Tropical North Learning Academy - Trinity Beach State School eNewsletter

Principal's Message

Towards our inclusive culture for all...

I strongly believe there are three key elements that underpin a productive and supportive school culture that enables our young people to thrive.

Focusing on students
Valuing our staff
Seeking parent voice

We are collectively focussing our efforts on your children as our students are central to improvement focus. Every decision we make as a school, we ask ourselves, is this the best decision for our learners? If the answer is yes, if the work is evidence informed, we proceed.

Our whole team recognise that our staff are highly valued and enabled to do their work to maximise outcomes for our learners through precision coaching and professional development planning. We have a united focus this year to support everyone on our improvement journey. We have very capable staff and the early stages are showing positive gains.

We all collectively want a bright future for our learners. We all want our own children to grow up as competent and confident learners. To assist in this, we are seeking your input to assist our strategic direction. Please check you email for a survey link requesting your feedback and ideas for school improvement .

Thank-you for supporting our school on this continuous improvement journey.

Our Explicit Improvement Agenda: Improvement by design, not by chance

Our staff have engaged in a collaborative inquiry over many months to determine our Explicit Improvement Agenda for 2022. This provides a lean focus that allows our collective efforts to have precsion focus on improvement work for student outcomes. Our Explicit Improvement Agenda can be seen outlined in the diagram. There are two key drivers:

Inclusive education by design
Every student reading, every student succeeding.

If you would like more information about our improvement focus, please discuss this with your child’s teacher or make an appointment to see me.

Upholding our high expectations and global school rules: A safe supportive environment

We have a dedicated belief at Trinity Beach State School that if we pay attention to all the little things we will avoid the big challenges. This is fundamentally driven through our high expectations and continual reinforcement of our global rules.

To Be Safe we discuss our safe behaviours around our school. This may include wearing our hats, covered shoes, walking on concrete and not kicking balls between buildings.

To Be Respectful we refer to upholding our respect to one another, supporting each other, respecting ourselves by eating healthy lunches and showing pride by wearing school uniform. We reinforce good manners, by respecting the adults in our school, greeting each other and checking in on our friends. We also refer to respecting our environment. The lack of rubbish and beautiful gardens is a testament to this level of care.

To Be a Learner our emphasis is on whole body listening, staying focussed, trying our personal best and asking questions.

Regular discussion with your children about our school-wide global expectations can significantly support our positive school culture.

Virtual Parade: Leaders of tomorrow

I am so impressed with our student leaders for 2022. Byron, Alley, Ashton, Lucia and Leighyra have made a dedicated start. We have codeveloped a 5-finger plan to support each other as the team develops their leadership skills. The leaders have been using their lunchtimes to film our virtual parade. We have gone virtual until restrictions are lifted and we can commence whole school parade in the hall. Please follow our Facebook page or visit our website https://trinitybeachss.eq.edu.au/ to view our school parade.

Digital Year Level Overviews: Keeping parents informed

On the 11 February our Year Level Overview were issued to all families. These are now a digital link that can be viewed on any device via the Schoolzine medium (same as the this Newsletter). If you did not receive your child’s Year Level Overview, please check that you email details are up to date via the school office or your ”Junk” folder.

Safe access to our school: Keeping Children Safe

Thank-you to families who are using both our Stop Drop & Go areas safely and respectfully. I need your support with this. Can I ask that families not park in the Wewak and Madang Street Stop Drop Go lanes? Safe practice here is to cycle around if your child is not there within 2-3 minutes.

There are now an additional 32 carparks on our Madang Street side should you wish to park. We have also had some parents parking in our designated 50-seater buses pick-up area. This can make it unsafe for student and causes the larger buses to block the exit of the Madang Street Stop Drop Go.

A friendly reminder that driver conduct is the reasonability of the Queensland Police Service and parking enforcement is Cairns Council jurisdiction. A safety campaign over the coming weeks will increase presence to ensure children’s safety.

Thank-you for your understanding.

Thank-You P&C Association:

I would like to take this time to acknowledge a group of highly dedicated parents who selflessly donate their time to improve our school. Mel Ison, Lisa Hollander, Natalie Nelson, Ian Stone and our P&C Operation manager Jodi Brown. This team have raised over $50 000 to support the construction of stage 1 of our senior playground. I believe this team is certainly one of the highest performing P&C teams I have ever worked with. Without your input we couldn’t not have achieved this. We ask that you join our P&C team for 2022 even if you can only assist once per year. We have a strong belief that many hands make light work. In the coming weeks you will see the below stage 1 elements installed in the Year 5 & 6 playground.

