12 Sept 2025

A Message from Our Principal

Canteen Update

We're excited to announce that the school canteen will officially reopen in Week 2 of Term 4. This timing allows us to use Week 1 to prepare thoroughly and ensure everything is ready for a successful grand opening. We’ve listened closely to student feedback and are thrilled to be expanding the menu to better cater for a variety of dietary needs as well as new initiatives focused on sustainability, improved menu visibility both onsite and online, and the introduction of cash payments as an additional option for students.

Over the holidays we will also have two brand new cold, filtered water chillers with both tap and drink bottle refill options installed in the canteen vicinity. We’re excited about these positive changes and look forward to seeing everyone at the canteen soon!

3C Priority Update: Culture – Safe, Supportive, Collaborative

Student Voice

A message from our School Captains

I am so incredibly thankful to the Shailer Park State High School community for accepting me as their 2025 Cultural Captain, and as my leadership role comes to an end, I’d like to reflect on my year and some of the valuable things I have learned.

This year taught me about the invaluable nature of connection. Connecting with your peers, teachers, friends, family and the community around you. This connection is what brings us all together and drives change.

In 2025, there has been a lot of change, a lot of progress, and many steps towards creating and maintaining a space where people of all cultures can feel seen, heard, represented, and welcomed. From the incredible opportunity to have a Yarning Circle at our school thanks to the efforts of staff to developing plans for further, more diverse cultural celebrations, 2025 has been an eventful year full of chances to celebrate our multiculturalism.

I would like to thank all of you, the community, staff, family of students, and the students themselves for having me as your Cultural Captain and trusting me to represent your best interests. It has been a wonderful experience and taught me many important things: connection, resilience, and how to help those around me.

Thank you all so much for the opportunity to step up, show up, and represent our school with pride and enthusiasm. I wish the best of luck for the 2026 School Captains and cannot wait to see how they continue our school’s legacy.

My name is Lorelei Ryan, and I am the Community Captain for 2025. This year has brought on challenges and successes, opportunities and failures, and it has been such a welcome opportunity to serve the community from backstage. 

I have had so many amazing opportunities to meet so many wonderful people of the community and make meaningful connections with so many.

To me, being able to make these connections and to meet with and speak with so many of you - the people who build and make this community what it is - is such a wonderful thing.

So I thank you, the community, for the opportunities and the chance to stand here representing you all.

As the 2025 Academic School Captain I have been honoured to work with and lead our amazing student leadership team this year alongside my fellow captains.

I truly hope to have left a lasting legacy of forever learning both in and outside the classroom and throughout our incredible community.

Thankyou for your time and I wish the best to future of our student leadership team - I know many great things are still to come! 

As my time as School Sport Captain comes to an end, I want to thank the school community for the support and encouragement I have received throughout the year.

It has been an honour to work with the school community in planning and running major sporting events such as the Colour Run, athletics carnival, and swimming carnival.

I am grateful for the chance to represent our school and for the pride and spirit shown by everyone in our school community.

Introducing the Student Leadership Academy

From Term 4, 2025, Shailer Park SHS will launch the Student Leadership Academy, a formal academy pathway designed to elevate and extend student leadership opportunities across the school.

Unlike in the past where leadership development occurred through ad-hoc sessions or lunchtime activities, the Student Leadership Academy will be built into the weekly RISE timetable as a 70-minute session. Students will participate in a structured leadership curriculum covering skills such as public speaking, project management, peer mentoring, and cultural intelligence.

Key features of the new model include:

• Timetabled leadership development – alternating with RISE and ECP preparation to ensure balance between career planning and leadership growth.

• Curriculum-aligned framework – embedding leadership into ACARA’s general capabilities.

• Real-world experiences – including event planning, mentoring, feeder school outreach, guest speakers, and conferences.

• Formal academy recognition – celebration of student achievements.

This shift means leadership is no longer just about holding a title — it’s a recognised academy pathway that provides all student leaders with equitable access to training, resources, and opportunities to make an impact. We are excited to see our 2026 leaders take part in this new journey and set the standard for the years ahead!

3C Priority Update: Classrooms – Effective Teaching and Learning

Arts Update

Our arts students have been busily rehearsing and preparing for several events over the past few months and we are so proud of their hard work, dedication and talent. 

Music:

All of our instrumental music ensembles competed in QUOTA Beenleigh Eisteddfod and performed incredibly well with tough competition. We are delighted to say that Symphonic Winds and Jazz Band both won first place in their respective categories. Congratulations to all students and thank you to Ms Heine, Mrs Valler, Ms Baker and Ms Thomson for your unwavering dedication to our students and community. 

