Banana State School Newsletter

Term 1 2020 Week 7 Principal’s News Thanks

Many thanks to Jason Dales, Rob Haley and Craig Jones for

their great work in reinstalling the spectators’ seats in our

shed.

Clean Up Australia Day - February 28th February 2020

The Prep, Yr 1 and Yr 2

students were kept very

busy cleaning up the

school grounds under the

watchful eyes of Miss

Rynne, Mrs Stevens and

Mrs Jones. They did a

wonderful job of making

our school grounds look

clean and tidy.

Leah, Flynn and Zoey

Butler teamed up with

Cecilia Kurtz to weed

the playground that

incorporates our old

fort. This was a huge

task and eventually

all students of our

school pitched in to

give Leah a helping

hand.

Thank you, Mrs Kurtz, for organising this event for our school.

Mrs Kurtz and her trusty band of Yr 3 helpers found some of the

most amazing trash at the Banana Park - mind you, they thought it

was treasure.

Mrs Haley and some of our

Yrs 3 and 4 students gave a

thumbs up to show their

support for working to

keep the Banana

community clean.

Fiona and our Yrs 5 & 6

girls hit the highway.

They had the front of our

school looking really

smick.

Of course, Mr Donohoe’s mowing marathon made

all the difference. Many thanks to Dan for assisting us with

the upkeep of our grounds - it is great for every member of our

community to be able to take pride in our school.

Mrs Butler and our

Yrs 5 and 6 boys took

care of the weeds but

there were some

tense moments when

they mistakenly took

care of some young

plants as well.

Obviously, they need

more practice looking

after their Mums’

gardens at home on

the weekends.

Thank you to the P&C for providing

our students with a cool, refreshing

icy cup at the end of the day -

green and yellow ones of course!

Matilda and Chase expressed their

appreciation on behalf of all of our

students and they are looking forward

to the next event in 2020 when they can

work with the Banana P&C again.

Week 10 Open Day - Monday 30th March 2020

You’re invited to join us between 1.00 - 3.00 pm on Monday,

30th March when we are having an Open Day to celebrate and

showcase the achievements of our students in Term 1.

Please mark this date on your calendar and keep it free so that

you don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity to share your

child’s learning journey in this first term of the year.

I’m certain that you will be amazed by some of the wonderful

things that will have been achieved!

NAPLAN Why NAPLAN is moving to online. All schools are moving to NAPLAN Online by 2021

as the online format will change NAPLAN for the better. One of

the main benefits of NAPLAN Online is tailored (or adaptive)

testing, in which the test presents questions of higher or lower

complexity depending on a student’s performance, resulting in a

more engaging assessment and more precise results.

This year, between 12 and 22 May, our school will be

doing NAPLAN Online. NAPLAN assesses literacy and numeracy skills that students are

already learning at school. On its own, NAPLAN is not a test

that can be studied for and students are not expected to do so.

NAPLAN is just one aspect of our school’s assessment and

reporting process – it does not replace ongoing assessments

made by teachers about student performance; however, students

and parents may use individual results to discuss progress with

teachers.

Read the NAPLAN Online information brochure for parents and

carers. To see the format of the online tests, visit the public

demonstration site.

Elaine Pelling

Our Improvement Priority for 2020 is - Challenging learning for every student, in every classroom, every day.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which Banana State School is built, the Gangulu

people.

Miss Rynne’s News

English

Students have commenced exploring task two of their

English unit. All students are learning to give an

imaginative response. Prep are retelling events in the

beginning and end of a known story. They will also

draw a character from the story and experiment to

write sentences with capital letters, finger spaces, full

stops, sight words and familiar words from the book.

Year 1 are writing a retell about the beginning,

middle and end of a familiar story. Students are

ensuring they make their writing interesting by using

nouns, noun groups, adjectives, verbs and adverbs

from the story. Year 2 are writing a fantasy narrative

using a character from a familiar story. Students are

learning to plan ideas for a fantasy short story with

three parts: orientation, complication and resolution.

Spelling

Prep have been very busy over the last seven weeks!

They have learnt fourteen new letters so far! Miss

Karen and I have been working collaboratively to

design hands on and age appropriate activities that

match the jolly phonics songs and actions. Students

have made snakes for ‘s’, created an ant for ‘a’,

played tennis for ‘t’, created an inky mouse for ‘i’

and pink pig for ‘p’, made an aeroplane for the ‘n’

sound, used castanets for ‘c’ and ‘k’, ate and created

a giant Easter egg for ‘e’, made an origami dog for

‘r’, had fun playing hopscotch for ‘h’, made yummy

marshmallows for ‘m’, played the drums for ‘d’ and

listened to a gurgling drain for ‘g’.

Design and Technology

Students have investigated some problems that can

occur on farms, and are designing solutions to fix

these problems. Problems that can occur are cows

getting stuck in mud, birds eating fruit from

trees/vegie patch, eagles and dingoes preying on

chickens, cows and sheep trampling the vegie patch

because the fence is broken etc. We know there are

much more! However, students decided to work

together to create a designed solution of a scarecrow.

Their solution was to put the scarecrow close to the

fruit trees/vegie patch to scare the birds away. The

scarecrow is now an extra member of our class, it has

scared me late in the afternoons on more than one

occasion!

Students’ Belongings

Please ensure all items brought to school from home

are labelled clearly with your child’s name. Objects

like hats and toys are the biggest priority. Many

students are leaving hats behind, and I can’t tell

who’s they are. If hats are left behind, they will be

put in the lost property box. There are similar issues

with toys being left in the playground or around the

school.

