Leadership Badge Ceremony

It was wonderful to see so many parents at our Leadership Badge Ceremony on Monday this week. Thank you to Mr Gordon for organising this special event in our school calendar. To see how proud our parents were when pinning the badges on their students’ chests, and the pride our students were displaying with their well-earned achievement, was a special moment for our school community. I would like to congratulate all of our leaders again and share a quote that Mr Gordon presented through our school captains at this Ceremony –“Leaders are not born, they are made. No matter where you are at in your leadership journey, you have the potential to be a great leader.” - Vince Lombardi

School Uniform

The wearing of the full school uniform is compulsory for all students at all times, as endorsed by the P&C. Sports uniforms are to be worn on days when classes have HPE or sport. Dress uniform is to be worn on all other days. For special occasions such as ANZAC Day students will be instructed to wear dress uniform. The school hat is a part of the school uniform and must be worn when outdoors. Hair accessories need to be navy blue or bottle green. Hair needs to be clean and tidy and if it touches the shoulders, then it is required to be tied back. Hair should not cover the face and if is long needs to be pinned back.

Parents, could I please ask you all to take a moment to read through our Uniform Policy attached and discuss these expectations with your child/ren. We are a Team; Team Robertson, and we wear our uniform with pride. I appreciate your support with this, thank you.

Uniform_Policy

Uniform_Policy 186.23 KB

 

Student Lunches

I know how much of a challenge it can be to make lunch for your children every day and as a father of two fussy teenage children, I absolutely understand the complexities.

However, I want to encourage you to make sure that your children have lunches that are satisfying, filling and good for brain work. They need a balance of protein, carbs and other food groups. Rice, pasta, and bread are good to feel full and satisfied; eggs, cheese, meat, chicken, fish and tofu are good to feel full for longer; vegetables and fruit provide excellent nutrition for productive brain work.

Some ideas to make lunch box veggies fun and interesting for kids include:

• Ants on a log – fill celery sticks with low-fat cream cheese or hummus, and place sultanas across the top
• Sticks ‘n’ dip combo – offer crunchy veggie sticks like carrot, green beans, capsicum, celery and cucumber with a small container of beetroot dip or tomato salsa
• Corny cobs – steam corn on the cob and put in the lunchbox. Alternatively, use a small container of canned corn (no added salt).
• Roast vegetable, chickpea and couscous salad – fill a small tub (with a tight-fitting lid) with salad and top with a dollop of hummus or natural yoghurt
• Falafel wraps – make a delicious lunch wrap with baked falafel, tomato, lettuce, cucumber and dip (for example, tzatziki, yoghurt or hummus).
• Grilled or oven-baked vegetable chunks or wedges – serve with yoghurt dip.
• Veggie muffins – try pumpkin and zucchini, carrot and sultana, cheese and corn, pumpkin and date and sweet potato, zucchini and poppy seed.
• Veggie slice – mix grated vegetables (such as zucchini) with chopped onion, cheese, flour and eggs and bake in a moderate oven until golden brown.
• Snap pack – fill a snap lock bag with sugar snap peas and cherry or Roma tomatoes.

Visit the Better Health channel recipe page for more ideas.

This is not about weight loss or gain; this is about being healthy enough to maximise learning.

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Tyrone Bruce

Principal

Shae Robinson

Deputy Principal

NAPLAN Year 3 & Year 5 - Week 7 & Week 8

Students in Years 3 and 5 will sit NAPLAN tests in 2025 from Wednesday 12 March to Monday 24 March. All students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are expected to sit the NAPLAN tests, which are now held in Term 1 each year. NAPLAN gives a snapshot of how children are performing in reading, writing, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and numeracy. It complements other effective classroom assessment and reporting practices.

See the types of questions and tools available in the online NAPLAN assessments at the public demonstration site. https://nap.edu.au/naplan/public-demonstration-site 

The NAPLAN timetable is below. Parents can help by ensuring their children have a fully charged iPad, are sleeping well and eating a healthy breakfast. Reassure and encourage your children to do their best.

 
2025 NAPLAN Timetable 

The 2025 NAPLAN testing period (12-24 March) is rapidly approaching. To enable our students to have the best possible opportunity to participate fully in the testing, we will be engaging in some readiness activities next week to ensure students have experience in navigating the online platform and checking that their iPad is accessing the app correctly.

We ask that all families check the following on their child’s iPad as soon as possible.

Ensure the NAP 2025 app is installed.

Ensure the iPad operating system is updated to the current iOS 18.3.1

NAPLAN@Robertson Sessions for Parents

Parents/carers are also invited to join one of our NAPLAN@Robertson parent information sessions. Please book in using the links below.

Monday 24 February 9.00am - 10.00am

Wednesday 26 February 3.30pm - 4.30pm

See the types of questions and tools available in the online NAPLAN assessments at the public demonstration site. https://nap.edu.au/naplan/public-demonstration-site

Kerin Gordon

Deputy Principal

It’s Week 4 and there is already lots to celebrate in sport. We have had a number of students attend trials for district sporting teams. The successful students will now be part of an Eastern Taipans district team and trial at Metropolitan West (regional sport). The successful students so far this year are; Mikhail L (swimming), Tennessee C (netball), Alaska C (netball) Mya G (netball).  

In addition to her Eastern Taipans success, Mya G also had some exciting netball adventures on the holidays. She competed in Budgies Australian Championships, representing the QLD Murris, playing 16 games across 5 days. Mya’s team lost a double extra time grand final by one point in a very close match. Mya was named the MVP of her age group across all states for the carnival and has been selected for the Australian Indigenous team to go play in another carnival later this year. What a wonderful achievement and reward for an amazing young athlete. Congratulations Mya.  

Cross Country

Tuesday 4 March will see our Robertson whole school Cross Country. Students will participate in age appropriate distances for running. All events are held on the oval and the whole community is welcome to encourage, support and see our future champions in action. Please see link for the programme of the day. 

Chris Rostron and Renee Montgomery

PE Teachers

String News

Please ensure that you are now connected to your child’s Seesaw Account and are checking it regularly as their assessments and parent communication is now being sent via Seesaw. 

If you are not connected to their Seesaw account please email me so I can send you the invitation to join. 

Please ensure your child is practising every single day, even 10 minutes a day is better for their brains and muscle memory than practising in one big chunk on the weekend.

Band News

All Band students are off to a flying  musical start to the year which is very exciting. Thankyou for all Hultgren Band members for being on time for rehearsals on Monday before school, and thankyou to parents for letting me know about any student absence due to illness via email.

Reminder: All instruments need to be taken home on the rehearsal /lesson day, So all Hultgren students take instruments home to practise on MONDAYS and all Grainger students take instruments home on WEDNESDAYS.

GRAINGER BAND: Please ensure your child is practising every single day, even 10 minutes a day is better for their brains and muscle memory than practising in one big chunk on the weekend.

HULTGREN BAND: Please ensure your child is practising at least 4 times per week for 20-30 minutes at a time, regular practise spaced out over the week is better for their brains and muscle memory than practising in one big chunk on the weekend.

CHOIR NEWS

Cantabile Choir (Years 4 to 6) and Poco Voci Choir (Year 3) have had a wonderful start to the year. Enrolments for choir close at the end of this week (21 February 2025). If your child would like to join choir, please return their note (see attached link) as soon as possible. Choir is a fantastic foundation for the school strings and band programs, and all instrumental students are encouraged to be in choir.

Please Click here for Year 3 and Click here for Years 4, 5 and 6 

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From the Music Team

Heather Francis, Robyn Gray and Vivienne Thomas

STEAM at lunchtime

STEAM at lunchtime is held in the library on Mondays at first break play time.

Over the last few weeks, students have been engaged in:

• Badge making
• Lego building challenges
• Logic games and puzzles and block building challenges
• Engineering challenges – building towers and bridges with materials such as straws, paper plates, masking tape and paper cups.

All students are welcome to join in! We look forward to a lunchtime of engaged enrichment each Monday.

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Premier’s Coding Challenge

On Monday at assembly, we were able to acknowledge a few students who participated in the Premier’s Coding Challenge in 2024. These certificates did not arrive until too late in Term 4 for us to recognise these students at the time.

Congratulations to all students who participated in the Premier’s Coding Challenge last year. We look forward to another year of Coding Excellence at Robertson State School.

Welcome to Week 4!

Each fortnight, I’ll be featuring one of our staff members within the WISH team, so our families can get to know who is supporting the students at Robertson State School.

This fortnight, we meet our Guidance Officer, Donna Riches.

Amanda Slinger

Head of Special Education Services - (HOSES)

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Speech-Lanuage News

Helping Your Child Build Stronger Reading Skills with Blank's Levels of Questioning

Reading plays a vital role in your child's development, helping to grow their vocabulary, strengthen their language skills, and improve their understanding of the world around them.

Sharing books together not only fosters a love of stories but also supports success in learning. One effective way to deepen your child's reading comprehension is by using Blank's Levels of Questioning.

What Are Blank's Levels of Questioning?

