It filled me with great pride to view the Harmony Day and Leadership Induction Ceremony last week.

Our student presenters and performers are to be applauded for their courage and professionalism. At Foxwell SSC we believe that our Diversity is our Strength, and this was certainly on display across Harmony Week. 

I take this opportunity to particularly acknowledge Ms Victoria Leadbeatter, our Head of Inclusion, who led a wonderful  team to provide a week full of celebrations.

Our Foxwell SPIRIT was on show across the entire school with our guest performers commenting on how kind, engaged and passionate our students were. What a great commendation.

During last week I had the pleasure of being an Education Improvement Branch - Peer Reviewer of the new Fortitude Valley State Secondary College.

This was a wonderful opportunity to engage with another new world-class secondary college and to consider how we can all continue to reflect on our practices to ensure that we are providing the very best education for every student.

It made me very happy to see another school that is built on high expectations, strong values and of course, kindness.

ONLINE SAFETY

As stated on a Facebook post this week, “I see a key role we have as educators is to ensure that our students have the knowledge and skills to stay safe and well. With the prevalence of online activity amongst young people in our modern society, it is critical that educators and parents provide our young people with key information about their online safety and behaviours.

This week we spoke with all Year 7 and 8 students around online behaviours including harassment, bullying, and receiving, sharing or distributing inappropriate or pornographic images. We ensured an age appropriate session and were available for individual support.

To support parents in talking with your children at home, we have provided some information from the eSafety Commissioner regarding young people and kids.

www.esafety.gov.au/young-people

www.esafety.gov.au/kids

Should you require any further support in speaking with your child, please contact our Guidance Officer, School-based Youth Health Nurse, or Chaplain.

SAFETY AND WELLBEING

The other area we ask you to speak with your children about is around mature decision making.

Over the last week we have been made aware of a couple of concerning ‘internet crazes/dares/challenges’ going around the local community. Some of these can lead to injury or worse.

Please encourage your child to think before they act, or follow a dangerous craze. We all like to have fun, but risking our health or life and the lives of others is never ok.

LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT

It is quite a busy time for students as they prepare to submit their final assessment or engage in assessment tasks.

It has been wonderful to see so many students taking advantage of our What I Need (WIN) time program where students can access support from teachers and teacher assistants.

This is available every day from 8.00 – 8.35 am and from 3 – 4pm. We encourage our students to take advantage of this generous service being provided free of charge by our staff.

Please remember to check in with your child about their learning progress.

Until next time

Kym Amor

Year 7 students will complete a NAPLAN online practice test on Wednesday 31st March. 

Year 7 students at Foxwell State Secondary College will participate in two practice tests in the lead up to the official NAPLAN Online Testing. The purpose of these two tests is to test the capability of the College's IT infrastructure; to test the suitability of student devices; and serve as an opportunity for students to familiarise themselves with the online testing environment. Results and outcomes from the two practice tests are not provided to the school, nor to parents or students upon completion.

The first practice test will take place on Wednesday 31st March at 1.50pm. 

This test is a selection of different question types from across the Language Conventions, Numeracy and Reading tests. 

The second practice test will take place on Wednesday 21st April at 9.00am. This test is a practice Writing test. 

Students will complete NAPLAN Tests Online, and NAPLAN Online Practice tests on their own personal iPad. Students are required to ensure their device is fully charged at the start of each day. 

During both the practice test and official NAPLAN Test Online, students will be provided in class, with any additional equipment required. This will include stationery, paper for writing notes, and personal headphones. During the practice test, students will be provided their own personalised set of headphones, which will remain personalised to them for both practice tests and all four official tests. 

Students with an iPad Pro or iPad Air are asked to supply their own USB-C to 3.5mm Aux Adaptor. These can be purchased from the likes of Kmart, Officeworks and JB Hifi from as little as $10.00.

The National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is used by governments, education authorities and schools to determine whether young Australians are meeting important goals in literacy and numeracy. All students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are expected to sit the NAPLAN tests, which are held in May each year. NAPLAN gives a snapshot of how children are performing in reading, writing, language conventions and numeracy. It complements other effective classroom assessment and reporting practices.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) develops the tests and marking standards. Since 2016, NAPLAN testing has been aligned to the Australian Curriculum.

There are four tests: Language conventions, Writing, Reading and Numeracy.

For Years 7 and 9, the Numeracy test includes both non-calculator and calculator allowed sections. For the Writing test, students are given a stimulus and asked to write a response. The response formats for questions in all other tests are either multiple choice (clicking on a bubble to indicate the answer) or constructed response (type the answer in a box or on a line).

Students cannot prepare specifically for NAPLAN and are not expected to do so. These tests contain questions similar to those that occur in regular classroom learning and assessment.

