Edition 11 17 July 2020

Our Academic Awards Assembly (P - 3) was held yesterday. This was a time to reflect on the achievements of the boys in Semester One. All boys should be congratulated for their fine work ethic and academic success in what have been challenging times. Pictured above are the prize recipients from Mrs Galbraith’s Year One class (L - R back row) Emrys Rogers and Jaivir Singh (L – R front row) Harry Spencer, William McAllister and Thenul Ratnayake.

From the Head of Junior School Dear Parents It was good to welcome the boys back to school following the mid-year holiday and commence what at this stage feels like a more normal term of school. I hope all families enjoyed some quality time together during this time. New Students As a school community we welcome ten new students to the Junior School at the start of this term. Smith Waring (3W), Sonny Gibbons (3W), Archie Gibbons (4B), Micah Saleh (5L), Jake Woodhead (5L), Dom Seaby (5S), Finn Wilson (5S), William Zhang (6C), Hamish Wormwell (6W) and Artharsh Gajaharan (6W) commenced their schooling with us this week. I extend a very warm welcome to the boys and their families and wish them a long and happy association with Toowoomba Grammar School. Staffing Mr Ben Thomas has been appointed as our new Year 2 teacher. Mr Thomas was educated at St Joseph’s Nudgee College, more often referred to as Nudgee College, one of our fellow G.P.S. Schools in Queensland. He has a Bachelor of Education (Primary) and a Bachelor of Arts from Southern Cross University. Mr Thomas is married, with his wife being a doctor and they have three young boys. Mr Thomas also has a breadth of life experiences, has played and coached a range of sports, and represented Australia in rugby union as a schoolboy. I welcome Mr Thomas to our School and look forward to his contributions with the boys.

Year 2 Teacher, Mr Ben Thomas with Miller Brady, Eyad Mohamed and Hamish

Cody. Mrs Jo Jones taught Year 2 during second term, predominately as our online teacher. Mrs Jones has now returned to her part-time Learning Support role this term. I thank Mrs Jones for her very fine work with the boys and for her capacity to deliver an education to the boys in the most unique circumstances.

Mrs Samantha (Sam) Costello, our Learning Support Teacher, returns to work this term, following her maternity leave and the birth of her daughter Sienna last year. Mrs Costello will work three days a week, with Mrs Jones covering the other two days. I welcome Sam back to school and thank Mrs Anne Shelton for her work with Learning Support while Mrs Costello was on leave. Semester One Academic Awards Assembly Under normal circumstances, we would hold our Academic Awards Assembly for first semester on Thursday 23 July. Academic Awards and Writing Competition prizes would be presented at this special occasion and parents would be invited to attend. With the health restrictions in place, the approach will be quite different this year. We are holding two awards ceremonies, but parents are not able to attend either. Photographs of award recipients will be posted on social media and copies of the program will be sent home with award recipients. We held our Academic Awards Assembly for the boys in Prep to Year 3 yesterday. For the boys in Year 4 to Year 6, their Academic Awards Assembly will be held on Thursday 23 July.

3W Semester One Award Recipients, (L – R back row) Patrick Gilmore, and Joseph

Ramia, (L – R middle row) Harry Constable, Charlie Mowbray and Will Romero, (front row) Red Hamilton. Well done boys!

Parents to remain outside the school grounds The health advice remains the same with parents being asked not to enter the School. As with last term, this means parents are required to use the drop off and pick up zones in the morning and afternoon. If you wish to speak to school staff, please telephone or email. Staggered finish time to school continues Health advice recommends schools continue with a staggered finish to the day. As a result of this advice and the road works on James Street, the same times will operate as occurred last term:

• Prep to Year 2 boys will finish at 3.00pm

• Years 3 to 6 will conclude at 3.10pm Parents are asked not to walk into the school to collect their boys. Health and hygiene As a final reminder, good hygiene is paramount, and boys are not to attend school if they are unwell. Boys will be reminded throughout each day about good hygiene. Additional cleaning will continue during the school day with high contact surfaces.

