From the Principal's Desk
Week 4 Book Week
This week we celebrate our love of learning through our love of books!
The 2026 Children’s Book Week theme is ‘Symphony of Stories’.
As part of Book Week celebrations, we’ll be holding our Book Parade on Friday, 14 August, starting at 11:45am. Students may dress up and parade in costumes of characters from their favourite books - from classic fairy tale characters to modern superheroes.
After the parade, classrooms will be open for parents and carers to visit and join in some fun activities with your children.
Parents and carers will also have the opportunity to purchase a piece of your child’s artwork for $1 during the open classroom time.
The P&C will also be running a book fair during this time with some beautiful pre-loved books to purchase.
To wrap up the day, there will be a sausage sizzle at lunchtime for everyone to enjoy.
All proceeds from the day will go to the P&C, who play a vital role in supporting our school through funding in-school resources and programs. Please come in and help if you can on the day or let us know prior through the office.
Inspire Education
Martin's Gully has been buzzing with excitement as we have embraced a range of high
potential and gifted learning opportunities over the past few weeks. Our students have engaged enthusiastically in challenging activities designed to inspire creativity and critical thinking, across the 4 domains of potential: intellectual, creative, physical and social-emotional.
We are so pleased to be able to offer our students opportunities to be involved in these programs and look forward to continuing to nurture the talents and abilities of our high potential and gifted learners in the weeks ahead. I have loved hearing about these exciting opportunities and sharing them with you.
Stage 2 Art Camp
This camp is a unique visual art experience designed specifically for High Potential Gifted Stage 2 students. The program will inspire creativity and foster artistic skills through engaging activities centered on the theme "The Fabulous Forest Floor". The program was led by a local artist, Jennie Heggarty.
PSSA Athletics
Last Friday we had 24 talented athletes attend the Armidale Zone Athletics carnival in Tamworth. Our students showed amazing sportsmanship and achieved some excellent PB's, with Emma, Nixon, Oliver, Tyler, Frank, