Dear Parents and Caregivers

We would like to thank all our volunteers that have done wonderful work in our school, whether it be helping in our classrooms, our Tuckshop, at P&C events or school fundraisers. We have a vast number of volunteers who have helped out in a myriad of ways. Our volunteers do a magnificent job in our school and we take the opportunity to recognise the work they do and offer our most sincere and grateful thanks. Our P&C is acknowledging the wonderful contribution to our school by holding a Special Morning Tea event in our school hall this Friday at 9.30am.

Air Conditioning Announcement

I am very pleased to announce that Dayboro State School has benefitted as part of the roll out of air conditioning to Queensland State Schools.  We are very grateful for the advocacy of our State Member for Pine Rivers, Ms Nikki Boyd in ensuring that Dayboro State School received funding to air condition the last remaining classrooms, these being in B Block  (currently SEP and Learning Support). It is anticipated that the work will be completed in the near future. 

We are very fortunate, that once work is completed, to have all learning spaces air conditioned in our school. This has taken many years of work by our P&C through fundraising and the submission of community grants.

Ice Cream Day – Next Tuesday

Our final Student Council activity for the year is an Ice Cream Day next Tuesday 3 December. Our local emergency services personnel will be here to serve up ice cream in exchange for a gold coin donation which will go towards Student Council fundraising activities. Gluten free and non-milk options will be available.

Final Assembly Time

Our final assembly for the term will be held on Thursday 12 December commencing at 12.00pm. At this time, our new school leaders will be announced to the school community. Everyone is welcome to attend. Assemblies will continue each Monday until the end of the school year.

Classes for 2020

Classes for next year are being developed and will be available on Thursday 23 January from 8.30am outside the School Administration. All classes are DRAFT until the Day 8 School Staffing Census and are subject to change.

On the same morning between 9:00-10:00am, teachers will be in their classrooms and the opportunity is available for parents and students to meet teachers and drop off book packs.  This will be the only time available as teachers will be involved in a Student Free Day program at all other times.

School Terms in 2020

School commences for students on Tuesday 28 January 2020

Term 1 :- Tuesday 28 January – Friday 3 April 2020  (10 weeks)

Term 2:- Monday 20 April – Friday 26 June  (10 Weeks)

Term 3:- Monday 13 July – Friday 18 September (10 Weeks)

Term 4:- Tuesday 6 October – Friday 11 December (10 Weeks)

The Student Free Day for 2020 is Friday 4 September.  

Dear Families and Friends

NIGHT OF STARS

Last night was our annual Music Night. Thank you to both the Senior and Junior Choirs as well as our Instrumental band for entertaining us with your musical pieces. Of course, a huge congratulations and thank you must also go to Mrs Edwards and Mrs Almond for their dedication and hard work in preparing, rehearsing and encouraging our students in their musical endeavours. It has been exciting to watch our Music program grow and develop over the last few years and we look forward to an exciting 2020 of musical adventures.

EXCITING WRITING 

At Dayboro one of our curriculum priorities has been to help all students improve in the area of writing. Teachers and students have been focussed on improving engagement and creativity in our students as writers. We have nurtured and celebrated every student as an author this year and all students have writing goals to work towards. In 2020 our main priority area will also be writing. We will be celebrating writing in all its’ different forms and aim to identify and extend talented authors that exist in every classroom.

To celebrate writing in all its’ forms I would like to share with you a poem written by a Yr. 3 child. As I said talented authors abound here at Dayboro school and should be recognised and celebrated.

The Rainforest Community

Morning fills my rainforest. I look out at the shining waterfall.

Green leaves rustling in the breeze

Sharp brown rocks.

Reflection of sunlight on the trees

Boulders like blocks.

Birds loudly singing

Water noisily falling

Insects quietly zinging

Baby parrots calling.

The sting of a nettle

The bite of a tick

The softness of a petal.

The scratch of a stick.

Night fills my rainforest.

I think my community is calm……. By Jonah 3M.

PREP OPEN MORNINGS 

This term sees the start of our 2020 Prep Orientation visits 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. 

Yr 5 Parents Needed!

Year 5 Parents- We need a small group of Yr. 5 parents who would be willing to help with the Yr. 6 Graduation evening.

Date: Wednesday 11^th December - 7-10pm. You would be required for a couple of hours on the night to serve food and drinks to the Yr.6 students and their parents. We also need a small group of Yr.5 parents to help prepare the food for the night. The food will be paid for by P and C but they would like volunteers to assist in organising. Please see Karen Ryan DP or Mia Gillies,  Secretary of P and C,  if interested.  You can contact us via the office. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you to those parents that have already offered to help.

BOOKLISTS 2020

Kookaburra Educational Resources will be supplying our Student Packs for the 2020 School Year.  Please note all orders take place through Kookaburra and can be ordered online or through emailing forms and payment details to Kookaburra.

Booklists are also on the Kookaburra Website and our school website - INCLUDING THE USER NAME AND PASSWORD.   Please note that our school and office staff do not handle any Booklist requests and any enquiries should be made directly to Kookaburra Educational Resources.