Watch this space for a massive announcement in the coming months which will see a huge addition to the senior playground for stage 2. I believe many schools will be envious of this addition.

Prep - Year 2 News from the Deputy

What a fantastic start to the school year. Thank you to all the P-2 families for supporting the transition back to school. The amazing P-2 teachers have been working so hard with your children to ensure they had a smooth start and solid understanding of the routines expected in the classroom and the school as a whole. I am so proud every time I am in classrooms to see the students sitting up engaged in their learning.

I am so impressed with our newest students, our Preps, who have settled into school life seamlessly. It is a tiring time for many prep students as they navigate their new school life and all the demands required of them but they have taken it in their stride. The best part of my day is when I get to visit the classrooms and the students are so excited to show me what they have been learning in class.

Over the last two weeks, alongside the teaching of the curriculum, the teachers have been engaging with the Promoting Literacy Development resources to assist them to understand their students’ knowledge of decoding and spelling skills so that they can set goals and provide targeted teaching.

It is an exciting time in the P-2 classrooms.

Martina Jackman

Year 3 - 4 News from the Deputy

Hi again,

Congratulations to all of our wonderful students and families for getting through the first 3 weeks of the year. In grades 3 and 4 learning is well underway with students and teachers working through a jam-packed timetable of learning. To support your children at home please have conversations or engage in opportunities to work through the topics below.

Grade 3’s

English – At the end of the term students will be assessed by writing a persuasive letter. At home you can support them by asking them to give multiple reasons when they are making a request. Ask them to give evidence for their opinions and discuss your reasons and opinions. Examples

“Mum can we go to the park?”

“Sure, if you can convince me, give me three reasons that I should take you to the park”

“good exercise, less noise inside and I will pick up my toys”

Maths – Practice number facts and multiplication at home

Reading – read daily, read signs, read packages and sound out all the tricky words

Grade 4’s

English - At the end of the term students will be assessed by create a traditional story. At home you can support them by engaging in different traditional stories from different cultures. Focus of the details, the sequence of events and the morals.

Maths – Practice number facts and multiplication at home

Reading – read daily, read signs, read packages and sound out all the tricky words

Thank you for supporting your child through their education both academic and social.

Kind regards,

Emma Taylor

Year 5 - 6 News from the Deputy

Guidance Officer

For those parents and families who don’t know me yet, my name is Jenny Ferguson and my office is in the Library. I work at Trinity Beach State School everyday, and can provide support or referrals for support to families who need assistance.

I can usually be easily recognised by my bright coloured hair! Your kids will have seen me around the school, even if they have not met me yet.

I have had a lot of queries from parents recently about how to assist their child to deal with anxiety. It seems that this is a common issue for a growing number of children in our school, and across Australia.

If you are concerned about your child showing signs of anxiety, here are some things you can do:

Talk with your child and see if there is something they are worried about. Sometimes it can be something very specific, and if that is changed, their anxiety / worries reduce very quickly.
Talk with your child’s teacher to let them know you are seeing some signs that your child may be anxious/worried. This will help you to identify whether your child’s concerns are just being shown at home, or also on display at school.
Talk to your GP about your concerns – doctors have excellent training in recognising and helping to treat mental health issues. Anxiety is very common in children and most GPs are wonderful at suggesting some ways to assist.
Talk to the Deputy Principal or myself (Guidance Officer) to share your worries. We can help to keep an eye on your child, and offer them additional support, if it is needed.

There are also some amazing websites with more information on anxiety. Here a few to consider:

https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/anxiety-in-children

https://healthyfamilies.beyondblue.org.au/age-6-12/mental-health-conditions-in-children/anxiety

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/fear-and-anxiety-children

If you have significant concerns about your child, you’re best to start with a GP referral. If you need a hand to organise this, I’m happy to assist. I can be contacted on jferg53@eq.edu.au or via my office phone which is 4057 1421.

Head of Special Education Services

I’m Samantha Ilic and I have worked at Trinity Beach State School since 2018 as Head of the Inclusive Education Team. I really do have the best job in the world; I get to work at a brilliant school with a great team of teachers and support staff and our students are central to our focus. My goal for this year as part of our move toward an Inclusive Culture is to ensure our parents and community have a voice in developing learning goals for their children.

I would like to introduce our amazing team of inclusive education staff at our school. Supporting all children to achieve their best, at their point of need is our collective focus.