Dance:

Our Ignite students are burning bright with incredible results across all eisteddfods they have competed in this year. Not only are they consistently placing in tough competitions; they are doing us proud winning ‘spirit’ awards for their positivity and encouragement of others. You can catch them at their end of year showcase at Kingston Butter Factory Butterbox Theatre on the 18th of September - get your tickets before they sell out! Thank you Miss White for your constant positive guidance and expertise. 

Drama:

Our senior drama club students have blown us away both at the Beenleigh Drama Festival where they took out first place for Best Play (youth) and Ipswich Drama Festival. At Ipswich they won:

• Best Supporting Actress: Kate - Pick Me Girls
• 2nd Best Play: Pick Me Girls
• Best Costuming: Pick Me Girls
• Best Australian Original Script: Pick Me Girls
• Adjudicators Award for Acting: Isaac – The Other Side of Now
• Adjudicators Award for Scriptwriting: The Other Side of Now by Ave

These scripts were written and directed by the students supported by Mr Harreman and Mrs Timms and these results are a reflection on their passion, talent and hard work. Congratulations to all involved! 

Visual Art:

We have been busily preparing art for assessment and had past student Natalia come and talk with students about her experiences working as an emerging visual artist. This connection to community is incredibly inspirational and meaningful for our students. Soon, several of our students will have their works displayed in the Artwaves exhibition at Logan Art Gallery from 13th of September until the 1st of November. 

You will be able to see many of these performances and artworks yourself at our bi-annual arts celebration, Artstravaganza, on Monday the 13th of October at SPSHS. Please join us on this day to celebrate these students and many more. 

Year 10 Media

In Unit 1, Year 10 Media students created non-verbal films, exploring the visual power of storytelling without dialogue.

To celebrate their hard work, the class held a special screening session. During the viewing, students were asked to give thoughtful feedback on the three production elements they felt were used most effectively in each film.

The responses were tallied, and each student received a personalised certificate recognising their top three strengths as identified by their peers. It was a fantastic celebration of creativity, collaboration and achievement.

Well done to all!

3C Priority Update: Curriculum - Guaranteed and Viable, Data and Differentiation

Attendance Update

Definitions

Truancy: Unexplained or secretive absences where the student skips school without parent/guardian knowledge.

School Avoidance:  A student exhibits a pattern of behaviours characterized by attempts to avoid attending school or certain aspects of school. Unlike truancy, school avoidance is often accompanied by observable distress and occurs with the knowledge of parents or carers and can occur is singularity or short bursts, sometimes progressing into School Refusal.

School Refusal: A student experiences significant emotional distress about attending school. Unlike truancy, the student doesn’t attempt to hide their absence, and parents are typically aware and trying to support attendance. High level of regularity.

School Withdrawal: Student is kept at home due to lack of parental enforcement of school attendance or for family-related reasons.

Chronic Absenteeism: students with 20% or higher penalty absenteeism for the current year to date as well as those with a pattern or trend of absences e.g. more than 3 consecutive days of unexplained/unauthorised absences, or with more than 40% of school days with late arrival or early departure.

Core Functions of School Refusal

What Next?

1. Talk: Talk to your child and try to understand the barriers currently impacting their attendance
2. Book: Book an appointment with your Childs’ Head of House or Deputy Principal.
3. Meet: Attend a meeting with the school and your child, unpack the barriers as a team and create an Attendance Support Plan
4. Track and Monitor: Monitor progress towards the goal set in the Attendance Support Plan
5. Celebrate and Recognise: Behaviour change is hard! Celebrate the little wins and recognise progress.

Additional Resources

Headspace: https://headspace.org.au

Raising Children Network: https://raisingchildren.net.au

School Refusal Australia: https://schoolrefusalaustralia.com

Term 3 Academies Update

Ignite Dance Academy

This term, The Ignite Dance Academy students have truly outdone themselves. After weeks of hard work in rehearsals polishing their routines, our dancers shone at DanceLife Unite, QUOTA Beenleigh, and the Gold Coast Eisteddfod — achieving outstanding results while consistently being praised for their professionalism, politeness, and sportsmanship. As their teacher, I could not be more proud of these incredible students, and I am so thankful for the support of both the school and the amazing families who make everything we do possible.