Your child will do the NAPLAN tests online from Wednesday 12th May, 2021 - Thursday 20th May, 2021.

Students at Foxwell State Secondary College will complete NAPLAN Online. By completing NAPLAN Online, students are provided a better and more precise assessment that is more engaging.

One of the main benefits of NAPLAN Online is tailored (or adaptive) testing, in which the test presents questions of higher or lower complexity depending on a student’s performance.

Tailored (or adaptive) testing is designed to assess a wider range of student abilities and to measure student achievement more precisely. Your child should not be concerned if they find questions more challenging than usual; they may be taking a more complex test pathway. A student’s overall NAPLAN score is based on the number and complexity of questions they answer correctly.

Ensuring students are familiar with using devices, typing on them and navigating through programs is a part of student learning and a requirement of the Australian Curriculum from the first year at school. NAPLAN Online is not a test of keyboard skills. There are variations in how fast and well a student can type – just as there are variations in how fast and well a student can write by hand. Schools and students have access to familiarisation through the public demonstration site.

Withdrawals

Parents can withdraw their child from the tests by notifying the College in writing. Withdrawal is intended as an option to address issues such as religious beliefs and philosophical objections to testing.

Exemptions

Students may be exempted from one or more of the tests if they meet one of the following criteria:

• Students with a significant intellectual disability and/or significant co-existing conditions that severely limit their capacity to participate in the test
• Students with a language background other than English, who arrived from overseas and have been attending school in Australia for less than a year.

Exemptions for students with physical and/or intellectual disabilities are determined through consultation between the principal, student, and parents/carers.

Adjustments

A range of adjustments can be made for students with physical and/or learning disabilities. For example:

• Depending on their disability, students may receive slightly more time to complete the tests or be seated separately from their regular class.
• Modified formats, for example large-print and Braille, are provided for students with vision impairment.

For more information about NAPLAN:

• visit www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/8017.html for information about test dates, test preparation, test administration, reporting and analysis, newsletters and marker recruitment
• email the QCAA’s NAPLAN team at naplan.tests@qcaa.qld.edu.auor phone (07) 3864 0299
• visit www.nap.edu.au for general information including FAQs, brochures for parents and carers, and the future delivery of NAPLAN.

Did you know that your child’s best learning time is at the start of the school day? What sort of start is your child getting each day? Just a little bit late may not seem too serious, but even if

For learners to maximise their opportunity to learn each lesson, each day, they must be present and engaged for the entire school day. At Foxwell SSC, we have carefully structured our learning design plans and routines to ensure that students can learn based on the most current and evidenced research. However, none of these intentions or measures are effective if students are not arriving to school on time and remaining in class for the duration of the school day. 

We acknowledge that there are times when arriving late or departing early is due to extenuating circumstances and, typically, the parent/carer has contacted the College to request that the absence is approved. For example, the student needs to attend a specialist appointment for which there was no available time outside of school hours or is travelling to a college-approved activity. However, from our data, we know that most often, late arrivals to school are occurring for no valid reason. For example, students often provide the excuse of “slept in” or “couldn’t find my uniform/hat/iPad/shoes”. These excuses reflect other issues, such as a lack of organisation, and are generally not approved reasons for arriving late. As per the Foxwell SSC Student Code of Conduct (see excerpt from p 64 below), parents/carers are required to contact the College, either via a note or email or phone call, to explain the late arrival. Not only does this allow for an approval to occur, it also ensures that the student’s safety has not been compromised as the parent/carer is aware that their child was not at school. For example, the parent has brought their child to school late after an appointment and has provided a note of explanation (approved and safe) in comparison to the child presenting to the office as late, without a note (unapproved and potentially unsafe as the student could have detoured on the way to school).

Please remember your children’s safety and access to learning to achieve personal success are key priorities for our community. By ensuring that your child is at school for every minute of every day, you are supporting them and us in meeting these priorities. If you are concerned that your child is experiencing issues which are impacting their attendance, please contact the Head of Year so that we can work together in supporting your child and family.

Tips for Parents, Carers and Students to Support Being at School for Every Minute, Every Day:

From the Foxwell SSC Student Code of Conduct:

WOW! What a term it has been! Lots of hands-on experiences leading to lots of fun and embedded learning that is meaningful and engaging. 

YEAR 7

Students have been learning about forces and have been involved in researching, creating and experimenting to investigate how Ancient Egyptians solved real-world problems. We explored questions such as, "How did Egyptians move those colossal blocks to make the wondrous pyramids?"  Students focused on ways Ancient Egyptians may have taken advantage of unbalanced forces to move these large blocks. There was some excellent research and experiments using different methods exploiting unbalanced forces. Yes, the great Sir Isaac Newton would have been proud of these budding scientists; pulleys, inclined planes and wet sand were used to show how to more easily move the blocks by reducing the forces needed to pull the blocks.