My name is Lisa Croatto and I am the Inclusive Education Teacher working with year 5 and 6 students with additional needs at our school. I love working with students and their teachers in class, developing Individual Curriculum Plans and Personalised Learning Plans, transitioning year 6 students to high school and ensuring that suitable adjustments are made each day in classrooms to help all of our amazing students thrive and develop. My goal for 2022 is to have each of my year 5 and year 6 students achieving to their full potential in their inclusive and supportive classrooms, developing academically, socially and emotionally.

Hi, I am Caroline Houston and I am the Inclusive Education Class Teacher. I enjoy working with diverse learners of all ages. I love my job as I get to see the amazing progress students can make when given the opportunity to succeed. My goal for 2022 is to ensure all students have challenging learning goals and are active participants in all aspects of school life.

Hi, I’m Jade Kerkhoven (Ms K). I am the Inclusive Education Teacher for Years 1 and 2 and Early Years Pathways Teacher. I have 3 children of my own all at primary school! When not at school you will find me camping with my family and playing with my dog Jinx! I enjoy making learning fun and interesting for each of the students I support. I love my job because I am able to create a positive learning environment that cherishes and validates all learners. My goal for 2022 is to work with teachers, parents and other support people to establish strategies and adjustments that will maximise student learning outcomes.

Hi My name is Mel Voss and I’m an Inclusive Education Teacher at Trinity Beach State School. I’m currently working with years 3 and 4.

I really enjoy learning new things and my goal for the year is to complete a Minecraft course so I can create learning activities that draw on my students’ strengths.

My name is Jude Doherty (Mrs D) and I am the Inclusive Education Teacher for Years 1 and 2. I have four children who love to keep active and I enjoy watching them play soccer as well as swimming and gymnastics. I enjoy working as a team with teachers, parents, outside agency professionals and most importantly the child to achieve the very best they can possibly be. My role is very exciting as I have the opportunity to engage with children in their learning in a fun and supportive way. It is so rewarding for both the children and myself to see what they have achieved through working together. My goal for 2022 is to continue to work as a team to ensure every child is included and by working together we can achieve the very best.

Hello, my name is Ariel Ballou. I teach students in Years 1 to 3. I love working one-on-one and in small groups with children tailoring to individual needs in a fun way. This year I’m looking to further support students with a range of needs.

Welcome to 2022! Hi my name is Amanda Harvey. I have been a grade 5 teacher at Trinity Beach State School for the last five years. This year, I am very excited to be in a new role; Support Teacher for Literacy and Numeracy.

My role focuses on supporting students and teachers as they strive towards our school goal of “Every student reading, every student succeeding” through our new synthetic phonics program. I am passionate about reading and look forward to working with groups of students, classes and our wonderful teachers.

Hi I’m Deb McPherson, students know me as ‘Mrs Mc’. I have been at Trinity Beach State School for many years. During my teaching time at Trinity Beach SS, I have undertaken many roles, with the main ones being Early Years classroom teacher, Special Education teacher, Reading Recovery teacher and Gross Motor Teacher.

This year I am one of the two Support Teachers Literacy and Numeracy. This role will provide me with opportunities to grow as an educator and to be able to support and empower both students and colleagues to achieve their full potential.

Hi, I’m Kelly Cooke and I‘m one of the Speech-language Pathologists at Trinity Beach State School. I love my job because I get to work with students to improve their communication skills. My goal for 2022 is to work with teachers to support students who have additional learning needs in class.

Hi I'm Annette Coyne and I'm one of the Speech Language Pathologists who works at Trinity Beach State School. I really enjoy working in schools as this provides me with an opportunity to work collaboratively with teachers and educators to improve the learning outcomes for students. My goal for 2022 to establish myself in the Far North Qld Region assisting school teams and empowering others with confidence and self-belief.

Head of Department Curriculum Year P-6 News

Term 1 is hitting the half way mark and students are well and truly engaged in their curriculum and settled back into classroom routines. Over the coming weeks assessments across all learning areas will be beginning to take place, please check your child’s year level newsletters to see when assessments are scheduled.

Guided reading is currently occurring in classrooms four times a week, teachers have been working hard to plan and develop engaging sessions at students point of need. Students have enjoyed being able to use new reading resources during these sessions!

Focus Clubs are also running during lunch sever days a week. These include Minecraft, lego, drawing, loom knitting and Just Dance. Students can ask their teacher for details on when and where these are occurring.

Instrumental Music News

My name is Nathan Christodoulides and I am the percussion teacher at Trinity Beach State School. I have taught percussion at Trinity Beach State School for the past 8 years. I also teach percussion at six other state schools in the Cairns region and also teach classroom music for two days a week as part of my role for education Queensland.

