Caboolture Special School Week 1, Term 3, 2023
Principal News
Dear Caboolture Special School community members
It’s been a very pleasing start to Term 3 for our students at Caboolture Special School, with us welcoming back existing students and also welcoming a number of new students to our wonderful school community.
Our focus will continue around explicit improvement agendas contained within our Annual Implementation Plan of:-
Refining signature practices focused on communication and curriculum
Strengthening school processes that support staff capability building through collegial engagement
Embedding Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)
Creative Generation
Congratulations and thank you to staff and students involved in our school representation at the Creative Generation Spectacular event - https://creativegeneration.education.qld.gov.au/cgen What a talented group of students!
NAIDOC Week Acknowledgement and Indigenous Perspectives
While NAIDOC Week officially took place in the school holiday period, with the endorsement of NAIDOC Week stakeholders, our school (and many others) acknowledge NAIDOC Week in week 2 of term. Events will run throughout week 2 with a very special NAIDOC Week inspired Assembly on Friday 21 July.
Most importantly, we will continue to embed Indigenous Perspectives in our everyday work here at Caboolture Special School.
A major driver of the Head of Department – Curriculum and Head of Department - Pedagogy model structure for 2023 has been to deepen our knowledge and understanding around the content and most effective delivery of the Australian Curriculum, including work related to Indigenous Perspectives.
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) recognises the need for the Australian Curriculum to provide every opportunity possible to ‘close the gap’, supporting:-
- Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students seeing themselves, their identities and their cultures reflected in the curriculum of each of the learning areas
- Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority designed for all students to engage in reconciliation, respect and recognition of the world’s oldest continuous living cultures.
All Abilities Spinner
Through the generosity of the Tess Hocking Foundation and support for P&C fundraisers from our school community members, the school now has an All Abilities Spinner as part of our playground offerings. The spinner is proving most popular with students!
Thank you once again to the Tess Hocking Foundation, our amazing P&C Committee and our ever supportive school community.
Assembly
We have a school Assembly each Friday from 9.15am. We love when members of our school community come along. If ever you can make it, please consider joining us as we celebrate our students and school community.
Parents and Citizens' Assocation Meeting
Come along and join other invested members of our school comunity. Next meeting is 20 July, 3.30-4.30pm in J Block. Children are most welcome - meeting area adjoins playground :-)
Partnerships
There is not a day goes by when I do not reflect on the committed Caboolture Special School parents and carers that our staff work with in our shared efforts in providing the very best education for each and every child enrolled at our school.
When invested people are united and work together respectfully and constructively, our students are best positioned to succeed (as are the big people). Thank you...always.
Best wishes
Mr Sheldon Boland
Principal
Deputy Principal - Upper Years
Term 3 is here!
What a great week it has been with the return of our staff, students and families here at Caboolture Special School. Lots of smiling faces and engaged learners makes for a wonderful school to work and learn in.
Next week we are proudly celebrating NAIDOC week. The NAIDOC 2023 theme is For Our Elders.
Watch video: https://www.naidoc.org.au/news/our-elders-national-naidoc-week-2023
Students will be participating in various activities across the week that celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and the important role Elders have played, and continue to play, in our communities and families across Australia.
Friday 21st July is our official NAIDOC Celebration Day here at Caboolture Special School and we welcome families and community members to join us for this special occasion.
Gubbi Gubbi Elder Bradley Stephenson will be starting the day’s proceeds with an official Welcome to Country at assembly, followed by a smoking ceremony at the Yarning Circle for early years’ students (prep-3). A secondary smoking ceremony will be held for upper primary students in years 4-6 from 11:15am. After the smoking ceremony for each year level cohort, students will then proceed to various sheltered activities on the oval and library involving the following:
- Rock art
- Music/dance
- Animal track adventure trail
- Sand art/headband creations
- Dreaming stories
- Campfire experience
- Throwing games
Here at Caboolture Special School we are proud to be a diverse and inclusive learning community and we hope to see you at our 2023 NAIDOC Celebration Day.
Sheree Carter - Deputy Principal
Deputy Principal
Creative Generation on Stage
For the past term, a group of nine students have been rehearsing every week to represent Caboolture Special School at Creative Generation on Stage (CGEN) at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre (BCEC).
This week the students and staff have spent their days in the city at BCEC rehearsing their dance item.
The first sold-out performance on Thursday night was amazing and the students were simply incredible! There were some parents and staff in the audience who loved the show.
This Friday and Saturday the group have three more sold-out performances and many parents and staff will be attending these too.
We are so proud of each and every one of the team! The students have taken on this experience with a positive attitude and enthusiasm. We have all noticed how much they have grown in their confidence.
A big thank you to all the staff involved in making this happen. I have been so proud to work alongside the CGEN team this year.
Special mention to our CGEN Co-ordinator Lucie Reay (Carroll) who has spent countless hours with the students rehearsing their dance routine and co-ordinating with the CGEN production team.
A big thank you to Vicky Johns, Kaye McGaughey and Tristan Grant who have given so much of their own time to make this experience as successful as it has been.
