Kay Bradley Acting Principal

Student Safety

We have been notified that a child in the New Farm suburb (not a NFSS student) was approached at the weekend by a stranger and the matter was reported to the Police.  On assembly today, I reminded our students of the Recognise, React and Report safety strategies.  Please follow up with your students at home. 

Report Cards

Due to the disruption caused by COVID, in term 2, our Semester 1 report cards will be emailed to parents by the end of week 3.  These reports will arrive at different times during the week. This information has been communicated in newsletter dated 14/7/20

PBL Awards – What does it All Mean?

As a Positive Behaviour for Learning at school we endeavor to teach and acknowledge expected behaviours.  If your child brings a ‘Kookie’ award home they have been ‘caught’ showing a particular behaviour.  The Kookie award should come back to school, so that it can go into the weekly draw.  If their Kookie is drawn from the box, at assembly, they will win an ice-block from the Tuckshop.

The class with the most Kookies, each week, then receives an extra play time.  This is really valued as all other students are in class when this award occurs.

Finally, the house who receives the most Kookies in a term wins a Free Dress Day as a reward. Binkinba won a total of 438 Kookies last term so they will have a Free Dress Day on Friday.  I announced this on Assembly earlier today.

Restrictions Easing

We are excited to be able to plan Gala Days, Shine and some excursions this term. More information about these are included later in the newsletter.  As with all events we will be monitoring the Covid situation closely and making provisions around Covid safe practices.  Unfortunately, we still cannot host parents on school grounds. 

I really appreciate parents, not remaining on school grounds during peak times.  It has also been very helpful that parents are keeping the bottom gate on Heal Street free for our pick up zone use.

Gala Days yr 5-6

As mentioned, our Winter Gala days are planned to go ahead in weeks 6, 7 and 9 of this term.  Gala Days involve students in yr 5 -6 travelling to venues, on Fridays, to compete against schools from our district in soccer or netball. 

Cyber Safety

A big thanks to Mr Fenton for organising the Cyber Safety information sessions for students, parents and staff last week.  Brett Lee presented a common sense approach to this complex subject and provided some very valuable advice.  Brett also commended New Farm for having some robust cyber safety procedures, already in place, that are amongst the best he has seen. 

The link for a recording of the session was sent out via Schoolzine, last week, but unfortunately was only valid for three days.

If you did miss the live and recording sessions, don’t worry as this is only the first part of our Cyber Safety work; there will be more opportunities to get involved.

Melinda Norman Acting Deputy Principal

Safety Tip

Does your child have five adults on their safety network?

A safety network is five adults that your child can talk to if there is a problem or a situation where they, or someone they know, feels unsafe. Help your child to create a safety hand and write an adult in each finger who would listen, believe and help. A great idea is for your child to trace around their own hand and use this as a template to fill it in with five trusted adults.

The safety of all students at NewFarm State School is everyone’s business and The Daniel Morcombe Foundation aims to help the community educate children and young people about how to stay safe in physical and online environments and to support young victims of crime. Their vision is to create a future where all children and young people are provided with education, protection and support to be safe from abuse and risk of harm. The following link provides some useful fact sheets for parents to explore.

https://danielmorcombe.com.au/fact-sheets/

School Rules

It is wonderful to see the children following our school rules, particularly during playtime. At our weekly school assemblies many children continue to be recognised for following these rules and modelling positive behaviour to others. I encourage parents to discuss these rules with their child/ren and help them to understand what this expected behaviour looks like.

• Be Respectful
• Be responsible
• Be Safe
• Be a Learner

Gala Days yr 5-6

Students are gearing up for our upcoming Gala Days later this term. Mr Rainbow is currently organizing training sessions as we prepare for some sports fun! Please encourage your child to be active and participate in this fantastic opportunity. Parent permission forms will soon be distributed, so look out for these.

