Principal's Message

Hi Everyone,      

Welcome back!  By the time you read this I will be in freezing Canberra on the Year 6 Canberra Camp.  I am very fortunate to be able to go and spend this quality time with all of the staff and these children, especially as they will be heading off at the end of the year and that will roll around so quickly.  Thank you so much to Mrs Tara Griffin who will be the principal while I am away; I am grateful to Mrs Griffin to take over and allow me this privilege.  Anyway, I hope you had a truly wonderful holiday and are ready for all that term 3 has in stall for us! 

Let’s begin by recapping on the final week of term 4 which was very big and amazing.  Over at Toowong State School there was a District Band Workshop that some of our students were selected to participate in and I believe they were very impressive on all fronts.  Congratulations to Mr Kukulies and all of these children!

Under 8’s Day was simply glorious!!!  Thank you so much to our wonderful P-2 staff led by Mrs Tara Griffin; you certainly unlocked our scientific thinking through play!  The children absolutely loved it and we have had some wonderful feedback from families about the day too.  I am already looking forward to next year!

The Junior Athletics Carnival was another magic day  -  perfect weather and beautifully organised, fun activities were everywhere for our little athletes!  Thank you so much to Mr Jorma Bushnell for organising this great day but also, myself and many others were simply amazed at the incredible Sport’s Captains and how they are so responsible and made the whole day run so smoothly  -  TEAMWORK!  Thanks again everyone!

The Celebrations of Learning were a really wonderful day and are arguably my favourite day of every term.  The pride in which children show their learning to their parents or to siblings or to people like myself is so palpable.  Thank you to our wonderful staff for having these and to our children for all of your hard work.

NAIDOC Day (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Of Celebration) was very much a celebration of our First Nations People.  Our Indigenous students, Lagaia, Stella and Costa did a wonderful job of working with me to create a memorable assembly and the Year 2 Choir and selected 5/6 Choir did such moving performances!  Our whole school singing Solid Rock was incredibly powerful.  I also received great feedback from the children and staff alike around the Indigenous Games brought in by the team from Be Skilled Be Fit.  There were many beautiful activities happening back in classrooms too, to celebrate Australia’s First Nation People.  It was just a really great day and I want to say thank you to everyone for helping in their various ways.

In amongst all of this we had a P&C Meeting and I am very thankful to those of you who could make it along.  On behalf of our school I would like to thank the P&C for donating close to $50 000 to professionally develop our staff in Dr Ian Hunter’s Writer’s Toolbox and to bring this brilliant program into our school which will support every child in our school to write to the best of their ability.  THANK YOU P&C!

Coming up this week:

· Year 6 Canberra Camp  -  Monday 14th July  until Friday 18th July

· P-3 Merit Assembly  -  Friday 18th July 9:15am  -  Year 5 Strings performing Vivaldi

We are welcoming some new staff to our Ironside State School team.  We had Mr Declan Wenzell-Halls join our team in term 2 but he will now be teaching 4C and we are very grateful!  Ms Tracey Horan is going to be working Monday and Tuesday in 2C, joining Mrs Simone Fitzgerald who also teaches the class. Ms Horan is a very experienced educator and we are thrilled to have her joining us.  Welcome to Ms Annemarie Kirsten who will be teaching music to our upper year levels.  Ms Kirsten is an experienced music teacher who just loves music and so she has come to the right place  -  welcome!  Welcome to Mrs Debbie Smith who will be moving into our Support Teacher role in our Prep to year 2 area 3 days a week.  Mrs Smith is another very experienced teacher with a huge amount of positivity and love for teaching.  Welcome to Ms Kellie Bannah who is going to be working as our year 3-6 support teacher.  Ms Bannah has a very wide range of experiences, including the successful roll-out of PLD in schools and so we are very thrilled to have her join us and bring her expertise to Ironside.  Welcome to Mrs Sonel Pretorius who will also be supporting children and staff in our 3-6 area of the school.  Mrs Pretorius comes to us with a range of experiences in a variety of schools and we are grateful for her expertise and enthusiasm. Welcome to Mrs Gulshan Hussain, who will be our Prep to Year 3 English as a Second Language/Dialect teacher.  Mrs Hussain is very excited to join our team here at Ironside and worked on a handover at the end of last term with Ms Maureen Dancer who retired.

At our final assembly last term we farewelled Ms Maureen Dancer who retired after 46 years of teaching.  It was very special to have everyone give her a standing ovation for her service to children and families.  Ms Dancer taught in Africa at Victoria Falls Primary School in Zimbabwe and shared a photo of elephants coming up to their school pool at the time.  I thought I would finish with this classic shot.  Thank you again Mrs Dancer and all the very best!

Have a wonderful week.

Yours in Education,

Angie Kelly

Principal