Please enjoy these photos of the students in their costumes from performance day this week.
Regards
Kerry Gilmore
Deputy Principal
2023 CGEN Team
Business Managers Bulletin
New Playground Equipment
There was lots of excitement when students discovered that a new all abilities spinner was installed in the Parklands Playground over the winter school holidays.
Thanks very much go to the P&C for the instigation of this project and their fundraising. We are also very grateful for the generous donation from the Tess Hocking Foundation who contributed the remainder of the funding.
With gratitude,
Biddy
Curriculum Corner
Semester 2 planned curriculum will see students engaging in a range of topics such as investaging how things move and the elements of dance. Below is an overview of our curriculum contexts for learning.
Students have come back ready to learn and show us what they know!
Investigating whole and parts.
Investigating how the balls roll on the ramp.
Building a marble run to investigate how things move.
Katie Rogers
Head of Department - Curriculum
Only 7 weeks to go....
I am so excited for this year's Book Week! With an amazing theme of 'Read, Grow, Inspire' we look forward to seeing our students and staff dressed up in the spirit to celebrate all of the amazing short listed authors and texts in the Childrens Book Council Awards. We encourage all families to have a think and plan ahead for our much anticipated Book Week Costume Parade held during our regular Friday assembly in Week 7.
Tanya Jolly
Head of Department - Pedagogy
Star Students
Laughter the Best Medicine
How is it that the sound of laughter is far more contagious than any cough, sniffle, or yawn.
Laughter is a natural part of life. The part of the brain that connects to and facilitates laughter is among the first parts of the nervous system to come on line after birth. Infants begin smiling during the first weeks of life and laugh out loud within months of being born. Even if you did not grow up in a household where laughter was a common sound, you can learn to laugh at any stage of life. Now is the time.
While humour and laughter can cause a domino effect of joy and amusement for anyone in range, it is well researched that this activity can make us healthier.
Though it can be difficult to define what exactly makes humour funny, laughter has long been considered helpful to the healing process. Substantial research indicates that humour and laughter play a health role. Did you know that laughing:
- exercises the internal organs (great for the stomach muscles and the cardiovascular system),
- with all that mouth opening and deep breathing, laughing gets more oxygen to the brain (to enhance alertness and thinking),
- boosts endorphins (natural mood-elevating and pain-killing chemicals),
- strengthens the immune system (to help fight off disease.)
Laughter has also been shown to improve pain tolerance, reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and protect the heart.
The social effects too are many. They include:
- improving a person's optimism and outlook on life
- connecting you to others – others will want to spend time with you
- fostering instant relaxation
- and most importantly IT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD
Unlike more invasive therapies, laughter therapy is cheap and has no harmful side effects - not bad for such an enjoyable activity.
The great Groucho Marx who spent his movie life clowning around stated : A clown is like an aspirin, only he works twice as fast.
But Humour must be used with care. Children should not be exposed to inappropriate adult humour. Never use humour to offend or shame another person. It’s not about laughing at another person but ensuring everyone enjoys the joke. If you feel a need to laugh at someone make sure that that someone is you.
Try these activities. They will benefit your child and you:
- Watch comedy movies and shows
- Visit the circus – do some clowning around yourself
- Listen to comedy while driving – the news these days is very depressing
- Read comic authors/ tell jokes.
- Seek out funny people - spend less time with overly serious people.
- Bring humour into conversations. Tell and invite funny stories
- Just practise smiling and laughing. If you have to - `fake it till you make it`
Let’s see more people laughing, and smiling. Our communities, including schools and workplaces, can only benefit.
Adapted from Gregory J. Boyle and Jeanne M. Joss-Reid, "Relationship of Humour to Health", British Journal of Health Psychology, Feb. 2004.
Here are some jokes to share with the Kids
Q What can you never eat for breakfast?
A …Lunch or dinner
Q What looks like half an apple?
A…. the other half
Q If you throw a red stone into the blue sea what will it become?
A…. wet
Q How can a man go 8 days without sleeping?
A… No problem, he sleeps at night
Q How can you lift an elephant with one hand?
A… You will never find an elephant that has one hand!
Q If it took 8 men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take 4 men to build it?
A… No time at all as the wall is already built
Q How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it?
A… Any way you want as concrete floors are very hard to crack.
SO LET’S LAUGH MORE
Asha Kumar
Guidance Counsellor
Book Club Issue 5
Book Club has arrived! Look out for your copy of Book Club coming home in your child's schoolbag! It's packed with hundreds of books from just $3 to share the love of reading in your home!
Orders to be placed online by Thursday 27th July.
Check out the new features for Issue 5 -
Free books and Books Plus a way to explore the books before you order.
Any enquires please contact Katie Rogers - kroge30@eq.edu.au
Bookaneer Book Fair is Coming!!
Bookeneer will arrive on the shores of Caboolture Special school on Thursday 31st August.
Full of amazing treasured books for studnets and families to purchase.
More information coming soon via Facebook and See Saw.
