Tyrone Bruce

Principal

Semester 1 Reporting

It’s nearly reporting time for our first reporting period of 2025. As always, parents can expect to see report cards in their email inbox week 10. Make sure your email address is current – if you need to update your email address with the school, please contact the front office. The report cards for 2025 will look and feel the same as in previous years while incorporating updated comments. 

At this juncture, we expect that reports will be released in the following way: 

• Early release on Qparents on the afternoon of Thursday 26 June. 
• Release via email on the afternoon of Friday 27 June. 

Parents registered with Qparents receive early access to report cards. 

Gala Day

Friday, 16 May Gala has been cancelled due to the wet weather and wet playing fields. Gala will now be held on the Friday 23 May. 

Kerin Gordon 

Deputy Principal 

Sibling Enrolments 2026

Enrolments for 2026 are now open. Please visit the office after 10.00am and before 3.00pm if you would like to commence enrolment for siblings.

Prep 2026 - Date of birth should be between 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021. 

Excursions

Parents – forget having to fill out and deliver a paper form. Instead, provide consent for excursions and events using the QParents app. Visit the office for more information.

Due Dates for Payment and Consent:  

Please note that overdue payments or consent will no longer be accepted.   

Administration Office

Chris Rostron and Renee Montgomery

HPE Teachers

ICAS Academic Competition 

Claire Ennis

Teacher Librarian & Technology Coordinator

Spotlight on WISH staff  

Each fortnight, I have been 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 Chappy – Greg!    

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CRU Inclusive Education Workshop for South East Region families – June 11th 

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OWL Program – Supporting Children through family separation 

OWL is a group program for children with separated parents providing  a safe space to develop emotional literacy through creative therapy, and  opportunities to interact with other children in similar situations.  

The Program is a practical child-centred art and leisure therapy group allowing children to creatively express themselves through art, drama, and metaphors.  

It is suitable for children who are aged 7 – 12 years old; are adjusting to some of the difficulties of separation; have been told or will shortly be told of their parents’ separation or who have been impacted by parental conflict. Children have the opportunity to; 

• explore grief and loss experienced in response to family separation 
• identify safe coping strategies for their own self-care 
• process their experiences of living in two houses 
• identify the differences between child and adult responsibilities and acknowledge the rights of being a child 
• Celebrate their learnings and progress throughout the program. 

A parent's information session runs at the same time as the first group session. The session helps parents to understand what Owl Kids is about, what the children might be bringing home, and how each parent can support them. 

An alternate session offers the other parent the opportunity to attend at a different time in the same week.  The final session is a presentation for the parents to attend (separately), showcasing the children's progress and work through the program. 

Parents and children are each required to attend separate intake sessions before enrolments can be finalised.  

For Information, expression of interest, dates and registration for our 2025 group programme please click on the link to our booking portal: https://www.trybooking.com/DASPX  

Until next fortnight,  

Amanda Slinger  

HOSES  

Speech Language News

Has reading becoming more challenging for your child as they move into upper primary years? One possible reason could be difficulties with language comprehension, an essential skill for reading success.

As students transition from learning to read to reading to learn, new challenges can arise. In this article, we will delve deeper into how language comprehension plays a crucial role in both phases of reading development.  

Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001):

To effectively comprehend written texts, students have to acquire specific skills and knowledge. A helpful way to visualise this is through The Reading Rope, formally known as Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001). This framework offers a helpful way to understand the diverse elements necessary for proficient, fluent reading. The rope comprises of various strands, each representing different facets of reading. It weaves together two main strands:

• Word Recognition (knowing letter-sounds and reading fluently)
• Language Comprehension (understanding vocabulary and sentence structure).

Each strand contains smaller "threads" that become more tightly woven as students develop their reading abilities. Together, these strands form a strong "rope" that supports fluent, confident reading.

Word Recognition (Blue and Green Strands):

The blue and green strands from Scarborough’s Reading Rope symbolise word recognition skills, which are a fundamental to the process of “learning to read”. These skills commence in early education and progress through primary school, becoming more intricate every year.

They form the foundation of the initial reading phase, aiming to automate these skills to enhance reading fluency – the ability to read swiftly and accurately.

Difficulties with word recognition can manifest as:

• Trouble recalling sight words or trying to sound out familiar words
• Mispronunciation or incorrect sound-letter matching
• Difficulty blending sounds into whole words

Word Decoding Alone Isn’t Enough:

Word decoding is the ability to sound out and read words by matching letters to sounds. While it’s an essential part of early reading, decoding alone doesn’t guarantee understanding.

For example, consider this sentence with made-up words:

“The plob was zet so he koided with the vop”.

A child may be able to decode this sentence correctly, but it won’t make sense without understanding what the words mean. This highlights the need for both word recognition and language comprehension in reading.

Language Comprehension (Red and Orange Strands):

The red and orange strands in the Reading Rope represent the skills needed to understand what is being read. These include vocabulary knowledge, grammar, background knowledge, and the ability to make inferences and connect ideas.

