2 March 2022

Newsletter Articles

Welcome to Week 6 of Term 1.

Leadership Update for weeks 5 and 6

In week 5 and 6 of each term, I have been offered the opportunity to be the Acting Principal at Charleville State High School and after much consideration have decided to accept this position.

I am enjoying the role as Principal and can appreciate the amount of work the great staff at Charleville State High School do to support each other and the dedication they have to facilitate that students have every opportunity to reach quality learning outcomes.

Anna Batstone will take on my position as Deputy Principal. Anna has done a fantastic job undertaking this role in week 5 with my full support knowing that Anna always works for the best interests of our school community.

It has been truly fantastic to have the students back at school for the past three weeks. The majority of students are actively learning and participating in a wide range of learning experiences. Students are at the heart of school operations, adding great energy and purpose to our learning community. We are looking forward to utilising this energy as best we can to achieve quality learning outcomes.

Bell times

One significant change for the start of 2022 has been the bell times. After extensive consultation last year, the decision was made to move to a two-breaks per day system in 2022. I am very pleased to report that the students have responded well to this adjustment.

Students are managing their time appropriately during the five minutes after form and almost all are moving to Period 2 independently and on time. As stated last year the intent is to maximise quality learning time in the morning and then provide breaks between Periods 3 and 4 to maintain concentration levels.

Of course, it is still early days and we will continue to monitor this structure to ensure it is serving the needs of our students and staff.

P&C Membership and Meetings

One of the most important and valuable groups in supporting our school is the P&C. We have a dedicated group who work to provide vital aspects such as parental voice, promoting the school and conducting essential support services like the school tuckshop.

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday the 9th of March at the administration block and will incorporate the Annual General Meeting followed by the General Meeting. We would love to see a few more faces at these meetings to ensure a shared workload and provide a variety of viewpoints and feedback about our school.

Student numbers for 2022

We are currently expecting to have approximately 230 full time students to start 2022 which is slightly better than 2021 (225). Most satisfying of all is the number of Year 7’s, currently sitting at 52 students. This is reflective of a strong engagement with Charleville State High School from our key feeder schools, particularly Charleville State School and St Mary’s School.

Well done to the staff for their efforts in supporting the transition to Secondary school; particular mention to Amy Roughan, Nathan Bailey and Katherine Neucom (Diverse Learners) for their leadership regarding this process. The year 7 Year Level Coordinator (YLC), Ms Rachel Dwyer has taken on her new role with dedication and empathy. She is the first contact in most cases for both students and parents in the communication chain.

We are also enjoying sound numbers in our Senior classes, with 60 students currently enrolled in Year 11 and 12 combined. This is important for a number of reasons including enabling the school to offer a broader range of Senior subjects as well as retaining students at school to graduate from Year 12. Some students transition very successfully after year 10 and we certainly support and value this within the overall aim of maximising student retention.

Assistant Regional Director (ARD)

In the last newsletter we advised that Reid Thompson has moved into an acting Principal role in Toowoomba. The new ARD is Andrew Brandon who has previously worked with Charleville schools in this capacity. Andrew dropped in for a short visit on Friday along with the other ARD for the Charleville cluster, Mr Jonathon Duice.

In closing

I am always proud to take visitors on a tour of our fabulous school. The resources such as the Industrial and Technology building, the Hospitality facilities, the computer rooms and even our library with its specialist reading room are excellent. However, whilst we have great resources I always believe that that the most valuable resource in a school is human resources. A wonderful, dedicated, supportive and very professional team form our staff at Charleville State High School.

I would also like to take every opportunity to thank parents and caregivers for the critical role they play in education.

All the best,

Narelle Webb
A/Principal

Senior School

It has been an interesting start to 2022 and students are now well into assessment for the term. As always, students will need to manage their time and should ask for help early if needed.

There are also a number of other things happening as we look forward throughout the year and students are starting to receive letters and information about these events. A lot of this information is distributed at year level assembly (held on Monday) or is emailed to students and parents. Students who miss the assembly should speak with Mr Bailey (year 10) or Miss Andriolo (year 11 and 12) to catch up on important information.

Year 10 and 11 Camps

Year 10 and 11 students will have received a letter to express their interest in the term 3 camp. The letter and the initial camp deposit needs to be returned as soon as possible so that final numbers for the camp can be determined and fundraising can begin to bring the final cost of the camp down for students attending.

The reason the camp (which has previously only been for year 11’s) has become a combined year 10 and 11 camp is to reduce the cost by taking a larger cohort and to run the camp only every second year. Year 10 students who do not go this year, will not have another opportunity.