Curriculum

Curriculum Term Overviews have now been emailed to app parents and uploaded to the NFSS website. These documents provide parents with a ‘snapshot’ of the Australian Curriculum being taught across all subject areas including Chinese, Physical Education and Music in classrooms. I am very excited to see students engaging with the quality curriculum content and welcome parents feedback regarding their child’s learning opportunities. 

Be respectful in the playground

The School Locker Campus Shop located in the grounds of New Farm State School is looking for a uniform shop convenor. School Term hours consist of two 3 hour shifts per week on a casual basis (total 6 hours). Extra hours the week before each school year starts would also be required. 

Successful applicant would possess competent Computer skills, excellent communication, customer service skills, working independently and time management essential. Full training provided. 

Interested in joining The School Locker team:  please APPLY by emailing Nicole Rapp on Nicole.rapp@theschoollocker.com.au including a cover letter and/or resume. 

Top Borrower of the Week

Our top Borrower for Term 3 week 1 is Alexis W from 4W.

Alexis borrowed the most books in week 1 out of all students in the school. She is reading the EJ12 book series and reads 2 new books every day.    

Well done and congratulations Alexis for your huge enthusiasm for reading!

Call out for chess boards

If there are any families with chess boards they no longer need, we would love to have them for our library! The interest is growing so please drop them to the school reception and they will be passed onto the library. Thank you!

Activities in the library

The students have been involved in many activities in the library from playing chess, colouring and making coloured envelopes.

Our inclusion coach Judy L also enjoyed reading a Graeme Base book to students from 3T.

Angela Lamb

Enrolment applications are now open for Prep 2021. Complete the:

• Expression of Interest form 
• Prep Interview booklet,  
• using the check list to collect the supporting documents.

Send all completed forms and documents to email: enrolments@newfarmss.eq.edu.au  

COVID_19 will not stop our kids from shining. The “SHINE” talent quest will be running again in this year in term 3. We will be looking for our most hardworking and talented entertainers in the school to take out the crown of “BEST SHINE TALENT QUEST ACT 2020”.

DETAILS:

1. As normal students from years 4 to year 6 can enter “SHINE”. This year we will also allow students from years 2 & 3 to enter.
2. All heats this year will be submitted by video of students performing their act. Students must record their performance at home and then submit on a memory stick.
3. All performance must be submitted on a memory stick, with an act name to the performing arts group (See Mr. Conde)
4. All entries must be in by the end of week 6. There will be no entries accepted after week 6 for any reason.
5. Only the first 30 entries submitted will be entered into the heats for voting. Places may fill up quickly so be quick and don’t miss out.
6. Voting will take place in week 7.
7. All votes will be counted in week 8 and the finalists will be announced in week 9.
8. The grand final will be held in week 10 live in the hall in front of the while school. At this time parents will not be allowed to attend the final. If things change parents will be informed.

Please see Mr. Chapman if you need help with your act.

The allocated Disabled Car Park bay in Heal Street is not to be used by drivers who do not have a Disabled Parking sticker displayed. We have parents whose access to this car park space is essential. Do not park in this space at any time for any reason unless you have the Disabled Parking sticker displayed. This is the respectful, responsible and safe thing to do.

The students competed in their second online Evening Debate for 2020 on Tuesday 23 June.  The topic was "that every student should be required to take cooking classes".

The teams included:

Congratulations to all students.  The students should be commended for their hard work.  The students had conducted detailed research and their understanding of the topic was evident in their rebuttal.  The Affirmative Team won in Debate 1 and the Negative Team secured a win in Debates 2 and 3.  If you would like to join The Debating Club then please contact Debating Australia on debatingaustralia@gmail.com or 0402 618 890.  Classes will continue online in Term 3, on Tuesday afternoons at 3:30 to 4:30 pm or 4:35 to 5:35pm. The Club is open to year 4, 5 and 6 students.

Thank you - all parents have consented to photographs of their children appearing in school newsletters.