Wondall Heights State School eNewsletter

Welcome back to Term 2, a term like no other. The first week has been a significant adjustment for all members of the school community. I ask for the community’s patience as we work collectively and positively through problems and issues as they arise.

Roll Marking

A directive has been issued to schools to monitor and record students’ daily involvement with learning.

In response to this we have set up year level emails for Students or Parents to email each day, prior to 9am to indicate they have joined the online learning process. Using the relevant year level email students/parents are to put the student’s name in the subject header. No other message content is required and it will not be read.

Students / Parents will need to email the year level appropriate email below:

If you have children in multiple year levels you’ll need to send an email for each child to their year level address.

If your child is not engaging in online learning on a particular day due to illness, PARENTS or CARERS are requested, as per usual school processes to ring to leave a message 3906 6460 or QParents.

If an email has not been received from the student/parent indicating they are online or a message from a parent indicating their child is unwell PARENTS and CARERS will receive an SMS notification prior to the end of the day.

Suggestions for Parent to help Students work from Home Term 2:

Working from home and home schooling will no doubt have its challenges but also provides a great chance to better connect with the family. I found the following bank of suggestions to be relevant for families working to establish a positive work-from-home environment. Feel free to select, adopt, adapt or reject any of these ideas.

General Suggestions:

Student- Wake up at the time you would if you were attending school
Student- Complete some form of exercise/walk/ride
Student- Enjoy a healthy breakfast
Student- Help out with the family tasks – make it an offer to your parents
Student- Check your school emails and any other platforms that you are instructed to use.
Student- Have a Monday to Friday Timetable for your learning and other tasks.
Parents- The home-school day can and will be different to the at-school timetable.
Parents- Be flexible and check-in with your child’s teacher.

Student learning Space (respect for your working environment)

Your learning space should be tidy, comfortable and as quiet as possible
Always be respectful of any shared spaces in your house

Student Clothing (respect for self)

Do not wear your pyjamas all day
Dress in neat, casual clothes when completing work

Student Equipment (respect for working environment)

Ensure your home device is ready and you know your MIS ID login and password
Test all applications and platforms required to make sure they are working
Have a pens/pencils and paper ready
Use headphones if necessary
Turn your phone and other non-learning devices off or to silent and move it away from your workspace to avoid distraction and temptation.
Remove any other distractions.

Student Etiquette (respect for others)

Be polite, appropriate and respectful in how you communicate be it online, adults at home and with your siblings (Respect for others)
If sending an email to a teacher, write it with an appropriate greeting and with correct language, grammar and spelling

Student Healthy Routines (respect for self)

Look for opportunities to be healthy
Drink at least two litres of water every day
Have a 15 minute break for every 45 minutes of work
Have a healthy morning tea and lunch at the same time each day

Students Being Productive

Manage your time efficiently.
Use your time for learning.
As required, complete any set work and submit it on time using the correct methods.
Spend time revising any items you don’t understand and be sure to ask questions (by email or other nominated platform)
Years 4 -6 check your school email throughout the day.

Parent resources to support remote learning

Listed below are additional resources to assist parents in supporting remote learning for their children.

The 'Parent information' section of the Australian Curriculum website has useful materials for parents and carers.
The Department of Education has a number of online tools and resources to support students through learning@home: https://education.qld.gov.au/curriculum/learning-at-home
ABC TV Education https://www.abc.net.au/tveducation/programs/primary/
ABC Online content https://education.abc.net.au/home#!/home
Scholastic has launched a free "Learn at Home" website that has daily courses for students from Pre-kindergarten to grades 6 and higher.

Cyber safety As the students' time at home and online increases, I thought it may be timely to share with you links on how to control and deal with cyber issues from home.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/big-issues

https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/aus-global-parent-online-safety-advice.pdf

Anzac Day, 25 April, is one of Australia’s most important national occasions. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.

It goes beyond the anniversary of the landing on Gallipoli in 1915. It is the day on which we remember all Australians and New Zealanders who served and died in war and on operational service. The spirit of Anzac, with its qualities of courage, mateship and sacrifice, continues to have meaning and relevance for our sense of national identity.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

Anzac Day 2020 will be unlike any other. For the first time in a century there will be no suburban dawn services, mid-morning marches or school services.

This year, Australians are asked to stand in their driveways at 6.00am as an acknowledgement and sign of respect for our current and past armed services men and women.

Please email a photo of your child/ren marking ANZAC Day in your driveways to jdunc93@eq.edu.au and we’ll publish them in a PPT and email out to parents. Only email your photo if you’re happy for it to be shared with the Wondall Heights community.

Today’s growth mindset quote of the day …

It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.

Confucius

Thank you for your understanding as we navigate our way through a new way of working.

Melissa

ANZAC Day – 25^th April 2020

For many families and students of Wondall, ANZAC day will be remembered in different ways to previous years. Due to the current health situation we are unable to hold a ceremony at school or participate in the local march but we can still remember.

The Australian Government and the Department of Veteran Affairs encourages us all to privately commemorate ANZAC Day. The service from the Australian War Memorial will be televised nationally to enable us all to watch from our homes. There will also be a range of other commemorative activities broadcast throughout the day.

Below you will find a number of links that will support you in commemorating ANZAC Day.

Story read by Mrs Kondys – Lest we Forget by K.Brown

Zones of Regulation

Positive and negative emotions are part of life. Zones of Regulations has been used by staff at Wondall to support explicit instruction of emotions. Students have been working on identifying when they might feel different emotions, how their body responds to emotions and how to respond to different emotions in a positive way.

Inside Out is a movie that explores the emotions of a little girl called Riley. The story takes place inside the mind of Riley. Throughout the movie we meet the five characters that represent her emotions: Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear. This movie provides great opportunity to open the discussion with your child/ren about their emotions. While watching this movie ask your child/ren how they would manage the different emotions observed and the strategies they would use to help them respond in a positive way.

As we begin a period in where many students will learn from home, remember that a lot of learning comes from the conversations and experiences we have with our children, not just the tasks and activities we ask them to complete.

Conversations and experiences with our children are valuable to promote learning when we give insight into our own thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Children don’t know what they don’t know. As adults, making our own thoughts, feelings and perceptions explicit can help children gain a better understanding of the world around them and open up a whole new way of thinking and learning. This process is called ‘Thinking Aloud’.

Some ways in which we can ‘think aloud’ are as follows:

You can ‘Think Aloud’ through nearly any activity, whether it be reading, cooking, gardening, driving or visiting a new place.

An example of this would be as you approach a school zone and see the school zone sign. Does your child actually know what the sign means?

The curriculum delivery this term is looking very different for all involved. Thank you to the school community for their support and understanding throughout these early stages. Staff have worked exceptionally well to develop the year level edStudios for online learning. To find the edStudios please log into the learning place and search WHSS year ? to find your child’s resources.

You may need to download the Adobe Reader to be able to access PDF documents from this site.

Here is a link to a video from our Head of Inclusion, Sarah Moscoso with some tips on making online learning tasks more accessible for students by supporting their Executive Functioning.

If you find your child is able to understand tasks but struggles to organise the task, get started or focus on the important elements – this is for you!