A Letter to theCommunity

“Thought for the Week”

SCHOOL NEWSNo. 12 29 April 2016

Christmas Creek Cross Country

This year’s Cross Country was hosted by Darlington State School yesterday. What alovely looking school Darlington is, with lots of shady trees in a very picturesque setting. The track on the day was both chal-lenging and fun.

We were so proud of the 10 students from our school who attended the Cross Country yes-terday. At least one Rath-downey student placed in all 4 girls’ events on the day, with Taleesha (2nd place in 12 year old girls’ 3000m event), Jocelyn (3rd in 11 year old girls’ 3000m

Rathdowney State Primary School143-155 Mount Lindesay Highway, Rathdowney 4287Phone: (07) 5540 4333 Fax: (07) 5540 4300 Principal: Tina van Bennekom www.rathdownss.eq.edu.au

event), Indiana (3rd in 10 year old girls” 2500m event) and Haley (1st in 9 year old girls’ 2000m event). Mia came fourth in her race. All of our students finished their races and gave of their best on the day. I’d also like to make special mention of both Beajay and Rieley who were the only 2 boysrepresenting our school today and the excellent effort they put into their races.

The first and second place-getters in the 10,11 and 12 year old events were selected for the District completion. There will beinformation coming from our Regional Sports team about the district trials, which will be sent home to the students who were selected.

ANZAC Day Last Monday, 25 April, the school band led the ANZAC Day march in Rathdowney. Many Rathdowney children were able to attend on the day to join the march. Mrs Wieland had lined up some past band members to join the band for the march. The band did a terrific job leading the march and just about every other student from our school attended the march. A special thanks also goes to Belynda and Taleesha, our school captains who did the readings during the service. Many people approached me after the service to say how well the girls did in theirreading.

All Rathdowney students who attended the march and the service were a credit to our school!!

Junior School Camp, 7-9 June

Please find below our itinerary for this year’s school camp for the Prep to Year 3 students.

Our school camps are heavily subsidised to allow as many children as possible to attend. The cost for the camp will be $150 for each student and $175 for adults. This cost covers the accommodation for 2 nights and the catering for 2 ½ days. The cost for the bus is paid by the P&C and the cost of entries is paid from Student Council funds.

We highly recommend that each child come on school camp as all the activities we do and the venues we visit directly

relate to the work that the stu-dents are doing in class.

Parents are also invited to come along. On this camp we will have 5 staff and we expect at least 5 parents to also accompany us. Because of this, our ratio of carers to children is 1:2 or 1:3 at the most. If you are a parent and can’t come on camp, please be assured that your child will have excellent supervision on camp. Our days are busy and exciting. The students very rarely suffer from homesickness. The food on camp is fantastic. The venue where we stay at Brookfield, is very secure and very comfortable. There are adults in the cabins with the children at all times.

Each year, parents and students thoroughly enjoy our camps and always come back from camp saying how much fun it was. Students remember our school camps with fondness even many years after they have left this school. Thefirst-hand learning

opportunities that our students (from Prep to Year 6) have on camp and the social skills they learn can’t be matched by just classroom study. Please feel free to discuss any aspects of our camp with our staff.

Junior School Camp 7-9 June, 2016.

Venue: QCCC Brookfield, 179 Gold Creek Road, Brookfield. (Ph 07 3374 1166)Bus: TBA

DAY 1 7:00am – Depart from Rath-downey Post Office carpark9:00am - The Workshops Railway Museum (Ipswich) 12:00pm – Lunch in Newstead Park 1:00pm – Newstead House tour – walk through visit to Newstead House, discussion comparing “then and now” and role play activities 3:30pm – Reverse Garbage Queensland Workshop

5:00pm – Settle in to accom-modation at Brookfield 6:00pm – Dinner7:00pm – Activities at the hostel. Fashion parade of art-icles made at Reverse Garbage. Games, activities and/or DVD movie.

DAY 2 9:30am –Visit to Underwater World at Mooloolaba – program “The Living Sea”. All new attractions eg Jellyfish pool 1:00pm – Lunch and activities on the beach2:30pm – Return to Brisbane via Mt Cootha Lookout.6:00pm – Dinner at the hostel6:30pm – Depart hostel for outing 7:00pm – Movie at New Farm Cinema

DAY 39:00am – Visit to Queensland Museum – Workshop on “Toys” 11:00am – GOMA visit – children’s art centre1:00pm – Arrive at Mt Cootha Gardens for lunch

1:30pm – Science Workshop “Life Stages” in Mt Cootha Gardens 3:45pm – Depart for Rath-downey6:00pm – Arrive at the Rath-downey Post Office carpark

School Finance Audit

Our school is due for another finance audit this year and Mr Wayne Chelman, our auditor, will be at school from Tuesday 10th May to Friday 13th May to audit the school’s books and procedures. With Mrs Williams being new to our office, everyone is helping to get the school ready for the auditor’s visit.

