Newsletter 14 28 August 2024

From the Principal

Hi everyone

We have an exciting week ahead with a variety of activities for our students. Today and tomorrow, our Year 4 students will be embarking on their camp at the Jacob's Well Environmental Education Centre. This experience offers a fantastic opportunity for students to engage with nature and develop important life skills.

This Friday, August 23, selected students from Years 4-6 will participate in the Budgie Cup Soccer tournament at Coorparoo Secondary College. Due to the temporary closure of Buranda Train Station until sometime in 2025, we have to arrange private bus travel to for these excursions, resulting in an increase in the cost. Unfortunately, we are unable to use BCC bus services for this trip. Once the station upgrades are complete, we plan on using the train for future Budgie Cup events. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

Over the past fortnight, our Prep students have made a successful transition to using the oval for lunch and playtime. They've adjusted well to the new play zones, and I'm pleased to report that all students are taking responsibility for collecting their lunchboxes and returning them to their bags after each play session. This initiative has significantly reduced the amount of rubbish in our eating areas. Please ensure that all your child’s lunchboxes and other belongings are clearly labelled. We currently have a lot of unclaimed, unnamed property in the lost property area.

Looking ahead:

• Monday 26/8 & Tuesday 27/8: Year 5/6 students will have their Life Education sessions.
• Wednesday 28/8: Our school Cross-Country event will take place.
• Thursday 29/8: Book Week Dress-Up Day (more details in this newsletter).
• Friday 30/8: Student Free Day. Our staff will engage in Professional Development activities, including a Teaching Spelling workshop.

Looking further ahead, our Year 5/6 students will attend their school camp from Tuesday, September 3, to Friday, September 6, at Maroon Outdoor Education Centre.

On a personal note, I will be on leave from Friday, August 30, to Friday, September 6, as I travel to Mackay to support my son, who will be playing for Queensland in the U/15 National School Cricket Carnival. During my absence, Katherine Austin will serve as Acting Principal. Additionally, Dr. Rosie Scholl will be on Long Service Leave for the final two weeks of this term. I’d like to extend my thanks to Desley Alexion, who will be Acting Head of Department – Curriculum during Rosie’s leave.

Simon Vaseo

Principal

Upcoming Excursions/Incursions

From the Head of Dept - Curriculum

Ditto Show

Students in Prep to Year 2 had the opportunity to attend Ditto’s Keep Safe Adventure Program on Monday. This 40-minute show is a fun and effective personal safety education program, curriculum-aligned which helps students to learn about their personal privacy, body boundaries and safety, and help seeking strategies.  Bravehearts offers Free Resources for Parents and Carers.

Bullying No Way Week

Last week was Bullying No Way Week. Mrs Alexion organised for some Yr. 6 students to go to every classroom and run a community of inquiry with each class to give the students the opportunity to discuss bullying, the consequences of bullying and how to seek help if you or someone you know is being bullied. Thank you to Mrs Alexion, Mr Higgins, Mrs Blanchfield and the Year 6 students who lead this activity. It is terrific to think that by Year 6 we have students who are confident and capable in using their own voice to lead a community of inquiry and facilitate other students’ voices. Well done!

The Bullying No Way Week website provides Resources for Families.

Similarly, kids helpline provides many and varied resources to support students and parents, including resources to explain and address bullying.

Dr Rosie Scholl

Head of Department - Curriculum

From Inclusion

This week I want to ask you:  What are the qualities you like best about yourself?

I bet you haven’t thought about it much (unless our strength focus has piqued your interest), as we tend to focus more on the things, we don’t like about ourselves – or the qualities we see in others that we wish we had. 

A quote by Theodore Roosevelt begins this week’s newsletter article:

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

When we hanker to be like others, the good and joyful feelings we need to thrive and be happy disappear. When we model this behaviour to our children, they don’t learn how to appreciate their own good qualities. When we openly, and sometime pointedly, compare our children to others, we are telling them they are not good enough, sending them on a life-long journey of comparison and negative self-judgement.

By using the language of strengths, about ourselves and others, we can positively impact, not only the children in our care, but all members of the Buranda community. Focussing on strengths helps with fulfillment and happiness, and if these strengths are used wisely, they help us become our best and truest selves.