Boys It is always good to have the boys back at school, and it is especially the case given the nature of this year. Having visited several classrooms since the start of the week, I have heard some nice stories about the holidays, and seen the evidence of boys enjoying being back at school. With our full program back on offer, our school is a dynamic and engaging place for boys. Regards Scott Campbell Head of Junior School

From the Deputy Head of Junior School Welcome to Term 3! I sincerely hope that you all had the opportunity for some quality family time during the recent holiday period. It is certainly a pleasure to start what looks more like a normal school term with all the boys here. We welcome ten new boys to the Junior School and I’m sure they will feel welcome and comfortable in their new environment in no time. It is certainly a pleasant experience to witness the joy and energy of the boys in their excitement to be back at school after the break. I always look forward to hearing about what interesting things the boys did during their time. School Banking has started again. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Leanne Farrell, mother of Brock, for generously continuing the role of coordinator for this. Just prior to the recent break some new signage had been erected at various locations in the Junior School playground. These display for the boys the four simple playground rules that apply to all.

Winter Uniform The boys are required to wear winter uniform in Term 3. The long sleeve shirt is not a compulsory item. When the weather is colder, your son must wear the school jumper as the first item of selection. If he needs more warm clothing, a navy blue or black t-shirt may be worn under the school shirt and he may also wear his vest under the school jumper. For inclement weather the boys may wear the dark navy track suit top over their school jumper. Prep: Sports shorts, short or long sleeve Prep shirt, Hoodie or tracksuit. Years 1 – 3: Long blue trousers, short or long sleeve blue shirt and soft broad brim hat. Years 4 – 6: Long blue trousers, short or long sleeve blue shirt and Akubra. Friday is sports day. All boys wear Golds on this day. Golds include the school sport shirt, sport shorts, white TGS socks. The TGS tracksuit or Hoodie may be worn if your son is cold. The Hoodie can only be worn on a Friday by boys in Prep to Year 6. If your son runs out of white TGS socks, plain white shin high socks (crewe length) may be worn. Anklets or no socks are not acceptable. We look forward to a very busy term. Regards

Mike Sharpe Deputy Head of Junior School

Life threatening allergies We have students with life threatening allergies to various things including nuts, bee stings and ant bites. For the parents of these boys, sending them to school each day is a life-altering experience, trusting the School to manage these circumstances very well and with significant care. Our management includes the following:

• Boys are not to share food with one another at school

• We request that parents do not include nut spreads in sandwiches or products containing nuts in their lunchboxes. This is not a nut ban, but a strategy to reduce risk to students with severe allergies until they are more able to care for themselves.

As some boys can have an anaphylactic reaction via touch transfer or odour, should boys eat nut spreads on toast for breakfast, they are expected to wash their hands before coming to school. We appreciate the efforts parents make for the safety of these children.

From Head of Teaching and Learning

Welcome back to Term 3 of this most unusual year. I hope you and your family are all well. From a schooling perspective, I am hoping that we can have a more ‘normal’ term in the classrooms. The teachers have been busy over the holidays planning and preparing for the term to occur in classrooms, but are also aware of the possibility of changes that could occur with limited warning. As Mr Campbell has outlined, we are preparing for this as well by maintaining a familiarity with working online through conducting at least one lesson a week online. This may be the teacher providing instructions through a Teams meeting and playing with the meeting settings such as the ‘hand up’ function, locating a dayplan through Google Classroom or Teams, submitting assignments digitally or completing work on iPads. As I mentioned last term, while a number of external assessments have been cancelled for 2020, we will still be entering in a number of academic competitions. Some students have been selected by class teachers to compete in various competitions. The dates of each competition are as follows: Australian Mathematics Competition Thursday July 30 ICAS Science Thursday August 20 ICAS English Tuesday August 25 ICAS Mathematics Thursday September 3

A major teaching and learning initiative that we have been working through has been the introduction and implementation of Big Write, Big Talk and VCOP (Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation) to support the writing development of our boys. As part of this work, we have been working closely with Andrell Education to support our journey, including a number of teacher professional development opportunities. Unfortunately, the company is based in Melbourne meaning that a number of our planned sessions have been reconsidered. Regardless, our teachers have been continuing to develop their approach to Big Write and VCOP to support our boys with their writing. I encourage you, over the course of this semester, to chat to your son about how he uses VCOP in his writing. This approach is nicely complemented by the introduction of eWrite as an external writing assessment tool provided by the Australian Council for Educational Research. These assessments provide a snapshot of students’ individual areas of strength and weaknesses of their writing and utilise the same criteria as NAPLAN Writing. These two initiatives allow us to have a strong focus on developing the writing skills of our boys. We will just have to wait and see what our semester will look like, but regardless of what occurs we are ready to continue your son’s learning journey. Congratulations to all boys who participated in the writing competition during Term 2. The results are detailed on the following page. Rob Jeffries Head of Teaching and Learning

