Thursday's Tidings - 14 August 2025

Dear families,

Book Week parade is Friday 22 August - Are your costumes planned? 

Next week is Book Week! On Wednesday our P-2 classes will attend sessions with Curtis from the Gympie Regional Library right here in our school library. Curtis always does a great job inspiring our students about books. Then on Friday it’s our BOOK WEEK PARADE! This year’s theme is ‘Book an Adventure’ so get those costumes ready!! 

NAIDOC Family Fun Day - 22 August 3-8pm, Nelson Reserve 

This year Gympie is hosting its NAIDOC Family Fun Day next Friday afternoon. See the attached flyer for details.  

Prep Transition Morning - Next transition is Wednesday 27 August 

The school hosted its first 2026 prep transition yesterday and had a great turn out. Our next transition morning will take place on Wednesday 27 August from 9:00-10:30am. 

Waru Kids - Operating Monday to Friday 

Our families using Waru Kids OSHC have given really positive feedback. If you haven’t enrolled, please get in touch with the team and see how they can support your family. They are open each day from 6:15am-8:45am and then 3:00pm-6:00pm. 

See the attached flyer for contact details and estimated costings once the Child Care Subsidy is factored in. 

Gympie Primary Maths and English Competitions, Eisteddfod and Gympie T&F Trials 

A big congratulations to our students who competed at the Gympie Primary Maths and English competitions, Eisteddfod and Gympie T&F trials. Gympie Central had students qualify for Wide Bay T&F trials and won or placed at multiple events at the Eisteddfod and English competition. Amazing effort for our small school!  

Last two parade performances - P/1BM tomorrow and Prep R on 29 August 

P/1BM are so excited to show off their moves at tomorrow’s parade! It has been fantastic to see so many families coming and supporting the classes during their performances. The students get such a buzz out of seeing someone in the audience for them.

Attendance emails 

Families can expect to see the next email showing their child’s attendance rate for the year so far. A big shout out to all those students who are above 90% attendance or who’ve improved their attendance rate since last term. 

Attendance can be affected by anxiety. See the attached resource that provides support and ideas for families where anxiety is contributing to reduced attendance.  

The suite of School Opinion Surveys is undertaken each year by the Schools and Student Support Division to obtain opinions about schools from parents/caregivers, students and school staff. The surveys are designed to help schools identify what they do well and find areas which may need improvement. 

The suite of 2025 School Opinion Surveys is open now and closes next Friday 22 August 2025. 

We encourage you to take this opportunity to have your say about what our school does well, and how we can improve. 

150th Commemorative Book - available on our website 

In the years since the 150th celebrations, past staff member Dea Walker spent countless hours putting together a book to commemorate the school and its 150 years of history. This book is now freely available on the school’s website at the following link: 

https://gympiecentralss.eq.edu.au/calendar-and-news/school-anniversary  

It take a bit to download, but there are some many amazing memories in here. A big thank you goes to Mrs Walker for her dedication to this project and for evening continuing the work after finishing at Gympie Central! 

Phonological awareness and reading development 

How does phonological awareness contribute to reading success? 
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear the sounds within language. Children with good phonological awareness can hear: 

• words and word spaces in language
• syllables (a unit of pronunciation with one vowel sound; for example, cat has one syllable, water has two syllables) 
• rhyme (two or more words with the same ending sound; for example, ring, sing, thing) 
• alliteration (two or more words with the same beginning sound; for example Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers) 
• phonemes (the individual sounds within a word; for example, dog has three phonemes, d-o-g). 

Parent Teacher Interviews - 4-22 August 

Parent-teacher interviews provide families the opportunity to check in with your child/ren’s teacher, follow up the report card and set goals for the remainder of 2025. The interviews are scheduled for Weeks 4-6 and are offered before and after school. In the coming days, each teacher will send a letter showing their available times and families book a time by returning the letter to the teacher.