Issue 14, 9th September 2022

From the Principal

Yura families,

Hilliard State School’s Explicit Improvement Agenda for 2022 has had a strong focus on the work of Lynn Sharratt. Lynn is a renowned author across the world with her knowledge of good practice leading to school improvement. Over three days this week, we were able to work with schools from all over the region to learn and plan from this expert. Hilliard SS sent five staff members, including members of the leadership team, coaching team and teaching team, to be challenged and learn.  We are excited to develop goals for 2023 and continue to strengthen the already amazing teaching that is occurring at Hilliard State School.

This week we were able to send two of our First Nation students, with Mr Craig, to the Quandamooka Camp.  This camp’s focus is on building a deeper understanding of the First Nation’s culture and building a strong community of learning.  I was privileged to be invited for a day for Principals to develop an understanding of culture and community. Thank you to the sponsors of this wonderful camp and for their commitment to our Quandamooka people.

Our Positive Engagement for Learning team have decided to spend the last two weeks of this term focussing on kindness.  There are a range of learning activities occurring within the school including:

• Acknowledging acts of kindness in each other
• Canned Food Drive – bringing a can of food to share with a local charity
• Wearing ‘rainbow’ colours on Tuesday, 13^th September
• Class activities

We look forward to celebrating kindness across the school and within the community.

Just a reminder to everyone that if you have a concern with any practices or processes within our school community please reach out to your child/ren’s class teacher, inclusion teacher, Deputy Principal or myself.  Education is a team effort and we gain improvement by working together.  We can’t assist, if we don’t know.

We would like to thank, Mr Don Brown (MP), for inviting our school captains, school leaders and P & C representatives to Qld State Parliament last night. It was an honour to be provided with a personalised guided tour and learn many stories of the interesting history and day to day workings of our state government. Thanks also for the lovely roof top dinner with spectacular city views to finish the tour.

We are looking forward to seeing our Hilliard Dance students perform one last time this Saturday, 10^th September 2022.  Come along and watch our fantastic students - they would love your support. We will also be having special guest performances from Hi-NRG, Alexandra Hills State High School and Lucid Moves. These performances will not want to be missed. For more information, please see Facebook.

Thank you to the P&C for providing the wonderful Father’s Day stall.  I know we appreciate having this service available to save us taking them shopping.  It also raised valuable money for our school community to put towards playgrounds.  Looking forward to our next big event… the Colour Run!

Thanks

Leanne Witham

Principal

From the School Leadership Team

Celebrating Positive Engagement & Behaviour at Hilliard SS

As we come towards the end of term, teachers will be collating reward points that students have been earning through making good choices with their behaviour in and out of the classroom. Students who have earned a badge this term will be able to choose one of the rewards on offer to them. These will occur across Week 1 of next term.

Keep an eye out for the following certificate that students will be bringing home. If you have any questions about the badges or rewards, please don’t hesitate to contact your child/ren’s class teachers.

Congratulations to all our Hilliard Heroes who work hard every day to make good choices which help them engage positively with their learning. We look forward to seeing you proudly wearing your new badges on your school hats.

Students who have not earned badges this term will continue to be able to work towards earning a badge next term.

Book Week Celebrations

Thank you to everyone who joined us, either in person or via the Facebook live stream, for our Book Week 2022 parade. It was fantastic to see so many students dressed up as their favourite book characters and many of our staff as well! We all had a wonderful time walking together as a parade around the school grounds, to the sounds of music that worked with this year’s theme of “Dreaming with eyes open”.

Once the parade was over, all students went back to their classrooms and shared in reading a book. It was a fun way to celebrate Hilliard’s love of reading and the importance of reading for children’s education. Please enjoy some photos from the event.

Bookweek Gallery

Inclusion at Hilliard State School

You may have heard about changes happening in our SSC. We are making some changes to implement the Department of Education Inclusion Policy. 

Inclusion in its simplest term means ensuring every child, no matter what their individual needs or barriers to learning, has equal access to learning and the same opportunities to succeed.  Inclusion at Hilliard State School is not just about providing additional support to children with special needs.  It is about creating a learning environment that works for ALL students.

We would like to invite you to a Community session, hosted at Hilliard SS, where the Inclusion Capability Facilitator from South East Region – Terri Ann Ferguson, will talk about what Inclusion is and what it looks like in our schools.  Please register your interest in attending via the link in the flyer below.  This session is open to our whole community, including parents from neighbouring schools.

One of the changes that we have made recently is in how we explicitly teach social skills to our students.  We value the time available for curriculum delivery and acknowledge that all students need to maximise their time in classrooms learning. This means that students are no longer taken out of class to attend weekly social skills lessons.  The Inclusion teachers work closely with the classroom teachers to identify specific needs with regards to social skills and together they plan for the explicit teaching of these skills in the classroom, in authentic and purposeful ways.  The team uses the Personal and Social Capability from the Australian Curriculum to guide planning in this area.  This capability is focused on helping students learn to understand themselves and others, and manage their relationships, lives, work and learning more effectively.  This capability is identified across all learning areas within the curriculum.  Please come and see one of the Inclusion team for more information or click on this link to the Australian Curriculum. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/personal-and-social-capability/

From Your Friendly Office Staff

Yura Hilliard families,

Wow!  Welcome to the final newsletter for term 3! We still have a few more action-packed days to get through before the end of term.  Next Tuesday our Instrumental Music students are treating us to a performance, we can’t wait!  Tuesday is also our dress up day to finish our Random Acts of Kindness week.  We can’t wait to see everyone dressed in all the colours of the rainbow!  Then our year five students are off to Tallebudgera on Wednesday through to Friday.