Thank you from Mrs Ryan

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

Student Leaders for 2020

As P&C President, I sat in on the speeches which 22 Students gave as part of the School Leaders selection process in the Hall last Thursday. It was a real pleasure to see such a large number of Students be willing to put themselves forward as potential leaders for 2020, and I congratulate you all on being a part of this process, and getting up in front of all your peers, School staff and parents to present your respective election statements. On Thursday this week, I will also be part of the panel which will interview the shortlisted Students. I wish these Students the very best for this final stage of the 2020 School Leaders selection process.

Proposal For New Sports Polo Shirts

As was announced last week, P&C has been approached to consider new look Sports Polo shirts to replace the existing design house colour shirts which been in service for many years. This proposal also provided four different new-look and coloured designs for consideration.

For this proposal to be seriously considered, P&C this week continues to distribute these new design options via the School Newsletter and the P&C website so that families can view and gauge interest (or not) in changing the existing patterns Sports polo shirts, and for those keen to see a change, which design option is preferred out of these four options.

P&C is gathering school families’ feedback and will table all findings at our last meeting for this year. Please note, no decision whether to proceed or not with this suggested proposal is going to be made this year. The tabled findings are simply for use with further discussions that will be held during 2020, and these future discussions will also be in conjunction with the School’s senior staff, who will make any final decision.

If a decision is made to introduce a new Sports Polo design in 2020, this would not come into effect until 2021 at the earliest. There would also be a transition period where former design sports shorts could continue to be worn, while new design options became available. Some might also like to consider joining P&C and be part of any decision-making process at P&C meetings next year. 

P&C greatly appreciates any feedback you may wish to provide on this proposal for new Sports Polos, but please note no verbal or Facebook comments will be collated as part of this process. The only formal feedback that will be accepted must be emailed to our Secretary for collation: secretary@dayboropandc.org.au . 

Option 1

 Option 2

Option 3

Option 4

Volunteering for Tuckshop and the Uniform Shop

The Tuckshop and Uniform Shop are P&C’s two main business entities which provide important services to our students and families. More volunteers are needed to help staff and operate both these services. Please consider assisting as both require more volunteers to ensure these can operate effectively not only this, but especially through 2020.

P&C’s final 2019 general meeting is Monday 2 December at 6.30pm.

Jeff Hopkins-Weise (P&C President) 

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

Do you have 2^nd hand board games (like chess, trouble or bingo), 100-300 piece puzzles, transformers or Lego that you could donate to the SEP? 

Our students would appreciate your donations to play with at lunchtime or when they are feeling overwhelmed. Please drop them into the SEP.

Dayboro SS supports students diagnosed with anaphylaxis or at risk of anaphylaxis and uses a range of strategies to reduce allergens in school.  

We have one student in Year 4 with NUT allergy and ask parents not to send any nut containing products in lunchboxes.  This is not a ban, but a strategy in place to reduce the chance of a student at risk of anaphylaxis coming into contact with their allergen.

Our strategies include: not sharing food, handwashing, reduction of foods and empty food containers in school activities and education for students and community members.

If you would like to know further information on Anaphylaxis Management: https://education.qld.gov.au/students/student-health-safety-wellbeing/student-health/health-support-needs

 Mrs Hammond

Maker Space

Last week we celebrated all things prehistoric with “Dinovember”.  In the Maker Space students had the opportunity to design and construct dinosaurs and dinosaur parks, complete dinosaur art works (including Dinosaur peg puppets), and make dinosaur movies using green screen backgrounds.  It was wonderful to see so much dino- enthusiasm!        

New Books

Once again we would like to thank our families for continuing to support Book Club.  The funds raised through Book Club enables us to purchase new books from Scholastic to add to our Library collection.  The new books on display this week have been purchased using funds from Book Club.  We would also like to thank Cara D for her continued work in her role as Book Club Coordinator, her effort in ensuring Book Club orders are submitted to Scholastic and then distributed to students is very much appreciated.

Book Returns

While we are not quite at the end of the school year, now is an excellent time to start searching for overdue books that need to be returned to the Library.  No new loans will be issued to students from Wednesday of this week.  From next week students will be required to return any Library loans. Please ensure all books are returned in a timely manner to allow us to organise materials in preparation for the 2020 school year.

Thank you,

Mrs Wilkinson and Mrs H.

Wow!

Last night, Dayboro State School celebrated all things musical and we have some amazing talent in this school.

The concert band performed first and the crowd loved their performance, especially The Clumsy Cauldron where it sounded as if they were dropping something – those percussionists! There were many brave beginners, showing us what they have learned this year on trombone, trumpet, tuba and clarinet.

The Little Dayboro Voices made us laugh with the song Swinging on a Star and how if we work hard at school, we can be better than we are, and then made us cry with their beautiful singing of A Million Dreams.

The Dayboro Voices showed us their talent and love of music with One Step at a Time and Sing, their voices were sweet and confident.

The Year 6 choir students created their own performance and wowed us with their singing of Fight Song.

Congratulations to all our award winners!

Thank you to all our talented stars last night, we are proud of all you have achieved and look forward to seeing the continuation of your musical journey.

Keep singing!