Dear Craigslea Community,                                                                                        

Welcome to the 2025 school year. It was wonderful to welcome our students and families back to school on Tuesday. We have had a very positive and settled start with our students expressing excitement at being back at school amongst their friends and with their teachers.   Thank you to our wonderful staff and families for their support in ensuring a successful start to our year.

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our new students and their families, you have joined an amazing school community and we are looking forward to getting to know you.  Thank you for choosing our school.

I also welcome our new and returning to Craigslea staff who join us this year.  It was great to build connections and ways of working between our new and not so new staff as we worked together last week.

Our teachers spent three days together engaged in learning to continue our work in realising our vision.

This year our priorities to achieve this vision are:

Exciting Changes for 2025

Assembly:  We will come together as a whole school community for assembly on a Monday morning at 9am.  This will replace the Thursday junior and senior assemblies.  We are prioritising coming together each week, establishing our school wide expectations, setting our focus for learning and celebrating our amazing students.  Student achievement will continue to be acknowledged with the LIFE awards at this assembly.  Our first assembly will be on Monday 3 February. 

Japanese: Students in year 1 to year 6 will participate in Japanese lessons.  Many students had their first experience of Japanese this week.

Arts: All students will experience a semester of the Arts (Dance and Drama) with Mrs Doyle as we expand opportunities for our students to engage in learning within the Arts curriculum.  Prep to year 3 are participating in Arts in semester 1.

STEM:  All students will experience a semester of STEM inquiry based learning with Ms Jacob as we develop our students critical and creative thinking and problem solving skills.  STEM will enrich and extend learning for all our students.

Meet the Teacher Evenings
Our teachers are looking forward to connecting with parents and carers in Week 3.  Meet the teacher evenings are important in building the partnership between home and school.  I encourage all prents to attend the evenings for their classes. The sessions will be held in classrooms.

Student Leaders’ Induction Assembly
Our student leader induction assembly will be held on Monday 10 February at 9am.  Our student leaders will be presented their badges in front of their families and their peers.  This is a very special time for our leaders and our school community.

As we come to the end of our first week, I would like to leave you with a thought from Carol Dweck:

“If we want to give children a gift, the best thing we can do is to teach children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.”

Yours in Learning,

Melanie Rehm

Erin Wiles

Alice Cowan-Dillon
Head of Department - Curriculum

Student Engagement and Learning (SEAL Program)
This year we are introducing the Students Engagement and Learning (SEAL) Program to provide supports and reasonable adjustments to afford all our learners the same opportunities as their peers to access the curriculum to be successful learners. The program aims to enrich and extend learners through an inquiry-based approach within classroom learning environments so that all students achieve a year’s growth for a year of learning.

The SEAL Program provides supports to students with diverse learning needs. This includes; academic, social and emotional and access to adjustments and supports to meet year level learning requirements as well as those students identified through NCCD, learning difficulties and/or disorders, social and/or emotional needs, behavioural needs, learning extension and enrichment as well as English as an additional language.

The SEAL teachers for this year include Amanda Dossetto, Renee McGregor, Sharne Harrigan, Sarah David, Cate Hando, Tim Young, Karleigh Bauer and Jana Serisier.

Our teachers are looking forward to another exiting year of learning.

Face to Face Parent Workshop: https://events.humanitix.com/inclusion-and-belonging-at-the-local-school-the-parent-advocacy-toolkit-chermside

Online session for parents: https://events.humanitix.com/online-event-2025-inclusive-education-what-it-is

We are excited for a new year of reading at Craigslea. This year's Library theme is "Book an Adventure" so keep an eye out for different reading activities and events linked to this theme.  

Scholastic Book Club catalogues have been given to students this week, orders need to be placed by 17 February. All orders must be placed online using the Scholastic Book Club LOOP app we cannot accept any cash orders. Further details can be found at scholastic.com.au/loop  

As communicated last year, before school Reading Club will not continue. While it is sad to see this program finish, there will be further opportunities for families to connect with reading throughout 2025.

If you have any Library or Book Club related questions please contact Tess Bryce at tknig93@eq.edu.au 

Tess Bryce
Teacher Librarian

District Trials

• Nominations for North District Basketball trials for girls and boys 10-12 years close 7^th February.
• Nominations for North District Netball trials for girls and boys 10-12 years close 10^th February.

If your child is interested in trialling, and plays for a team outside of school, please contact Mr Beveridge ASAP jlbev0@eq.edu.au

Term 1 Swimming for Year 1 to Year 6

Our students participate in swimming lessons in term 1 and term 4. Students swimming lessons will begin: 

Week 3 - Monday 10 February, 2025

Swimming takes place as part of our H.P.E program. This year to enhance the quality of lessons we provide students, swimming lessons will be held: 

• 60 minute lesson each week in Year 1 and Year 2 and
• 60 minute lesson each fortnight in Years 3 – 6.

There is a consent form to complete in QParents. Please complete this by Friday 7 February.

We do have teacher aides who support in the pool however, we also need parent volunteers to adhere to safety requirements. If you are available to volunteer for swimming supervision, even for one lesson, please let your child’s teacher know.  Supervision does not mean you must get into the pool and swim, but you can choose to support students in the pool. We always require extra adults to watch that our students are safe.

As a safety precaution, and as a last resort, we may cancel a swimming lesson if we do not have enough adult supervision. We are looking forward to the fun and success that our students will experience in the pool this term!

If you need anything clarified about swimming for the term, please reach out to your child’s class teacher.

Kind regards,

Lynley Williams                      Justin Beveridge

Deputy Principal                    P.E. teacher

In this edition… 

• Tuckshop menu changes.
• OSHC welcome BBQ. Feb 4^th.
• 5 cent February.
• P&C Coffee cart, every Monday, and Friday at OSHC.

Also….  

• Term 1 events.
• Craigslea crafternoon Feb 16^th.
• Welcome Movie Feb 22^nd.
• School clean-up day Feb 28^th.
• Easter Raffle.
• Ride to school day March 19^th.
• Earth hour school day March 21^st.
• More details on these events will be on our FB page, and in the fortnightly newsletter.

Tuckshop Menu Changes

• Munch monitor has been updated to reflect our menu changes for the new year.
• You can also view the menu at the tuckshop window or on the craigslea P and C facebook page https.//www.facebook.com/CSSPandC

OSHC welcome BBQ

• We would like to welcome OSHC families to 2025 with a BBQ for students and their families.
• Tuesday Feb 4^th, 4pm – 6pm.
• On the top oval.

5 Cent February

• 3^rd of Feb – 28^th
• Funds raised will go towards school hall air conditioning.
• Drop 5c into the classroom containers or donate via Munch Monitor.
• Ice blocks for top fundraising class.

P&C Coffee Cart

• Regularly set up Mondays,and Fridays outside OSHC, and at special events such as sport days and swimming carnivals.
• Enjoy the cheapest, tastiest coffee in the school, made by real baristas!
• Every coffee you buy helps us get closer to air conditioning the hall, as all funds raised are reinvested back into the school.
• There really is not better choice for your morning brew.