Long Lunch artworks

It has been such fun to watch the classes contribute to a whole of year level art pieces (7) for auctioning to a lucky family at the Long Lunch this year.  What a fabulous idea.  Congrats to Julie Moore for her commitment to this project and thus organisation with Cindy, and to talented artist/mum Mel MacDonald for leading this project for us.  I can’t wait to see what she will be able to produce with the children’s inspiration as the art pieces are put together like a jigsaw puzzle.  She has promised to give us a preview before the event once they are framed.  Watch this space as they say.  Meanwhile some information is below about what the students have been contributing to.  Ask them about this.

Prep:    a surprise!

Year 1:   painted a small square with watercolour paints

Year 2:   colouring in a small rectangle with pastels (which will create a sausage dog)

Year 3:    using liquid paint pens to decorate a square

Year 4:  using liquid paint pens to decorate a rectangle

Year 5:   painting a bird with watercolour paints

Year 6:    using liquid paint pens to decorate an umbrella

Welcome to our new P&C Exec Team

We have a slightly adjusted P&C Exec Team for 2025.  

• President – Anthony Chaytors continues in this role for us.
• Treasurer – Anthony Davis also continues in this role.
• Vice President – Samara McRae is happy to continue also.

New to their roles are

• Vice President – Will Pitchforth and
• Secretary - Mark Innes.

A sincere thanks to outgoing Secretary Bianca Harris. We appreciate the energy and organisation you have brought to the team. I know we will still have a great working relationship with you in a different role.. mum and cheerleader for Ascot.

Thank you to the whole team for their enduring support of our school.  I am genuinely very appreciative and excited to be working with them to for Ascot SS to be inspired and inspiring.  

Coaching Training for teaching staff

The teaching staff stayed behind for a professional learning session this week, spending 2 hrs with me to begin to learn a neuroscience based coaching model which will provide us with a strong framework for a coaching approach to conversations for adults and children. For me a coaching approach has three main success criteria and can be incredibly helpful in just so many contexts in a school and in families.

Coaching at its best:

1. looks, sounds and feels like a good conversation; and
2. slows down the brain of the person being coached so that they can notice and honour their feelings and body talk and then move to their logical brain to decide how they want to feel, evaluate what they have been doing which is working and make plans for their next steps.
3. helps us to acknowledge and construct success, and to problem solve.. or both.

The framework we started with I call “our thinking hand”.  I have included it here for you because although we are not using it with students just yet, you might want to play with it asking your child the questions to unpack something that was successful during the day or a problem to solve.

While learning, you start at the palm (calm palm) and then move around from the thumb to the fingers.  WDEOP.

When I am working with students having a strengthening conversation I use this model, and I know how helpful it can be for them, whether they have made a “mis-take” or experienced someone making a “mis-take”.

Play and let me know.  It certainly helps for a rich conversation that takes you beyond Q: “how was your day?” .. R “good”.    (P.S. don’t worry if you do not get to all 5 questions in one conversation, you can loop back)

Harmony Day Celebrations

Each year the theme of Harmony Day is about Belonging, and with good reason.  There is much evidence now about the importance of each of us feeling a sense of belonging, in terms of our psychological safety and its importance as a core element of being able to be engaged, be it in our learning or in our wider community.   Below is my very favourite graphic about Belonging. The colours represent diversity in so many different ways:  personality, cultural, identity, neurodiversity, basic needs,  physical diversity etc. Together they are glorious.  What binds them and brings them together is the invisible yet almost tangible string of kindness. A nice motto for a person, class or family might be:  When it doubt, choose Kindness.

Let's Chat Education Parent Workshop - Years 4/5/6 parents

Join Mandy, founder of Let's Chat Education, to find out more about what our students learn in their workshops this year about their changing bodies. This is a really useful session with lots of tips for supporting tweens at home. 

• Monday 24 March
• 6:00pm-7:00pm
• Staffroom

Date Claimer: Under 8s Day

Under 8s Day, is an annual Queensland event, originally initiated by Early Childhood Australia (ECA) Queensland Branch to highlight the importance of the early years of a child's life, especially in terms of learning and development, and has been running now for over 60 years. 

We are pleased to again host Under 8’s Day this year.  Not only do our Prep, Year 1 and 2 students enjoy the day we are proud to welcome out local kindergarten and childcare centres to the event.  So spread the word and claim the date.

We are off to the Planetarium! 

Thanks to the family members who are coming along.

