Supporting your child’s sleep

We all want our children to get enough sleep but it can be tricky to achieve this in our busy lives! Quality sleep is not only important to replenish our children’s energy levels, it is vital to help them learn and boost their immunity. The greatest surge of children’s growth hormones are released as they sleep so it’s also key to their growth. A lack of sleep can impact mood, ability to concentrate, information retention and emotional regulation.

Children 3-5 years old generally require between 10-13 hours of sleep per night while kids from 5-11 years usually need between 9-11 hours. It can be difficult to get children in bed for this period of time. While some kids are happy to go to bed at 7:30, others have trouble winding down.

To encourage our children to get to sleep some strategies you can try include:

Having a consistent bedtime routine and times for going to bed – this should include wind down activities such as shared reading or listening to calm music
Turn off screens 1-2 hours before bedtime
Making sure the room they are sleeping in is calm and dark
Encourage exercise and exposure to natural light during the day

If you have ongoing concerns about your child’s sleep patterns or would like further advice, please consult with your GP. Issues children experience may include difficulties falling asleep, waking through the night, consistent snoring, trouble breathing as they sleep or daytime symptoms such as limited concentration at school or sleepiness.

When our children sleep well, we sleep better too!

Jessica Ballantyne, Guidance Officer

https://www.childrens.health.qld.gov.au/health-a-to-z/healthy-sleep

https://raisingchildren.net.au/toddlers/sleep/better-sleep-settling/sleep-better-tips

https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/sleep/understanding-sleep/about-sleep

Parentline

Parentline is funded by the Queensland Department of Education to offer free and confidential, one-off or ongoing telephone counselling for parents and others who care for young people. We know that families are complex and that anything can affect the functioning of a family. We are available from 6am to midnight, 7 days per week. Every day of the year. Parents and carers have the option to call or use our web chat. Regardless, they are always speaking with a degree qualified counsellor who is able to offer support, guidance, and therapeutic care.

Parentline understands that bullying is an ongoing and significant concern for parents and caregivers. When necessary, our counsellors are able to provide a direct referral to an Education Queensland Parent Navigator to support families when there are concerns about bullying behaviours at their state school and they are wanting to work together with the school to support their child's wellbeing.

Our Parentline counsellors also moderate the My Circle for Parents platform - a free, anonymous online community that provides a safe and confidential space for parents and caregivers to connect about the highs, lows, and laughs of parenting. This platform focuses on supporting carers based on their child's developmental stage (early, middle, or later years) and offers guidance around navigating family transitions, online safety, bullying, and enhanced parental wellbeing.

Parents and caregivers can sign up here: Talk to other parents like you | Parentline

Dear Families and Community Members,

Ironside State School are pleased to announce after several months of planning, Ironside Street Stop Drop and Go Area will be receiving a refurbishment.

The scope of works includes the following-

Remove 6 palm trees
Replace existing timber retaining wall with concrete sleepers to 600 high, ensure adequate drainage behind sleepers, plant out above sleepers
Ensure the overland flow from above is captured via the drainage behind the sleepers
Clean and repair existing block retaining wall
Replace dirt with concrete path to seating area
Paint fence posts black and replace existing mesh with black mesh
To the left of the gate, replace gate post, install two tiers of blocks to the inside of existing fence with drainage to prevent further build-up of debris
Fix or replace gates
Paint existing post black and replace existing mesh with black mesh
Replace tactile indicators

These works will commence on the 10th November 2025. To ensure the safety of our community, the area will be closed from the 10th of November until the 20th of January 2026.

To access the school, you will need to use the Central Avenue and Hawken Drive entry points.

We recognise that this may cause a slight inconvenience in the short term, but the result will be very beneficial to our school and look amazing.

Thank you for your understanding and ongoing support,

Ironside State School.

