Principal's Update
What a tremendous sight to be seen last Monday morning with our
annual Book Week Parade. The costumes created by both students and staff were amazing with the entire school community congratulated on a wonderful event – especially given this was the third dress up event for some students this Term! Congratulations to Mitchell (Yr6), Jeda & Asha (Yr5), Ayvah (Yr4), Leona (Yr3) Mattson (Yr2), Ariela (Yr1) and Ethan & Lorenzo (Prep) on their AWESOME costumes.
I was equally as proud of our Year 6 students and staff who journeyed to the Tinaroo Environmental Education Centre (TEEC) for their annual Year 6 Camp this week. During these 4 days students will build their knowledge of the 5 keys to success, Confidence, Persistence, Organisation, Getting Along and Emotional Resilience to overcome fears and challenging activities. A big thank you to the wonderful staff and parents who are attending camp this week, supporting our students to achieve success and build memories that will last a lifetime. For more information about camp check out my Sizzling Spotlight:
https://mareebass.eq.edu.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/Principal%27s%20Blog%20-%20Year%206%20Camp.pdf
As you know, we value open communication with our families. If you need to speak to your child's teacher, please make an appointment via the front office. Making an appointment will ensure that we give you the time and attention that you require. Parent/Teacher/Student interviews will be held again at the end of the Term on Monday 12th and Tuesday 13th September. For more information about our Parent/Teacher/Student interviews, check out my Sizzling Spotlight:
https://mareebass.eq.edu.au/SupportAndResources/FormsAndDocuments/Documents/Principal%27s%20Blog%20-%20Parent-Teacher-Student%20Interview%20v1.pdf
Working together with you as parents and carers to achieve the best we can for all our children is a very important part of the way we like to work at Mareeba SS. Research tells us the better we can be at working together, the better the educational outcomes will be for our students. Thank you to all of you who have come along to family workshops this year, helped out at Reading Café's, attended Parent Teacher Interviews, come along to a parade and excursion, or just simply made a point of talking to your child about what is happening in their classroom and what the focus of their learning is currently. Your children will certainly appreciate your interest in their learning and achievements!
We often get asked how Mareeba SS teaches reading. Reading is a focus and we promote it as an important lifelong skill. Having many opportunities to practice reading is key. To do this, we aim to promote a love of reading. Opportunities to do this include:
- Our twice a week Reading Café provides children with the opportunity to practice their reading so that reading becomes an enjoyable past time for everyone.
- Weekly Library Lessons enable children to borrow their favourite books from the Library to take home and enjoy.
- In the classrooms, reading is taught in a number of ways – as a whole class group and in small group settings such as reading groups in Prep to year 2. In classrooms we focus on a number of evidence-based strategies such as using Decodable Readers that are proven to assist students in learning to read and also to comprehend what they read.
- Children also read to adults 1 on 1 as another way to practise their reading fluency and their comprehension skills.
This Friday 2nd of September is dedicated to recognising the hard work of our amazing teacher aides. This year, our teacher aides get to celebrate with a long weekend as Friday is a Student Free Day with minimal staff on site for this day. This Thursday we will celebrate the wonderful work of our teacher aides and say 'thank you' for being a great asset to our school.