As many of you who are already signed up know,  we are moving to QParents as our main means of School Business communication (we will be keeping SchoolZine for sharing- newsletter and notices)

QParents offers a convenient, safe and private app to help parents & caregivers manage important details of your children's journey. 

Below are all of the things you can do in QParents.  From Sem 1 2025 all school student academic reports will ONLY be available through the QParents app (they will not be emailed out), so now is your time to get signed in and set up your account.  Additionally,  we are using QParents now for all excursion and camps consents and payments.

You will need your school invitation code and your student’s ID number.  Please contact Sondra by email if you require any information – smcar17@eq.edu.au

https://qparents.qld.edu.au/#/landing

Congratulations to these students who are mastering our school expectations and earnt a Boarding Pass that put them into our weekly draw at Assembly. With thanks to the P & C for their support, our winners receive an ice block or home bake from the Tuckshop.

Sport Carnival dates – Term 1

School sport representatives

Well done to all the students who have registered and attended trials this term. Congratulations and best wishes to the following students who have recently performed and been selected into City District or Metropolitan North teams:

City District Netball – Halle O and Taylah V

City District AFL (girls) – Annabelle S

Metropolitan North Swimming– Pippa T

All students who have been selected in City District or Metropolitan North teams this term will receive certificates recognising their achievements at Monday afternoon Assembly , March 24, if parents would like to attend.

Sporting achievements

We would like to give a huge shout out to Boyd B on his recent performances at Queensland athletics. Boyd, who is 11, competed in the under 13 age group and placed 2^nd in long jump, 3^rd in hurdles and 4^th in high jump. As a result he was selected in the Qld team to compete in Perth over Easter. We wish Boyd all the best and look forward to hearing about the experience.

We would also like to congratulate Year 5 girls Halle and Evie on their selection in the U12A Representative Touch Football team. They are currently in training for the Queensland State Cup which will be held in Rockhampton in July.  We applaud their effort and wish the girls the best of luck!

Cross Country Information for this Wednesday /Thursday (Week 9)

On both carnival days children will wear house coloured shirts with shorts, hats and sunscreen. All children who are asthmatic must carry a puffer with them on the course. Year 3 – 6 students will run between 9am and 11am with students of the same year of birth e.g. born 2015 = turn 10 in 2025. The top 5 students (9 – 12 years) will be selected to represent Ascot at the City District Crosss Country trials at the Grammar playing fields, Northgate on May 2nd.  

8/9yrs (born 2017/16) - Will consist of 1.5 laps of the oval, out bottom gate/ 1 lap around the top half of the school on the footpath/ finishing with a 3/ 4 lap of the oval.

 10yrs (born 2015)  -  Will consist of  1.5 laps of oval, out bottom gate/ 2 laps around the top half of school/ finishing with a 3 /4 lap of the oval.

 11/12yrs (born 2014/13) – Will consist of 1.5 laps of oval out bottom gate/ 3 laps around the top half of the school/finishing with 3/ 4 laps of the oval.

Yr 3 – 6 Order of Events/approximate times (Wednesday, 26 March)

P – Yr 2 Order of Events/ Approximate Times( Thursday March 27)

P – Yr 2 Order of Events/Approximate Times(Thursday, 27 March)

Parents are very welcome to come and spectate and cheer along the children but we would please ask parents and younger siblings to stay to the outside of the track while children are racing.

Swimming safety

We are so pleased that water safety skills have been a strong focus of our swimming program this term. Across the 2024-25 summer period, 104 died by drowning, with lack of swimming ability known to be a major contributing factor. Missing out on learning how to swim while young has known links to an increased risk of drowning in adulthood.

There are National swimming benchmarks with a set of skills detailed for under 6 years and under 12 years. For any parents interested in having a look, the link is below. https://www.royallifesaving.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/32192/RLS_SwimWaterSafety_NatBenchmarks-Assessment.pdf  

I will be on leave in week 10 so would like to take the opportunity now to thank all the parents who have helped support our students in the swimming program this term. We look forward to seeing you again in term 4 when the focus changes to stroke development and getting carnival ready.

DON'T FORGET!

Cross Country is coming this Wednesday 26th & Thursday 27th March so all children will require a house coloured shirt. Shirts are $20 new and are available through Flexischools, or alternatively we have a great range of pre-loved house shirts for $5 (in store only).

Uniform Shop opening hours are Monday and Thursday mornings from 8.15 - 9.30am.

We also have house coloured hair ribbons available. 

This newsletter section provides a great opportunity for local businesses to engage with our parent community. If you would like your business to be a part of this or for more information, please email us at comms@ascotsspandc.org.