Issue 10 – The Hall Happenings 25 June 2025

Principal’s Messages

As Term 2 draws to a close, it’s a wonderful time to reflect on all that has been achieved across our school community. From engaging classroom learning and assessment, to sporting events, cultural celebrations, excursions, camps, and leadership opportunities—there has been no shortage of activity, growth, and success at The Hall State School this term. We’re proud of the effort students have shown in their learning and the way they’ve represented our school values of Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be a Learner.

Our teaching teams have been working hard to assess and report on each student’s progress and achievement. Semester 1 report cards will be distributed at the end of this week. These reports are an important tool for sharing your child’s growth and learning journey so far this year, highlighting both their successes and next steps for learning. We encourage families to take time to read the report together and celebrate the effort behind the progress.

I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our staff for their continued dedication to student learning and wellbeing, and to our families for your ongoing support. A special thank you goes to our hardworking P&C, whose tireless contributions continue to enrich our school in so many ways—whether through fundraising, supporting events, or helping to improve our facilities.

Wishing all families a safe and restful holiday break. We look forward to welcoming everyone back for another great term of learning at The Hall State School.

Kind regards,
Mrs Katie Bull
Principal

Head of Curriculum

School Priority One – Improvement in English – C and Above

Reporting

Semester One Report Cards outline student achievement and progress from the curriculum taught in Term One and Term Two.  Students will receive an overall result as well as a rating for their effort for each Learning Area.  Along with these results, students are also given a rating for their behaviour.  The report cards align to the requirements in the K-12 Framework and the scales are outlined below.  Parents are able to request a Distribution of Achievement.  Please contact admin@thehallss.eq.edu.au.

Before Moderation

This week staff are working in cohorts to complete Before Moderation.  Before Moderation is department process that allows staff to unpack next term’s curriculum intent including the Achievement Standard aspects that are being taught and assessed, the Content Descriptions that align to the Achievement Standard and the know and do which is a list of content and skills that the students will be learning or building upon.  From this, staff plan a teaching and learning sequence including pedagogical strategies including the Teach Like a Champion techniques and differentiation to allow students to access the curriculum and engage in the learning.  This links to School Priority 2 – Access and Engagement.

School Priority Two – Access and Engagement

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)

This week’s focus is ‘Bee Successful’.  Beeing Successful acknowledges all the staff and students’ efforts in following our school expectations this term. 

This week we are holding our end of semester reward party.  All students are able to attend this event to acknowledge their efforts in following our school expectations.  Students who have achieved 300 dojo points receive a few extra goodies.  Congratulations to all of our students for their positive behaviour and taking steps to improve in this area.

Kind regards,
Ms Tracey Vine
HODC 

Outstanding Achievers Awards

Student of the Week

Congratulations to the following students who received Student of the Week awards.

Year 5 Camp

This year our Year 5 camp went to our local Capricorn Caves. Our adventure started with team initiatives that established an atmosphere of the “have a go” culture we are fostering in our classrooms. There was “tug of war” and “human knot’ which set the scene and expectations we required for our campers.   

This led into making damper to cook in the coals with our campers using their hands to mix the dough in the traditional way. Jill, our instructor, was very patient and made sure everyone had their own damper to decorate with sprinkles or herbs. Her trusty helpers were on hand to cook it efficiently and we hunted for the right marshmallow stick to cook our tasty little snack while we waited. The dampers made a yummy afternoon tea.

The Cathedral Cave tour rounded off our afternoon and campers got to hear the beautiful acoustics of the cave. We sat in the dark for a little while and this gave us a taste of what was to come.

Day 2 held nervous excitement with the adventure caving being moved up in the program. We did this in two groups. Each camper had a goal or fear to overcome, and proudly, we successfully completed the cave course in the most exciting way. Hearing “I did it” and “I am so proud of myself” was the pot of gold for each staff member there.

After lunch we split back into our groups again, with 1 group going on the fossil trail and completing the dig. Anything we found went to The Queensland Museum for identification. We will receive a list when completed with what animals were found. The other group completed orienteering games and got to wander through the back tracks of The Caves grounds collecting the morse code clues on the way to solve at the end of the trail.

We rounded off our day by having a visit with Dr John and his son Michael for an astronomy night. Dr John was able to inform our campers about the universe and showed us different stars, constellations and the moon. We were very lucky to witness the occultation of Antares.

Our last day included the rotations we had not completed from the day before as well as crate climbing. This activity finished off camp nicely as it was a team event. The climbers relied heavily on their team to build a tower for them to climb. One of our campers got up to 14 crates high. Our teachers enjoyed this event also. We have seen a great growth in independence, growth mind set and self-esteem from our campers this year.

Read below to see what our students thought was the best thing about camp.

I liked the crate climbing because I can see the houses from above and it was pretty and beautiful.

My favourite activity was the adventure caving because we got to explore the caves. Jaxon

I really enjoyed the damper cooking and going caving. I liked going through the small holes. I saw bats, stalactites and stalagmites and crystals. Riley

My favourite thing was stargazing. I got to learn so many things, like why two constellations were separated and new stars and lastly the planet orbits. Phoenix

I liked making damper and doing the dishes because we got to use different things, and we got to use a cool hose for the dishes. Ella

I liked camp because I overcame my fear of heights and fitting through tight spaces in the adventure caves. Axel

Playing with my best friends in free time – Michael

My favourite thing at camp was the crate climb because it was a teamwork activity and we got to climb up the crates and if a crate fell we got to lean back and float down to the bottom. Reggie

I loved the adventure caving at camp because it was scary and unexpected, to crawl through tiny spaces while getting dirty. Joshua

My favourite thing at camp was crate climbing because you go to climb the crates to win and if the crates fell you got to fall and it felt like flying . Zeke

I liked the adventure caving because I could fit through the gaps easily. I also liked when we got to meet Beth and the other instructors. Candice

Parkhurst State School 125th Anniversary