personalities, opinions, needs and more. Respecting both ourselves and others is an essential life skill, and it is demonstrated in the ways each individual interacts with the world.

Last week when speaking to classes, in addition to discussing the general expectation of respect across all areas of the school, in the upper year levels we spoke in detail about the expectation of respectful language of students when speaking to teachers and school staff.  Whilst schools make countless reasonable adjustments for students every day, to support students to interact positively and successfully with the world around them, normalising disrespectful or aggressive behaviour is not an adjustment that would be considered reasonable, and not would it be an adjustment that is in the best interests of with the child or the adult. We ask that parents ensure their children are aware of the expectations regarding acceptable, respectful communications at school, as this is an important focus, particularly for our senior students as they heard toward high school.

Our school’s Code of Conduct can be found below.

Celebrating Excellence

Congratulations to our incredible Dayboro SS Band, who participated in the Peninsula Music Festival last Wednesday and achieved a HIGH for their performance. This is a wonderful achievement that we are all very excited and proud about. Congratulations students, you represented our lovely school brilliantly.

Mrs Reed has included some photos further into the newsletter.

Digital Learners for the Future Program – 2026

Our Leadership Team recently met to discuss the ongoing provision of the Digital Learners for the Future Program for 2026. As the program progresses, we will continually reflect, assess and plan, taking in new learnings to ensure our teaching best suits the needs of our learners. As such, please note that both the current Digital Learners in years 3 and 4, and our current Year 2 students will soon receive a ‘Forms Survey’ to share your voice. Please keep an eye on your emails as we’d love to hear your voice.

Further information about the Digital Learners for the Future Program and the current setup/requirements etc., can be found on our school website:

Planning for 2026 – Class Considerations

Term 4 is a time of forward planning for enrolments, facilities, resources, and staffing for the 2026 school year. As enrolment numbers are important to well-balanced class allocations, we ask that if you have a child due to start Prep in 2026 who has not yet been enrolled, please contact our Administration Officer ASAP. This will assist us greatly.

It was lovely to meet so many of our 2026 preppies and their families last week. Mrs Ryan and our Prep teachers were certainly busy, greeting and learning about so many little learners who will soon become Dayboro Learners. Such exciting times for everyone involved!

In regard to Years 1-6, if you have any information that you would like us to consider for your child’s class placement in 2026, please email me on the principal email address, Principal@dayboross.eq.edu.au by Friday 7 November. Please note:

• You may wish to include information about family circumstances that should be considered.
• You may like to describe the qualities in a teacher that suit your child.
• We do not accept requests for a specific teacher.

A reminder that we usually only have two classes in each year level, so we cannot always accommodate student grouping requests. Class formation is a challenging task across all schools in Term 4 as teachers consider not only academic data, but the social/emotion needs of individual students, friendship groups, potential conflicts and more. The more classes a school has, the easier this balance is to find, but this can be tricky with only two options, so although requests cannot be guaranteed, our staff work incredibly hard to achieve the best outcomes across all classes, and parent information is an important consideration. Please be reassured that these requests remain confidential.

If your child will not be returning to Dayboro SS in 2026, please notify us via email so that we can ensure our staffing and resources are as accurate as possible.

Thanks so much for your assistance.

Student Leadership Opportunities

We are about to commence discussing with our Year 5 students the leadership opportunities for 2026. We will also begin to include our Year 4 students in this process. We will soon meet with our Year 5 students to discuss the application process for 2026 leadership positions and the timeline for the process. We will also discuss our Leadership Passport that can help guide our students when deciding on whether to nominate for positions.

Below I have attached the leadership process and timeline for this term.  We look forward to working with students to provide opportunities and information for electing responsible school leaders.

Wishing you all a wonderful fortnight,

Kathy Dickson