Term 1 Week 10 Newsletter

From the Principal - Mrs Walsh

Dear Families,

As Term 1 comes to a close, we want to take a moment to thank you for your support in making the start of the school year such a success. It has been a fantastic term filled with learning, community connections, and exciting events.

One of the highlights was Harmony Day, where students and staff came together to celebrate the rich diversity within our school community. The sea of orange, the cultural performances, and the shared stories reminded us all of the importance of inclusivity and respect.

We also welcomed families to our Parent-Teacher Interviews, providing a valuable opportunity to discuss student progress and learning goals. These conversations help us work together to support each child's growth and success.

Our Year 3 and Year 5 students completed their NAPLAN assessments. We are proud of the effort they are putting into their learning, and we know they tried their best. Remember, NAPLAN is just one measure of progress, and we encourage students to approach everything with confidence and a growth mindset.

Another exciting moment this term was the GRIP Leadership Conference, where our student leaders gained valuable insights into what it means to be a positive influence in their school community. They returned inspired and full of ideas to make a difference!

Looking ahead to Term 2, we are excited to continue our focus on Learning Intentions and Success Criteria in every classroom. These are key elements of effective teaching and learning:

• Learning Intentions clearly state what students are expected to learn in a lesson.

• Success Criteria help students understand how they can achieve that learning goal.

By making learning intentions and success criteria explicit, we empower students to take ownership of their learning and understand the steps needed to succeed.

Thank you once again for your ongoing support. We look forward to another great term ahead!

From the Deputy Principal - Mr Horridge

What a busy 10 weeks of learning, experiences and fun for our learning community. Students have been challenged to learn and try new things, as well extend themselves throughout the term.

Over the last two weeks, Teachers have been planning and preparing curriculum and learning for Term 2, and it is exciting to see the innovative and relevant content that will help engage, grow and support learning for all students.

It has been incredible to see the distance travelled for our prep students in all aspects of schooling.  They have settled in very well and will now build on what they have learnt, in and out of the classroom, and continue to blossom.  Bring on Term 2.

Wishing our families and community a wonderful break.

Get Happier Project

Any statement we repeat to others or ourselves is an affirmation of any underlying belief.  Our self-talk reflects our beliefs, and our beliefs reflect our self-talk. Imagine a child facing life with a positive attitude, ‘can do attitude’. Now imagine them facing life with the negative mindset of the Dead-End Roads. We can help children become strong and more effective by teaching them to manage their own thinking.

OPEN ROAD AFFIRMATIONS

Open Roads reflect a belief in our ability to be in control of our own life and take responsibility for our actions. If we have realistic, affirming and encouraging self-talk, we will have the mindset which enables us to persist and develop creative solutions to our problems.

VS

DEAD END ROAD AFFIRMATIONS

Dead End Road affirmations reflects a belief that we can either control others, or that we are helpless victims. When facing adversity or uncertainty, constant unrealistic or negative affirmations result in a tendency to control others or to give up.

First Aid in Schools

Empowering children to recognise and act in an emergency.

Thank you to the wonderful volunteers who attended Eight Mile Plains State School to engage students in important messages and skills of first aid.

St John Ambulance Queensland First Aid in Schools program is an initiative developed and designed exclusively for primary school students that empowers children to deliver vital first aid in an emergency and help save lives.

They believe First Aid education should be accessible to everyone. Last year they delivered this free program to 35 schools, empowering almost 13,000 students with the skills to administer vital First Aid in an emergency.

The main goal of this program is to empower students with life-saving skills in First Aid and resuscitation. The program engages students in interactive and age-appropriate fundamental First Aid activities and concepts led by qualified educators. The aim is to instil confidence in students to effectively handle emergency situations, contributing to building resilient and safety-conscious communities.

Prep - Grade 2

How to stay calm, safe and sensible, how to look for danger, recognising big and small accidents, how to get help, how to call 000 and describing your location.

Grades 3 and 4

How to stay calm, learning DRSAB in the action plan, how to call an ambulance, how to roll somebody who is unconscious and breathing into the Recovery Position.

Grades 5 and 6

How to stay calm, learning DRSABC in the action plan, how to call an ambulance, how to roll somebody in the Recovery Position, how to perform CPR on an unconscious and not breathing patient.

First Aid Action Hero is a free app for children aged 5+. This app was designed by St John Ambulance Australia to teach and reinforce first aid fundamentals from the First Aid in Schools Program through a fun and engaging gamified experience. It is available on The Apple App Store for any aspiring young hero!

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From Head of Cirriculum - Mrs Simpson

Parent – Teacher Interviews

Earlier this week, Eight Mile Plains State School parents and carers were invited to attend Parent-Teacher Interviews. This time provided a wonderful opportunity for families to connect with our school, and for teachers to share valuable information regarding student progress.

It was encouraging to see such a positive response from our school community, with many parents/carers engaging in the afternoon. We would like to thank families for their time and ongoing commitment to strengthening our community relationships.

As we move forward, we would like to encourage parents/carers to continue an open line of communication with your child's teachers. Your ongoing involvement and feedback are vital in shaping the learning experience and ensuring that we continue to meet the individual needs of each student.

As always, please feel free to forward any feedback in regard to the Parent-Teacher Interview process to the school, so that we can continue to make improvements for future sessions. Please contact Nichol Simpson (Head of Department – Curriculum) nsimp20@eq.edu.au

Happy Holidays

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our EMP students and their families a safe and restful holiday break.

We look forward to seeing you back next term!

News from Mr Minchin - New Cross Country Date - Thursday 24th April

Dear Parents and families,

The EMPSS Cross Country will now be held on Thursday April 24th, the first week of Term 2, on the school oval.  We welcome you to join us and support our runners on the day - feel free to bring a chair and make yourself comfortable!

When you arrive, please make your way to the Undercover Area and the adjacent marked grass area – please do not walk onto the running track to take photographs.

Our junior students are running in their class year groups. Only students eligible for Logan District trials will be competing in their year of birth. Please see the timetable below for approximate race times (note: this is a guide only as we cannot guarantee the exact times for each event on the day).

We look forward to seeing you there,

Brenton Minchin
HPE Teacher

News from Busy Bees - Mrs Scharf

News from Prep B - Miss Lang

Learning in Prep B

Congratulations on finishing your first term of Prep! Personally, I can’t believe we have already completed our first 10 weeks of school!

Literacy

This term there has been lots of learning about letters and sounds and how to use these to make and read words. We have been enjoying listening and talking about stories to make a connection to us and our families. We have a been learning to make artworks and drawings to accompany our literacy learning. Please see our ‘dangerous dinosaurs’ that we drew after reading the story Dinosaur Sleepover!

Maths

In maths we have been learning about what makes a shape that shape, how to collect and record information, colour patterns and how to identify and work with numbers to ten. We really enjoy our hands on learning!

Learning Fun!

Science

Science has been extra fun with sensory explorations of different items from Miss Lang’s kitchen and garden and discovering how the weather affects what we are able to do each day.

Show and Share

Show and share has been particularly interesting where we have been learning about each other and our families. Thank you to all the families who have made such a big effort in sending in show and share each week.

Harmony Day

For Harmony Day we dressed up in cultural dress and orange and learned about working together and accepting everyone no matter who they are or where they are from.

VIP Time

Prep B enjoys VIP time – Very Important Person time where they get to explore their own choice of activity in the classroom. This helps us to work on our social skills such as sharing and turn taking, imaginative play, and how to care for our classroom.

News from 1A - Mrs Van Leer

Year 1A Photos

News from 1/2S - Mrs Stangherlin

1/2S

Congratulations on completing Term 1!

We have worked hard this term in Maths to learn all about numbers to 100, place value and skip counting forwards and backwards in 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and 10’s starting from any number. We worked on giving and following directions. We learned to collect and record data using tally marks in tables, to represent this as a picture and bar graph, and how to interpret the data.

In English, we are completing our retells of a familiar story. We have now added several new favourite authors to our list, in particular Matt Cosgrove (Macca the Alpaca, Dharma the Llama) and Aaron Blabey (Pig the Pug). Rhyming stories were very popular, so Lynley Dodd, Dr Suess or others may make some fun reads over the holidays as well!

We are still working away learning our letters and sounds. I encourage all students to continue practising these each night in preparation for some new sounds next term. You can do this writing letters, shopping lists, cards – any task where students need to read and write.

We have had so many exciting events this term. On Tuesday, we learned all about first aide and how to help others in need. We were encouraged to learn our addresses and parents’ phone numbers in case of an emergency. We dressed up in cultural dress or orange for Harmony Day and blue for Autism Awareness Day. Year 1’s attended a Street Science Incursion and made bouncy balls. A very fun and busy term.

In class, we are practising showing consideration for others and being self-managers. Students are encouraged to consider the needs of others before acting. As homework over the holidays, I encourage students to show consideration for their family members in whichever way they can. It may be as simple as keeping the volume down if someone has a headache, helping to carry in some groceries, saying, ‘Excuse me,” and waiting for their turn to speak rather than interrupting others, helping with the laundry, even offering a drink to a family member – it could be anything at all.

I hope you all have a happy, healthy and safe break, and look forward to seeing everyone back at school next term.

News from 2A - Mrs Nottage

News from Year 4 - Mrs Allen & Mr Lim

Term One is Almost Over – News from Year 4

We are fast approaching the end of the first and very exciting term of 2025. In just a few weeks we have faced a cyclone (a rare thing this far south), celebrated our diversity on Harmony Day, smiled our best smiles on photo day and learned about the steps to hopefully assist others in a first aid emergency. All this in addition to our regular class and specialist lessons.

We wish everyone a safe and relaxing Easter break and look forward to everyone returning safely and refreshed ready for Term 2.

Harmony Day – We took the opportunity as a school to celebrity our diversity on Friday 21^st March. Many of us wore cultural dress while the rest of us wore orange to show our support for the day.

Harmony Day

First Aid in Schools 

Last Thursday Year 4 had a visit from St Johns. We were shown how to enact the first 4 steps of DRSABCD (Danger, Response, Send for Help, Airways). We know that we need to check for danger because we can’t help anyone if we put ourselves in danger. In Australia we call 000 if we need the ambulance because some is badly hurt. We need to stay on the phone, tell them only what we know (see, smell, hear) and follow any instructions they give us.

We checked if our partner was breathing and then put them in the recovery position.

First Aid in Schools

Students of the Week

Congratulations to the following students for receiving

‘Student of the Week’ certificates at Parade in Week 9

Students of the Week

February Birthdays

Happy Birthday and Best Wishes

to

Sienna and Armaan

February Birthdays

March Birthdays

Happy Birthday and Best Wishes

to

Rydah, Laura, Sahi, Imad, Leilani and Arbes

March Birthdays

Be kind to each other

Rochedale State High School Year 7 Enrolment for 2026

Key Calendar Dates - Rochedale SHS Year 7 Enrolment 2026

2025 Uniform Shop Hours

The uniform shop hours have now returned to normal trading. 

Hours are every Thursday from 8am - 9am for all of your school uniform needs.