It has been a very exciting few weeks at Foxwell State Secondary College.

Our first Year 8 camp was a great success with students and staff stepping out of their comfort zones to take on new adventures. I loved seeing students encouraging each other, their teachers, and me to face their fears and take the plunge (literally). They even managed to get me to overcome my fear of heights to get involved in many of the activities on offer. 

Our Arts Showcase was simply outstanding. The feedback from parents and staff was overwhelmingly positive.

Next week some of our students have some amazing opportunities on offer. Some of our Year 8 students will get the opportunity to engage in on-site training with FKG on our Stage 2 Building site. I am sure that this will foster a great passion for a career in engineering or construction for many of our students. Thank you to FKG and our Industry Liaison Officer, Melissa-Lee Furtado.

Some very fortunate Year 7 students will join the Queensland Trust for Nature on their Koala Camp. This is a unique and exciting opportunity to engage in a real-life sustainability project that is making a difference.

Our passionate sports students continue to engage in competitions in their sport of choice.

We are also proud to share the accomplishment of one of our passionate sports teachers who last week competed in the Touch Rugby League World Cup for Australia. Mr Jesse Way's team won the World Cup beating Maori New Zealand in the final. Congratulations Mr Way and thank you for always going above and beyond for our Rugby League students.

SCHOOL OPINION SURVEY

Each year parents, students and staff are offered the opportunity to have their say about the progress of the school. We are very proud of our School Opinion Survey results and wish to share some highlights and some areas that we will focus on for improvement.

100% of those surveyed believed that:

• teachers at this school expect my child to do his or her best
• Students with a disability are well supported at this school
• This school encourages parents/carers to be active partners in educating their child
• This school fosters respectful relationships among all students
• Students are encouraged to do their best at this school
• This school gives staff opportunities to do interesting things
• Information and communication technology issues at this school are resolved promptly
• The school leadership team model the behaviours expected of all employees.
• The school is well maintained.

Many other survey questions indicated at least a 90% satisfaction rating. Some areas for development and consideration include:

• I can talk to my teachers about my concerns (students)
• I feel accepted by other students at my school (students).

As a school we pride ourselves on the inclusive, kind and caring environment that we provide. We will continue to speak with our students and listen to how they believe that we can improve in these areas. One such way is the recent introduction of the QR code reporting of incidents. This has occured since the survey was taken so we are confident that we would already see some improvements. We won't stop though until every child feels accepted and heard in our school. 

Until next time

Mrs Kym Amor

Principal

Foxwell State Secondary College

Foxwell's inaugural Yr 8 camp has come and gone and we all made it back in one piece, albeit a bit wet, soggy and without exception, exhausted.

The camp was an amazing experience, with students braving the elements - storms, rain, mud, and sun, all without complaint. They made us so very proud.

Students participated in a range of activities which included, the giant swing, a high ropes course, a climbing wall, the 300 metre flying fox, the sugar glider, archery and team building activities. Unfortunately the wet weather meant that we could not attempt the hike up Mt Beau Brummel.

Students were noted being encouraging and supportive of each other and worked to assist all students to participate and no judgment was passed on students who did not feel they could attempt particular activities. It was a delight to watch all students interacting in a positive manner for the duration of the camp.

The most popular activity, according to our students, was the giant swing and it is understandable - the feeling of weightlessness as you freefall once the rope is released, was exhilarating.

One of the highlights for many students was convincing, sometimes reluctant, teachers to participate in the activities and getting to know teachers better in a casual setting.

One group of students was afforded the opportunity to give some 'payback' to Ms Schroeder. They cajoled her into having a go at the sugar glider to which she agreed and once they had her in the air, they proceeded to count slowly using 'mississipis',  from 1-60. They were somewhat disappointed when Ms Schroeder instead of getting upset or angry, joined in chanting the count and happily swung around in the air until she was returned safely to the ground. 

The camp-out girls were outstanding, and braved the massive storm overnight and came back for breakfast the next morning chirpy and happy. The boys' camp-out was drier and they had the lucky chance to experience a campfire. Apparently there was far more sleep had on the camp-outs than in the cabins; I'll remember that for next year!

Thursday night trivia was a big hit as a night time activity for students. Thank you Ms Wells for organising and running it.

A big thank you to all the teachers on camp, you made it all possible for our students. Thank you for giving up your time and your energy to ensure every child had a fantastic experience. To the staff at Camp Kokoda we also express graitude for organising and running some great activities and for ensuring the fun continued despite the inclement weather.