Psychologist Marion Blank developed this framework to support children's language and thinking skills. It includes four levels of questions that move from basic, concrete ideas to more complex, abstract concepts. These questions help children develop important skills like understanding, reasoning, and problem-solving.

Why Use Blank's Questions?

Regularly asking these types of questions while reading can help your child:

• Understand Stories Better: They learn to think beyond the words and make connections.
• Grow Their Vocabulary: New words become familiar in meaningful contexts.
• Think Critically: Predictions, explanations, and problem-solving become easier with practice.
• Stay Engaged: Questioning turns reading into an interactive and interesting experience.

Exploring the Four Levels

Level 1: Naming and Identifying

• Focus: Recognising and labelling things that are easy to see or hear in the moment.
• Examples:
  • "What is this?" (While pointing to an object)
  • "Who is that?"
  • "What is [person] doing?"

Level 2: Describing and Classifying

• Focus: Noticing features and understanding basic relationships.
• Examples:
  • "What happened?"
  • "Where is the ____?"
  • "What colour/size/shape is it?"
  • "Show me the one we use for _______."

Level 3: Reorganising and Inferring

• Focus: Making predictions, explaining ideas, and connecting information.
• Examples:
  • "What might happen next?"
  • "What is a ______?" (definition)
  • "Find one that goes with this."
  • "Which things don’t belong?"

Level 4: Abstract Thinking and Problem-Solving

• Focus: Thinking about reasons, outcomes, and possibilities.
• Examples:
  • "What might happen if _____?"
  • "Why did ______ happen?"
  • "What could ____ use?"
  • "Why would _____ work for that?"

Using Your Blank's Levels Bookmark:

To make it easier to use these strategies, you might like to use this Blank's Levels of Questioning bookmark. This simple tool lists different types of questions for each level, giving you quick access to helpful prompts during reading time with your child/ children.

Here's how to make the most of it:

• While Reading: Pause occasionally to ask questions, starting with simpler ones and moving to more challenging ones as your child's understanding grows.
• After Reading: Chat about the story using Level 3 and Level 4 questions to encourage deeper thinking.

Reading together should always be fun and rewarding. By using thoughtful questions to spark your child's curiosity and ideas, you're giving them tools to become confident, independent thinkers—and nurturing a lifelong love of books.

Warm regards and until next time,

Morgan Johnson

Speech-Language Pathologist

Update for Our Chinese Language Program!

As we begin another school year, we will continue integrating the Seesaw app into our Chinese lessons to enhance student engagement and create a more interactive learning experience.

What is Seesaw?

Seesaw is a dynamic learning platform that allows teachers to create, distribute and manage learning materials seamlessly. It provides an interactive space where students can actively engage with lessons and complete tasks. By integrating Seesaw into our Chinese language program, we aim to make learning more enjoyable and encourage students to take an active role in their language development.

How Will Students Use Seesaw?

Starting in Semester 1, students will complete various Chinese language tasks on Seesaw. These tasks are carefully designed to reinforce classroom learning and provide opportunities for students to practice their language skills, including:

• Vocabulary exercises to build language proficiency
  
• Pronunciation challenges to enhance speaking skills
  
• Short writing assignments to improve sentence structure and creativity

Students will upload their completed tasks to Seesaw, allowing teachers to provide timely track individual progress. Additionally, Seesaw enables students to practice at their own pace, revisit tasks and build confidence in their Chinese language skills.

The Seesaw app is accessible on iOS and Android devices or via the web at app.seesaw.me. You can download it from the App Store or Google Play.

Get in Touch!

If you have any questions about how Seesaw will be used in our Chinese language program, please feel free to contact me at jwang44@eq.edu.au

谢谢 (Xièxiè - Thank you) for your continued support! We look forward to a fantastic year of learning together.

 

Jung Wang 

Languages Teacher 

P&C first meeting

Our first meeting of the year will be straight after our AGM (Annual General Meeting) on Tuesday 11 March at 6.30pm in the boardroom at the back of the school behind the hall.

All positions are vacant at this time and all members must resubmit to be a member for 2025. All executive positions also come available at this time. The AGM is THE ONLY meeting where you do not need to be present to join the P&C & applications may be sent in by email or handed into the office.

All executive positions also come available at this time however anyone applying for executive positions must be present to apply.

Please find attached, the membership application and the executive member position application. We are looking for organised people who would love to take on executive roles.

Uniform Shop 

Our uniform shop is open every Monday and Thursday - see times below:

Monday afternoon from 2.15pm to 3.45pm

Thursday morning from 8.15am to 9.45am

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Mel Kennedy