29 July 2022

Newsletter Articles

A message from the Principal

There are a few things I never thought I would say as Principal of Shailer Park SHS, and “I don’t mind looking like a green alien!” is one of them. It is a testament to the incredible success of our House Carnival (which occurred at the end of last term) that we are still talking about how wonderful this spirited event was a month later! It was wonderful to see active participation by both students and staff during the Carnival, which made for an amazing two days of fun, competition and house spirit.

Congratulations to Bilin Bilin and Francis who tied on points at the end of the two days.

I for one am certainly looking forward to the many opportunities this term provides for House participation.

Dress Code Review

Our House system is helping to forge a sense of belonging to Shailer Park SHS for students, and another area which also does this is our school dress code, which is unisex. A strong dress code instils a sense of pride and inclusion in our school and is a highly visible sign of both our brand and team. Like any sports club who wear a jersey, our uniforms demonstrate who we are and sends a strong message to our community about what we stand for. The school, alongside the P&C, are keen to understand our communities’ values in relation to dress code standards. To support this for our Future Ready Learners, we recently conducted a review across local businesses to understand their standards of dress and uniform. Now, we would like to invite parents, staff and students to provide feedback on specific elements of the dress code including hair colour, nail colour, piercings and socks. It is important to ‘take the pulse’ of our community values, combined with workplace health and safety guidelines to ensure our dress code is reflective of Shailer Park SHS values and identify any revisions required. We strongly urge you to share your feedback with us. The survey can be access via the link below.

Health Advice

I know many in our Shailer Park community have been touched by illness over the past few months, and apart from the disruption to schooling, feeling sick is simply awful. The health and safety of our community remains our priority, as such I strongly encourage families to stay well-informed of the national health advice. I recently emailed parents with an update on this, including the Premier’s recommendation that members of our community wear face masks. Face masks are available at school for students at the commencement of House Care Group daily. As part of our commitment to the health and safety of our community, we are revising the approach to parent teacher interviews to allow for these important conferences to occur with the health and safety of our community in mind. Further details were emailed to families to advise parents how they can engage with their child’s teacher safely.

Report Cards

Semester One report cards were issued last week. I encourage our families to reflect on their child’s efforts and progress made, which has been wonderful across the board. This report card is a culmination of both Term One and Term Two achievement results, which show great progress and improved achievement: bright futures come from big plans and bold ambitions! The correlation between improved effort and behaviour and increased achievement is clear here. It highlights the strong connection between effort, strategy and achieving our goals: I am proud of all our students who are seeing the results of this in these reports.

Four Year Strategic Plan

Looking toward our own bright future, we are excited to embark on our four-year strategic planning process this semester. This process offers an opportunity for our community to set the direction of Shailer Park SHS for the next four-year period. There will be key junctures throughout this process for community consultation as we explore ‘How we maximise the experience of our school community to enhance academic achievement, behaviour and wellbeing indicators.’ The first phase will see us engage in research across the globe to understand best practice, and we look forward to publishing a summary of the literature for you. The research phase will enable us to collaboratively define success, allowing us to consider how we achieve this together. I look forward to inviting the voices of our community to set the direction of our school and continue to ensure our graduates are future ready.

Calendar

Please access our school calendar for upcoming events and CAST activities.

A message from our Junior Schooling Deputy Principal

How to help your teen make good decisions.

Good decision-making skills can help your teen make good choices and set them up for success later in life. With practice and experience, they will get better at making good decisions and will feel more independent and empowered. Teens can face many challenges at school that require them to make choices, such as the transition to high school, selecting subjects, bullying, friendships, and exam stress. Good decision-making is an important skill for life so it pays to practise decision-making with something manageable. Here are five steps you can use with your teen to help them make good decisions about school.

STEP 1. Identify the decision

Helping your teen be clear about what they are trying to do or what problem they want to solve will help them make better choices. Explain to your teen that tackling a problem when they are calm and can use their thinking skills, not just their emotion, can help them make good choices. At Shailer Park SHS, we talk about this as accessing their ‘Smart Brain” and not responding in “Wild Brain.” Family members can help by discussing their emotions so they can tell the difference between a feeling and a fact. This helps pinpoint why they feel the way they do. Explain that while feelings may feel very real and strong, sometimes we can imagine things that are not real such as when we misunderstand someone’s reaction to something. Often just talking about how they feel can help your teen understand their emotions better. It provides clarity.

STEP 2. Understand the options

Encourage your teen to brainstorm as many different options as possible and write them down. Teens can sometimes think there is only one solution to a problem so encourage them to be creative and produce as many solutions as they can even if some do not seem workable to you. Encourage your teen to record the positives and negatives of each option and try not to be judgmental. This step is about gathering ideas. It does not matter if you think their idea is a little crazy; try not to shut it down. Instead, gently guide them by asking questions and pointing them to other information sources so they can work out it is a bad idea on their own. Suggest they consider how the positives and negatives will look now and then further down the track.