Please join us in celebrating these amazing achievements:

DanceLife Unite

• Highest Scoring Dance of the Competition - Senior Contemporary (97.5/100)
• 1st Place - Senior Contemporary, Junior Contemporary, Senior Musical Theatre & Junior Musical Theatre
• 2nd Place - Senior Hip Hop, Junior Hip Hop, Senior Jazz, Senior Student Choreography
• 3rd Place - Junior Student Choreography
• 4th Place - Junior Jazz

QUOTA Beenleigh City of Logan Eisteddfod

• 2nd Place - Junior Hip Hip & Senior Hip Hop
• 3rd Place - Senior Musical Theatre & Junior Contemporary
• Highly Commended - Junior Musical Theatre & Senior Contemporary

Gold Coast Eisteddfod

• 1st Place - Senior Contemporary & Junior Contemporary
• 2nd Place - Senior Jazz
• 3rd Place - Junior Musical Theatre & Junior Hip Hop
• Very Highly Commended - Junior Jazz
• Highly commended - Senior Musical Theatre, Junior Student Choreography & Senior Student Choreography

Futsal Academy

Our Futsal Academy has enjoyed another strong and successful term, with impressive results across multiple age groups.

Our U14 Boys finished 2nd in the Veto School Futsal League, earning a well-deserved place at Champions Day next term. This continues our strong track record in the competition, following the Open Boys' 2nd place league finish and 3rd at Champions Day earlier this year, along with a solid 4th place result for the U16 Boys.

At the Football Queensland Met East Titles, both the U15s and Open Boys progressed to the semi-finals. The Open Boys have now qualified for the upcoming FQ State Titles, taking place next week. 

Our junior development squads also had a valuable term, gaining experience at the Calvary Cup and Winter State Titles. These events have helped build depth and strengthen the future of our program. A special thank you to Mr Sharma for his dedication in coaching our development teams.

Netball Academy

Term 3 got off to a strong start for the Shailer Park State High School Netball Academy, with our largest-ever participation in the Rivers Day Netball Competition, held during Week 1. Although none of our teams progressed to the next stage of the tournament, we were incredibly proud of their efforts and sportsmanship throughout the day.

Our school was proudly represented in the following categories:

• Two teams in the Year 7/8 Girls division
• One team in the Year 9/10 Girls division
• Two teams in the Year 11/12 Girls division

All players displayed impressive skill, teamwork, and determination. A special acknowledgement goes to the students who also took on officiating duties during the competition. Congratulations and thank you to Jamie A, Shelby A, Steph D and Kruiz N for your contribution as umpires - your leadership and commitment are commendable.

As the term has progressed, our training sessions on Wednesday afternoons have continued with great energy and enthusiasm. These sessions have been focused on preparing our teams for an exciting milestone - the inaugural Shailer Shield Netball Competition, which we are proud to be hosting right here at Shailer Park State High School next Thursday in Week 10.

With a strong showing of Shailer Park State High School teams ready to take the court, we look forward to an exciting day of competition and school spirit. Be sure to cheer on our netballers and wish them the best of luck as they represent our school with pride!

Basketball Academy

This term marked an exciting chapter for our Basketball Academy. Now in just it's second year, the program continues to grow from strength to strength. We are proud to announce that a second team from our academy has been accepted into the prestigious CBSQ Major State Competition - a remarkable achievement that highlights the rapid progress of our athletes and the dedication of our coaching staff.

Following impressive performances in the CBSQ Shield earlier in the year, our teams earned strong placings that lead to this well-deserved promotion. Competing at the Major level is no small feat, and this milestone sets a high standard for the future of the academy.

Another standout moment this term was our participation in the Peak Jam Basketball Day, where our students faced off against teams from 10 different schools. It was a high-energy, competitive event that gave our players a valuable opportunity to showcase their skills, build confidence, and enjoy the spirit of the game in a vibrant, supportive environment.

As we head into Term 4, excitement is building for the CBSQ Major State Competition. Both our Sophomore (Years 7 & 8) and our Junior Secondary (Years 9 & 10) teams will be competing against some of the top school teams from across Queensland.

This will be a significant challenge, and an incredible opportunity, for our student athletes to test their development, gain experience, at the highest level, and continue pushing the boundaries of what's possible within our academy.

We are so proud of how far our players have come, and we're even more excited for what lies ahead!

A big thank you to Mr Sharma, Mr De-Brenni, and Ms Fui for volunteering their time and assisting with our excursions this term. Your support has been invaluable in helping our students have successful and enjoyable experiences.

Volleyball Academy

Term 3 has been a pivotal period for the Volleyball Academy, without athletes making strong progress both on and off the court as we prepare for upcoming national competitions. 

Our senior squads performed exceptionally at the Volleyball Queensland Senior Schools Cup, with the girls team finishing 5th and the boys team earning an impressive 3rd place. Many of our athletes competed against students one to two years older, making these results even more commendable. In addition, all Academy teams took part in the Southern Conference Volleyball Competition, where four out of five teams placed in the top three - a fantastic outcome that highlights the strength of our program across all age groups.