To Mr Anderson, a huge shout out of thanks for organsing the camp.

The road back to Foxwell was a bit bumpy to say the least, for one of our three buses ...blow out! Thank you to the students and staff for the manner in which they managed this situation and to the families, for their patience either waiting for your child  or their luggage to arrive back.

We have compiled a video of photographs from camp, we hope we have managed to capture the Foxwell SPIRIT in action for you to see. We will provide a link to the video ASAP. Stay tuned!

The final day for payments through the finance window for Term 4 will be the 19th of November 2021. 

All invoices are now overdue. Please make payment as soon as possible for any outstanding Student Resource Scheme invoices or Excellence Program invoices. 

Statements will be sent fortnightly to families. 

Do you receive Family Tax Benefit A or B from Centrelink? If so, you can nominate a fixed amount to be paid form your Family Tax Benefit directly to the School to cover your child's education costs. Please see link to a CentrePay Application form. You can submit this form directly to the Finance Department via email at finance@foxwellssc.eq.edu.au

Colour explosion prizes

Students who ordered their prizes from the colour explosion last term received their goodies this week. We hope the prizes bring entertainment and a sense of achievement and satisfaction to the students after a fantastic event!

Well done again to Bailen, Gemma and Kiera, our three top fundraisers! All the students who took part contributed to this event and we will certainly ensure that we do it again next year after the demand from the students who thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

P&C meeting

The final P&C meeting of the year will take place on Tuesday the 9^th of November in the Learning Hub at 6PM. If there is a change to this we will notify families via newsletter and Facebook posts. All are welcome to attend and take part in discussions with other families and school staff.

Recycling

Our P&C supports environmental issues like sustainability, and as such, we collect recycling from the school grounds every week and take to the recycle centre. Our wonderful cleaner, Deb and her team have supported this project and have been incredibly helpful collecting recycling from the school grounds. The P&C executives then take bags to the container refund depot to earn money which will be used towards future projects. We are looking at ways to improve the efficiency and volume of the recycling, so both Deb and I will be visiting another high school shortly to look at how they have their efficient systems in place and to learn from them.

How as community members can you help? We have a container for change account C10256140 if you have bottles/cans or poppers that you would like to donate either at the centre or to school. Attend one of our meetings to help us work out ways to be more effective, or email us pandc@foxwellssc.eq.edu.au

Cheers

Roz Rowe

P&C President

Parents and Carers of Year 7 students in 2022 are invited to join us for our Year 7 Information Evening, to be held on Tuesday 2 November, 6-8pm in the Sports Performance Centre.  This night will allow our families to gain a greater insight into Foxwell's school vision, values, curriculum, extra curricula offerings and expectations. We will also focus on supporting families to get prepared for their children's transition to secondary education.  

On this evening, we will also welcome Julie Parker from Apple Education to provide a valuable session on using iPads, setting up Family Sharing and monitoring screen time, so together we can keep our students safe and well online with their learning devices.

We encourage your child to attend the evening with you. 

If you have a child you anticipate will join Foxwell in 2022, or know of someone who is yet to complete their enrolment package and enrolment interview with Principal, Kym Amor, we encourage you to contact Wendy Garrett in the Administration Office as soon as possible.  We want to ensure all our 2022 Year 7 students are able to participate in our upcoming Transition Day.  Details of Transition Day will be released to enrolled families only, in the coming weeks.

HAVE YOU SUBMITTED YOUR ENROLMENT APPLICATION FOR 2022?

Our 2022 Year 7 cohort is quickly filling up!

A reminder to our families with Year 6 children who wish to join their older siblings at Foxwell SSC in 2022, that enrolment applications need to be completed as soon as possible.  

Our Parent Information Evening and Transition Day events for Year 7 2022 students will be held this term.  Only families of students who have completed their enrolment application will receive this information.

If you, or anyone you know that intends to enrol a Year 7 student for 2022, has not yet submitted your enrolment application or attended your enrolment interview with the Principal, Mrs Kym Amor, we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible. Enrolment packages can be found here.

We don't want you to miss out on attending these important events!  

FKG and CSQ presents; 

‘A Day in the Life’ Experience

 

It is with great excitement that the Build It and They Will Come classes for 2022 at Foxwell State Secondary College have the opportunity to attend a Day in the Life experience with FKG.

