Dr Carmel McGrath - Principal

Year 6 Leaders’ Induction Ceremony

Congratulations to all Year 6 students on receiving their student leadership badges at our Induction Ceremony on Monday. We were pleased to see so many families in attendance and thank our special guests the Honourable Trevor Evans, Andrew Kilgour from New Farm RSL and Belinda Hill representing our P&C.  Class teachers Fatima Zayn Al Abidin and Hayden Lawrence did a wonderful job preparing the students for the ceremony which was enjoyed by all. 

P&C AGM – Tuesday 12 March 6-7pm All welcome!

 Professional Development

Leaders In Learning

This week our Year Level Coordinators, Lesley Burridge, Julia Forsberg, Cristian Arredendo, Philip Davies, Rachel Fletcher, Steve Conde and Fatima Zayn Al Abidin, will attend the first of 4 Leadership Professional Learning Days. The series of sessions focus on building the leadership capability across our school. This week’s session ‘Leading Highly Effective Staff Teams’ focuses on the key aspects of highly effective teams. Teamwork is essential in our busy school. The better that people work together and are aligned, the better outcomes the school will achieve. Highly effective teams are more efficient, effective and consistent.

Phonemic Awareness Workshop

Seven of our Prep and Yr 1 teachers will be attending a whole day Phonemic Awareness workshop on Saturday 30^th March. This workshop provides instruction in daily teacher-led oral word play activities to help students develop the decoding skills essential to become proficient readers. Working together in this way demonstrates commitment towards improving the consistency of programs within our school.

 Reading in Classrooms

This week the leadership team will be visiting various classes during reading time to support teachers with feedback and coaching on their programs and student learning.

They will also release teachers to enable them to watch other teachers during reading time. This is a positive way for teachers to learn from one another and develop more consistent high yield strategies.

 Traffic Around Our School

Thank you so much to everyone who has been helping improve the smooth running of our drop off and pick up areas. The processes were established in consultation with our P&C and our neighbours as part of our ongoing Master Planning and Traffic Management planning. Staff volunteer for these duties, but we need everyone’s cooperation with our procedures for this to be successful.  The school’s LOOK OUT program will soon be on our website for your reference.  These expectations are also outlined in our school Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) matrix which was compiled after lengthy consultation in 2018. 

Arriving: Over the past week I have noticed the majority of children being ready to get out of their cars with their belongings and drivers should not leave their vehicle.  This really speeds up the process, so thank you. If you do wish to get out of your car and enter the school, please use an alternate area, such as Hawthorne or Annie Streets.

Leaving: Students should also enter the car from the curb side only as entering from the driver’s side has caused a great deal of concern for student safety. We ask that drivers do not get out of their vehicles in these pick up or drop off zones. If you feel you must, please try to arrive early and find a park in an alternative area, but please beware of yellow lines.

 Full School Review

On 28^th, 29^th March and 01 April we will be participating in our Full School Review.  Every Queensland state school is reviewed by the School Improvement Unit (SIU) at least once every four years.  These reviews are an important part of how the department supports and monitors schools.  The review team will be in our school during this period visiting classes, talking with staff, student leaders, parents and our community and school partners. 

 By the end of the review the team will present us with their findings and make recommendations for our next 4 year period. This dovetails nicely into our Quadrennial School Review which is also scheduled for this year.  With the Review Findings we will then develop our new 2020-2024 School Strategic Plan.  This plan informs the Annual Improvement Plan which forms the planning for our annual budget.

 To register your interest in participating in our review, please contact admin@newfarmss.eq.edu.au or email the SIU at siumb@qed.qld.gov.au

 Also see facts sheet attached.

 School Photos – Monday, 18^th March

• Y1 EXCURSION - Nudgee Beach – 20-21^st March
• Harmony Day – Thursday, 21^st March
• Full School Review (SIU) – 28 March – 1 April
• Last day of Term One – Friday, 5^th April
• Friday 19 April– GOOD FRIDAY
• Monday 22 April – Easter Monday
• First Day Term Two – Tuesday, 23^rd April

The Year 6 Captains, Vice Captains and Project Captains had the privilege of visiting Queensland Parliament House for an inspirational leadership development day run by the United Nations Association of Australia Queensland Division. Whilst admiring the historic architecture of the great halls, the NFSS students lead the way amongst other state and private school students to ask pertinent questions to a local MP regarding our system of governing and our democratic processes. The students developed their inspirational ideas in Thinking Global and Acting Local and proposed that our school should assist the environment by replacing all paper hand toweling in our bathrooms with hand driers. We will further develop other project ideas from our Student Leaders. Well done.

Our swimming program is up and running for Term 1 with our team of qualified experienced instructors we are seeing some fantastic results with the students moving through levels. Throughout the program we have seen students from beginner to advanced levels gain new skills and develop current ones It’s wonderful to see the students feel good about their achievements big and small. Our program is run to motivate children to learn basic skills and build on them resulting in stronger swimmers. Our aim is for all students to feel water wise and water strong throughout the next 5 weeks of the programme will be focusing on stroke development and safety and survival skills.

Here is to a fantastic term or swimming
Jo Keehan

NAPLAN Online 2019.

As you may be aware, New Farm will go digital for NAPLAN this year. All tests in Year 5 and all tests except the Writing task in Year3 will be completed online.

Over the next few months Year 3&5 teachers, with their classes, will work through sample online tests so students become familiar with how the online testing works and how they can monitor their progress throughout the tests and know how to utilise any built-in tools.

A number of teachers will be trained in how to use and administer NAPLAN Online.

In the meantime, I encourage all students to improve their touch typing skills, especially Year5 students to assist them in their writing task.  The school is researching what other schools are currently using and will advise and recommend a product in the next few weeks.  There are many free products out there so don’t wait for us if you want to get started.

John