Dear Parents and Caregivers,
I hope everyone had a wonderful relaxing holiday break and are feeling refreshed and energised for Term 3!
Jennifer Rolfe Best Wishes
Jennifer Rolfe started work at Banksia Beach State School back in 2003 as the School Business Manager and has decided to retire after a highly successful career with Education Queensland.
Prior to working at Banksia Beach State School, Jennifer was Business Manager at Morayfield State School and a Senior Personnel Officer at Metropolitan North District Office.
From 2003 till very recently, Jennifer Rolfe has been the Business Manager at Banksia Beach State School and has been supervisor, colleague and friend to many, many people over this long period of service to the Banksia Beach, and wider Bribie Island Community.
Jennifer possesses a wealth of knowledge about Education Queensland policy and legislative requirements and always ensured the school was in the best possible position to ensure our students could perform at the highest level. This included the beautiful way that the school was always presented; the allocation of resources where they would have the optimum impact; the management of financial and other assets and resources; and the care and support of staff both as Business Manager and as our Rehabilitation Officer.
Jennifer Rolfe has made an incredibly significant contribution to the building of the school environment and school culture that we all enjoy today and I thank her for her service to our school community. I wish her and her family the very best for the future.
Dance Competition
Our advanced dance troupe, choreographed and prepared by our dedicated specialist Dance teacher Mrs Ross, competed on June 17 at St John Anglican College at Forest Lake, in the Brisbane Performing Arts Competition and we were all very proud of their excellent performance. Our students won second place in this competition and they all returned to school feeling very proud of themselves and really enjoyed the experience.
Readers Cup
In Week 10 of last Term two teams of four students competed in the Brisbane North Readers Cup competition. Readers Cup is a trivia style competition requiring students to read five selected books and answer questions in their teams. Preparation for this competition requires students to dedicate many hours of their time reading the same books numerous times, writing hundreds of practice questions and giving up lunchtime play to practice quizzing each other. Both teams did exceptionally well from a field of 40 school teams from all over the Brisbane North area. It was very close at the top of the leader board and Team 1 finished the competition achieving second place only a few points behind first. Well done to Harper, Jordan, Hana, Ava, Willow, Madi, Indi and Abby for all your hard work and effort in preparing for this competition. Many thanks to Mr Hawthrone for his great work coaching and preparing the students.
NAIDOC Week
The school celebrated NAIDOC week in the last week of Term Two and everyone got involved across the school. Burnadette and Jon did a great job working with the students and supporting staff and we were especially blessed to have Aunty Fran and Aunty Flo come and talk and work with our students. Aunty Fran was amazing singing traditional Torres Straight Islander songs with the students on parade. Please take the time to watch the video in this newsletter.
Sports Day/Under 8’s
Thankfully the weather cooperated and allowed us to run both our Senior Athletics Carnival and our Under 8’s day at the end of last term. I was most appreciative of the wonderful parent and wider community support for both of these events, especially from our P&C Executive and volunteers that put in so much effort and work to support our students. On both our Sports Days the positive attitude and effort of all students was fantastic.
Semester One Report Cards
Semester One Report Cards will be provided to parents on Wednesday July 14, via email. If for some reason you do not receive it, please contact the office so that we may provide you a printed copy.
I would encourage parents and carers to sit down and talk with their children about the reports for semester one. There may be opportunities to celebrate achievement, which is always excellent, and there may also be opportunities to discuss one or two things that might be positive goals for semester two.
Health Precautions
On Monday 12 July I emailed a message to all parents and caregivers around our current health precautions. The following summary was included in this message.
Keep your distance – maintain physical distancing (1.5m) when at school. Parents should avoid congregating on the school site, in carparks, or around the school.
Wear a mask – If you’re coming to the school, please wear masks on the school site. This requirement is currently going to be lifted at 6am on Friday July 16.
Good hand hygiene – sounds simple, but washing your hands properly is important. Wash your hands with soap regularly, try not to touch your face. Use hand sanitiser if you can’t wash your hands.
Stay home when sick – It’s still important to get tested and stay home until you get the results. Isolate yourself at home and protect your family and others.
Wait to be invited before entering classrooms - classroom teachers will need to have control over the numbers of adults in classrooms at any given time to ensure adequate social distancing and some staff have increased health vulnerabilities to consider.