Issue 6 – The Hall Happenings 30 April 2025

Principal’s Messages

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Welcome to Term 2! I hope you had a wonderful time with your families over the break and are ready for the exciting learning opportunities ahead. I would like to begin by expressing my sincere thanks to all the parents and caregivers who supported our ANZAC Day commemoration events. It was wonderful to see so many families participating and showing respect for this important part of our nation’s history. Educating our students about the sacrifices made by service men and women is vital in helping them understand the values of courage, resilience, and community, which continue to shape our society. Your support and involvement made these events meaningful and allowed us to provide rich learning experiences for our students. We especially thank Lt Scot Doulis, who not only shared his story on assembly and worked with the students throughout the day but also marched with our school on ANZAC day.

As we focus on the term ahead, I’d like to take a moment to highlight some important initiatives aimed at enhancing both academic and social-emotional development for our students. We have been working closely with our teachers to ensure that each student’s learning journey is supported through academic case management, allowing us to provide targeted interventions where needed. By actively reviewing and updating personal learning records, we ensure that we can identify individual strengths and areas for growth. This helps us better understand how to support all students and informs the work of our support teachers, creating a more tailored approach to their learning needs.

Equally important is our continued focus on fostering a growth mindset in both students and staff. This week our Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) focus is to be a learner through building a growth mindset. By encouraging students to believe in their ability to learn and grow through effort, we are setting the foundation for long-term resilience. This mindset is reinforced by our Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) framework, where we focus on creating an environment where students learn to be safe, responsible, respectful, and engaged learners. These values are not just words; they are at the core of how we build our school culture and how we support students in their development as responsible citizens of society.

We ask that parents and caregivers continue to have conversations with their children about the importance of these values both at school and at home. As partners in education, it’s essential that we work together to reinforce the behaviours that promote a positive and respectful learning environment. When we all support the expectations of Be Safe, Be Responsible, Be Respectful, and Be a Learner, we are helping our students build the foundations for success—not just in school, but in life.

Thank you once again for your ongoing support. We look forward to working with you throughout Term 2 to continue providing the best possible education for your child.

Kind regards,
Mrs Katie Bull
Principal

General Messages

Medication

Is your child required to take medication at school? If so, please see the office to obtain the necessary authorisation forms so we can administer this medication to your child at the office. All medication, including over the counter medicines, need to have a doctor’s label attached with your child’s name and clear instructions for dosage. Students should not have medication in their bags or self-administer medicine during the day. This includes pain relief medicines.

If your child requires staff to administer medication to them at school, please contact the school office in the first instance to discuss your child’s requirements.

Office staff will ask you to complete and sign Section 1 of the Administration of Medication Consent form.

Please note, school staff will only administer medication that:

• has been prescribed by a qualified health practitioner (e.g. Doctor, Dentist)
• is in its original container
• has an attached pharmacy label.

Update Details

It is really important to keep your child/children’s information up-to-date including any allergies or medical conditions. This also includes parent contact details, emergency contact details and new address details.

Have your details changed over the holiday break? Are your contact details up-to-date? Have you changed jobs, address, internet provider (email) or have a new phone number?

Please contact the school office for a form to change these details.

Head Lice

You can help stop the spread of head lice!!!

Head lice are common in children (particularly between the ages of 3 and 11 years) and have nothing to do with personal hygiene or cleanliness. While head lice don’t carry disease, their bites can cause itching and skin irritation. To reduce your child’s risk of getting head lice, you can ensure long hair is tied up, discourage the sharing of brushes and combs, and minimise head-to-head contact with others.

Remember, anyone can get head lice. These critters have no preference for hair type, age or ethnicity.

Parking

Please do not park in the staff car park located near Administration off Bapaume Street. This is a staff only car park. Parents should not be dropping off and picking up students in this area either.

🛑 Stop! Do not walk through the Carpark it is not safe! 

The carpark in front of the office is for:

• Staff cars
• Access parking
• Deliveries

Electronic Devices at School

Phones and other electronic devices must be handed into the office before school and collected at home time. Students are not to have these in their bags during the day. Parents, please remind your children to do this every day.

Arrivals

Students should not be arriving at school before 8:15am. 8.15am to 8:30am students are to wait quietly outside the office. Supervision commences at 8:30am. Year 1 to 6 then go to the MPC, Prep students go straight to classrooms. At 8:50am class teachers will collect their classes from the MPC. No students are to be within the school buildings during this time, even if they have a parent with them. Band and Strings students are the only exception due to before school rehearsals.

Students arriving after 9:00am will need to receive a late slip from the school office prior to going to class.

Early Departures

Students must be collected from the office if departing early or attending appointments during the day. Parents, please do not go directly to classrooms to collect your child. Please send a note to school for the classroom teacher, email the classroom teacher or phone ahead to the office well in advance to ensure we can have your child here at the office waiting for you at the required time. If possible, please phone or email our admin team on 49248222 or admin@thehallss.eq.edu.au before 9:00am so we can pass messages on before school commences to avoid disruptions to classes. We cannot guarantee any messages received between 2:00pm - 3:00pm will reach your child in time.

Absences

If your child is absent from school, please let us know the reason for their absence. You can do this in several ways:

1. Phone the office on 4924 8222 or leave a message for later attention on the absence line 4924 8266.
2. Email our admin team at: Admin@thehallss.eq.edu.au

Families of students who are noted as an unexplained absence will receive a text message from the school. You can reply to this text message to let us know the reason your child is away.

News from 1A

In Year 1, we have been exploring the exciting world of digraphs! Our focus has been on the "wh" and "sh" sounds. Students have been learning how two letters can work together to make a new sound, helping them read and spell new words.
Through fun activities like word sorts, matching games, and story writing, students have practised words such as when, whale, ship, and shout. Keep an ear out at home — you might hear your child spotting "wh" and "sh" words all around them!
Here are some of the students and their amazing words and writing. I am so proud of their growing confidence with reading and writing.

5C ANZAC Art

On Thursday the 24^th of April the students in 5C participated in the ANZAC Commemoration. Prior to the Thursday the students completed Silhouette Art pieces representing a variety of representations of ANZAC themes. Some of our artworks are currently on display in the office foyer.

Students also completed a mapping activity of Gallipoli learning about some of the harsh realities that faced our World War 1 diggers. Sadly the Gallipoli campaign saw a massive loss of Australian lives. The Australian War Memorial “The whole Gallipoli operation, however, cost 26,111 Australian casualties, including 8,141 deaths.”   We also learned about Simpson and his Donkey. Something interesting we learned was Simpson was not regarded as being a good soldier however after the few short weeks he survived in the war, he saved thousands of lives.

Library News