Students developed hypotheses and investigated using data loggers. The gathered data was analysed to then determine their conclusions.

YEAR 8

Students studied biology this term concentrating on the respiratory, reproductive and digestive systems.  Videos, dissections and discussions were just some of the modes students used to identify the organs and tissues in these systems and to understand how they fit together in the body to create and sustain life.

Students were able to see how oxygen is absorbed from the air and taken through the body to the cells for organs to work and keep the organism living. Having the opportunity to see a demonstration on how the lungs inflate and where they are in the body in relation to other organs in the respiratory system assisted with learning, as did feeling the textures and differences of the organs.

Another biological system studied was the digestive system. Students participated in an experiment where hamburgers were used and broken into smaller pieces showing how molecules are absorbed into the body and used as energy for the cells and organs. Students physically interacted with this process by using plastic bags as the stomach and small intestine; they added acid and detergents acting to simulate the body’s processes. Stockings became the large intestine and were squeezed to push the food through, allowing the nutrients to be released into the body for use and at the end a solid was produced. All good fun but some students were a bit squeamish by the end of this activity.

The reproductive system was the next system for students to study and they augmented their learning by dissecting various flowers. They examined the reproductive parts using a magnifying glass to identify the pollen, ovary, stamen and associated reproductive parts in the cross-section of the flowers.

ALP and G-STEM

The College is excited to be in partnership with the Wonder of Science program which promotes a STEM culture and gives our students the opportunity to be mentored by inspiring PhD students from our associated university (University of Queensland). Our students participated in a conference at the beginning of the year; have been introduced to their Young Science Ambassadors; and the G-STEM students have visited UQ.

Teachers have been mentoring students, facilitating fun science projects and experiments with balloons, forces and lung capacity measurements, and Merge Cubes. Students are currently researching young scientists and inventors and learning how to use the augmented reality cubes to present their research in an interesting and informative way.

Skills have been gained through these experiences through collaborative peer research, discussions and analysis, and through students presenting their experimental findings to their colleagues and teachers through public speaking.

As part of Foxwell State Secondary College’s ongoing commitment to engaging with the community, the College, through the Sporting Schools Grant Funding, has been able to offer a Girls in Sport Inititiative for Term 1. The initiative is a sailing program which offers a range of female students the opportunity to learn to sail. Our first group of girls went sailing yesterday.

A big thank you to Mr Anderson and Mrs Knowles for their organisation and support of this activity.

We are delighted to announce that we had three teams of debaters complete in Round 1 of the Gold Coast debating Competition on Wednesday evening. Our teams competed agains St Stephen’s College, Trinity Lutheran College and Southport State High School. We fielded two Year 7 teams and one Year 8 team.

We are excited to report that all three teams were victorious. Students ably debated the topic, That children under the age of 14 should not have mobile phones. Some teams argued the affirmative case while others argued the negative case.

All students were worthy ambassadors of Foxwell State Secondary College and demonstrated perseverance, integrity and teamwork in their preparation for the event, their behaviour and their performance on the evening.

Our teams were a credit to the teachers who have worked closely with them, Mrs Goddaer, Mrs Arndt and Mrs Sihvola. A heartfelt thanks to the parents/carers who continue to support their child and our teams as they move through the competition.

Our fourth College team will compete next week, as their opposition could not attend due to flooding in their local area. We wish them every success.

Winter Uniform

When we return after the holiday break, we head into, what are traditionally, the colder months of the year. It is therefore timely that we provide a further reminder of the winter uniform expectations.

During the colder months, the following items are acceptable:

• Foxwell SSC wattle coloured knitted jumper with College logo – to be worn with formal uniform ONLY
• Foxwell SSC ink blue jacket with College logo – to be worn with sports uniform ONLY
• Foxwell SSC ink blue track pants with College logo – to be worn with sports uniform ONLY
• Ink blue stockings/tights
• Foxwell SSC ink blue scarf with College logo

Beanies, balaclavas, knit caps with ear flaps or other similar headwear are not permitted. Undershirts must not be visible outside /through the uniform.

Hats and Shoes

As with all times of the year, the appropriate hat is required to be worn whenever students are outside; this includes traveling to and from school. We have a number of unclaimed and unlabelled hats at Student Services. If you child is missing a hat, please ensure this is resolved as soon as possible.

