Dear Parents and Caregivers 

Student Free Day Next Monday

Our Student Free Day for this term will be held NEXT  Monday 21 October.  During the day our school staff will undertake various professional development activities. School resumes for students on Tuesday 22 October.

Prep Interviews – Next Week

Interviews for incoming Prep students for 2020 will be held from Tuesday 22–Monday 28 October. Thank you to the many new families (and existing families) who have booked an interview. Please contact the school office as soon as possible if an interview time is still to be organised. The Prep interview will be conducted by our Prep Teachers in the Prep classrooms. Please bring your Prep student to the interview. Our office staff will be confirming appointments during the next week.  

P&C Meeting

The P&C Meeting for October will be held  on Monday 28 October at 6.30pm in the school staffroom. All welcome to attend.

Planning for 2020

Planning for staffing and classes occurs during Term 4. To assist with accuracy in planning, could I please ask at this stage:-

1. Prep Enrolments – Could these be finalised as soon as possible by delivering the enrolment forms and birth certificates to the school office. An enrolment for Prep cannot be confirmed until all the required documentation has been submitted.

2. Leaving Dayboro State School (excluding Year 6) – If any of our families are aware that they are moving from the area or the school, could this please be communicated to our school office as soon as possible.

This information assists us greatly with estimating teacher and class numbers for the new year and your assistance would be much appreciated.

Class Formations for 2020

In term 4 we commence planning for our 2020 class groupings. The starting point of this preparation is an invitation to parents to provide important student or educational information for consideration. Requests for individual teachers cannot be considered as staffing will not be finalised for some time and some teachers may be moving to different year levels. Please note that while the issues that impact on the educational needs of the student are a high consideration, our ability to fulfil requests may be limited by staffing allocation, class size numbers and the small number of year level cohorts.

Please email any considerations to principal@dayboross.eq.edu.au  by Friday 1 November.

Student Leaders for 2020

Our new school leaders will be selected in Term 4. The process will take place throughout the term and will culminate with the announcement of the new leaders at the final school assembly on Thursday 12 December. School Leaders for 2020 will be inducted at a special ceremony by the State Member for Pine Rivers in February 2020. Discussions with students regarding the roles and responsibilities of a School Leader will commence from Monday 28 October.

The key dates for the selection process are:-

Monday 4 November – Nominations due for all Leadership Positions

Thursday 21 November – School Captain speeches and ballot

Monday 25 November – Sports Captains ballot

Thursday 28 November – School Captain interview process

Detailed information and nomination forms will be provided to interested students on 28 October.

Day for Daniel

Dayboro State School will proudly support the “Walk for Daniel” on Friday 25 October. Students, parents and community members will be invited to wear Red and meet at Roderick Cruice Park for the walk to school. Day for Daniel highlights and promotes our community responsibility to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our youngest citizen. A gold coin donation on the day will be forwarded to the Daniel Morcombe Foundation to ensure that the great work in promoting child safety, including the Child Safety Curriculum, continues into the future. More details in future newsletters.

World Teachers' Day

World Teachers’ Day will also be celebrated on Friday 25 October. This day is celebrated annually in all countries and recognises the work carried out every day by teachers.

Garry Drummond

Principal

Dear Families and Friends

STUDENT FREE DAY – 21/10/19

Next Monday 21^st October is a Student Free Day for all QLD State Schools. It is a very important day for all Ed Qld staff as it enables teachers and teacher aides across the state to participate in Professional Development and Moderation activities that help us to provide best practice and better outcomes for all our students.

 Next Monday our teachers will be visiting Mt Samson and moderating Maths assessments with the teachers there. Teachers from both schools will share samples of A, B, C, D and E assessment tasks in order to make comparable judgements about student performance on individual assessments. This process will assist our teachers in the final moderation process where teachers will moderate a whole semester of work to assign a rating for the end of semester report.

Our staff will then be returning to school for sessions on NAPLAN Online 2020 Training and Inclusive Education. Our teacher aides will also be joining us for some of these sessions.

PREP OPEN MORNINGS 

This term sees the start of our 2020 Prep Orientation visit and Prep Open mornings.  See below for details. We encourage all our Prep parents and children for 2020 to take advantage of this valuable opportunity to visit our school and learn more about our Prep classrooms. 