I have a bachelor of teaching from James Cook University and a diploma in music majoring in drum set/percussion from Box Hill College of Music in Melbourne. In my spare time I regularly play in bands around the local Cairns region.

If you have any questions regarding your child being a part of our percussion program at Trinity Beach State School I can be contacted at nchri72@eq.edu.au

Hi, I’m Mr Wilkins and I specialise in teaching Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass on Monday and Tuesday’s.

If you are interested in learning and performing on a strings instrument, the wonderful front office staff will be more than happy to help.

We have limited instruments available, and positions are filling fast. Lessons are held in the studio next to Ms Walkers Music Room.

Ms Jen Fengler, Brass/Woodwind Instrumental Music Teacher jxfen1@eq.edu.au

Jen studied classical music at the Conservatorium of Newcastle and Contemporary Music at Southern Cross University. She has been the instrumental music teacher at Woree State Primary and High Schools for the past 7 years. Before that, she worked for Catholic Education for 5 years at schools including Good Council College, Holy Cross, St Rita’s and St Andrews. Aside from teaching, Jen plays drums and bass guitar in several bands in Cairns including Raconteurs and Secret Tuesdays.

Jen will be joining the Trinity Beach State School Music Team in 2022.

My name is Mr Nicholls and I am a Brass and Woodwind teacher at Trinity Beach SS. I also teach at Caravonica SS and Smithfield SS. Brass and Woodwind encompasses a range of instruments: Flute, Clarinet, Alto and Tenor Saxophones, Trumpet, and Trombone.

The program is available to students in years 4, 5 and 6. Once students have a little experience on their instrument, they are able to join the Concert Band, a large group of students who practice and perform together regularly.

Instrumental music is a lot of fun and can lead to a lot of great opportunities - I started playing the saxophone in grade 5, and now I get to play and teach music every day!

Stop Drop and Go Zones

We encourage all parents to make use of the designated Stop, Drop and Go at the front of the school (Wewak Street) to ensure traffic congestion is minimised and safety enhanced at the beginning and end of each day. The purpose is for parents/carers to pick up and drop off students in the morning and afternoon and move on straight away.

Our new Stop Drop & Go Zone is open: Madang Street. Please drive safely.

Stop Drop --> Go Madang Street Open:Thank-you to our families for safely using our new Stop Drop Go. Remember no parking and continue to move forward safely for collection or drop off. The pooches enjoyed it too....

Remember we are not the police or Council. If you have safety concern regarding driver conduct, please forward this to the appropriate authority.

Question?

Not receiving information from the school, have you;

Updated your details at the front office or via Q Parents
Checked your junk mail
Following us on Facebook

Book Club News

PBL - Positive Behaviour for Learning

PBL – Positive Behaviour for Learning is our Whole School Approach for behaviour.

The fundamental philosophy of PBL is that we cannot assume that our students know how to behave at school if they haven’t been explicitly taught the expectations required. Each fortnight our PBL team meets to analyse the behaviour data to determine what needs to be taught or revised in regard to our school expectations. These expectations are then taught as focus skills in the classroom and on parade. The language is used by all staff and the posters are displayed around the school and on our school’s FaceBook page so that they can be reiterated at home. This week our focus skill is ‘Communicating Respectfully’

Focus

Week 4 Week 5 Week 6

Trinity Dollar Shop Opening Times

The shop opens at second break on Thursdays and Fridays.

Even weeks are years 4-6, odd weeks are years 1-3.

Tuckshop News

Please note the direct phone number to the Tuckshop is 40 571439

Hello Everybody, WOW here we are already Week 5 of the 1st Term.

Welcome back to all our exsiting students and a Big Welcome to the new Students to our School.

How great do our year 6 Students look in thier Senior shirts and for the 1st time on record arriving the 1st week of the Term!! you will also notice that there is NO YEAR printed on the back so they will be able to be handed down to their siblings, left in stock are;

6x Medium and 1x Large $35.00 each.

Our School jackets have been very popular, with new stock now available in sizes 6,8,10,12,14,XS,S for only $50.00

FANCY HAIR TIES

We now have available from the Tuckshop loads of “Fancy Hair Ties”, All the School Colours as well as All the School Sports House Colours. From Hair Clips, Hair Ties & Hair Combs all Hand Made by Karen one of very own talented Grandma’s from the school. All priced from $2.50 - $5.50 with a donation from each sale going straight back into the Tuckshop.