As we look ahead to Term 4, there is a strong focus on our juniors teams as they prepare for their first state level event, the Volleyball Queensland Junior Schools Cup. We are excited to see them rise to this new challenge and showcase their development.

Beyond competition, we have continued to invest in the holistic development of our athletes. This term, we placed a strong emphasis on load management, physical literacy, and building well-rounded athletes to support long-term performance and wellbeing, important steps in deepening and sustaining the Academy's growth.

Looking ahead, we are thrilled to announce that we will be taking one term per gender to the Australian School Volleyball Championships in December, marking another major milestone for the program.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has the supported the Academy this term. A special acknowledgement goes to Ms King, Mr Chen, Mr Gaston and James for your dedication, time and passion. Your commitment continues to make all of this possible. 

Guidance Officer Update

Wellbeing Workforce - Junior School

As we approach the upcoming school holiday period, it's an ideal time to reflect on the importance of wellbeing and to ensure that students, families and community members are aware of the range of mental health and support services available outside of school hours.

School holidays can be a time of rest and renewal, but for some, they can also bring challenges related to routine changes, social isolation, or family pressures. It's important to remember that support is available - whether you're looking for guidance in maintaining positive mental health, navigating a touch situation, or managing a mental health crisis.

There is a board and diverse range of external and specialist online support services available to meet the unique needs of children, young people, and families. These services are designed to be accessible, confidential and tailored to offer assistance in many different forms - whether it's a quick chat, professional counselling, crisis intervention, or ongoing mental health support.

We strongly encourage all families to take a few moments to browse the list of recommended support services below. Click through the links to learn more about what each service offers, how they can help, and how you or someone you care about can access support when needed.

By being informed and connected to these resources, we can all play a part in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our young people and one another.

Wishing all members of the Shailer Park State High School Community a safe, restful and rejuvenating holiday break. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Youth Worker Update

Stress Relief Art Workshops - A Creative Success!

Throughout this term, our stress relief art workshops, led by our Youth Worker Tammy Quire, have been a tremendous success and a highlight for many students. These sessions have provided a much-needed opportunity for students to unwind, express themselves creatively, and explore healthy strategies for managing stress.

Students from various year levels have participated enthusiastically, engaging in hands on activities using a range of calming materials such as clay, watercolours, coloured pencils and tissue paper. Each medium offered a different sensory experience, allowing students to find what best resonated with them as a form of self-expression and relaxation.

In addition to the creative elements, the workshops also encouraged meaningful conversations around emotional wellbeing. Students reflected on the importance of making time to decompress, shared personal strategies for coping with pressure, and explored how art can serve as a powerful outlet for processing difficult emotions. 

A key focus of the sessions was the idea that art is not about perfection or the final product, it's about enjoying the journey. This message resonated strongly with students, helping to reduce performance pressure and promote mindfulness through creative play.

We're thrilled with the positive feedback and the impact these workshops have had, and we look forward to offering more opportunities like this in the future!

Bright Spots - The Shailer Way in Practice

We love to acknowledge and celebrate achievement at Shailer Park State High School, particularly when our students “make their mark!” Some wonderful Bright Spots in 2025 are seen below. Follow our Facebook and Instagram pages for regular celebrations of our staff and students.

Student Spotlight

Finance

School Fees

A friendly reminder that school fees are now overdue and payable. If you have not yet received your statement, please check your junk or spam email folders.

For any questions or if you require assistance, contact our Finance team at finance@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au

P&C Update

How to Get in Touch

At Shailer Park State High School, we believe in the power of partnerships with our community to achieve "Excellence in Learning and Life." Collaborating with parents and families is vital to enhancing educational outcomes for our students. We recognise that each family has unique needs, and our approach to engagement is flexible and responsive to individual circumstances.

General Enquires - Phone (07) 3451 2777 or email office@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au

Absences, Late Arrivals & Early Departures - Phone (07) 3451 2745 or email studentabsences@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au

Finance Enquires - Phone (07) 3451 2703 or email finance@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au

Enrolment Enquires - Phone (07) 3451 2720 or email enrolments@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au

Resources for Parents and Carers

Register Now | Year 7 & 10 Immunisations

Our school vaccination provider, Logan City Council, uses a simple digital system for our Year 7 & 10 School Immunisation Program.

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬:

• Use your phone, tablet or computer to follow the link to access the Vitavo parent portal.
• Register to create a Vitavo profile for your child and provide consent for the vaccines being given for their year level. Your child will then be booked in to receive their vaccine/s at their scheduled school visit date.
• You can return to the portal at any time before the visit dates to confirm upcoming appointment dates or withdraw consent.
• If you do not wish your child to be vaccinated, please click ‘I do not consent’ to complete a simple form and prevent further follow-up.