Thursday's Tidings - 8 February 2024

Playgroup @ Central - Tuesdays at 9am

Anglicare is going to run a playgroup here at Central each Tuesday morning. This will start on Tuesday 6th February. All Gympie community families with young children are invited to join Millie from Anglicare. Save the date: 

What: Anglicare playgroup 

Who: Parents with before school age children 

When: Each Tuesday from 9am-10:30am 

Where: B Block (lower level), Gympie Central SS right below the Toy Library 

Priorities in 2024 - Reading and Targeted student feedback  

During 2024 our staff will refine the way we teaching reading to students. We will review our resources and our teaching practices, then collaborate to implement consistent, effective evidence-based practices across our classrooms.  Keep an eye out for tips, tricks and information on the strategies we will use at school, so you can support your children at home. 

Gympie Central is continuing its focus on providing students effective, targeted feedback. We do this by helping students understand the assessment task requirements, then checking in on their progress work during the term and providing specific feedback to improved particular areas of their work. These successful practices have been in place for the past couple of years and we will continue this journey. 

How children learn to read 

Learning to read is a process that needs step-by-step teaching and plenty of practise at school and at home. Unlike walking or talking, reading is not a skill that we learn naturally — everyone needs to be taught how to read. 
Reading requires two very important skills: 

• decoding (reading) the words on the page 
• making meaning from the words, sentences and paragraphs that are read. 
  For children to learn how to decode words, they need to understand how sounds and letters link together. They are taught that: 
• words can be broken up into sounds (the word ‘cat’ is made up of 3 sounds: c-a-t) and that sounds can be blended to form words (the sounds c-a-t blended, forms the word ‘cat’) 
• the sounds in words can be represented by letters or groups of letters. 

As children develop their understanding of letter-sound correspondences and apply this knowledge to reading words and texts, they learn more complex English spellings. 

• The same sound can be represented by different letters; the words ‘play’, ‘rain’ and ‘stage’ all contain the sound /ay/ but the spelling is different in each one. 
• The same letter can represent different sounds; the letter ‘c’ can represent a ‘k’ sound as in ‘cat’, or an ‘s’ sound as in ‘race’. 
• Small parts of words can have a meaning all their own; in the word ‘walked’, the ‘-ed’ tells us that the walk has already happened — it marks past tense. 

• Children practise their word reading skills by reading decodable texts that contain only the letter-sound correspondences children have been taught. 
• As children develop their decoding skills and their reading becomes more automatic, they will move from reading simple decodable texts to authentic texts. Authentic texts are any texts that are read for enjoyment or learning and that support word reading, language development and engagement. 

Children develop their language skills through the language they hear and read. In the early stages of reading instruction while children are developing their decoding skills, it is very important that they are read to often, so they hear lots of new words and learn about new things that they may not yet be able to read about themselves. 

Parents play an important role in helping children learn to read by both: 

• listening to your child read aloud to practise decoding words 
• reading aloud to your child to build their understanding of language and literacy. 

Prep Vision Screening - Tuesday 13th February

Qld Health staff will be at school this coming Tuesday to complete vision screening for our prep students. This is our only opportunity for this to take place this year so it’s really important preppies are at school on Tuesday. Thanks everyone for returning the consent forms! 

Parade is every Friday at 9am - Everyone is welcome!

No Tuckshop in Term 1 

Due to water damage in the tuckshop, tuckshop will be postponed until Term 2.  The school is working to rectify the cause of the water damage. 

Mr Cafferky on leave 14-27 February

I will be taking long service leave from next Wednesday 14 February. Mrs Mardi Green will be acting principal in my absence. Mrs Green will do a great job and is excited to be joining the Central community. I know the community will make her feel welcome. 

Remember, we are here to help 

Like always, if there is something that you want our support with, or if your child is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher for support.  If it is not a matter for the teacher, please call the front office and arrange to meet with a member of the leadership team, so we can work through things together.  It takes a village to raise a child, so let’s work together. 

Warm regards,
Glenn Cafferky

Other payment options that we provide are:

1. BPOINT - (for invoiced activities) Pay online or by phone using credit/debit card: https://www.bpoint.com.au/payments/dete or phone 1300 631 073

2. CENTREPAY - (for invoiced activities) We now offer Centrepay as a payment method for instrumental music and school camps. Use Centrepay to arrange regular deductions from your Centrelink payment. You can start, change or stop using Centrepay whenever you like. If you would like to set up a Centrepay payment, or know more information about this payment method, please contact the school office.

3. EFTPOS - We accept Mastercard, Visa and all Australian bank, building society and credit union cards.