Dear Parents/Carers,

TIME TO CELEBRATE AND APPRECIATE

Well here we are at the last newsletter of the year. Next year we expect the school to have about 600 students requiring an additional class and with a number on our waiting list, reflecting community confidence in our school.

We are fortunate to have in overwhelming numbers, students who are independent learners, friendly and safe in their classrooms and playgrounds. We have more students achieving an A or B and better than a C with these results being at the same or higher levels than regional targets. NAPLAN on the whole was very solid particularly with our Year 5 cohort achieving outstanding results and improvements. Our relentless focus on Writing has shown large jumps in growth in all our students from Prep to 6.

Our staff are committed and caring professionals who work together to progress our students as learners and people. They have all cooperated to help us improve our communication with parents through the re-design of our newsletter, the Schoozine APP and Weekly Happenings.

Finally, our parent community who are incredibly supportive and have been so resilient during this tough year. To see the number of parents who supported the Junior and Senior Swimming Carnivals was incredible. This was so helpful given the record number of swimmers we had! David Heidrich was so appreciative at the manner in which the swimming club assisted in setting up the pool to be carnival ready and then the numbers of parents involved in marshalling, time-keeping, judging and encouraging each and every student to touch the wall at their own pace was a sight to see. Our P and C organise our fundraising, events and contribute financially to our activities and facilities and lead the operations of OSH, the Uniform Shop and Tuckshop. In most schools, P and C Meetings are poorly attended with barely more than the executive members. Not so at Craigslea. 

FAREWELL, WELCOME AND THANKYOU!

We have some key staff moving on, taking breaks and transferring in for 2022.

• Melissa Bowes (Year 1): Mel, James, Izzy and Charlie are off on a new adventure to live and work in Surat from next year. Small schools and communities need great teachers like Mel and I am sure she will weave her magic on Surat as she has done at Craigslea. At the end of her time at Surat, Mel will "boomerang transfer" back to Craigslea if this is her wish. 
• Andrew Brush(Year 3)has worked part-time this year and has been part of the relief staff for the past couple of years. We probably will still see Andrew around casually next year and we thank him for his work on 3HB this year. 
• Narelle Green (Deputy Principal): Narelle is taking six months long service leave. We wish Narelle all the best for her hard-earned leave. Her boots are big ones to fill and we will welcome her back in Semester Two. 
• Colleen Mayer (Teacher-aide): Colleen will be taking a large chunk of long service leave prior to her retirement. Colleen has been part of the fabric of Craigslea State School for the past 22 years. Her children and grandchildren have attended school here. Colleen is a wonderful team member and has cared for and worked so beautifully with our students. Congratulations on a fine career, Colleen.
• Allira Newling (Year 4) joined our staff at the start of this year as the Targetted Learning Teacher on Year 4. Allira is off to Aspley State High School next year and we thank her for her contribution to our students. 

INCOMING

• Congratulations to Sarah Abdy (Head of Curriculum) who has won the position of Deputy Principal (Curriculum, Teaching and Learning) for the first six months of next year. Sarah will backfill Narelle Green. Sarah was selected by the panel from a pool of 37 applicants state-wide. We are currently recruiting for a replacement for Sarah's Head of Curriculum position for Semester 1. 
• Our school will have a second Deputy Principal (Student Services) in 2022 who will assume some of our Head of Special Education Services role amongst other responsibilities, as Kim Smith our substantive HOSES has relinquished her position due to her need to remain overseas. Natalie Marhinin who is the Acting Principal of Ipswich North will come to Craigslea as our second Deputy Principal next year. Natalie lives locally and has travelled to Ipswich for the last five years for work. Natalie has held a variety of positions for the department such as Master Teacher, Head of Curriculum, Head of Student Services, Deputy Principal and Acting Principal positions. 
• Anita Clarke (Chancellor State College: Sunshine Coast) and Samantha Heslehurst (Oxley State School) are both experienced teachers and will join our classroom teaching teams. 

COVID

This week we have received communication from the Minister of Education that from January 23, all staff, volunteers, visitors and contractors to schools will need to be double vaccinated. I will keep everyone advised if and when any additional information comes to hand. The Health Department has alerted all government departments of the possibility of lockdowns once the borders have opened. Our team will be ready to deliver on-line and paper-based learning if that should eventuate-let's hope not! We will continue to staff gates for 2022 due to COVID still potentially impacting and we believe we are providing a safer passage for students as they exit the school. Two minute zones are a key feature for schools involved in the Active School Travel Program which will be discussed elsewhere in this newsletter. We will be sending new visor labels home at the commencement of the school year. 

BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL ROUTINE 2022

Staff supervision at Craigslea commences at 8.55am which is in line with all Queensland schools. To this point, if students arrived before 8.30am they would sit in the 2/3 covered area and after the 8.30am bell they could play close to their classrooms. Over time, incidents and accidents have occurred because it is natural that unsupervised students don't necessarily make good choices once they are moving around the school. It is a time where staff and the leadership team are meeting with people and preparing for the day so in order to reduce the numbers of incidents and accidents before school we will be moving the bell from 8.30 to 8.40am. OSH will keep students enrolled there with them until 8.40am. We strongly encourage students not to be at school early unless they are enrolled at OSH. 

After school we have a number of students playing/sitting in areas other than the designated gates. The routine is that all students must move to gates immediately upon being released from classrooms and if parents/carers do not arrive by 3.20pm, the staff on gates will take them to the office so that parents/carers can be called to collect. If you need to routinely arrive after 3.20pm due to other commitments, your child should be enrolled in OSH please. There are a number of high school siblings and their friends waiting in our non-supervised areas and this is not appropriate. 

