16 October 2019

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Note

Hello all, and welcome to my first Principal’s Note for Term 4. It is great to be back after what seemed to be a very quick break. The first two weeks of term appear to have set the scene for what is in store for the remaining weeks. I trust that all students and school team members are reflective of the previous term’s achievements and are endeavouring to improve on their previous learnings.

School Expectations

“The Charleville High Way” is to Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible and Be a Learner. Four Values: Co-operation, Integrity, Organisation and Resilience.

Attendance

As we begin a brand new term, parents are reminded of the importance of sending their children to school each day. Being at school every day counts, with one day absent each week quickly adding up to two months of missed lessons in a year. Unless your child is ill, it is expected that your child will be at school learning every day of the school year. All students are committed to being at school every day, let’s continue to support them and provide the best opportunity for them to be at school.

BULLYWATCHERS

I would love to say that we have no bullying at Charleville State High School, but unfortunately bullying is a fact of life. Most of this bullying is considered ‘low level’ bullying. ‘Low level’ bullying includes hurtful teasing, pushing or shoving, subtle but nasty body language and exclusion from games/groups.

Reducing bullying is, however, everyone’s responsibility. While teachers and parents are vigilant in monitoring children’s happiness and well-being, the simple fact is that we can’t be everywhere, all the time. Bullying often continues because people who are involved do not talk about it or seek help. This includes people who observe bullying; the bullywatchers. A bullywatcher is someone who sees the bullying or knows that it is happening to someone else, but does nothing about it. There is an old adage which says that if you see something wrong happening and you do nothing about it, you are then giving it approval. While we are not advocating that every child who witnesses a bullying incident needs to get involved, they do need to do something about it. Remember, if we are to reduce bullying, then we ALL have to be vigilant.

Thanks

Thanks Team and the School Community for a great start to Term 4!

Mr Justin Washington
Principal

Deputy Principal Senior Schooling Report

The Final Countdown

Our Year 12 students are in the final weeks of their secondary schooling. We are impressing upon our Year 12’s that they must maintain focus through to the end, even though this can be challenging, when they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Preparations are well underway for the Awards Night, Formal and Graduation, so students are reminded to listen to notices for important announcements. If parents have any queries or concerns, please contact the school.

Key events for Term 4 2019

2020 Student Leadership Process

Congratulations to the Year 11 students who have put their hand up and nominated for a leadership position in 2020.

The first step in the process is the presentation of a speech. All students will present a speech to the entire school body at our full school parade.

The second part of the process will take place with the school community voting for our 2020 Student Leaders.

The final part of the process sees all nominees being interviewed, by our current 2019 School Captains and Vice Captains, Principal, Deputy Principal and Year Level Coordinator.

Staff will also submit their votes and the 2020 leaders will be announced at Awards Night on the 6th of November. Good luck to all of our nominees.

Year 12 Formal

Our Year 12’s are counting down the days until their Year 12 Formal on Saturday 9th November. The evening will kick off at the Racecourse, with arrivals occurring from 5pm – 6pm. The official proceedings will begin at 6:30pm.

The students have been working hard to prepare their choreographed dance and all the decorations for the night. The lads have been finding creative ways to ask their partners to the Formal, including the gifts of turnips and donuts.

It is looking to be a magnificent night, when all of our fine young people celebrate the end of their secondary schooling.

‘Think The Drink’ Program

Murweh Shire Council Meeting – School Incursion

On Thursday 10th October, the Murweh Shire Council conducted their general council meeting in the school library. Our Year 7 Humanities classes came along to see how local government works and Indie Everitt presented a motion to the council for a splash park.

Murweh Shire Council Meeting at Charleville SHS

Indigenous Education Community Meetings

Charleville State High School holds an Indigenous Education Community Meeting once a month. This Committee provides a link for our indigenous community/family to share knowledge, celebrate and be involved in the education of the children enrolled at Charleville State High School. If you have a child/grandchild attending Charleville State High School who identifies as ATSI or you are interested in the education of ATSI children in our community then we welcome and encourage you to attend our meetings.

In 2019, these meetings will be held in the school Professional Library, situated in the school office, and will occur on the second Thursday of each month. If you wish to discuss a particular topic please forward your agenda item to jruss336@eq.edu.au prior to meeting day.

QTAC

The Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre (QTAC) operates a centralised tertiary application service for:

• publicly-funded Queensland universities
• Bond University Medicine
• TAFE Queensland
• Australian Maritime College
• some courses at publicly-funded universities in Northern New South Wales
• some private tertiary education providers.

These institutions have complete control in determining their own entry requirements.

QTAC assess applications using these entry requirements and then make offers to successful applicants during the offer rounds.

