We’ve had a great four weeks of learning with students quickly settling into their new classrooms and learning routines. New friendships are blossoming within classrooms, across cohorts and across our school. Our Year 6 Peer Leaders have started their play break buddy support in the Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 playgrounds during our first play break. It is a delight to see our Year 6 school leaders connecting so positively with our younger learners and enhancing our family feel at Sunshine Beach State School.

Attendance

Our 2025 goal is 93% attendance across the school. Sunshine Beach State School families have always done a great job in ensuring children are at school on time and only missing days from school attendance when they are sick or attending medical / health appointments. At four weeks into the 2025 school year, our attendance rate is currently 94.2%. Our role at school, is to create and provide a range of learning and extracurricular activities that engage our students and maintain a fun, joyful, need fulfilling school environment. I encourage all parents / carers to support their child/ren to attend school with the highest levels of attendance.

Research aligns with high levels of attendance at school supporting students to achieve better when they go to school all day, every school day because:

• learning opportunities are maximised,
• deep, positive friendships are developed and maintained,
• curriculum progression is seamless,
• self-efficacy as a learner is developed

Please reach out to the school if you require any support to maximise your child’s attendance. From time to time, a short-term interruption to schooling may be in response to family situations or holidays. Should a planned absence of 10 days or more be required, please contact the school office so that the appropriateness of exemption paperwork can be considered. In general, exemptions from school that are approved will be less than four weeks and will only be approved once in a 12-month period. We encourage parents to consider holiday timing that has the lowest level of impact on number of school days affected.

Your child’s ENGLISH assessment for Term 1 2025

With the implementation of the new Version 9 Australian Curriculum, all students (Prep to Year 6) will be assessed on Speaking and Listening skills for their Term 1 English Assessment. This includes using features of voice such as volume, tone, pace, pitch, fluency as well as supporting gestures and eye contact. Students will need to express an opinion in their speaking task and will use relevant details and vocabulary from studied texts.

You can support at home to be further prepared for these learning tasks by:

• Reading together: Regularly read books aloud to your child and encourage them to read aloud. This can help improve fluency and tone.
• Role-Playing: Engage in role-playing activities where your child can practice different speaking roles and scenarios.
• Storytelling: Encourage your child to tell stories, both real and imaginary, to develop their narrative skills and expressive gestures.
• Practicing speeches: Have your child prepare and deliver short speeches on topics they are passionate about to practice their pitch and volume control.
• Providing positive reinforcement: Give positive feedback on their speaking efforts and gently guide them on areas for improvement.
• Using technology: Record your child’s speeches or conversations and play them back for self-reflection and feedback.
• Creating a safe environment: Provide a supportive and non-judgmental space for your child to express themselves.

QParents

Thanks to all our families who have completed their registration with QParents. If you need some assistance to complete this, please contact our office staff and we will be most happy to support you with this registration. It is an important communication tool for excursions, incursions, extra-curricular as well as providing general permission for aspects of schooling. To ensure that you are fully informed of all school events for your child, please prioritise your family’s QParents registration.

Meet the Teacher Afternoons

It was wonderful to see so many parents / carers engaging with our teachers for the ‘Meet the Teacher’ afternoons. I hope you found this helpful to develop a connection with your child’s teacher, the classroom environment, and the year level curriculum priorities.

P&C Class Reps

A BIG THANK YOU to the parents who have nominated as our P&C Class Reps. The communication within our class groups supports the development of that ‘family feel’ across our school. We are still calling for a P&C Parent Class Rep for 2AQ, 3BG, 5B and 4/5RB. Please contact your class teacher or email Maree (BM) if you have the capacity to help. It really is a low workload role which has huge rewards for your children.

Our nominated P&C Parent Class Reps are invited to attend a ‘getting to know each other’ morning tea at school on Thurs 27 February at 8.30am. We will run through the ways of working and communication tools to support our new P&C Parent Class Reps to do a wonderful job in this role.

Lisa Cutter (Acting Principal)