Get Better Soon,Mrs Wieland

Mrs Wieland had an operation on her ankle this week and will be away from school for the remainder of this term.

We all wish Mrs Wieland arelaxing and successful recovery from her operation.Mrs Todd is filling in for Mrs Wieland this term and MrsBenstead will be taking on Mrs Todd’s two days. Mrs Benstead will be working with our Prep –Year 2 class on Thursdays and Fridays this term. It’s lovely to have Mrs Benstead working at our school again as part of our staff.

Chocolate Drive

This is just a reminder that there are still families who were given boxes of chocolates to sell who are yet to return money from the sale of the chocolates to the school. If you are one of those families could you please make it a pri-ority to return the $50 for each box and/or return any unsold chocolates and money to the school? Our Student Council needs the money that you have raised through the sale of the chocolates, as the Council have several projects to fund this year.

There are also some 10 boxes of chocolates that we still need to sell. If you can help sell some more chocolates for us, please let Trish in the office know.

MOTHERS DAY STALLWell it is nearly that time again when all our beautiful mums will celebrate Mother’s Day. The P&C are again holding a Mother’s Day Stall so all the students will have a chance to purchase something special for their Mum. Gifts are priced from 50c to $10.00. Thank you to Mrs Angela Scott who has kindly offered to run the stall on Friday 6th May at lunch-time.

Rathdowney Market Day

This Sunday, 1st May 8am – 3pm

Country Markets Heritage Demos Old Engines Bush Poetry all day

Come along and have a laugh at the bush poetry. One of the featured poets has recently ap-peared on the TV show “The Vicar of Dibley”. Bring the kids/grandkids along….they will be fascinated by the butter making, spinning and weaving and old engines. It is all free to come along and watch.

Prep – 2 News

This week we have welcomed Mrs Benstead into our room. It has been so wonderful having such a knowledgeable teacher helping our students (and me of course).

In Maths this week the Preps have been learning all about the days of the week and on which days we do certain things

such as PE and Music on Wed-nesdays. The Year one students are familiarising themselves with 3D shapes and their prop-erties. The Year 2 students have been working with money and working out how much change is needed when spending cer-tain amounts.

In English we are continuing on with our C2C unit about emo-tions of characters in picture books as well as continuing on with our guided reading groups and spelling.

The students have been really enjoying Dance Fever. They can't wait for Tuesday mornings to bust a move.

In the month of May we are entering a competition through scholastic book club where the students read every night to an adult. The adult signs the sheet attached to their home readers each day along with how many minutes the child has read. Please keep the reading log attached to the student’s home reader book. At the end of the month I will enter their reading logs to the scholastic competi-

tion. There will only be 20 win-ners per state. Please encour-age your child to participate. Their normal home readers can be included in the reading time. For more information please contact me.

More from us next week.

Kasey, Kay and Colleen

Piano, Guitar, flute, clarinet, singing and string (violin, viola and cello) lessons for children from 4 years to adults.

Qualified and experienced teacher for beginners to diplomas in Boonah.

Caryn Eastman

B.Ed., Dip.T., DipMus.T., A.Mus.A., ATCL, LTCL, A.MusTCL.

Classical and modern styles taught.Exams or pleasure

Phone 0422 909 266

Participants Needed

Parents, does your child have a chronic health condition such as Type 1 diabetes, asthma or eczema? Or does your child have no health con-cerns?

The University of Queensland is looking for parent volun-teers to complete an online survey aiming to investigate how work-family conflict affects both parent and child Quality of Life (QoL) and wellbeing.If you are a parent working at least 2 days per week and are caring for a child aged between 5-12 years of age; with a chronic health condition (type 1 diabetes, asthma or eczema) or even if your child has no health concerns; your participa-tion would be greatly welcomed. The online survey, can be accessed and completed anytime at https://exp.psy.uq.e-du.au/qol/Take part and you could win 1 of 2 iPad Mini’s or a $50 Coles/Myer Gift Card.If you have any further questions or concerns, or are not able to access the survey, please contact Antonia Kish (Principal Investigator) at antonia.kish@uqconnect.edu.au

Dates To Remember! –April / May 2016Monday Tuesday Wednes-

dayThursday Friday

Wk 4

2 May

PublicHoliday

3DanceFever

4(H) Lor-raine Jack-son© Janine Reilly

5 6

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9 10DanceFever

Naplan

11(H)Amanda Peall© Chanelle GilbertNaplan

12Naplan

13

Wk 6

16 17DanceFeverP&CMeeting

18(H)AmandaPeall© ToniBenyon

19 20

Wk 7

23 24DanceFever

25(h) Bec Freeman© Amanda Lahrs

26 27

Wk8

30 31DanceFever

1(h) Jemma Reid© Sarah Murphy

2 3