Thursday's Tidings - 24 April 2025

Welcome back to Term Two and welcome to our new families. It’s always great to have new faces around the school and to see our school growing.  

In response to growing enrolment numbers and our ongoing effort to support each student's learning needs, we have introduced an additional class for the remainder of the year. By creating this extra class, we have addressed our increasing enrolment and also provided an opportunity for more focused teaching and learning. Class sizes have been reduced across classes in the early years and our senior classes have an excellent balance of maturity and capable leaders. Our aim is to continue delivering high-quality education that meets the diverse needs of all students, fostering a positive and enriching learning environment. 

The new class structure at Central is: 

• Prep R - Mrs Roberts 

• Prep/1 BM - Mrs Benson (M-W) and Miss Moller (T-F) located in B Block 

• 2H - Ms Harcourt 

• 3/4D - Ms Davis 

• 4/5S - Mrs Sandrini 

• 5/6B - Mr Barnes 

We appreciate your ongoing support as we continue to grow and support your child at Gympie Central. Thank you for entrusting us with your child’s learning journey. 

ANZAC service 

Yesterday morning our school leaders did an amazing job of leading the ANZAC service. The students and staff were honoured to be joined by RSL representative and special guest speaker Gerard Irvine along with Councillor Mick Curran. Both guests were very impressed with the respectful behaviour of the students and the leadership of our student speakers. 

A special mention can go to ex school captain, Bailey Bray, who gave many of our students their first experience of hearing The Last Post and Reveille played live. It was a wonderful part of the ceremony and our staff were very proud to have Bailey be such a special part of our ceremony. 

Gympie ANZAC March - Friday 25 April 

Gympie Central students always join the Gympie schools to participate in the town march representing and showing pride in our school. We’re wanting as many students as possible to join us again this year - our uniform stands out and looks fantastic as we march with all the schools and groups.  

For students able to join us on ANZAC Day - 25th April, Gympie Central will join local schools and organisations to march in the Gympie ANZAC March along Mary St to Memorial Park. Details are: 

Event:                Gympie ANZAC Day March. Staff will march with students. 

Date:                   Friday 25 April

Time:                  Gather outside Schuh Group in Mary St at 8:30am for a 9:00am march. Students not required to stay for the service following the march. 

Uniform:       Full school uniform including school or navy blue hat.  

It will be great to see as many students as possible join our school and the Gympie schools on this day. For any students who have family medals to wear, these can be worn on the right side. 

Gympie Central is also proud to have a number of students who will be joining the Gympie Combined Marching Band. Keep an eye out for our uniform shirts among the others and cheer the band as they march past.  

P&C News 
Disco Thursday 8 May 

The P&C is hosting our first disco on Thursday 8th May. It will take place in the parade area and will start at 5:30pm and finish at 7:00pm. All students from Prep to Year 6 are welcome and our discos are always lots of fun. P&C is always appreciative of help to run the canteen on the night so get in touch with the P&C at gympiecentralpc@gmail.com or… come along to their meeting next Tuesday 29th April at 5pm. They meet in the library. 

Mother's Day Donations

Ice Block sale - Friday 2 May  

Student Council is hosting it’s first ice block sale next Friday at second break. Ice blocks will be either $1 or $2 and there is a limit of 1 per student. 

Prep open classroom - Wednesday 14 May 2:30-3:30 

Focus on reading 

The school is continuing its work around the teaching of reading. In the early years, your child will be explicitly taught to read at school using an approach called systematic synthetic phonics. This approach teaches children how sounds and letters link together to form words that we can read and write. It provides students with a reliable strategy for decoding unknown words and discourages guessing. 

What does the term systematic synthetic phonics mean? 

• Phonics is the understanding that letters and letter combinations represent speech sounds. 

• Systematic means that letters and sounds are taught in a planned order. 

• Synthetic refers to the process of synthesising or blending the sounds and letters to decode (read) words, and the segmenting or pulling apart of sounds and letters to encode (spell) words. 

Using a systematic synthetic phonics approach, children are taught the letter-sound correspondences that represent all 44 sounds in English, gradually, over time. Students are first taught the most common and consistent letter-sound correspondences (for example: the letter ‘b’ in ‘ball’; the letter ‘v’ in ‘van’) before being taught the less common alternative letter-sound combinations (for example: the many ways we can represent the sound ‘ay’ — bay, break, tail, sleigh and so on). 

Uniforms - navy jumpers in Winter 

Students wear our uniform with pride and with the cooler months approaching, navy jumpers are the required winter uniform. Our uniform jumper is navy blue. The uniform shop has jumpers (with logos) for sale. However, a navy-blue jumper without the logo is appropriate as we head into the cooler months. Supporting our uniform policy shows pride in our school and helps children feel part of the school community. If you’re missing a jumper (or hat/ lunchbox/ water bottle!), the lost property is stored at the base of the stairwell at the admin end of A Block. 

Transition to High School 

Parents of Year 6 students are encouraged consider where your child will attend high school in 2026. Gympie SHS and James Nash SHS encourage families to enrol their Year 7 students as soon as possible to enable forward planning for 2026. Further information around their enrolment processes will start being shared later this term.