Volunteer Positions Available: We are in desperate need of volunteers to assist with managing our lost property.  We have lockers in the year 3&4 undercover area that are full of misplaced items.  Volunteers would be required to sort through the items and take any named items to classrooms etc...  Please contact the office on 3820 1666 or pop in and see us!

We wish everyone a safe and happy final week of term 3, and a wonderful end of term break. We will see you in term 4!

Term 3 Event Calendar

Term 4 Event Calendar

Quandamooka Jarjums Camp

Yura Families,
This week two of our year 6 Jarjums, Emilee and Amelia, attended the Quandamooka Camp at Cylinder Beach on Stradbroke Island with Mr Craig. 
Over 3 days they participated in a range of different activities with 37 other Jarjums from local schools.  These activities included culture talks with Uncle Matthew and Uncle Mark; students were taught the history of First Nations people from the late 1850’s until now; practiced a number of welcome dances which they performed as a group for visiting guests including camp sponsors, Elders and principals from participating schools, including our very own Mrs Witham! 
A special thank you to Dunwich SS and all camp sponsors for organising this wonderful camp for our Jarjums to attend. 
We all had an amazing time learning more about our culture and building new friendships with others. 
Stay Deadly!

Instrumental Music News

Well done to the students who took part in the interschool band workshops last week. We look forward to playing for the school community next Tuesday 13^th September at 12:40pm in the school hall.

Recruitment for the 2023 instrumental music program will be starting soon. Current students in years 3 to 5 are welcome to apply. Click on the link attached to read more about the program and to express your child’s interest.   https://hilliardss.schoolzineplus.com/form/36 

HSS Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week! 🌈

On Tuesday 6^th September our school launched the 'HSS Random Acts of Kindness' (RAK) week. The purpose of this week is, that as a school community, we can help create a culture of kindness in our classrooms, on the playground and throughout the local community. Therefore, our 'Expectation of the Week' (for Weeks 9-10) will be what RAK looks, sounds, and feels like.

To be successful, teachers and staff will discuss opportunities with our students to practice RAK in and outside of the classroom. For example, to practice core kindness concepts of respect, caring, inclusiveness, integrity, responsibility, courage. We would love it if families also got on board to have these conversations at home. What RAK did your family notice recently? How did that make you feel? Wonder? Do next?

To celebrate the last day of RAK week (Tuesday 13th September), students and the school community are invited to wear a colour of the rainbow and bring in a 'can of kindness'; that is, a can of food which will be donated to a local charity.

Thank you for helping us celebrate what it means to be KIND!!

Sport

Well done to the HSS basketball teams for their enthusiastic participation in the Basketball Osprey Cup held at Wellington Point State High School on Wednesday. Both the senior and junior teams put in their best effort in all games.

The senior team showed persistence to work the ball down the court for scoring opportunities against hard defence in all games. The team had very close contests against Gumdale SS and also Wellington Point SS, which ended as a 4 all draw. The best and fairest player named by WPSHS officials for our senior team was Tayne . The most valuable player for the team was Jacob .

The junior team had a very competitive game against the Ormiston SS senior girls’ team in a scratch match and displayed great teamwork in their game against Birkdale South SS, winning the game 6-0. The best and fairest player named by WPSHS officials for our junior team was Hamish . The most valuable player for the team was Ryan .

Thank you to Mrs Barton for her help with the organisation of the students throughout the day and thank you to all of the parents who came to support the teams.

Update from Coach Lee

Coach Lee has been very busy with his "Little People Project".  He has sent us some sneak peek photos to share.  We can't wait to see them along our fence!

Little People Project

Hilliard Breakfast Club

This week was the last breakfast club for term 3 as next week Coach Lee will be attending the Year 5 Camp, so unfortunately there will be no breakfast club.

Thank you to everyone who has sent in donations for Breakfast Club - we have had an amazing response.  We will see you again in term 4!  Have a safe and happy break.

Lunch Time Clubs

September 2022 P and C News

The Tucker Box

Hello again from the Hilliard Tuckerbox!

We are nearly at the end of Term 3 which can mean only one thing… It’s time to prepare for our new kitchen!

In week 10 we will be open on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we will be closed on Thursday and Friday so we can pack up and clean out our creative space to prepare for renovations. We will send out plenty of reminders on our Hilliard Tuckshop Facebook Page so please keep an eye out.

Speaking of our Facebook Page, have you joined? It’s the best way to stay across all of the happenings within our tuckshop.  We post meal deals, new menu items and old favourites and any info you need to keep up to date.

With our new kitchen on its way, we have decided that our long-standing mascot, the Kookaburra, needs a name! We have asked students from the junior school to submit their suggestions via a competition, with the winner being drawn in Week 2 of Term 4. We would love a First Nations name to pay homage to his native species so if your little person is struggling to think of one, parents please jump on Google and get involved 😊

We have delicious chicken schnitzel subs on the menu for the rest of the term and are excited about bringing you new snacks in term 4.

We would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all of our volunteers that continue to support us with their time helping in the tuckshop, without them we would simply be lost! If you would like to volunteer in the tuckshop, it is as simple as turning up! We would love to welcome you with a smile and a free barista quality coffee from our new coffee machine 😊

Love and Smiles

Mrs Kat and Ms Courtney

Upcoming 2022 events:

• Colour Run 7^th Oct
• Outdoor Movie on the Oval 26^th Nov
• Xmas stall 1^st & 2^nd Dec

Containers For Change

Our P&C coordinates our "Containers for Change" recycling scheme to raise additional funds for our school.

There are orange bins placed around the school to collect any containers students might have at break times, or alternatively you can donate containers directly at any depot and use the following code:

Hilliard State School Scheme Id #C10161576

This ID can be used across Queensland, so any family members further afield can contribute too. For more information on what containers are eligible, see www.containersforchange.com.au

Community Notices