BOOK DROP OFF

On Wednesday January 19 from 9am until 1pm, parents/carers will be able to drop their child's book boxes to school. For Prep parents/carers there will be labelled areas for each class just outside the older style Prep rooms; Year 1, 2 and 3 there will be labelled areas in the covered area adjacent to the 2/3 classrooms and for Years 4,5 and 6 in the covered area outside their rooms. Teachers and Jay (Grounds/Facilities Officer) will come and retrieve the boxes to take to classrooms throughout Wednesday. 

YEAR 6 SCHOOL LEADER PROCESS 2022

Today we have finalised the group of leaders that will start in leadership positions for 2022.  Congratulations to:

SCHOOL CAPTAINS: Heidi and Lachlan

VICE CAPTAINS: Cooper and Eli

HOUSE CAPTAINS HAMILTON: Nevin and Trisha

HOUSE CAPTAINS MAUNDRELL: Darius and Olivia

HOUSE CAPTAINS WEBSTER: Hanna and Sophie

MUSIC CAPTAINS: Imogen, Rourke and Sugar

TECH CREW: Aleena, Catalina, Hugh, Lucas, Zahra and Zoe 

Probationary Senior Leaders have also been informed today. These students will receive their badges in Week 8 of Term 1. There are some students who applied but will need to continue to work on some leadership goals for Term 1. They will have another opportunity to apply at the start of Term 2. These students are encouraged to talk with their classroom teacher between now and the end of the year to plan and be supported in their way forward. 

On Tuesday afternoon December 6 at 2.00pm, there will be a ceremony where the 2021 Year 6 Leaders will do a leadership handover to the students named above. This will also be a final assembly for our 4, 5 and 6 students to say goodbye to our current Year 6. Year 5 parents/carers of the 2022 Captains and Tech Crew (names listed above) are invited to this assembly as well as current parents/carers of Year 6 students. 

REPORT CARDS AND CLASS ALLOCATIONS

These will be emailed from the middle of next week. A considerable amount of time and effort goes into class placements taking into account academic, behavioural and social considerations. To achieve balanced classrooms is our primary concern. The classroom teachers are best placed to make these decisions as they have been with the children every day. We ask every child for a friends list and ensure they are placed with at least one friend from the list they have given us.  For a number of cohorts, this has to be done for 100 children. Parents/Carers were given an opportunity in October, to provide us with some input (if they wished) to assist their child's placement. Therefore, we ask parents/carers to refrain making contact with us about changes as these are impossible to effect at this time. 

Thank you for your support this year and I wish you and yours a safe and happy holiday season. 

Kathy

The Active School Travel program will be introduced into CSS.  This initiative is about getting kids more active while at the same time, reducing the amount of traffic around the school perimeter. We will be looking for some parent representatives to sit on our committee and the first date is set for Thursday 3 February for 3:30 pm.  Some of our P&C representatives have indicated an interest in being part of this.  Our BCC representative, Gina Davis will attend the meeting and be working with us to help make this a success. 

Then on Thursday 17 February, we will launch the initiative on assembly with the intention of having our first active school travel day on Wednesday 23 February.

Semester Two Reporting 

Semester Two Reports will be emailed in Week 10 of this Term.  Therefore, please ensure that your contact details are up-to-date with the front office. 

Throughout the year the teachers undertake moderation within this school and across our cluster of four other schools.  This is undertaken to provide consistency with the results that are given to students.

When reporting, your child's achievement is rated against the Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards in each subject area. Each level uses a five-point rating scale, dependent on their developmental abilities.  These scales are as follows:

Learners achieving Working With, Sound or C are working at year level expectations. A 'C' means that a learner has met the criteria for a learner at the appropriate year/age level.  The best description is to say that a 'C' means that your learner's academic development is exactly where it needs to be!  Therefore, attaining a 'C' for Achievement means that your child is ON TARGET for their year level. 

Your learner will also receivve an Effort grade for each subject area.  An effort grade indicates the learner's work habits and whether they have independently and consistently displayed solid work habits like staying on task, remaining focussed, and applying effort in an attempt to aim for mastery of the concept being taught. Effort grades are also rated on five-point scale.

I wish everyone a safe holiday and look forward to seeing all our families in 2022!

Sarah Abdy 

Christmas Concert

The children thoroughly enjoyed the online Christmas Concert and a sincere thanks to Pauline Stockill (Music Teacher) and her team for producing such a wonderful product for our community enjoyment. The children enjoyed many "live" events on the morning of the concert, which added to the excitement. Unfortunately, the P and C's Outdoor Christmas Concert Online Viewing has been cancelled due to the state of the top oval. Please enjoy the concert at home with your family by clicking this link - https://youtu.be/VgxoFV_6gMA

Junior Swimming Carnival

Senior Swimming Carnival

Reading Club News

It was wonderful to see so many students at our final Reading Club session last Thursday! We had great fun reading books & eating freshly made popcorn afterwards with our friendly Year 5 reading buddies! Despite COVID restrictions this year, we still had 90 enthusiastic members who attended our popular Reading Club.

Three of our members have completed their Reading Passports & will be receiving their reading certificates soon. Many other students are only a few stamps away from receiving their awards! Don’t forget to return to Reading Club next year as current reading passports will remain valid in 2022.

Special thanks to our awesome Year 5 Reading Buddies who regularly volunteered their time before school to help our young members become better readers. Thankyou also to all the Mums, Dads, grandparents & teachers who attended Reading Club every week to listen to our students read.

See you all in 2022!

Bridge Builders

As our Year 5 students prepare to be school leaders in 2022, they have participated in the Bridge Builder program. This program helps them to develop the skills needed to demonstrate positive leadership and manage conflicts proactively. Along the way, they were helped out by the Preps who are also developing their own skills in these areas.