At Foxwell State Secondary College, we are proud of the unique education that we are providing to our students.

We endeavour to provide a warm and supportive environment in which all children can 'succeed', grow in confidence, and flourish.

We continue to promote students' success through a balanced pursuit of excellence in academic, cultural and sporting endeavours and we love to celebrate the achievements of our students, staff and community members.

So, why do we do what we do? Why are we so committed to our why? We believe that every child needs to be treated as an individual and celebrated and supported in their personal endeavours.

We firmly believe that One Size Does Not Fit All. Across our school, we have over 520 individual students who all deserve to be acknowledged and guided towards reaching their individual potential. In our classrooms, Sports Performance Hall, practice rooms, art studios, laboratories and workshops, we strive to best cater for the needs of ALL children. That is our commitment and that is our why. 

At Friday's Staff Professional Development Day, our staff spent time collaborating to reinforce this commitment and review our progress. The passion and dedication from our staff is beyond anything I have seen before. They want your child to succeed, and each and every day they work incredibly hard to best motivate, inspire and guide your student to be the best they can be.

As a staff we talked about the 50/50 expectation. We expect that staff are at all times adding 50% to the partnership with their students. We also expect 50% from each and every one of our students. That 50% can look, sound and feel different for each child due to their unique strengths and needs, but all the same, we expect 50%. We ask that you speak specifically with your child today asking them if they are currently contributing 100% of their energies to ensure they are bringing their 50% to the partnership while in every classroom.

One of our greatest strengths remains the partnerships we foster between students, staff and parents. These partnerships enable us to live out our SPIRIT values and our commitment to providing a world class education for every student. We call this the 'Partnership Triangle'.

In our Partneship Triangle, we expect student, staff, and parents to be contributing their third. We all have to consider, are we doing our third? Ways that parents can do their third are by :

• ensuring that your child has all necessary resources ready each day for school
• ensuring that your child has at least 8-10 hours uninterrupted sleep every night
• ensuring that your child has a healthy and balanced diet, with breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner provided
• being genuinely interested and engaged with your child's daily learning
• supporting your child to complete thier homework or assessment tasks
• providing a calm study environment in the home and regular schedule for homework completion
• contributing to a positive partnership with your child's teacher, checking on progress and staying up-to-date with the learnings in each subject
• being a safe and consistent presence in your child's life
• prioritising your child and their learning every day.

Our staff and our students all have their own expectations that are regularly discussed and reviewed to ensure that they are also doing their third. From today, let's all commit to doing our third every day!

NAPLAN results

As you are aware, each year, students in Years 3, 5, 7 & 9 sit the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy. Earlier this year, our Year 7 students completed their tests in the areas of Reading, Writing, Numeracy, Spelling and Language Conventions.

We are pleased with the results of our Year 7 cohort and the individual results of our students. The vast majority of students have demonstrated at least the expected growth from Year 5 to Year 7, with a large number of our students demonstrating significant improvement during this time. The hard work of students, teachers and parents each and every day has lead to these positive reults.

I encourage parents to reflect on the individual results in the NAPLAN reports, with which students have been provided today. As a school staff, we review this data, together with the many other pieces of data we collect, to guide our teaching and learning program for each child. 

Let's Celebrate our Staff

Three outstanding educators from Foxwell State Secondary College have been nominated for the 2021 Gold Coast Secondary Principals Alliance Excellence in Education Awards.

Mrs Victoria Leadbeatter is nominated for the 2021 Bond University Secondary Education Leadership Award.

Mrs Suni Moraes is nominated for the 2021 Griffith University Excellence in Secondary Teaching Award.

Mrs Cheryl Newton is nominated for the 2021 TAFE QLD Excellence in Educational Support Award.

Our nominees are up against some very strong competition from other extraordibary educators across the Gold Coast. We wish these nominees the very best at the upcoming awards ceremony. 

The little things matter

As we near the next school holiday break, I ask parents to maintain their high expectations, and support our staff as we support our students to continue their learning, right up until the last day of term. Our expectations around behaviour, uniform, engagement, attendance, and the demonstration of our SPIRIT values are just as important now.

I look forward to participating in the Colour Run next Friday. If you have not registered your child, please remember to do so today. This is an exciting day in our school calendar and would be disappointing for your child if they missed out on the fun.