I’ve postponed Awesome Autistics until next newsletter to share with you the VIA Institute on Character’s list of character strengths and definitions:

1. Wisdom and Knowledge – Cognitive strengths that entail the acquisition and use of knowledge

• Creativity [originality, ingenuity]: Thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things; includes artistic achievement but is not limited to it
• Curiosity [interest, novelty-seeking, openness to experience]: Taking an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake; finding subjects and topics fascinating; exploring and discovering
• Judgment [critical thinking]: Thinking things through and examining them from all sides; not jumping to conclusions; being able to change one’s mind in light of evidence; weighing all evidence fairly
• Love of Learning: Mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one’s own or formally; obviously related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows
• Perspective [wisdom]: Being able to provide wise counsel to others; having ways of looking at the world that make sense to oneself and to other people

1. Courage – Emotional strengths that involve the exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition, external or internal

• Bravery [valour]: Not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain; speaking up for what is right even if there is opposition; acting on convictions even if unpopular; includes physical bravery but is not limited to it
• Perseverance [persistence, industriousness]: Finishing what one starts; persisting in a course of action in spite of obstacles; “getting it out the door”; taking pleasure in completing tasks
• Honesty [authenticity, integrity]: Speaking the truth but more broadly presenting oneself in a genuine way and acting in a sincere way; being without pretence; taking responsibility for one’s feelings and actions
• Zest [vitality, enthusiasm, vigour, energy]: Approaching life with excitement and energy; not doing things halfway or half-heartedly; living life as an adventure; feeling alive and activated

1. Humanity – Interpersonal strengths that involve tending and befriending others

• Love: Valuing close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated; being close to people
• Kindness [generosity, nurturance, care, compassion, altruistic love, “niceness”]: Doing favours and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them
• Social Intelligence [emotional intelligence, personal intelligence]: Being aware of the motives and feelings of other people and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.

1. Justice – Civic strengths that underlie healthy community life

• Teamwork [citizenship, social responsibility, loyalty]: Working well as a member of a group or team; being loyal to the group; doing one’s share
• Fairness: Treating all people the same according to notions of fairness and justice; not letting personal feelings bias decisions about others; giving everyone a fair chance.
• Leadership: Encouraging a group of which one is a member to get things done, and at the same time maintaining good relations within the group; organizing group activities and seeing that they happen.

1. Temperance- Strengths that protect against excess

• Forgiveness: Forgiving those who have done wrong; accepting the shortcomings of others; giving people a second chance; not being vengeful
• Humility:  Letting one’s accomplishments speak for themselves; not regarding oneself as more special than one is
• Prudence: Being careful about one’s choices; not taking undue risks; not saying or doing things that might later be regretted
• Self-Regulation [self-control]: Regulating what one feels and does; being disciplined; controlling one’s appetites and emotions

1. Transcendence – Strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning

• Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence [awe, wonder, elevation]: Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in various domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience
• Gratitude: Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen; taking time to express thanks
• Hope [optimism, future-mindedness, future orientation]: Expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it; believing that a good future is something that can be brought about
• Humour [playfulness]: Liking to laugh and tease; bringing smiles to other people; seeing the light side; making (not necessarily telling) jokes
• Spirituality [faith, purpose]: Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort

When you read through the list, which qualities stand out as strengths that you possess?

What about your kids? Which character traits do you see in them?

Have a discussion and watch their faces light up.  

Katherine Austin

Inclusion Teacher

Philosophy Corner

From the Music Room

Since we have hit the halfway point of the term I thought I’d share a bit about what we’ve been learning in music so far this semester in music.

The Prep/1 classes have been learning how to sing, clap and notate the pitches soh and mi and the rhythms TA (crotchet) and TETE (paired quavers). They have also learnt about dynamics and tempo and have enjoyed starting to use percussion instruments in the classroom as well. We have been developing confidence with our singing voices with the aid of our coveted tub of soft toys, thank you to those families who donated!

The 1/2 classes have been working on the pitches soh, mi and lah, and the new rhythm TOO (minim). They have been learning about form and dynamics. They have enjoyed mastering two grooves on djembe and practising notation of rhythm compositions using paddlepop sticks.

The 2/3 class has been solidifying their new rhythms, tikatika (semiquavers), three (dotted minim) and four (semibreve), and have learnt the full pentatonic scale (doh, ray, mi, soh, lah). They have been learning about different performance contexts and purposes for music, and are honing their own performance skills on glockenspiel.

The 3/4 classes have learnt new rhythms te-tika and tika-te, as well as adding a new pitch to the pentatonic scale, high doh. They have also been learning about different performance contexts and purposes for music as well as studying more woodwind instruments. They are building their resilience through the challenge of learning ukulele, with 2 chords under their belts and another 2 in progress.

