30 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Welcome to this fortnight’s newsletter. We have had the first round transition day with Year 6 students visiting and it had been a very busy and enjoyable day. It was really fun to talk to the year 6 students who were polite and appeared to be having a good day. When welcoming the Year 6 students I was truly surprised by the number of students who indicated that their parents went to Emerald SHS. It really demonstrated to me the desire of the town to see Emerald SHS do well for all its students, which is our mission. It also reminded me of the investment parents are putting back into their old school and the obvious pride they have for ESHS. I wish to take this opportunity to let all parents know we understand what being a town school means and the staff are here do their best for your kids.

Last week our staff focussed on literacy training and profiling in classrooms to enhance their skills in comprehension and classroom management. It was busy and successful week. This week and beyond will be packed with school events, so100% attendance is vital for all students. I hope to see you all in the coming weeks.

Coming up

• QCS Test Tuesday & Wednesday – 29th &30th August
• Eisteddfod 30 Aug – 1st September
• Arts Showcase Thursday 31st August
• Seniors Exam Block – 1st September to 6th September
• SET plans – 4th & 5th September
• Work Experience – 4th to 8th September
• Colour Fun Run – 10th September

STOP Press!

• We just won an allocation to allow us to put in automatic sliding doors for our disabled students. Great news indeed!

Special Mentions

• Mr Ryan for organising a great transition day for the visiting year 6 students.
• Ms. Weatherly for organizing literacy and reading training for all the staff at Emerald SHS this last week.
• Thank you to all those parents who filled in the school opinion survey.
• Thank you to Mrs. Markey and Mrs. Shelton for writing the application for automatic sliding doors for our disabled students.
• Thank-you to Mrs Galea and Mrs Hume for their organization of our Book Week activities.
• Well done to all our ATAP students who competed at a tough regional ATAP challenge.

“The first requirement in taking a step in the right direction is to take a step in some direction” – Robert Brault

Ray

Ray Clarke
Principal

From the Deputy Principal – Junior School

Year 6 into 7 Transition Day

Friday 25th August saw over 150 students from our feeder schools visit Emerald State High School for the first of three transition into high school days. Students experienced a range of subjects that are found more regularly in a high school setting such as Manual Arts, Home Economics and Science in the laboratories. The feedback from students and our teachers alike was that everyone had an enjoyable day at the school experiencing some of the novelties of high school. Miss Prior’s scavenger hunt is always a student favourite and she did not fail to disappoint with almost 100 kids completing her challenging activity at first break. Also popular was the Tuckshop at first break with lines equivalent to those found at a Justin Bieber concert winding around B Block.

The next information and enrolment evening will be held on Wednesday 6th September from 5:30pm-7pm in the Library. We look forward to seeing many more perspective parents and students there to enrol. A reminder that scholarship applications and Honours Applications are due to the Emerald State High School Office by Friday of week 10 term 3. Mrs Van Hees and I will be making our selections in early term 4 about who these students will be the recipients for 2018.

All the best,

Hayden Ryan
Deputy Principal – Junior School

From the Head of Department –Arts

Term three has been very busy in the Arts Department. We kicked it off with our bi-annual musical in week four, which was a huge success! Our students really stepped it up and put on three fantastic, high-energy shows for our community. The students were a delightful bunch to work with, so much so that our Wednesday afternoons now feel a little empty without our weekly rehearsals.

This week, our senior Drama and Music students will be presenting their final performance works at our Arts Night on Thursday 31st August. As our main event this year was our musical, this event will be an informal opportunity for our community to see some of the final works of our performing arts students. Our visual arts students will have a jewellery store set up and our hospitality students will be catering for the event, so come down and see the artistry of our students enjoy some snacks while you watch the show. It will be held in the Drama room and will kick off at 4:45pm.

All of these events would not be possible without the support from our teaching staff and our wider community. I would like to thank all of you who have assisted either by attendance or helping out at a station at one of these events. You are very much appreciated.

Our classrooms have also been very busy as our students are preparing for their final assessments. Please check in with your child to see how they are going and encourage them to work on it each night.

Rachelle Wilcox
Head of Department – Arts

From the Head of Year – Year 10

This week Year 10 students will receive very important information about their subject selections. This information will relate to their upcoming SET Plan process. The SET Plan process is the Senior Education and Training Pathway that plays an important part in shaping student’s education, career and training aspirations during their final phase of high school study. Please check-in with Guidance Officer Mrs Fitzgerald, VET Head of Department Mrs Carter or Year 10 Deputy Principal Mr Van Hees if your child is absent from school during these talks and require more information on this.