Until next time

Mrs Kym Amor

Principal

Foxwell State Secondary College

Not long now until our first ever whole cohort camp to Camp Kokoda, Maroon Dam. Students will attend camp from the 13th to 15th October, which is the second week after the holidays.

Students have already indicated if they would like to have a camp out experience - sleeping in tents, or to remain in cabins for the two nights. If your child missed completing the survey, please remind them to see Mr Anderson next week to express their preference.

In addition, next week, students will be asked to indicate if they have any special dietary requirements. It is important that we are aware of these by next Friday 17th September so that the company can cater appropriately for our upcoming camp.

Early next term, you will receive additional forms to complete regarding most recent medical history, which will also include a COVID screen history. Please ensure these are returned expeditiously. If you know that your child will be required to take medication while away, please arrange to have their medication delivered to the school labelled clearly with directions and ask to complete a 'Permission to Administer' form.

It is important to remember that camp fees need to be paid before a child may attend. If you have any finance inquiries, please contact Business Manager, Kimberley Knowles, know13@eq.edu.au .

If you have any inquiries about the camp itself, please contact Dane Anderson, dande230@eq.edu.au

Countdown is on...

Thank you for continuing to support our College and our College's P & C with the Colour Explosion™ School Fun Run. We are so excited to say that with one week remaining, the anticipation is building here on site.

Please refer to the P & C Update for information about how to ensure that your child is registered prior to the day and can participate in the fun event next Friday.

All measures have been taken to ensure that this event is safe for all students. The colour powder is made from 98% corn starch and 2% food colouring, making it non-toxic, biodegradable and gluten-free.

The staff will do their best to aim the powder towards the torso. However, wind may cause the powder to transfer onto your child’s face or hair. Sunglasses will be provided for students on the day.

The colour powder will likely wash out of your child’s clothing.

Nevertheless, participating children are to wear a plain white t-shirt [no singlets or shirts with rude/obsence logos or words], their school sports shorts and hat and an old pair of running shoes that you don’t mind being coloured. As always, shoes must be fully enclosed so as to meet safety requirements. It is recommended that girls wear swimmers underneath their white shirt. Students will be permitted to wear these items of clothing ALL day.

It is important to note that there will be NO opportunity or permission for students to change their clothes, at any stage, during the school day.

It is recommended, should students be traveling home on public transport after the event, that they bring a towel to wrap themselves in or an over-shirt to wear over the top of their 'coloured' white shirt.

Students will participate in the fun run from approximately 12.30pm. Students will be released in waves and will have access to the course for 15 minutes. There will be fun obstacles for students to access during the event and it will be important for students to follow all staff instructions to minimise risk and maximise safety of all participants. More details will be provided to students through SharePoint notices next week regarding the running of the day.

Get ready for the brightest day at school! Thank you, again, for your support and happy fundraising.

Broadwater Futsal Trials

Congratulations to DION WOODLEY who recently trialled for the Broadwater Futsal representative team. He was successful in his trial and will be playing for Broadwater, hoping to make it through to the South Coast Futsal team.

Interschool Sport Winning Team

As COVID restrictions eased, last week, we were able to celebrate on our College assembly our teams who experienced wins in our Interschool Sport Competition. Congratulations, again, to all students who were out there giving their chosen sport a go, and special congratulations to those teams who brought home the win after four days of competition.

ORIENTEERING QLD

On Monday and Tuesday of Week 9, Gordon from Orienteering QLD took some of our students through the basics of reading maps and orienteering. During both lunch-breaks, students were given maps of the school with different courses for them to navigate through in attempting to correctly find the order of markers for each course. Students were in teams and raced against each other to complete all the courses.

TriSchools Rugby League and Netball

Last week the TriSchools competition kicked off between Foxwell SSC, St Joseph’s and Pimpama with Rugby League. This week, the netballers joined in. Our Year 7s displayed a dominant performance in our round against St Josephs, winning 31-0, and our Year 8s finished out the afternoon with a 18-8 win. Both our Rugby League and Netball teams are headed to Pimpama on Monday afternoon to try to continue the winning streak. Parents are more than welcome to come and support our teams at this event!

If you have any sporting achievements that you would like to share, please email Mr Simon Taylor: stayl328@eq.edu.au

Dreamworld is holding its Spring County Fair these school holidays from September 18^th to 4th October.