Water Bottles

Parents can you please ensure that students bring a

water bottle to school, especially Fridays. It makes it

easier and quicker for students to get access to a

drink of water when they have their water bottle with

them out on the tennis court. Thanks!

Once again, please don’t hesitate to come and have a

chat throughout the term if you have any concerns.

Jessica Rynne

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which Banana State School is built, the Gangulu

people.

Mrs Butler’s News

Parent Meeting Reminder

Don’t forget this afternoon at 3:15pm we will be

holding our Yr 5 Parent Meeting in the library. I

look forward to seeing you there.

Science

Last week, students in Yrs 3 & 4 conducted an

erosion investigation where they learnt that the more

water they poured onto their sandcastles, the more

erosion occurred. This learning will help them

prepare for their assessment in the coming weeks.

We would like to thank Mrs Urquhart for emailing

her photos of erosion to us. My email address is

kbutl61@eq.edu.au for anyone else wishing to do the

same.

Spellzone

This week students in Year 5 have commenced using

Spellzone to practise their spelling. These activities

can be accessed from home. Students will need to

see me to get their user names and passwords.

Design and Technology

Students in Yrs 5 & 6 have planned and designed

their school vegetable garden. Next Monday, they

will begin making their 3D model. They will need to

have all of their resources at the school by this

Friday. If you have anything that you think may be

useful, please don’t hesitate to drop it into the

classroom. I know that some students are looking for

onion or orange bags or any other item that can be

used as netting.

Maths

Our new topic in maths is Data representation and

interpretation. So far students have revisited

common sources of data collection as well as

collected and displayed data using various types of

graphs.

Staying healthy

With coughs and colds already prevalent, now is the

time to practice good hand and respiratory hygiene to

help protect against infections. Students are

reminded to cover their mouth and nose when

coughing and sneezing with a tissue, or cough into

their elbow, dispose of the tissue into a bin and wash

their hands afterwards. Students should be washing

their hands with soap and water regularly, especially

after using the toilet and before eating. I have hand

sanitiser on my desk for students to use, but it would

be a good idea for them to also carry one in their

lunch box to use as required.

Kay Butler

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which Banana State School is built, the Gangulu

people.

P&C and Community News Thank you to everyone who attended the AGM last week.

It was great to see a large number of parents involved with

our P&C again this year.

Thank you to all members who held positions last year

and took on the responsibility of their roles. We

appreciate your commitment.

Welcome to all our new members, we look forward to

seeing you involved in the P&C and can see great things

ahead for 2020.

The 2020 executive roles are as follows;

President: Nadine Kurtz

Vice President: Nicole Newman

Secretary: Philippa Galloway

Vice Secretary: Fiona Brumpton

Treasurer: Katie Jones

Vice Treasurer: Carl Anderson

Thanks also goes to Sue Jarvis who has resumed role as

Tuckshop Co-ordinator, Sarah Richmond as Safety Co-

ordinator and Steven McCamley as Maintenance Officer.

I wish you all the best in your roles for the year! Did you know Clean up Australia has been running for 30

years?! The Banana SS team made a great difference on

Clean Up Australia day, with 10 bags of rubbish collected

and a big area of grass removed from the playgrounds

also. Some of the interesting things we found included a

mouse trap, a shifting spanner, a toothbrush and three

socks! There were a lot of small plastics collected; with

over 31 straw wrappers in our haul around the school.

Make sure when you have a popper that you remember to

put the straw wrapper in the bin too before it blows away,

as every little piece of litter adds up. There were a couple

of aluminium cans which we will return to the container

refund scheme for 10 cents. Remember to collect yours at

home too! Thank you to everyone who lent a hand on

Friday, it is a great initiative to be a part of. This Friday the P&C are opening the tuckshop for

children attending the Cricket gala Day. If you are able to

lend a hand for a couple of hours it would be most

appreciated. We will be at the school from approx.

8:30am to set up and get things ready. If anyone would

like to donate some baking for the day it would also be

most appreciated. Only a week and a half to go until the Cent Sale!! There

are some AMAZING things up for grabs already with so

many generous local sponsors. If you have something to

donate as a prize, please pop it in either the tuckshop or up

to the admin office before Friday this week. There are a

few jobs that we will need help with next week in order to

get the day organised. Please see the list in the breezeway

and pop your name down where you can assist. Again,

any baking donations on the morning (or the day before)

would be most appreciated. We will be catering for up to

150 people so a slice or cake would be a great help.

Look forward to seeing everyone there!

Nadine Kurtz – P&C President

March

12th, 18th, 19th,

25th, 26th P-2 Reading Groups

12/03 Breakfast Club & Tuckshop

13/03 Cricket Gala Day – Banana SS

Yrs 3 - 6

19/03 Breakfast Club & Tuckshop

Prep Parent Meeting 3pm

22/03 P&C Cent Sale

26/03 Breakfast Club & Tuckshop

27/03 Cross Country – Banana SS

30/03 Open Day 1:00 – 3:00pm

April

1st, 2nd P-2 Reading Groups

02/04 DV Cross Country – Bauhinia SS

Breakfast Club & Tuckshop

03/04 Final Day Term 1

20/04 Day 1 Term 2

Tuesday,

Wednesday &

Thursday

Homework Club

8:15 – 8:45am

05/06

19/06

Athletics Carnival

DV Athletics Carnival

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which Banana State School is built, the Gangulu

people.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which Banana State School is built, the Gangulu

people.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which Banana State School is built, the Gangulu

people.