On Wednesday 23rd August, twenty students visited CQ University campus for a Year 10 student specific Campus Connect Day. This shaped up to be a great opportunity for our Year 10 students to get a taste of ‘life as a university student’. Friday 25th August saw the Open Day for Emerald’s Agriculture College. A small group of students across Years 10-12 participated in this open day with HOD Technologies Mr Dawson.

As the term’s weeks wind down closer to holidays, learning is ramping up with assessment due dates fast approaching. Students are encouraged to revise, revise and revise (or draft, edit and refine!) and seek assistance from their teachers well in advance of the assessment task’s due date.

Study hard!

Debbie Lawson
Head of Year 10 (Acting)

Library & Student Representative Council News

Book Week

Emerald State High School celebrated the importance of reading during Book Week. Activities included a poster competition with the joint themes of ‘Reading Rocks’ and ‘Escape elsewhere and explore everywhere’. Many creative entries were received.

1st Poster

2nd Poster

3rd Poster

The top three posters by students to promote Book Week.

Students also participated in completing a library trivia quizsheet and guessing how many books are in the library. The highlight of the week was the dress-up in your favourite book character parade. This was an outstanding success with many staff and students enthusiastically explaining who they were. The three sections of staff, senior students, and junior students were well represented. The crowd voted the winners with acclamation, these were Gandalf, Thing 1 & Thing 2, and the Three Blind Mice. The library was packed with over 70 various book characters all in full costume. Prizes have been donated by the Student Representative Council and the library in support improved literacy across the school. A great day was had by all and whispers have begun of what to wear next year!

Exam Block

Due to QCS and exams in the library over the next fortnight, the library will be closed. It will reopen for the last week of term. Students are asked to return items that they’ve borrowed at this time. We wish senior students all the best at this stressful time.

BILBY Awards

Earlier in the year, students across Queensland nominated their favourite book for the BILBY (Book I Love Best Yearly) Award. The shortlist has been created and students can now vote for their favourite until September 15 at the link below. The school library has a number of books from the list for students to borrow.

English News

This past week, our staff were fortunate enough to have Yvana Jones come in and run professional development sessions with them. Staff across all subject areas were able to learn new and effective strategies for supporting student learning and for using literacy in the classroom.

With the end of the year quickly approaching, many year levels are beginning their final units of learning. These units will take our English students through their final assessment pieces and on to the end of the year.

Our Junior Secondary classes are participating in novel studies, while our Senior Secondary classes are doing an array of topics including Shakespeare, Australian Stereotypes and elements of the board game industry.

While our Year 7s are in the midst of studying Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, our Year 8s have recently begun their novel study of Lockie Leonard: Human Torpedo. The Year 9s are enjoying exploring the dystopian world of The Hunger Games.

One of the best ways parents/carers can support their students at this time is by ensuring that their students are getting adequate rest. Encouraging students to review what they’ve learned and done in class each day will do wonders for their understanding and retention of what they’ve learned; a simple 5 minutes of review per class of the day is all it takes to reap the benefits.

Maths News

Year 7

Our Year 7 students are currently working on problems involving fractions, decimals and percentages. They are so clever they are not even using calculators! If you want to help our year 7s at home they could be practising their times tables, addition and subtraction without a calculator. See the handy multiplication grid if you are a little rusty.

Year 8

Linear relationships and ratios are on the minds of our Year 8 mathematicians. They are looking at creating equations from a table of values and then using their equation to solve a problem. Year 8 will have an exam on this current topic in week 9.

Year 9

Students of year 9 are checking their finances this term. They are using the simple interest formula to calculate the simple interest of their investment or loan. Helping your child at home is as easy as a discussion about interest rates on TV, home loans and even their own bank accounts.

Year 10

Maths Essentials: These year 10 students are keeping track of time this unit, they’ll be able to convert that pesky 24-hour time for you, and tell you what time it is over in the USA.

General Maths: This term the year 10 students have been studying statistics, they have been creating different types of data displays and comparing different sets of data. To help these students you could discuss statistics in advertising. We all know 9 out of 10 dentists recommend Oral-B, but how many dentists did they ask?

