TERM 3 WEEK 9

Principal's message

 MINISTER’S VISIT: We are excited to announce that Queensland’s Minister for Education, Hon Grace Grace, will be visiting our school this Friday. Minister Grace will be accompanied by Department of Education personnel Stacie Hansel (Deputy Director-General) and Kia Morton (Director - Education Futures Institute) and will look at the great work happening around the teaching of reading in our school. The Minister will read a story to year 1A (Mrs Nui’s class) and observe a reading lesson in Prep B (Mrs Pike’s class). The minister will also be greeted by our school leaders and will be provided with a tour of our school. At Cairns West we are proud of the significant impact our school’s explicit improvement agenda is having on the reading progress of our students. This success is a direct result of the hard work of our school staff by committing to the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics in every classroom.

OUR SCHOOL REVIEW: An opportunity to have your say. Our school is scheduled for a review from 3rd to 6th October, 2023. The Department of Education regularly reviews state schools in Queensland. The reviews are conducted by the department’s School and Region Reviews branch. The reviews do not rate or compare schools, but provides independent feedback to allow schools to continue to improve learning outcomes for students. All schools have a review at least once every 4 years. Key findings from the review will be made available to parents and the community on our school website.
The review team would like to hear from the school community and I encourage anyone who is interested to have their say. Your feedback is important and will help us continue to deliver a great education for students.

To gather community voice for this review, the following community representatives and long-term staff members may approach you to ask for your views on the school: Susan Graham, Jocelyn Inocencio, Tammy Jones, Zaneta Cook, Raymond Woodhouse, Glenda Gray, Annie Wolff and Megan Mitchell. 
They might be interested in talking to you about the school. Or you might be interested in finding one of these people to have your say.
from 3rd to 6th October, the review team – an independent group of people from the Department of Education – will visit the school to listen to these representatives share this community voice. The review team will also be interviewing a significant number of other people from the school community, as well as staff and students.

Feedback can be provided to the review team by phone or in person. All feedback remains confidential. Please contact the school office if you are interested in speaking to a reviewer. Alternatively, you can register your interest by emailing reviews@qed.qld.gov.au. 
More information about the review process is available from the department’s website at www.schoolreviews.education.qld.gov.au

HAPPY HOLIDAYS: It’s been another busy term and I thank all of our school staff for their hard work and commitment that makes this such a great school. I also thank our families and partner organisations for your support again this term. School starts back on Tuesday 3rd October. We look forward to seeing everybody back, ready to learn, after the holidays and we welcome the community for our last Big Breakfast for 2023 on Friday 6 October. 

 Yours in Education, Jason Evert - Principal

Deputy Principal - Teaching & Learning

Hello CWSS community,
Time sure does fly when you’re having fun! It’s hard to believe we are approaching the end of term 3. It has been so wonderful visiting classrooms and having proud students visit the office to show and share their awesome learning achievements. I love it when teachers and support staff also proudly share the achievements of their students. The staff of CWSS work incredibly hard to bring learning to life by making it engaging, meaningful and most of all fun! Term 3 is often the time of year where a lot of learning connections are made and students make great gains. Be sure to ask your child what they are proud of this term or better still visit their classroom and have them show off their fabulous work.  

Learning at CWSS is not just for the students our staff are continuously learning also. Whether it is professional learning off campus or working together in teams, our staff are working hard to find the best ways to teach our students. At least once a term year level teams come together to look at the Australian Curriculum and how we can best teach it at CWSS. Thank you to our dedicated teaching staff for their energy and efforts in ensuring quality learning is occurring in every classroom every day.

One of my favourite ways to learn is reading. It was wonderful to acknowledge and celebrate book week last week. A big thank you to our students and families that shared their favourite books by dressing up. Reading is a skill for life and something we need to continue to practice all of the time. Improving reading outcomes at CWSS is a school priority and something the teachers are constantly reviewing to find the best ways to teach reading to our students. Families play an important role in children enjoying reading. Talking with your children helps to develop language, make reading with your chid/ren a special time, have your child/ren tell you or read you a story and ask lots of questions. As learning partners, families and school can work together to ensure our children are lifelong learners who reach their full potential. 

Next week CWSS recognises NAIDOC week. I would like to pay my respects to the Elders of our school community for their influence and sharing of their histories and learnings to younger generations. Elders are a child’s first teacher and play a very vital role in a child’s education. At CWSS we greatly appreciate the support of Elders in our school. 

Thank you for being a partner in your child's learning journey.

Megan Mitchell  -  Deputy Principal Teaching & Learning

Deputy Principal - Student Services

Hello Cairns West Families, 
 
It brings great joy to our school when we see so many families attending parade on a Thursday afternoon at 2pm.  This is an opportunity to celebrate the successes that we witness each and every day.  We have even started to sing our Focus of the Week SSIS song and the prep's have been modelling the actions.  Our SSIS focus for this fortnight is 'Do nice things for others'.  The SSIS song was posted to our school Facebook page, be sure to check it out.  Get your children to sing it to you and ask them some questions about what they could do at home, school or the shops to do something nice for someone.  Especially leading into the school holidays we want students to acknowledge that doing simple gestures for others can show they are kind, caring people.  Which we all know Cairns West children are! 
TRP @ Home 
EMPATHY 
Did you know …. 80% of our happiness is derived from: 
•    Friendship. 
•    Health. 
•    Work fulfillment. 
•    Loving relationships. 
•    Spirituality. 
 