STEP 3. Make a decision

Allow your teen to evaluate the different options. You are always there for guidance, support and encouragement. If you want to bring up a point, however, ask their permission first. Your teen is more likely to listen to a point you want to make if they have given you permission to share it.

STEP 4. Act on the decision

Once your teen has decided, they will need your support to make it happen. Staying  connected  is essential so your teen knows  you are there for them  if they need you. While your teen may have felt ready for the decision they have made, they may find they have taken on more responsibility than they can cope with. If this happens, they will need you by their side to help them through it.

STEP 5. Reflect on the decision

Reflecting on a decision and how it turned out is a valuable learning opportunity. Find a good time to talk to your teen about what they learned in making their decision. Suggest some questions they could ask themselves such as:

What did I learn about myself? What is important to me?

• What was hard about what I did? What was easy about what I did?
• Next time I must decide, what would I do the same? What might I do differently next time?

And do not forget to praise your teen. Making decisions is hard and can be especially tough for teens given all the changes and pressures they are facing. When you praise their actions and acknowledge the way they have taken on responsibility, it will embolden them and encourage them to try again.

Enrolment Interviews for 2023 have begun!

Thank you to the many families that have recently attended an Enrolment Interview. These important interviews are the next process that we use to support your child’s transition into high school. Our Enrolments Officer will be contacting all families who have submitted an Enrolment Pack for their child. Many children feel an excited nervousness as these enrolment interviews approach. Please reassure them that all will be well.

Trials for the Sport and Cultural Academies

–Sting Futsal, Sting Volleyball and Ignite Dance – are scheduled for Week 4 - 6 Term 3.

These trials will be conducted face-to-face this year – hooray! - and involve the professional coaches from the Brisbane Sport Institute (BSI). We wish all Academy applicants the best of luck in these upcoming trials. Please call on Enrolments Officer on ph. 3451 2720 if you have any questions regarding these Academy Trials.

Messages from our Student Services Team

Messages from the Heads of House

Welcome back to Term Three!

Our final days of term two were spent battling it out in our annual Athletics Carnival. It was so lovely to spend two sunny days watching so many of our students testing their abilities and earning valuable house points. Competition was fierce over the two days and the results were the closest we have ever had. The two days ended with Bilin Bilin and Francis tying for first place with Barnes being only two points behind in third! All students are to be congratulated on a mighty effort.

Our Term Three House Challenge kicked off last week…. Games on the oval, (well in the hall last week thanks to the bad weather). Despite the weather, we had a good response from all houses. As with all house challenges, points are being awarded on participation numbers.

Our overall house points are the closest they have ever been. All competition points will end in Week Seven, so we know we are in for an extremely exciting finish. At the end of Week Seven, we will know who the championship house is and who is doing what for our final day of term in our House Spirit Day.

Messages from our Student Leader Team

Year 12 Committee

As part of the Year 12 Committee, we are working towards a new mural for the school. We have engaged with both online and group feedback with the Year 12's and have determined that the 2022 legacy project will be a wall mural in the P-block vicinity completed this year!

We will be engaging a community artist for support around the design and implementation of this mural. There will be a fund-raiser this term to pay for this design. It will also be an opportunity to see teachers get pie-faced like last year!

Also, to mark one hundred days left of school for the Year 12's, we will be hosting an event in week five, but it is a surprise.

Messages from The Academies

Ignite Dance Academy

Recently our Ignite Dance Academy students competed at the DanceLife Unite regional competition. The last few months of hard work paid off and saw our dancers achieve the following outstanding results:

Junior contemporary - third place

Student choreography - fourth place

Combined musical theatre - Highly Commended

Congratulation’s dancers!

News from our Library

The Hive

A Riveting Read

Reading is a fabulous pastime. It can help you escape to an entirely different time and place, learn from the experiences of fascinating characters and enjoy some quiet time at the end of a busy day.

Surprisingly, reading can also reduce stress, improve cognitive ability and promote empathy and human connection. It makes sense that reading is also one of the most effective ways to increase your vocabulary and comprehension skills. As John Assaraf, author and brain researcher, stated,

“Reading regularly stimulates optimal patterns of brain development, which helps build strong pathways in the brain, thus building language, literacy and social and emotional skills that can have lifelong health benefits.”

In our classrooms, Junior Secondary students engage in targeted reading lessons each week and are given multiple opportunities to read in all their subject areas. Every Year 7 & 8 student has a personalised reading target that they meet to earn House points. It was wonderful to see the growing list of Junior Secondary students meeting their reading targets being celebrated on a recent Assembly. The purpose of this work is to encourage all students to read every day.

What we do at school is just the beginning though. We certainly encourage students to read before falling asleep which has shown to have great benefits in relaxing the mind and improving sleep quality.