As well as managing applications for the above institutions, QTAC publish course information for some institutions that accept their own applications directly.

Below are a number of forms for students to complete, for the Educational Access Scheme. This scheme is to ensure that students who have had any issues that have affected their education acknowledged and reflected in the OP score that they receive. Students have been working on these applications in Pastoral Care.

QCE Tracking

Mr Wastie and I are busy closely monitoring our senior students, to ensure they are on a pathway to successfully gain their Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE). If any students need to change subjects to help them toward getting their QCE, they need to see me. We will also be organising parent/student interviews with those students who are ‘at risk’ of not gaining their QCE, so we can form an action plan.

VET News

We have a number of traineeships and apprenticeship opportunities coming up.

If your student is looking for the opportunity to be involved, please contact Courtney Burns at the school on 4656 8888.

Thank you to all the businesses that support our students and our school. If you have an opportunity within your business to employ a school based trainee or apprentice, please contact Courtney Burns on 4656 8888.

Cheers
Vanessa Moller

Absence from School

Please follow the procedure set up to inform the school of any student absences:

• Phone: 4656 8888
• Text: 0428 220 673
• Email: admin@charlevilleshs.eq.edu.au

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL JUNIOR SCHOOLING AND STUDENT SERVICES NEWS

Junior School

Welcome to Term 4. I hope everyone had a well-deserved rest over the break.

Timetable

Term 4 sees a number of changes to the timetable. There will also be a number of room changes over the coming weeks. This is mainly to accommodate students and staff who for various reasons are unable to access stairs.

2020 Timetable

Students in years 7, 8 and 9 received letters last term concerning their elective subjects for 2020. In 2020, most year 8, 9 and 10 students will be able to study two electives. Others will be given the opportunity to have further learning support as an elective. They will be contacted if identified as one who would benefit from extra learning support. Students have been given a range of electives to choose, however due to student numbers not all electives will be available to run. Students who did not return their forms will be placed in an elective.

Contact Details

Are your contact details up to date at the school? Please call Sue at the office or send a note if you have had a change in address or phone number. It is important that we are able to contact you at all times.

Year Six Transition day

The final transition day for year six students in term 4 is on Tuesday 29th October. We look forward to working with our future year 7 students. The enrolment process includes filling out the enrolment forms and making an interview time through the office. Students must have an enrolment interview before attending high school.

Junior Certificate Presentation

On Tuesday 3rd December the year nine students who have attained their Junior Certificate of Education will be presented at 2:00pm. Parents and the community are invited to attend this ceremony.

Wilful Disobedience

Charleville State High School have wonderful students, the majority of whom are very RESPECTFUL and COOPERATIVE. Unfortunately, a small number of students have been refusing to follow staff instructions. At Charleville State High School this is referred to as “Wilful Disobedience”. Our staff are very considerate and often give students the opportunity to correct a minor incident. However, if they persist, the student will be placed on a monitoring card. I urge all parents to support the school by signing the monitoring cards every night and discuss the behaviour that requires modifying if the student is to be a positive, highly functioning member of the school and wider community.

Student Services

Mobile Phones at Charleville SHS

The inappropriate use of a mobile phone is at times reported to the school, however the majority of times the mobile phone is used outside of school hours. If there is evidence that a student has used their phone inappropriately at school, then the student is not to have their phone at school. It is the parents and carers’ responsibility to ensure that the student is receiving and sending legal and only age appropriate material.

I will once again state that students in years 7 and 8 are not to have their phone at school. If students have a phone in their possession it will be confiscated and the behaviour will be considered as wilful disobedience. If parents insist that the student must take a phone with them to school then it is to be handed in before school and collected at 3:00pm. Please support the school in this policy.

Use of Technology at home

Research indicates that parents should carefully monitor the use of online/technology games etc at home especially during the school week. Students’ sleep patterns can be greatly affected if they are spending more than one hour a day online using high adrenalin producing games. The use of these games should be ceased at least one hour before the designated time to go to bed. It is recommended that technology devices not be located in their bedrooms, including phones.

The following is an excerpt from an article from the link below, a website that has some very useful information on raising teenagers.

Good sleep

Poor sleep often accompanies stressful times. Teenagers experiencing stress might lie awake worrying at night and be too tired to function well the next day. This can set up a poor sleep pattern. The Sleep Health Foundation recommends these tips to help your child establish healthy sleeping patterns:

• Avoid screen time an hour before bed and encourage reading or listening to relaxing music instead to help wind down. Make a rule that all screens are turned off and kept out of bedrooms.
• Support your child to establish a routine around bed and wake-up times. Encourage them to stick to it, even on the weekends. This might not be easy, but explaining why it’s important (and forgiving the occasional breach in the schedule) might help.
• Encourage them to get around 7.5 hours of sleep per night, which is the optimum amount of time for teenagers.
• To sleep well, their bedroom should be a cool 22 degrees, dark and have fresh air circulating.

