Principal: Rhonda HAWTHORNE Email: principal@macknadess.eq.edu.au

Ph : 4777 2709 Web site: www.macknadess@eq.edu.au

Newsletter Issue 10 – 14th May 2018

Dear Parents/Carers

From the Principal

Congratulations to all our wonderful

students who showed great sportsmanship

at the cross-country event last Friday. It

was indeed pleasing to see everyone racing

and giving their best effort whilst

representing our school. Participating in

cross-country races provides an opportunity

to have fun, show sportsmanship, build

resilience and contribute to the point’s tally

of our school. I am so proud of all our

students.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank

Helen Hobbs for her tireless efforts in

organising this event, along with all the staff

and volunteers from each of the schools in

our district.

To all the spectators, thank you for

supporting our students in force!

A special vote of thanks also goes to Kurt

and Liz Kraaz who transported our tent and

equipment to and from the venue, and to the

parents who helped erect then pack up the

tent. Great teamwork everyone!

Patterns in Prep We live in a world of patterns and we often

do not even notice, as we are not looking

out for them! Patterns balance our world

and add to its beauty bringing a natural

order to our lives.

Did you ever count the number of stairs

going up or down,

count the number of

windows in your

home, or notice the

pattern on your bed-

cover? We have a

natural tendency to

place items in order

following some sort of

pattern.

Patterns help children learn sequencing and make predictions that lead to mathematical skills and logic structure in algebra. Our prep students arranged pegs, sorted blocks and looked for patterns in their environment. Size, shape and colour are the most common ways of sorting. As the students develop, they learn about sequencing the days of the week, months of the year, or odd and even numbering. In the grade 1-2 class, students looked for patterns in a string of numbers to identify the missing numbers.

Be Respectful Be Responsible Be Safe Be A Good Learner

Tyler and Isabella arranged the chairs in the classroom following a pattern.

Year 3-6 Classroom This week our Year 3 and Year 5 students are completing their NAPLAN testing. The testing will be in the Multi-Purpose Centre where there will be no interruptions on Tuesday or Wednesday. Please be mindful of the amount of noise made in classrooms, or by people coming and going from the school. Due to Thursday being the Tuckshop day, the Mathematics testing will be held in the Year 3-6 Classroom in the morning session only. Should any student be absent from school and miss any of the tests, Friday will be a catch-up day. Good luck kids. You will do us proud. While our Year 3 and 5 students are doing their NAPLAN testing, our Year 4 and 6 students will continue to complete their curriculum tasks as per our normal timetable. This week there will be no LOTE lesson on Wednesday morning due to the NAPLAN tests and the absence of the LOTE teacher. This will be a good opportunity for all students to catch up on their English assessment due on Friday. This term in English, the Year 3/4 students have investigated characters and they read the novel Matty Forever. Students have explored authors’ use of descriptive language in the construction of character. Based on an extract from the novel, students answered questions using comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning of the text. They are now writing a short imaginative narrative based

on themes and characters in the novel studied. Years 5 and 6 have been reading and interpreting a novel from the fantasy genre showing understanding of character development. They are creating the first chapter of a fantasy novel, depicting contrasting fantasy characters in relation to setting and plot.

Dates to Remember in May

14 – Premier’s Reading Challenge

commences

15-17 NAPLAN Years 3/5

17 – STLaN visit (Belinda Zullo)

17-18 Conference in Brisbane 21 – Book Fair commences 22 High School Transition Day #2 23 – National Simultaneous Storytime 25 – Under 8’s visit to Toobanna SS 29 STLaN visit (Belinda Zullo)

P&C 2018 Executive

Please welcome the following people to the

Macknade SS P&C Executive Committee

2018:

President – Kim Burnell

Vice President – Pauline Lane

Secretary – Keyla Byrne

Treasurer – To be confirmed

Uniform Convenor – Liz Kraaz

Tuckshop Convenor – Kerri-Ann Burnell

Thank you to our previous executive and

welcome to our new one.

TUCKSHOP

In recent years, levels of overweight and

obesity in children and young people have

increased dramatically which carries with it a

risk of long-term health and psychosocial

problems.

The Healthy Food and Drink Supply

Strategy for Queensland Schools is all about

offering healthy food and drink choices to

students in Queensland schools. To

support the implementation of the strategy a

Smart Choices resource package was

produced.

Schools have an important role in promoting

healthy eating and physical activity to

students and providing an environment that

supports a healthy lifestyle. A healthy diet

can improve behaviours critical to

educational success and performance at

school. Effective school-based nutrition and

health interventions can also help improve

academic performance.

Tuckshops are an important part of the

school environment; they can model healthy

food and drink choices that are tasty,

interesting and affordable, and provide the

means to put into practice nutrition

messages taught in the classroom.

Our current tuckshop menu will be

undertaking a revamp in the near future.

Healthy eating practices should be actively supported across the whole school environment. As Smart Choices outlines, foods and drinks have been classified into

Bookfair – 2018

Our Book Fair will commence on Monday 21st May.

The display will be set up in the Multi-Purpose Centre.

Students will have the opportunity to engage with the books

and prepare a wish list prior to parents coming to the school to

have a look, both before and after school.

Your purchases will help the school to receive valuable

resources for our Library.

Thank you.

three categories according to their nutritional value: GREEN, AMBER and RED. GREEN foods and drinks should be encouraged and promoted, AMBER foods and drinks should be selected carefully and RED foods and drinks should be limited in their supply across the whole school environment to no more than two occasions per term.

The Queensland Association of School

Tuckshops Inc. have a fabulous website that

provides a plethora of sample menus and

ideas that could be implemented in our

tuckshop to ensure that our students are

eating healthy choices and that our

tuckshop is not serving too many red food

choices.

I look forward to the new menu – so watch

this space.

Ms K. Jensen – Our Cross-Country

Photographer

The district Cross Country for primary schools was

held last week on Friday 11th May. We were lucky

to have such a beautiful fine day for the event, at

George Day Oval. Well done to our students who

put in fantastic efforts when representing our

school. Whether they ran, jogged or walked

around the course, it was great to see the

determination to finish, from everyone.

Thank you to the parents and friends who came to

help out, and cheer for our school. It must also be

noted that Macknade student behaviour was

exemplary throughout the day.

Congratulations to Sienna Kraaz for her

outstanding 4th placing (11 year age group).

Rhonda Hawthorne

Principal