This year we teamed up with Dreamworld and created KC our kindness-crow, which is part of their annual school scarecrow competition.

KC will be displayed amongst the other scarecrows during the county fair. 

I would like to say a huge thank you to all the students and staff who volunteered their time to build KC.

We had so much fun participating in this challenge.

Make sure you look for KC the Foxwell Kindness-Crow if you’re at Dreamworld these school holidays.

Melissa-Lee Furtado

Industry Liaison Officer

Kayleb Law

This week we celebrate Kayleb Law, a Year 7 student, who is passionate about art.

Kayleb entered his drawings in the Gold Coast Show Arts Competition and came first for his digital art and 3rd in his drawing.

We are very proud of you Kayleb and know that our Art teachers are very keen to support you as you continue to develop as an artist.

Addison Newlan is the junior vice commodore of Southport Yacht Club and they welcomed back and congratulated Olympic Gold Medalist, Mat Belcher. 

TERM 4 Week 9 2021

Year 8 continued to study chemical reactions and changing states of matter. One experiment involved heating up egg albumin and chocolate to determine which one undergoes a chemical reaction; another experiment had the teachers demonstrating oxidation of magnesium ribbon by heating the ribbon, which releases a burst of flame when the magnesium reacts with the oxygen in the air. This looked spectacular.

Year 8 then started going through a rocky time by studying the rock cycle. They have manufactured rocks with crayons, emulating the rock cycle by applying pressure and then heating the different coloured crayons, crushing them, heating these, mixing, reheating and plunging the “rocks” in iced water. Students have also been able to examine igneous and sedimentary rock samples closely using magnifying glasses.

Year 7 have been extensively studying, analysing and researching local environmental patterns and trends such as rainfall, to investigate how the sustainable use of water depends on how it moves through the water cycle. They explored how water connects people and places, and how, in a diverse society, people value water differently. Each student chose an area to study and drew maps of their chosen area and then gathered data and photos to link this back to how people in that area valued this resource.

Come along and support the G-STEM students who will be presenting their research. Some great topics are on the line-up; tooth decay, extroverts and introverts, memory, different rules for genders, and more.

Prizes are being offered for People’s Choice award and spirit of STEM awards and, you might even learn something. The link to book your FREE ticket is below.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/up-atom-g-stem-fair-2021-tickets-168391602817

Advice for parents, carers, guardians and drivers

The City of Gold Coast (City) wants to ensure that motorists comply with school zone road rules at and around schools to achieve a safer environment for children and the broader school community. These rules also help to optimise traffic movement and safety.

Please take extra care and obey the signed parking rules when parking on the roads and streets around the school. 

Park Safe Vehicles - Licence Plate Recognition (LPR)

As part of the City Parking Plan 2015 to improve parking behaviour on the Gold Coast, City Parking Officers will soon patrol the city (including key school zones) using vehicles, clearly badged as “Park Safe” vehicles.  These vehicles use Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) which is camera technology fitted to Park Safe vehicles to ensure motorists are parking safely.

Park Safe will operate on school days at student drop-off and pick-up times focusing on pedestrian areas around schools. If a vehicle is found to be parked illegally the City will issue an infringement notice to the registered vehicle owner by post.

Offences to be aware of:

• stopping 20 metres before or 10 metres after a sign posted crossing
• stopping 20 metres before or 10 metres after a bus stop
• stopping within 10 metres of an intersection or corner
• stopping within a bus zone (bayed area)
• stopping on a footpath or nature strip within a built-up area
• stopping in a way that restricts access to a driveway
• stopping on a yellow painted line
• stopping in a loading zone
• double parking for any period of time.

Park safely and legally to avoid a fine.

For more information visit www.cityofgoldcoast.com.au/parksafe

All College fees are now overdue.  

Statements were sent via email to all families with outstanding fees this week.  

Payment is required for your student to continue having access to the apps, resources and texts that the College offers under the Student Resource Scheme. 

Students with outstanding fees may not be able to attend excursions or camps. 

Payment Plans are available! Either CentrePay or Direct Debit plans are accessible for all families. 

Do you receive Family Tax Benefit A or B from Centrelink? If so, you can nominate a fixed amount to be paid from your Family Tax Benefit directly to the College to cover your child's education costs. Please contact us via email to set up your payment plan: finance@foxwellssc.eq.edu.au