The key contact for students for information regarding camp is Mr Bailey. If they have questions they should make an effort to speak with him.

Formal

The year 12 students have already begun planning for the formal at the end of the year (Nov 16) with students being invited to remain for committee discussions after assembly and the whole cohort having an opportunity to vote on the theme.

Students will also begin fundraising for the formal this term with the Easter Raffle. Year 12’s received an information letter as well as their tickets on Monday at Senior Parade to begin the fundraising effort. Students are asked to donate some chocolate towards the final prize.

A range of other fundraising events will occur and students will continue to be routinely given opportunities to discuss planning of the event.

Career Market

The career market will go ahead in term 1 (Mar 29). All students will receive information about this event (and a permission note) closer to the date however a range of organisations in town have been working tirelessly to plan and coordinate the event and ensure as many businesses and industries as possible are represented for the students to think about their future pathway.

Parents and carers are invited at the end of the school day to return to the career market with their student. The event will be held at the Racecourse Complex.

Assessment and Due Dates

With students completing a range of assessment tasks it is important that they remember that with the new senior system a number of changes have been made to the assessment policy. Particularly in regards to due dates as teachers cannot accept work submitted after the due date unless there is an approved extension. For senior students there must be supporting documentation provided to the school in order to support the approval of an extension. In the case of year 12, any change to an assessment task or date must be reported by the school to the QCAA and these adjustments must be supported by evidence.

Students cannot have an extension for events such as family holidays, computer issues or sporting trips. Parents should access the assessment calendar to ensure students are either at school for assessment, able to electronically submit assignments if they are absent from school, or have students submit work prior to leaving on a family trip. Students need to ensure they are backing their work up on their computer, USB, and emailing themselves or their teacher regularly so that their work is not lost.

Should students or family members unfortunately become ill or other circumstances occur that are beyond the students’ control (such as weather events or pandemics) that prevent them from completing and submitting assessment by the due date, parents should try to contact the school as soon as possible and organise a medical certificate or other appropriate documentation.

Reporting

Parents are also reminded that report cards will be emailed to them. Please ensure that the school has an up-to-date email address for you. Where parents cannot access email, a printed copy will be mailed home. Students and parents may also request a printed copy from the front desk.

Term 1 reports are an interim report providing feedback to parents on how students are travelling. Due to the late start, these reports will be emailed to parents at the beginning of term 2 (week 2). A final semester result will be issued at the end of term 2.

Parent-teacher interviews will be conducted in week 3 of term 2 (May 4) and while some students will have requested interviews, all parents are welcome to attend. Information regarding booking appointments will be available with the reports.

Thanks,

Cassandra Kohli
Deputy Principal

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL JUNIOR SCHOOLING

WELCOME TO WEEK 6

JUNIOR SCHOOL NEWS

Hello, I thought I should introduce myself. I am Anna Batstone and I am Acting Deputy at Charleville State High School for week 5 and 6 this term. I started teaching at Charleville State High School in 2006 and I am from just up the road in Tambo. My substantive role is Head of Department – Teaching and Learning. In this role I work a lot with our teachers and students to improve our teaching and learning at Charleville State High School. I have had many years here in Charleville and I am pleased to be able to bring this news to you this week.

We are now heading into the assessment stage of the term. It is important for students to be aware of when they have assessment and I encourage you to have a look at the assessment calendar with your student and discuss how they will manage their time during the next few weeks. Assessment time can be stressful for students. To help support the students they have access to Homework Club every Thursday afternoon. Homework Club is a great opportunity for students to receive extra help from their teachers. The students merely need to ask their teacher the day before if they would help them at Homework Club. If the classroom teacher cannot be available then there is always another staff member only too willing to assist.

IMPACT WRITING

We are very lucky to be able to offer IMPACT Just Write online writing program to our junior students. Years 7 and 9’s are currently involved in this program and year 8’s will be involved later in the year. The students access live online lessons once a week delivered by professional teachers of writing. Year 9 lessons are on Mondays and year 7’s are on Thursdays both during period 3. If your student is away on one of these days, they can access the lesson for home.

Just Write boosts students’ ability to plan, write and edit sophisticated short narratives and improves writing stamina. Your students will:

• read, analyse and evaluate short stories;
• develop their own stories and receive timely and personalised feedback on writing comprising attainable goals for improvement and methods to achieve these;
• be taught by a specialist teacher from the IMPACT Centre;
• build technology skills and confidence for future online learning and assessments.

For more information about the IMPACT Just Write program please visit the link below or feel free to give me a call at the school on 4556 8888.