When you do something kind for someone else your brain releases the love hormone oxytocin. This makes you feel good too. Check out Martin Heppell from The Resilience Project talking about being kind and the benefits of kindness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-ja3h5INc 
“Kindness is the greatest wealth of all. Small acts of kindness last longer than a lifetime” - Eddie Jaku (Author of ‘The Happiest Man on Earth’).  
 We did hit 80% attendance in week 6 which was fantastic news to celebrate.  Unfortunately, we only hit that once and have had a decline since.  Our goal is for students to attend 5 out of 5 days each week.  We have many ways we celebrate their attendance successes when they come to school and we need families to either respond to the absence SMS or contact the school office if their child is going to be away so attendance records can be kept up to date. 
We want to finish the term strong so please ensure your children are here until the last day of term 3. 

NAIDOC week at Cairns West 

Next week Cairns West will be celebrating NAIDOC 2023.  We will be running activities throughout the week during class and lunch times.

The Theme is 'For Our Elders' and the website gives a very clear explanation about who an elder is:  

They are cultural knowledge holders, trailblazers, nurturers, advocates, teachers, survivors, leaders, hard workers and our loved ones. Our loved ones who pick us up in our low moments and celebrate us in our high ones. Who cook us a feed to comfort us and pull us into line, when we need them to. 

It is from this we would like to officially invite: 

 Any elder of the Cairns West Community (Parents, Grandparents, Aunties, Uncles) to an afternoon tea on Thursday 14 September at 1pm in the Senior Hall.  We want to celebrate our elders and then have our final parade for the term.  We hope to see you all there for a cuppa. 

I hope you have a restful holiday and we look forward to seeing everyone back after the holidays – happy, healthy and ready to finish the year strong. 

Take care of yourself and each other 

Hayley Lawton  -  Deputy Principal Student Services

STUDENT of the WEEK - 6,7 & 8

TRYFOR5! Weeks 6,7 & 8

Cowboys TRYFOR5! is an inter-school challenge, designed to address short and long term impacts of students missing foundation learning in their primary years through poor school attendance.

TRYFOR5! motivates and rewards individual classes and schools for their attendance record during the challenge period, and engages students and families using the club’s profile and ambassadors.

Cairns West State School is very excited about being a part of this initiative.     

                                          Whole School attendance TRYFOR5!  GOAL  = 75.60% 

Week 1 whole attendance   73%

Week 2 whole attendance   74%

Week 3 whole attendance   73%

Week 4 whole attendance   76%

Week 5 whole attendance   75%

Week 6 whole attendance   80%

Week 7 whole attendance   78%

Week 8 whole attendance   79%

The Junior class with the best attendance  for weeks 6 & 7 is 1A with 87%

The Senior class with the best attendance for weeks 6 & 7 is 6D with 93%

Week 6,7 & 8 Attendance Winners

100% Attendance Reward Winner – ATTENDANCE STAR!– Each week 1 Student from each year level who has achieved 100% attendance for the week will receive a TryFOR5! Prize. Students will be announced at parade and given their certificate and prize.

100% Attendance Reward Winner – ATTENDANCE STAR!– Each week 1 Student from each year level who has achieved 100% attendance for the week will receive a Try For 5! Prize. Students will be announced at parade and given their certificate and prize. 

Weeks 1, 2 and 3 – Best Class Attendance
Weeks 4 and 5  –  Most Improved Attendance  
Weeks 6 and 7  –  Best Class Attendance
Week 10 - Best and Most Improved classes for the term

YEAR 4  - TWITS EXCURSION

Over 300 students from 17 schools attended and we were awarded a trophy for our participation. On Friday the 25 August the year 4 students with some of their HUB friends went to CPAC to see a performance of The Twits, based on the novel by author Roald Dahl. It was so funny and loud. The lighting and music were amazing as it lit up the whole theatre.  It was full of tricks and funny pranks just like the book. We thoroughly enjoyed the show!

Mila, Tirzah, Tamara, T’Kelah and Ziva  -  4B

TY WILLIAMS RUGBY LEAGUE

Well done to the year 4 students who participated at the Ty Williams Rugby League carnival last Thursday.
General behaviour, attitude, respect for others and sportsmanship was at the expected high level. 
At the end of the day the team remained undefeated.

Paul Pud

Well done Adarsh

All Abilities Sports Day

On Thursday, 31 August, a small group of very excited students attended the All Abilities Sports Day at Barlow Park. An action packed day, allowed students to make new friends and try new sports, including hockey, football (NRL, AFL and soccer), tennis, 10 pin bowling, athletics(sprinting, discus, javelin and long jump) and netball.  

Over 300 students from 17 schools attended and we were awarded a trophy for our participation.

Maree Jegou  -  SEP teacher

Library News

Book Week
Cairns West had a great dress up day for book week. Many of the staff and students took the opportunity to dress up as their favourite characters. A particular favourite of mine was the character that Jeremy Caulton from 3A chose to dress as. He selected, “Piranhas don’t eat Bananas”. He even had the banana.

Raymond Woodhouse  - Teacher Librarian

Visual Arts Department

In Visual Arts students in years 3 and 4 have been using different textures to create a work inspired by the famous artist, Picasso. Can you tell which art works are of a guitar? It may look like pieces of a guitar moved around. Students used different materials with textures to create this Cubist style collage on a canvas!

Kathy Laurila  -  Visual Art Teacher

Community Place in our Space

Recent weeks have seen an increase in activity in our Community Garden.  We continue to welcome new people to the garden space who are looking forward to growing food and community.

Our Community Room is also being used by families and carers.  The computers are available to use anytime during school hours. 

Our onsite Playgroup, run by Wuchopperen is on Friday mornings 8.30 – 10.30 everyone is welcome.  Come and play with your children with both indoor and outdoor activities, meet new people and catch up with friends. 

Our small Community thrift shop is open on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.....BYO bag.