The 4/5 classes have been learning compound meter rhythms, as well as adding new pitches to the pentatonic scale, low soh and low lah. They have also been learning about different performance contexts and purposes for music as well as studying keyboard instruments. They are building their resilience through the challenge of learning ukulele, with 2 chords under their belts and another 2 in progress.

The Year 6 classes have been working on syncopated rhythms this semesters and have completed the solfa ladder, learning the entire major scale (doh ray mi fah soh lah ti doh’). They have been exploring the elements of music through analysing different versions of the most covered song of all time, Summertime, as a class. They are learning to write for two parts using harmony with the aid of chord charts and are loving developing their skills as expert bucket drummers.

We can’t wait to share all our ensemble work with you at the end of year music concert in Term 4! In the meantime, here are some of the students performing for assessment tasks this term:

Irene and Sarasa playing Glockenspiel

Naomi braving solo ukulele! (like a pro)

Violette, Eva, Sadie, Milcah, Harriet and Taylor playing bucket drums with their own dynamics added

Ben K, Finn, Ollie M, Arlo, Jethro and Jonson playing bucket drums with their own dynamics added

Ms Tafra

Camilla Tafra 

Classroom Music Teacher (Thu-Fri)

Buranda State School

Book Week

It’s next week! We are celebrating Book week on Thursday 29 August, so if you aren’t ready yet it’s time to get your costumes sorted and head to the bookstore if you’d like to make a donation to It's from Elsie. We will do a whole school photo in front of the flags at 8.45am on Thursday morning.

Full information about how to participate below. Any questions please speak to Ms Tafra, Ms Border or Mrs Cetinic.

HOW TO DRESS UP FOR BOOK WEEK

This year’s Book Week theme is “Reading is Magic”. Think about a book that you love that feels magical to you, and choose a character from that book that you would like to dress up as for the day! This is BOOK week so we would love to see characters that came from books first (not a movie that they produced books for later!)

HOW TO DONATE A BOOK TO IT’S FROM ELSIE

• Choose a picture book that is appropriate for a newborn baby. This might be a book that your parents read to you as a baby.
• Purchase a brand-new copy of the book (not a second-hand copy)
• Keep the book in the bag or wrapping it was purchased in to prevent contamination (these books are going to very vulnerable little babies and we don’t want to spread any germs!)
• On Thursday 29 August, bring the book to school and place it in the boxes on the bag racks outside the music room.

We’re looking forward to seeing all your amazing costumes!

Ms Tafra

Classroom Music Teacher

From Helping Hands

From the P & C

Colour Blast Fun Run

We are ending Term 3 with a blast of colour and fun on Thursday 12 September with our first Colour Blast Fun Run.

The fun run involves all children running or walking through, over or under 4 inflatable obstacles on the school oval and being splattered with non-toxic colour powder.

You can get the idea from the pictures below and read more about it on the Colour Blast website at this link.

So that no kids are left out, we decided to pay the $10 cost for all students, but with the aim of fundraising over $7500 towards our annual contributions of around $20,000 to the school environment program, music program, etc.  

If your family would like to help us fundraise for the school, you can register your child at this link, then share the fundraiser’s personalised link to gain sponsors and donations from family and friends.  We have prizes for the classes on the fundraising leaderboard.

The more you raise, the more you can spend. For every $20.00 raised, you’ll earn $5.00 in gift card credit!  The Fundraise For Schools & Clubs gift card allows you to choose from hundreds of different in-store and online retailers.  Happy Fundraising!

This is our first year with a Colour Blast Fun Run but, if it succeeds, we hope to repeat it in future years.

** For those families who do not wish to register an online fundraising page, please contact the P&C, pandc@burandasspandc.org.au to advise so your child can still participate!! 

Tuckshop

Tuckshop this Friday, 23 August, has bacon, cheese and corn quiche, as well as vegetarian quiche options and lots of other yummy things.

Orders close on Qkr! at 8pm tonight.

If your child is in Budgie Cup this Friday, remember not to order tuckshop.

We still need more volunteers to make the tuckshop run. If you can spare a couple of hours on a Friday this term please sign up at this link.

Warm regards

Chris McGrath

P&C President

E: president@burandasspandc.org.au

M: 0432899097

P&C website: https://www.burandasspandc.org.au/

P&C on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BurandaPandC

Colour Blast Fun Run

From the Community