NAPLAN Online

NAPLAN is a diagnostic tool which Charleville State High School uses to analyse the programs we implement at school. Whilst the parents of individual students are given reports, the school uses the data from the entire cohort. It is a valuable tool which benefits the students.

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is an annual assessment for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. NAPLAN is a nationwide measure through which parents, teachers, schools, education authorities, governments and the broader community can determine whether or not young Australians are developing the literacy and numeracy skills that provide the critical foundation for other learning and for their productive and rewarding participation in the community.

NAPLAN is made up of tests in the four areas (or ‘domains’) of:

• reading
• writing
• language conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation)
• numeracy.

NAPLAN online will be conducted over a 10 day period during May 2022.

More information about the tests for parents and schools is available from the link below

Enjoy your week,

Anna Batstone
A/Deputy Principal

Literacy Links – Sue McDermott

Safe on Social

“We have had multiple requests from parents asking for help regarding Airdrops and what is called Cyber Flashing which seems to be rife at the start of this school year.

Airdrop allows people to wirelessly share images and files quickly using BlueTooth technology, without a lot of messing around. The size of files that be dropped is large, and it’s simpler than a text message. Using Airdrop means devices must be in fairly close proximity (around 10 metres apart) and the receiving device needs must have AirDrop activated to get the Drop.

For any Apple device, the default starter point is set to allow a device to receive files from anyone in their proximity. This includes iPhone, iPads and MacBook’s. It’s immensely practical, makes transferring large files easy, and very simple sending images from phones to your laptop, but it’s not always wonderful.

Why AirDrop may be a problem?

Cyber - flashing :

This is essentially bombarding random individuals in public situations, staff and other students in schools, visitors and guests to the school with pornographic images – often when least expected.

And it’s a popular thing to be doing right now amongst teenagers. Think school buses, trains etc.

The issues with this is the legality of sending pornographic images to other children and the trauma is may cause.

Distribution of pornographic images to children is a crime. So, if one child sends an image that could be classified as pornographic to another, and gets caught – it is a possibility that charges could be laid by the police.

If an individual has not “named” their phone – this type of action can be done anonymously.

There is no moderation or avenue to report this behaviour to apple but you can screen shot and report to the police.

If you or your child have provided a name for your phone and a photo icon – these will show up as options of whom to Airdrop to. A radar like image will outline who is available in the area to send the image too. More people with Airdrop turned on means more available icons to send too.

There is no choice but to view, once an image has been Airdropped to you. You are automatically shown a preview of the shot that has been Airdropped to you. Which will appear on your home screen. At this point whether or not you decide to Decline or Accept the drop, you have already been cyber-flashed, your choice is automatically removed.

What can you do?

AirDrop may be temporarily turned off for a time (Method 1), or on a child’s device turned off completely, and locked behind a four-digit passcode (Method 2).

Method 1

This is a day to day fix to limit the content that can be received. This method is not permanent and not suitable for use with children as it is simple.

On an iPhone Airdrops, controls can be found in Settings under General.

• Tap Airdrop to open its menu.
• Here you are given the option of limiting a phones availability to the Cyber-flash for whatever length of time you wish.
• You may switch it off completely, limit it to only those individuals found in the contacts list on your device, or leave yourself (or your child) wide open to receiving random pics throughout the day with the default “Everyone” setting left on.
• For teachers – we recommend turning this to receiving only on all devices, until you specifically need to use it.

OR

Method 2

This is a more permanent fix for children under 18, and will shut down AirDrop/hide it unless a four-digit passcode is used. It does involve working through the Screen time settings found in Settings on your devices, and setting up your child’s phone through Family Link, but this will prevent them turning it back on and therefore sending and receiving AirDrop content.

It’s worth looking at the features available on ScreenTime there are many things you can do – such as limit app downloads, set app time limits, track usage levels, and restrict available content and music. It’s much less clunky than Google’s Family Link and quite easy to use.

It can be helpful for both an individual and a parent to determine their own device usage, and set specific downtimes for themselves – so this isn’t simply a parental control system for children and teens.

You may switch it off through the ScreenTime menu in settings.

• Tap on the ScreenTime, purple hourglass menu.
• If you haven’t accessed ScreenTime previously, you will see the window below.
• Once you have tapped continue, the next window will appear.
• Choose the Content and Privacy Restrictions menu.
• Then tap on Allowed Apps.
• Here you are able to hide or turn off AirDrop from the device. If you are setting this up for your child, a four-digit passcode must be used for it to be opened again.”

From the Safe on Social - Facebook Page, post, 26th Feb, 2022.

Parentline

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