Writing Competition Results

Prep G 1G First Place James Moffitt First Place William McAllister Second Place Alex Dow Second Place Thenul Ratnayake Third Place Archie Jones Third Place Harry Spencer Highly Commended Will Dewar Highly Commended Xavier Terrey Highly Commended Orlando Widiarta Highly Commended Will Phillips 1O 2T First Place Jeremy Cook First Place Louis Macintosh Bailey Second Place Louis Ramia Second Place Wil Maker Third Place Jethro Carpenter Third Place Isaac Tebbutt Highly Commended Cooper Spies Highly Commended James Andersen Highly Commended Bill Johansen Highly Commended Dominic Talbot 3H 3W First Place Ruhan Bulchandani First Place Charlie Mowbray Second Place Max Lynam Second Place Will Romero Third Place Avaneesh Pai Third Place Harry Constable Highly Commended Sarkis Panta Highly Commended William Sanderson Highly Commended Isaac Meacham Highly Commended Tom Williamson 4B 4G First Place Hamish Popple First Place Austin Irving Second Place Ethan Thompson Second Place Harry Johansen Third Place Noah Brannelly Third Place Amza Flemming Highly Commended Henry Fitzgerald Highly Commended Hugo Kues-Sales Highly Commended Jai Karki Highly Commended Sam Head 4K 5L First Place Archie Luscombe First Place Oliver Wells Second Place Ethan Shepherd Second Place James Fagan Third Place Viraaj Narula Third Place Beau Hamilton Highly Commended Benji Gentry Highly Commended Henry Croft Highly Commended Darcy Keating Highly Commended Jock Duggan 5S 6C First Place Sam Schwennesen First Place Mitchell Wilkes Second Place Praj Gupte Second Place Buddy Henderson Third Place Alby Galbraith Third Place Kurt Seckler Highly Commended Angus Kues-Sales Highly Commended Singyuan Xue Highly Commended Samriddh Srivastava Highly Commended Charc Franey 6J 6W First Place Tom Jaquet First Place Amand Mandikiza Second Place Banjo Seaniger Second Place Theodore Yevdokimov Third Place Ethan Carter Third Place Henry Thurbin Highly Commended Mark Ridgway Highly Commended Thomas McDonald-Smith Highly Commended Matt Kirkman Highly Commended Toby Grills

Sports News Sport is finally back! We are very excited to begin what promises to be a busy and exciting term. This term sees the inaugural season of Club Football plus Club Rugby, our Junior School Cross Country carnival, GPS Basketball, GPS Tennis, GPS Football, GPS Rugby and GPS Cross Country. There are also plans to hold our Athletics carnival towards the end of the term. GPS Draw Please see the attached Sports Matrix for details of this term. Match times and fields will be released each week.

Cross Country The Junior School Cross Country Championships will be held at TGS on Friday 24 July. At this point in time, no spectators will be allowed. Please encourage your son/s to train in the lead up to this event. Age Champions and Runners-up will be awarded following the event and our GPS team will be selected from the results. TGS is eligible to take 8 boys in the Under 10, Under 11 and Under 12 events, with boys from Years 5, 6 and 7. The GPS event will take place at Limestone Park in Ipswich on Tuesday 4 August. With sport back, it is bound to be a tremendous term. Brendan Doherty Sportsmaster