Let’s replace the nonsense sentence with a meaningful one: “The cat was sad, so he played with the dog.”

Now, comprehension strategies such as using background knowledge and vocabulary can help a child make sense of the sentence.

Signs of language comprehension difficulties may include:

• Trouble understanding how word endings change meaning (e.g., run vs. running)
• Difficulty answering questions about what they've read
• Misunderstanding text due to unfamiliar vocabulary

Reading and the Curriculum:

In the early schooling years (Prep, Grade 1, and Grade 2), the Australian curriculum focuses on imparting foundational reading skills. This includes letter recognition, phonics, sight words, and understanding sentence structure and text types.

As student’s progress into middle primary years (Grade 3 and Grade 4), emphasis shifts from learning to read to reading for learning. Children are expected to utilise their foundational skills to comprehend and learn from texts.

Moving into upper primary (Grade 5 and Grade 6) and high school, students encounter increasingly complex texts, requiring enhanced comprehension and critical thinking abilities.

If your child is finding reading more difficult as they move through primary school, they may benefit from extra support in developing their language comprehension skills.

Warm regards and until next time, 

Morgan Johnson  

Speech-Language Pathologist  

Robertson State School (Wednesdays & Thursdays) 

This week’s lesson is: 

Zones of Regulation – How the zone you are in impacts others around you? 

This week we are learning to identify which zones people are in and how it makes the people around them feel. 

In order to do this, we watched some shows to identify which zones characters were in and how others reacted to it.  

This is what we asked students to think about while watching: 

• How did the characters get along with each other when they were in the different zones? 
• What were others thinking about them when they were in the Yellow or Red Zone and it was unexpected? 
• In which zone were the characters most successful? 
• What did people think of them when their zone was expected? 
• In what zone do you feel you get along best with others or are most successful? 

People are most likely to have positive interactions when they are in the Green Zone. You can perform better when you remain calm and focused.  

Other people may perceive your behaviour as disruptive or inappropriate in the Yellow Zone, even though you may not think so.  

Janine Muller 

Classroom Teacher and PBL Communicator 

We hope all our mothers and carers had an amazing Mother’s Day, celebrating and being spoilt by loved ones.

A heartfelt thank you to all the amazing volunteers who helped make this year’s P&C Mother’s Day Stall such a big success!

Whether you helped with setting up, assisting eager little shoppers, or packing down—we truly couldn’t have done it without you. Your time, energy, and teamwork helped create a beautiful experience for the students and a special treat for all the mums and carers.

It’s efforts like these that make our school community shine. Thank you for your support!

Get Ready to GLOW! - Glow in the Dark Disco… just 1 more week to go!

Mark your calendars and grab your glow gear—our P&C Glow in the Dark Disco is coming up, and it’s going to be a night to remember!

Join us for a fun-filled evening of music, dancing, and glowing fun as we light up the dance floor in support of our school community.

The event is open from 4.30pm – 8.00pm, with specific hall entry times across 2 sessions. There will be lots of other activities to enjoy, like photo booth, popcorn, fairy floss, sausage sizzle, so please arrive earlier or stay longer than the disco part! There will also be exciting Glow Party bags on offer, but only a limited amount, so be quick to secure one!

Parents, enjoy Picnic under the Stars outside… bring a picnic blanket and pre-order a yummy charcuterie board for a fuss-free, enjoyable evening!

*Tickets are pre-purchase only, and are available now via Flexi School. So jump on and secure your tickets, Glow party bag and more!

Closing date to buy tickets is Wednesday 21^st May at 11.59pm.

(Disco is for current Robertson students only)

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We Need Your Help to Make the Glow Disco Shine!

Let’s make this a night to remember for our kids. We are seeking volunteers to help make it a glowing success!

If you can spare a bit of time before, during, or after the event, we’d love to have you on board.

No experience needed—just enthusiasm and a smile! Even an hour of your time makes a huge difference.

To sign up, please visit  https://Volunteersignup.org/ALMB7

Let’s work together to create a fantastic night for the kids!

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Under 8’s Day

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Tuckshop

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Want to learn a new skill or perhaps meet new friends? Do you love being productive and helping out?

Come along to the Tuckshop and discover the culinary action behind the scenes!!! It’s exciting, fun to be a part of and a great way to meet other RSS families! Not to mention seeing the big smiles on hungry kids faces!

No experience necessary. All parents, grandparents and community welcome.

We are moving to an online sign up, so please choose which shift suits best at this link. Thank you!  https://volunteersignup.org/HCTXT

P&C Facebook

Want to keep updated with the latest events and exciting plans that the P&C have for our wonderful community?

Follow our new Facebook  page, to get the most up to date information and details around these amazing events!

Robertson State School P&C Association   https://www.facebook.com/pcrobertsonss

P&C Meeting

Our next P&C Meeting is June 10th at 6.30pm.  Come along to find out about upcoming events and how to become involved with our community.

We hope you are able to join, we’d love to catch up with you all!

P & C 2025 

Executive Team