Maths Methods: These year 10 students have just finished their unit on statistics and handed in their assignments, they are now moving onto probability. They can construct tree diagrams, Venn diagrams and two-way tables. Their exam will be on Tuesday week 10.

Specialist Maths:

The Year 10 Specialist Maths class are designing a game of chance using probability, and analysing statistics using Microsoft Excel.

Year 11

Pre-vocational Maths: Our year 11 PVM classes are designing and budgeting their fictional holidays. It includes working out holiday travel costs, interpretation of map, creating an itinerary and budget.

Maths A: these students are studying the Earth’s latitude, longitude and time zones, as well as budgeting, profit and loss. Exam block starts this week so our seniors should be busy studying.

Maths B: Maths B students are currently studying the first principles of differentiation, limits and summary statistics. They all have revision sheets that they can be working on (with answers included).

Maths C: Our year 11 students are studying matrices, Gaussian elimination and Kramer’s Rule. They have revision work to complete for their upcoming exam.

Year 12

Pre-vocational Maths: The PVM students are finishing off their assignment on home designs.

Maths A: Year 12 have been working on their budgets and savings investigating simple and interest. They have also looked into probabilities of events. The students are now working through their revision sheet for their exam coming up in week 8/9.

Maths B: Year 12 are studying hard for their exam in the upcoming weeks that covers many topics including calculus, logarithms, optimisation and annuities.

Maths C: These year 12 students have just finished their assignments and are finishing the term with some exam revision.

Geography News

This semester, students in years 7, 8 and 9 at Emerald State High School will be undertaking Geography as the focus of their studies in Humanities. So what is Geography? This is an extremely broad subject, which requires students to examine the systems of the Earth and our interactions with these systems. In this way, younger students will examine the world around them and their place within it. To do this, the year 7 geography classes have been studying the water cycle, thereby learning how water connects people and places, alongside the dangers present. Our year 8 geographers have been investigating the Earth’s landscapes and landforms. In this way, they have gained a solid understanding of the natural hazards, which can occur across the globe, and the processes that shape Australian landforms including Uluru (monoliths) and The Twelve Apostles (stacks). Students in year 9 geography classrooms have been investigating the Murray Darling River Basin. Here, the students have learnt of the importance of the world’s third largest river system, in relation to our nation’s food security (in fact, this river system accounts for a third of Australia’s food production). However, Geography is not limited to Emerald State High School’s junior school. During their unit on land use and urban development, year 10 students travelled to Emerald Regional Council Chambers to hear from town planners on how to best use and develop vacant sites in the Central Queensland region. On top of this, our year 11 Geography students have recently returned from a three-day field trip to Brisbane City, where they examined land use and ways to manage urban sprawl and population growth in urban areas. On this field trip, our young Geographers gathered data and spoke with leaders in the field of town planning and urban development. Senior Geography students at Emerald State High School have been studying a unit entitled ‘Feeding the World’s People’. In this unit, students learn about the discrepancy between the amount of food produced across the globe and levels of development. By studying this unit, students have been afforded the opportunity to posit potential methods for closing the gap between the developing and the developed world. This is but a brief snapshot of what Geography entails at Emerald State High School. Remember, as Warren Buffet said, “Without Geography, you’re nowhere.”

PBL News

At Emerald State High School, we are P olite, we are P repared and we P articipate.

We are over the half way mark and all students now have an outline of assessment dates for semester 2. This document is a great organiser in preparing for assessment prior to the due date to reduce anxiety, resulting from leaving tasks to the last minute and the overwhelming feeling of having to complete many things at once. I encourage students and parents to use this to plan and prepare for upcoming assessment.

PBL Focus for the term – PARTICIPATE

This term, the focus for our students is PARTICIPATION. At Emerald State High School, we encourage students to participate to the best of their ability. This means attempting all set tasks to the best of their ability and completing assignments and full drafts when they are due.

Many of our students PARTICIPATE in the extra-curricular life of the school, with some great success stories coming from their involvement. Most recently, students of Emerald State High School have participated with great success in the following events:

• School musical;
• human powered vehicle project;
• robotics program;
• geography excursion;
• jenga challenge;
• Academic and Talent Aspirations Program (ATAP);
• Book Week;
• Relay for life; and
• sport.

We congratulate and commend all students who are participating in school life.

Community Events

1 Sep

10 Sept

Road Safety Shorts with Dr Bridie