Music News Ensemble rehearsals All ensembles resumed rehearsals this week. Please remember if your son is unable to attend a scheduled rehearsal it is appreciated if you contact the conductor of the ensemble to notify them of his absence. Introductory Band Introductory Band caters for our beginning brass, woodwind and percussion instrumentalists. Rehearsals move at a slower pace and provide the boys with the opportunity to learn the necessary skills to become a reliable ensemble member. Rehearsals commenced this week on Thursday 16 July with Mrs Buchholz in the Corfe Basement from 7.30am – 8.15am. Attendance for Introductory Band is via invitation. A number of boys involved in the Year 4 program received an invitation last term. As more boys develop the necessary skills required, more invitations will be sent home throughout next term. All Year 4 boys should strive to become a member of the Introductory Band as this is a significant indication that they are practicing their instrument and developing their skills. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions about Introductory Band. Singers’ Trophy The Junior School Singers’ Trophy will be held on Thursday 20 August at 6.00pm in the Junior School Assembly Hall. This adjudicated competition has been held annually since 1997 and is open to all boys from Years 2 to 6, with trophies awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. A letter with all details and nomination form was sent home this week. Please contact me should you have any questions regarding Singers’ Trophy. Year 2 Strings Please ensure your son packs his instrument to bring to school every Tuesday. Instruments remain at school Tuesday night so boys have them for the Year 2 cohort rehearsal each Wednesday. Instruments should go home with boys on Wednesday afternoon. Boys are expected to establish a home practice routine to ensure their skills develop on their instrument and should be aiming for 3-4 practices each week at home. Year 4 instrumental All boys in Year 4 should bring their instrument and music to school every Thursday for their instrumental lessons. Boys are expected to establish a home practice routine and should be aiming for 4 practice sessions each week. Each practice should be approximately 10 minutes. Regular home practice will ensure your son continues to improve and develop the necessary skills and confidence on his instrument. If you are interested in your son commencing private instrumental lessons on his Year 4 instrument, please complete the tuition form which can be accessed by clicking here. Enrolling in private instrumental tuition is optional. Please be aware that instrumental lessons will be at the expense of parents and the cost is $36.00 for 30 minutes. Why playing an instrument is so beneficial I often speak with boys about how music helps make us smarter and how fabulous it is for our brain! I also constantly remind the boys of the important of establishing a regular home practice routine on their instrument. This is especially important for our current Year 2 and Year 4 boys who are involved in our instrumental immersion program at school. Playing an instrument has so many benefits for your child and there are endless

articles confirming this. There is no doubt that learning an instrument can be hard work. It can also be challenging to find time to practice, but we cannot expect to improve without putting in some effort. Below are 10 reasons why playing an instrument is so beneficial.

- Increases the capacity of your memory - Refines your time management and organisation skills - Boosts team skills - Teaches perseverance - Betters your mathematical ability - Improves reading comprehension skills - Sharpens and improves concentration - Relieves stress and boosts your mood - Promotes social skills - Boosts confidence

Please click here to find out even more: I also invite you to listen the following TED talk on “How playing an instrument benefits your brain” by clicking here. Gunnendah Online Eisteddfod A number of our Junior School musicians competed in the Gunnedah Online Eisteddfod at the end of last term (adjudicated by Paul Jarman). There were entries from all over Australia and our boys performed extremely well in very large sections. Congratulations to all boys who participated. Particular mention should be made of Alby Galbraith who placed third and George Paton who received a Highly Commended prize in the 12 Years and under Woodwind Solo section. Kellie Dixon Head of Junior School Music

House Points Weeks 1B

Boyce 84 Stephens 82

Mackintosh 81 Taylor 73 Groom 70

Junior School Two Weeks Ahead Week 2A

Monday 20 July

Tuesday 21 July Photograph: Sons and Grandsons of Old Boys, Old Boys' Memorial Oval, 2.30pm - 3.00pm

Wednesday 22 July Staff Meeting, 3.30pm - 5.00pm

Thursday 23 July Blazer Uniform

Junior School Semester One Academic Awards Assembly: Year 4 to Year 6, Junior School Hall, 2.00pm - 2.50pm

Friday 24 July Junior School Cross Country Carnival, 9.00am - 12.15pm, No spectators

Saturday 25 July Basketball vs GT (home) Rugby GT Trial match Football vs GT (away) Tennis vs GT (away)

Sunday 26 July

Week 3B

Monday 27 July

Tuesday 28 July Parent and Friends' Meeting, Jacaranda Room, 7.00pm

Wednesday 29 July Prep Vision Screening

Staff Meeting, 3.30pm - 5.00pm

Thursday 30 July Blazer Uniform

Newsletter

Australian Mathematics Competition

Assembly: Year 4 – 6, 2.10pm - 2.55pm

Friday 31 July Sport: P - 2, 1.40pm - 2.40pm, Years 3 - 6, 1.40pm - 2.55pm

Secondary Schools' Teams Chess Championship, Junior School Hall, 4.00pm - 10.30pm - TBA

Secondary Schools' Teams Chess Championship, Junior School Hall, 6.00pm - 10.30pm - TBA

Saturday 1 August Rugby vs Downlands, Away (Clive Berghofer Stadium)

GPS Sport, Bye round

Club Rugby

Club Football

Sunday 2 August

Junior School Contact Details

• Office: 07 4687 2555

• Email: gjadmin@twgs.qld.edu.au

• Web: www.twgs.qld.edu.au

• After School Care: 0421 570 461

• Corfe House: 07 4687 2660

• Aquatic Centre Bookings: 07 4687 2631 Follow us on

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