Thank you from Mrs Ryan

Our Vision: “To inspire students to reach their full potential in a safe, caring and educationally challenging environment.”

Composite Classes

Composite classes have been a necessity at Dayboro State School for a long time.  There is sometimes apprehension by parents about their child going into a composite class. We would like to reassure parents that although negative perceptions about composite classes exist, research shows students can thrive in multi-age classrooms.

What is a composite class you might ask? Composite classrooms, in which children from two or more year levels are combined within one class, have become common in many schools around the world. They define classes in which students of varying ages, abilities, or interests might be grouped together. Extensive research shows it makes no difference to performance whether students are in a straight or a multi-age class. Furthermore, it is the teacher and their relationship with the students that plays a key role and is significant in the development of students.
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Despite favourable research regarding student cognitive and social growth in composite classrooms, negative perceptions persist, particularly among parents. Many fear their children will have fewer friendships; that younger children will be overlooked or that older children will not be sufficiently challenged; that children with learning difficulties will suffer more anxiety; or that the curriculum for each year level will be inadequately covered. According to experts, education is about more than academic achievement and age is not an accurate predictor of a child's development. Wide-ranging student abilities exist in children of the same age, and not just in composite classes.  Multiple studies conclude it makes no difference to performance whether students are in a straight or a multi-age class. Experts agree the most important factor in determining how well a student does is the quality of the teacher.​

Here are some key benefits of composite classes:

• Older students provide a model of appropriate behaviour for the younger students – this also means less behavioural problems in the classroom because younger students integrate quickly into established class routines as modelled by the older students.
• Younger students are able to seek help from a wider range of people rather than relying on the teacher to help them all the time.
• Changing the focus of learning from achieving a certain ‘grade’ to individual personal best alters the nature of the learning experience to lead children to value learning and the learning process.
• Links across curriculum areas by teachers ensure all students are engaging in the mandated curriculum for their year level
• Students develop a greater respect for individual differences across the board.

At Dayboro State School, combining students in this way is an appropriate solution that not only allows us to ensure more consistent class sizes, but also enables us to address gender balance issues within each class and maximise school and teacher funding and resources. All classes at Dayboro feature a ‘differentiated’ curriculum anyway: one that caters to all children as individuals, according to their needs. From Prep to Year 6 students are grouped within their classes, based on our extensive assessment schedule, in accordance to their needs. This is particularly evident in our Literacy and Numeracy blocks. All of our groupings are fluid allowing students to work in a group that best suits their learning needs. Teachers manage workloads for a range of ages and abilities in any given class, not just composite classes. There will always be a mix of ages and abilities whether it is a straight or composite class.  

The nature of a teacher and their relationship with his or her students dictates the impact they will have on them. At Dayboro, we see this as our priority and from this our class structures are determined. We have extremely dedicated teachers who foster positive relationships with our students and we are confident this in turn will develop good learners. Developing positive relationships between a teacher and student is the fundamental aspect of quality teaching and student learning.

Linda Smith

Head of Curriculum

Friday 25^th October

Meet at the park opposite the Bakery at 8:00am.

WEAR RED!

EVERYONE invited. Walk with your neighbours, friends, family, staff etc.

Help us remember Daniel Morcombe and raise awareness about child safety in Dayboro.

Library Awards for Term 3

Congratulations to the students who were presented with a Library Award on Monday at assembly.  Students selected to receive this award have demonstrated responsible use of the Library and the Library resources throughout Term 3.

The Library Awards for Term 4 will be presented at the final Monday assembly this term.

New Books

The Graphic Novels that were on display last week are now available for loan.

This week we have a selection of new novels and picture books on display.  Come and browse through our new books – you will find that many of the books in this selection are humorous fiction stories.  There are some very interesting characters in the “Toffle Towers” book. This book has been written by Tim Harris, the same author as the “Mr Bambuckle’s Remarkables” – this series has been popular with our students.

Overdue Books

Thank you to all of the students who returned their overdue books last week.  We currently have approximately 40 students who have significantly overdue books, one of these books was due back to school in February.  Please remember that when you return books promptly other students are able to have the opportunity to enjoy the books as well. 

Thank you,

Mrs Wilkinson and Mrs H.