In addition, a reminder that our uniform policy stipulates black lace up leather shoes be worn with the formal uniform and plain black sports shoes (can be leather) be worn with sports uniform. Cloth, canvas and mesh type shoes do not meet workplace health and safety requirements nor do they meet our Dress Code. Students will not be permitted to participate in certain activities without leather shoes.

Please remember, if your child is out of uniform for any reason, to provide a note of explanation so that your child can report to Student Services before school and be issued a uniform variation slip. Should a child not have a note or report to Student Services before school, they may be asked to call home to see if the matter can be rectified and may be issued with a 20 minute detention.

It has come to our attention this week that a number of students are not following our College process around mobile phones or ICT. Mobile phones must be switched off and stored securely in a locker at all times during the school day. Phones must not be left in bags or carried by students.

Our Student Code of Conduct is very clear - bringing mobile phones to school is not encouraged because of the potential for theft and distractions. Phones must be stored (and turned off or to silent) in the secure phone or full size lockers that are available to all students. Phones must be secured by 8.45am each day and not be retrieved prior to 3pm. The school accepts no responsibility for lost phones or digital technologies.

If parents need to be contacted due to an emergency, this can be done through Student Services. If parents need to contact students due to an emergency, this is best done through Student Services also.

The research shows that mobile phones in classroom are a distraction to learning and outside the classroom often a hindrance to the development of relationships.

The aim of the College’s mobile phone policy is to provide: 

• a safe environment to learn without inappropriate mobile phone use (including cyberbullying) or distractions 
• greater opportunities for social interaction and physical activity during recess and lunchtimes.

Our Student Code of Conduct states, Students who breach our responsible use policy for their iPad or mobile phone will be required to hand in the item immediately, at the Student Services counter and will receive a receipt for the confiscated item. The item may be made available for collection from Student Services at the end of the school day for a first and second offence, (unless required to be kept for purposes of disciplinary investigation, when it will only be returned in the presence of a parent). Should a third offence occur, the phone/device may only be collected by a parent/guardian from Student Services. Should there be further offences, these will be deemed to be wilful disobedience and dealt with accordingly.

Devices potentially containing evidence of criminal offences may be reported to the police. In such cases police may take possession of such devices for investigation purposes and students and parents will be advised to contact Queensland Police Service.

On Tuesday, we conducted a full school assembly during which we reminded students of our mobile phone policy and consequences should this policy be breached. Mrs Amor discussed mobile phones and students were given an opportunity to, without consequence, remove phones from their bags and hand them in to Student Services or place them in their lockers. Students were cautioned that consequences will be strictly applied should mobile phones be found any time in the future.

We seek your support of our mobile phone and ICT policies as we work together to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all of our students.

Full size and Mobile Phone size lockers are available for rental from Foxwell. We cannot accommodate the storage of phones in Student Services. Any student who brings a phone to school must store it in a locker.

Parents are able to pay the rental fee through the Qkr! App. Lockers will not be provided to students until the rental fee has been paid. 

Please see the below instructions on how to download and register your student in the Qkr! App. 

Full size lockers are $80.00 per year.

Mobile Phone size lockers are $40.00 per year.

No payments for lockers will be accepted through the Finance window at the School. 

Foxwell State Secondary College Sport Update

If you would like to share your child's sporting achievements with us, please email me at:

stayl328@eq.edu.au

Queensland Athletics Competition

On the weekend, Mitchell Goodman, another Sporting Minds student in Year 8, competed at the State Athletics Competition.

Mitchell won his heat and placed 5th in the final for the U13 Boys 100m sprint.

He also achieved a new PB time of 13.24

Also at the same carnival, Bailey Teasel competed in Little Athletics State Championships and took Gold in the U13 1500m race walk and has made Queensland's Nationals team.

Underwood Netball Carnival

Well done to Aneta-Rose Austen from our Year 7 Sporting Minds Class.

Aneta-Rose competed at the Underwood Netball Carnival for her NGCNA rep team and they came away as overall winners.

Extra-curricular AFL

Extracurricular AFL will be commence in Week 1, next term and continue until the end of Term.

This program is open to all interested students (prior experience is not necessary) and will take place on a Monday afternoon from 3:30-4:30pm at school.

We are proud that this extra-curricular program can be offered free of cost, courtesy of our ongoing relationship with the Gold Coast Suns. Please see Mr Taylor in the staffroom for a note.

Broadwater Sport Trials

UPCOMING TRIALS:

Nominations Due Week 10 Tuesday 30th March

Nominations Due TERM 2 Week 1 Tuesday 20th April

Students interested in trialling for Broadwater District representation need to see Mr Taylor in the staffroom at lunchtimes or email their interest to trial to stayl328@eq.edu.au  

Thank you

Mr Taylor