We have introduced a few new items to our Menu

Breakfast Ham & Chesse Folded Grill Wrap $2.50 half wrap or $5.00 full wrap. Engery booster Banana Smoothie $ 4.00

Lunch 2 MYO Wraps, Tanndoori Chicken & Salad & Lamb Greek Salad Wrap both with a GF option $6.50 Macaroni Cheese Bake with a Vegetarian option $5.00 Chicken Pesto Pizza $5.00

Full details of days & pricing please check out the full Menu on the school’s web site.

Please Note: Our PREFERRED way of ordering Tuckshop is through www.flexischools.com.au we now have a ipad at the Tuckshop to help you set up an account.

Also If your Child is AWAY and you have made a Flexischools order, can you please let us know and we can save it for the next day or when it suits, OR let Flexischools know and they will be able to do a refund

Can you spare 30 minutes a week? Maybe you have a morning or afternoon free let us know which day suits am or pm and we will be in touch to get more information from you. From sticking labels onto bags, baking, making sandwiches or packing the lunches every little bit helps your P&C earn more money for playgrounds, equipment and other resources for our children to enjoy and keeps our kids from going hungry too!!!!!

https://volunteersignup.org/49H7Y

Did I mention we have the best coffee machine.

Cheers From Leanne & the Tuckshop Team.

P&C News

P_C_Donation_Request.pdf

Playground_Stage_1.pdf

Outside School Hours Care (OSHC)

OSHC_increase_places.pdf

Bike Bus News

Bike Bus is back on for 2022, starting week 6 (next week), and the competition will be fiercer than ever as the Mighty Northerners battle it out again with the Superstar Southerners.

We would love to see more people joining in on the fun! We are especially hoping to get some more junior members so we can reward them for their efforts with tuckshop vouchers.

If you have any questions regarding Bike Bus in 2022, or if you're a community member keen to be a part of this year's program, please email Mr. Clair on cocla0@eq.edu.au.

We can't wait to see you all next week!

School Choir

Choir rehearsals have started in the music room.

Year 1 -3 start at 12:30pm

Year 4-6 start at 1:00pm

Permission letter will be given to students who express their interest.

Around the classroom

3B Mr Kotzikas.

Fully engaged learners. Testing out our new reading resources.

Sensational teachers doing fantastic work

Our teachers are using high impact learning strategies to support the Big 6 of reading .

Watch this space. Well done team!

2C Miss Harper:Students practicing their phonemes as part of their reading consolidations. Great job 2C!

Thanks Mr Dennis!Students are building raised garden beds for our huge series of vegetable gardens across our school that is a part of the Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden project. Watch this space closely.

Prep A have been very busy learning interactively

We love Drama @TBSS...

Mr Terry's 5E class were having a blast practising their lines for the Fractured Fairy Tales with a twist...

2D English Focus: The 3 little...

Unpacking the characteristics of the wolf and the little pigs. Students engaged and learning. Well done Mrs. Rasheed and students.

2C Miss Harper...2C aren't scared of monsters.

Students are adding noun groups to characters to enhance their character descriptions. Well done!

Today's students, tomorrow's leaders

We couldn't be more proud of our student leaders at Trinity Beach SS. Today Mr Hollis our Principal worked with our school Captains, to unpack the adaptive leadership skills required to be tomorrow's leaders.

Families were invited for series of activities, blind folded and guided through a minefield (Obstacle course) by their child. A practical approach to experiencing the many challenges of leading others. Everyone enjoyed a morning tea at the end. We thank our families for such brilliant students .

Thank you to Branches Nursery

These plants were planted at last weekend’s working bee - attended by staff, students and their families. They have been planted throughout the school to add to our garden design.

Branches nursery offered to donate these plants when they found out we were having a working bee at our school.

Thank you to Branches Nursery for donating these plants.

Working Bee Beautification Project 1

Thank-you Trinity Beach SS Community . Sensational work!

Beautification Project 1 a huge success.

Thank-you to Branches Nursery for the donation of plants

Sports News

Community Notices

NAB AFL Auskick - Community Footy Pack

9 May	Parade Year 3 - 6 9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

9 May	Student Council Meeting 11:00 AM - 11:40 AM

12 May	Parade Prep - Year 2 9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

12 May	P&C Meeting 6:00 PM - 6:30 PM

16 May	Parade Year 3 - 6 9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

16 May	CPAC - Ratburger excursion Year 1 & 2 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM

19 May	Parade Prep - Year 2 9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

21 May	National Simultaneous Story Time 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

23 May	Cross Country Prep - Year 3 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

23 May	Parade Year 3 - 6 9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

23 May	Student Council Meeting 11:00 AM - 11:40 AM

26 May	Holloways Beach Environmental Centre Year 5 excursion 26 May 2025 - 30 May 2025

Term 1 Week 5 School Newsletter