Thursday's Tidings -21 March 2024

This morning our students showed their long-distance running talent when the three sporting houses competed in the cross country. It’s always fun to see the kids competing! The winning house will be announced at parade in tomorrow morning. 

Free Dress & Crazy Hair Day - Wednesday 27th March

Next Wednesday, 27th March, the Student Council will hold its first special event for the year. They are running a free dress and crazy hair day to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. Students can wear free dress AND their craziest hair do - just bring a gold coin donation. Donations can also be made on Qkr! Look for Crazy Hair Day under School Payments.

Easter Bonnet Parade and Hot Cross Bun Day

On Thursday 28th March, the Prep - Year 2 students will have their Easter bonnet parade followed by their Easter walk down Mary Street, where the students will spread some Easter joy by handing out easter eggs to community members. Notes for this excursion will go home with students tomorrow.

That same morning, the P&C will offer hot cross buns and poppers for sale via Qkr! Orders will close on Wednesday afternoon (27th) and orders will be handed out Thursday first break. 

NAPLAN 

Congratulations to our Year 3 and 5 students who have finished NAPLAN this week. There are a small number of students completing catch ups and they can all be proud of their efforts. 

Planning for Term 2 

This week teachers have been off class for 2 half days planning their English and Maths units for Term 2.   

Learning to read - Synthetic Systematic Phonics 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). 

Your child will practise their word reading skills by using decodable texts. Decodable texts contain only the letter-sound correspondences that your child has already learned. They may also contain some high-frequency words that the teacher has taught simultaneously. 

Decodable texts are important for beginning and struggling readers as they provide immediate practise of their new skills in segmenting and blending, and their understanding of letter-sound correspondences, to build automaticity, fluency and confidence. 

Once children have read words by blending the sounds together many times, they may remember the word and be able to recognise it immediately by ‘sight’. Over time, children will be able to recognise many words without decoding them. 

ANZAC March - Thursday 25th April 

Gympie Central students always proudly join other Gympie schools to participate in the town march showing our appreciation for our service men and women, 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 - Thursday 25th April, Gympie Central will join local schools and organisations to march in the Gympie ANZAC March along Mary Street to Memorial Park. Details are: 

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

Date:                   Thursday 25th April

Time:                   Gather in Mary St at 9am for a 9:30am march. Students not required to stay for the service following the march. Exact location in Mary St will be shared next term. 

Uniform:        Full school uniform including school or navy blue hat. A small supply of spare school hats will be available. 

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

The school will also hold it’s ANZAC parade at 12 midday at school on Wednesday 24th April. 

Congratulations Chloe! 

Last year, Chloe in Year 6 was one of the winners in the Little Kids Day Out (LKDO) story writing competition! This was an amazing achievement and last week, Kim from LKDO came to parade and presented Chloe with a published hard cover version of her story ‘The Super Scary Spider’. This is a wonderful reward for her hard work- there are very few 10 year-olds who can say they are a published author! What a star!

School Attendance Matters 

Regular attendance and punctuality are important factors in supporting successful learners. Students who arrive late often miss vital information given at the start of the day. They often feel anxious about entering the classroom as they are unsure of the work being done or what they should be doing. Our first bell rings at 8:40am and learning begins at 8:50am. It is important that students arrive prior to this so they are able to greet their classmates and teacher as get ready for learning.  

Children do better when they go to school all day, every day. Please notify the school if your child is sick or can’t go to school.  

Every day counts… 

• because children achieve better when they attend school all day, every day;  
• because going to school means getting a better chance at life; 
• because school helps children build social and emotional skills such as communication, teamwork and resilience; 
• because going to school is a legal requirement.

This will be the last newsletter for the term. The last day is Thursday 28th March and students return on Monday 15th April. Have a safe and happy Easter and we look forward to seeing everyone back in Term 2. 

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.