We are fortunate to have many great books available to borrow from our school library, The Hive New texts that have recently hit Library shelves near you include these great novels.

I’ll Keep You Close by Jeska Verstegen (for junior students)

A beautifully written novel based on a true story about a young girl who comes to understand why her mother is so fearful and over-protective when her class starts studying the Holocaust.

Sky Dragon by Anh Do (for junior students)

Amber knew she had been given an incredible power, but was it a freak accident, or was there something she was supposed to do with it? Controlling her new ability might be the hardest thing Amber has ever done. Especially when she is running for her life.

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger (perfect for Harry Potter fans)

Twelve-year-old Sophie Foster is an outcast in her community. Being extremely smart and clever, her peers often label her as a know-it-all and exclude her from finding her place. Sophie has a secret; she can read minds and she does not know why. One day, a mysterious boy named Fitz reveals himself to her and, he too, can read minds. Fitz brings Sophie to the Elvish world, and she realises that she does have a place where she belongs.

Rockstar Detectives by Adam Hills (for junior students)

When a priceless painting goes missing, Charley - a 12-year-old viral singing sensation – and her best friend George - camera whizz and budding comedian – are shocked to discover they are the prime suspects.

Fish out of Water by Kate Hendrick (for senior students or more confident readers)

Life is simple for fifteen-year-old Finn: just keep following the black line in the pool. But in a moment, it all changes. Distracted by a familiar face in the crowd, he falters on the blocks and loses not just the race, but the single-minded focus that has driven him this far.

Happy Reading

Vocational Education

Trade Ready Success

Huge congratulations to Year 12 student, Zyon M. who has secured himself a school-based apprenticeship with OSMAC Apprenticeships and employer BAM Smash Repairs as a Vehicle Painter, where he will commence a trade Certificate III in Automotive Refinishing Technology.

Zyon’s journey through his senior years as part of the Trade Ready program saw him undertake and complete a Certificate II in Automotive Vocational Preparation through TAFE Gold Coast, and then participate in targeted work experience to suit his area of interest.

His hard work and persistence have paid off with his apprenticeship starting as school-based and then converting to full-time once he finishes Year 12.

Well done, Zyon!!

Opportunities and Vacancies

Click here to visit the Vocational Education webpage

Assistance is available. Please contact our Industry Liaison Officer, Annette Demosthenous in A02, main administration building, on 3451 2782 ilo@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au.

A message from the Business Manager

Please note – payments can be made in full or by instalment. Please do not pay more than the invoiced amount. If you are making instalments and wish to check your remaining balance, please email office@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au or phone the Office 3451 2777.

STUDENT RESOURCE SCHEME (SRS)

Thank you for processing these payments promptly to ensure the timely provision of student resources.

Business Manager

Messages from our Parents and Citizens

Please join us for our next meeting via Zoom: Thursday 18 August – Everyone Welcome!

Anyone interested in joining our association is invited to request a membership application by emailing pandc@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au or attending a meeting.

P&C President

Announcements

Facebook

Please follow us on Facebook to keep up with student successes and reminders.

Partnering with us

Shailer Park State High School values partnering with our community to ‘Lift Aspirations through Big Plans and Bold Ambitions for a Bright Future.’ Collaborating with parents and families of students is essential in strengthening educational outcomes. We respect that parents and families have diverse needs and therefore engagement with families is based on individual circumstances.

Please access our Partnership document on our website for detailed information

If your enquiry relates to the classroom, your first point of call should always be the classroom teacher. You can contact them via email

If your enquiry relates to the playground or is in relation to a pattern across several classes or it is an inquiry relating to behaviour, attendance, uniform or your child’s well-being, your first point of call should always be the Head of House or Case Manager.

If the staff member is unavailable, they will contact you within a reasonable and appropriate time frame (2 business days).

Contact details

There are times when we may need to contact parents and carers. Do we have your most up to date contact details? If not, please contact the school on office@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au so we can update our records. These details include parent/carer’s name, address, phone numbers, email address and emergency contact details. Please remember to contact the school if any of these details change.

Closed Circuit Television

Our premises are monitored by closed circuit television (CCTV) for the safety of students, educational resources and facilities. Images are recorded by the Department of Education, and may be provided to the Queensland Police Service.

Student Absences

Keeping our students safe is our priority. One important way families can partner to keep our children safe is to notify the school prior to 8:50am if your child will be absent via studentabsences@shailerparkshs.eq.edu.au or (07) 3451 2766.

If your child is away from school and you have not let us know, parents will receive a text message requesting that you respond with a reason for the absence. It is extremely important that you respond to this text message promptly to enable us to follow up any issues.

The safety of students is of paramount importance to us, and we take this responsibility very seriously. If you do not respond to this text message a second text message, email or phone call will be made to you. Thank you for partnering with us so that we know our students are safe.

Helpline