FKG is a prestigious construction and civil engineering company which is currently working on Phase 2 of our campus.

The goal of this event is to provide an introduction and basic exposure to the breadth and depth of career opportunities within the construction industry.

Students will be given first-hand industry exposure and will participate in industry talks given by trades people from a variety of areas.  

This event will take place next Tuesday, the 26^th of October on campus and at the new building. 

Melissa-Lee Furtado

Industry Liaison Officer

Years 7 and 8 have been working hard, completing tests, lessons working towards assessments and a camp for Year 8 thrown in amongst the learning.

ALP

Bridges are important as they allow passage across to the other side. Well, maybe not all bridges, as the ALP crew found out with their designs. There were many hours that went into the design and building of the bridges to create these engineering feats. Many wooden sticks were used and they all looked marvellous. Some bridges handled massive loads without breaking.

G STEM

The G STEM group have been looking at air pressure and using the STEAM trolley to create masterpieces.

Students also trialled the “Upside Down Glass of Water” experiment. Try this at home (maybe over a sink, just in case!). Just fill a glass with water to the top and carefully place paper or cardboard over the glass and turn the glass upside down. See what happens.

Interesting fact

For those missing travel, let’s talk about the Eiffel Tower. It can expand and become 15cm* taller during summer time. This is because particles move about and take up larger spaces. That’s why builders leave expansion joints in buildings so as to allow for the particles expanding. * This expansion is equal to 5 bumblebee bats end on end. Bumblebee bats are the smallest mammal in the world.

This week has seen the exciting launch of our college SPIRIT Card initiative acknowledging and encouraging students to consistently engage in positive behaviour and our school's SPIRIT values every day. The initiative aims to build and foster positive relationships, positive emotions, positive health, positive engagement, positive accomplishment and positive purpose within their learning.

Education Queensland provides students with internet access through our school network, EQNET.  This network has a number of filters and safety protocols designed to keep your student safe when working online.

We are aware that some students may be accessing a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to circumnavigate the protections of the school's network.  Not only is this an example of IT Misconduct, it also compromises the security and protections of students by giving them unfiltered access to the internet and possible explicit content.

In order to support parents and carers to keep our students safe, we have blocked access to downloading VPNs at school and we remove all VPNs from your child's device when we become aware of the them.  Additionally, we have created these helpful 'How To' videos that will support you to identify and remove a VPN from your child's iPad. Please follow this link to access the video.

IT Manager

Alex Harper.

Yet another brainchild of our Head of Students Year 7, Mr Braiden Ruge, the Foxwell incident reporting system for both year 7 and 8 is now available digitally.

For students, QR codes may be found in the Learning Hub & Student Services and the link to the incident form is also on the Student SharePoint homepage (where notices are posted each day).

Our digital incident forms support our belief in student agency, promote a safe and healthy environment, and encourage students to be up-standers rather than by-standers by providing them with a private space to report incidents.

Once completed, the incident report is automatically emailed to the relevant Head of Students for follow up. We encourage all students to report any incidents as soon as possible, whether it be in person or through the digital form so we can continue to ensure Foxwell is a place where our young people can safely connect, contribute and flourish.

Term 4 Process Reminders

While some of our students (if not all) are counting down to the summer holidays for 2021, it becomes even more important that we maintain our high standards around uniform, behaviour and learning.

Uniform Reminders:

Please note that our full uniform policy includes the necessary information regarding all aspects of our uniform and can be found here:

Unfortunately we have noticed a range of alternate non-uniform items start to creep in. Below is the excerpt from the uniform policy regarding socks and shoes.

School bags

If your  child does not have the official school bag, the bag must be plain navy with no brand logos visible. If you are unable to source a school bag in line with this, our Heads of Students have some bags available for purchase and can provide the details on request.

Hair, Make-up and Jewellery

Long hair must be tied back. For the purposes of clarity, long hair is considered to be any hair that is of collar length or longer (for all students). Eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara, lips stick/lip-gloss and other make-up are not permitted. Clear nail polish only is permitted.

Non-Permitted items

Reminder that for the health and wellbeing of all of our students and staff, aerosol deodorant cans are not permitted. We don’t recommend students bring mobile phones to school and students are able to contact families via student services in case of emergencies. If students must bring mobile phones to school, phones must be stored (and turned off or to silent) in the secure phone lockers that are available to all students. Phones must be secured by 8.45am each day and not retrieved prior to 3pm.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Elle Bullock – Head of Department