Further Information:

School Zone Safety

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

The Queensland Government is writing to inform you that Ironside State School is committed to ensuring the safety of students travelling to and from schools and will install flashing school zone signs (FSZS) in 100 school zones across Queensland, during the 2025–26 financial year. As part of this rollout, that Ironside State School will be receiving FSZS in the Ironside Street school zone.

Installation of FSZS at Ironside State School will improve visibility of the school zone and serve as an active reminder for motorists to slow down when children are out and about.

Several important factors are considered when assessing school zones for flashing lights, such as crash history, traffic volumes, pedestrian movements, the speed limit and visibility.

This ensures FSZS are delivered to priority sites across Queensland. FSZS have been a success since the program was introduced in 2012. Since then, FSZS have been installed at more than 1499 Queensland school zones.

Child safety is paramount, and illegal parking within school zones remains a significant concern for parents, residents, and schools. Limited parking spaces around peak drop-off and pick-up times often leads to competitive and potentially dangerous parking behaviours.

While we understand the challenges parents face in navigating school zone drop-off and pick-up, it is crucial to prioritise safety. Over the coming term, Council officers will be conducting regular patrols around your school to monitor parking compliance. Our enforcement approach will use a combination of foot patrols and our highly visible Community Safety and Regulation vehicles that can identify alleged offences using Automatic Number Plate Recognition and GPS software. Compliance action will be taken on any observed breaches.

School zone signs are displayed as you approach the school and shows both the speed limit and the times you need to reduce your speed around the school. Children's crossing are identified by children crossing flags, which are displayed near crossings before and after school hours.

When the crossing is supervised, you as a motorist must:

wait until all pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders have crossed the road and the crossing supervisor has returned to the footpath
abide by the direction given by the School Crossing Supervisor.

If the crossing is unsupervised, you as a motorist must:

give way to pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders on or entering a children’s, pedestrian or marked foot crossings
give way to pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders on or entering a road you’re turning into
give way to pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders on a slip lane
give way to pedestrians in a share zone
travel at a speed allowing you to stop safely at a crossing if needed

As a driver, it's important to make sure you give way to all pedestrians, bicycle or personal mobility device riders such as skateboards, e-scooters. You must also give way to pedestrians using a motorised mobility device such as a motorised wheelchair or a mobility scooter.

Some of our most vulnerable road users are children getting to and from school, so it’s important to slow down and abide by the crossing rules, as it won’t make much difference to the trip time, but it could very well save lives.

Visit the Street Smarts website to find more information about what to do at pedestrian and children crossings.

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2025 National Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD)

On 1st August 2025, all schools in Australia must provide data to the Australian Government about students who receive ongoing adjustments in the school setting based on a broad definition of a disability. The NCCD enables schools and governments to understand the needs of students with disabilities and how they can be best supported at school. This process allows the government to distribute funding to identified students with additional access and learning needs.

The NCCD uses the definition of disability in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

The NCCD is a collection that counts!

The school team identifies the level of adjustment for individual students so that students with disabilities can access and participate in the educational setting on the same basis as their peers.

Student information provided to the Australian Government, Department of Education and Training for the NCCD does not explicitly identify individual students. For example, student names or student identifiers are not provided.

How does the NCCD assist schools?

Reviewing learning and support systems: The NCCD allows schools to better understand the functional needs of their students with disability. It captures the work of schools in providing personalised learning and support for students with disability who require adjustments due to the functional impact of their disability.
Providing greater understanding: The NCCD helps schools better understand their students with disabilities and identify areas of need for both students and staff.
Developing professional judgement: The professional learning available to support the NCCD process helps build the professional judgement of school teams who are required to provide educational adjustments for students with disability without relying on a medical or clinical diagnosis alone.
Recognising support and adjustments provided: The NCCD helps to formally and consistently recognise the support and adjustments provided to students with disabilities as defined in the DDA.

Please see https://www.nccd.edu.au for detailed information.

Please contact your child’s school team (Class Teacher, Student Support Coordinator or Deputy Principal) if you have further questions

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