Without sleep, we can’t function properly – especially young people, who are still growing and whose brain is still developing. Pay attention to your child’s sleep patterns as an early indication of stress.

Immunisation – Year Seven students

Year Seven and Ten students have received their final immunisation for the year. I would like to commend the year seven students in the mature approach they took for this process throughout the year. Well Done!

Attendance

At Charleville State High School, our goal is for all students to attend school 92%. If a student is absent on any particular day an SMS is sent to the Parent/Carer to inform of the absence. Letters are mailed weekly requesting confirmation that the student was legitimately away with parents’ permission. Every term letters are sent to individual families whose child’s attendance in the junior school was less than 80%. If you received a letter, please ensure that your child attends school every day unless there is a valid reason. If attendance does not improve then the next step in the process of reaching the goal of 92% is to send an official Education Queensland letter requesting an interview to discuss why attendance is at such a level.

Year Nine Camp

As I write this newsletter students and teachers are preparing for the Year Nine Camp to Coolum. I am sure they will have a wonderful time under the expert supervision of Ms Jenna Andreatta, Ms Candice Luff and Mr Jackson Benstead.

Zen Zen Zo

This week, students in year 7 and 8 are attending their final physical Theatre workshop. They will be producing a video that will be the showcase at our schools Awards night. I would like to thank the Hope Foundation and Zen Zen Zo for the wonderful opportunity these students have been given in 2019.

Until next time,

Narelle Webb
Deputy Principal
Junior Schooling/Student Services

Lost Property

There is a lot of lost property at the school office – especially jumpers. If any of these belong to you please collect before end of November. Anything not collected will be donated to St Vinnies.

Thanks

Junior Secondary Update

Welcome back to another busy term, the final term of 2019! We have lots of exciting things occurring this term.

Year 9 Camp

Monday morning our Year 9 cohort set out on their 5 day adventure to the Sunshine Coast. Students will be participating in exciting activities like stand-up-paddle boarding, canoeing, surfing, high ropes, and mud pits. They are sure to be wet, dirty and full of smiles. Please watch our school Facebook page for updates, and our upcoming newsletters for more photos. Well-done to all of the students and families who have fundraised to make this camp possible.

Junior Certificate of Education

Congratulations to all our junior students on their awesome academic results this semester. Students in Year 8 and Year 9 are all currently working towards achieving their Junior Certificate of Education. Students must complete the following:

This term marks the final point collection for our Year 9s to attain their JCE, and culminates in their JCE Awards Ceremony in Week 9 of this term. Parents and guardians will receive a letter next week inviting them to attend the award ceremony, with formal invitations to all who will receive a JCE being handed out in Week 8.

This is an exciting time for the Year 9 students and one they should be proud of. Please remember to save the date, so you can see your student receive their JCE.

The Year 8’s are continuing to work towards their JCE, and students who are ‘at risk’ will complete an interview with the Junior Secondary Team to develop a plan for 2020.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact Sabrina Goodingham for further information.

Year 6 Transition

Tuesday 29th October, marks our final Year 6 Transition Day, before the Year 6 students officially enrol at our school as Charleville State High School students in 2020. We are very excited to welcome our future Year 6 students to experience a day in the life of a CSHS student, where they will complete activities in Science, HPE, Humanities and English. Our day will commence at 8.50am and conclude at 3pm.

Our enrolment interviews for 2020 will also continue this Term. Please watch our school Facebook page for updates on available dates to complete enrolment interviews. To complete your enrolment interview, students must be present at the interview and must bring with them their completed enrolment package.

For more information on the day, or to collect an enrolment pack please contact the school on (07) 4656 8888

Sabrina Goodingham
HOD – Junior Secondary

Senior Formal 2019

We are only four weeks away until the Graduating Class of 2019 will spend hours getting ready for one of the most memorable nights of their schooling journey - their Senior Formal. Charleville State High School would like to invite peers, family members, friends and community members to watch the students arrive to this exciting event on Saturday 9th November. Arrivals will be between 5:15pm and 5:45pm at the Charleville Racecourse. We look forward to seeing you there.

Lauren Butler
Senior Coordinator

Senior Uniforms

Girls and Boys Senior Formal shirts are now available at uniform shop. $40.00 each.

P&C Mango Fundraiser

Fresh North Qld Mangoes Direct from the farm to you! Approx. 7kg of mangoes per tray (varying from 12 to 23 mangoes depending on size).

Cost: $25.00 per tray. Order and money to Lana Holley by 25 October.

Any queries please phone Lana on 0409 265 315.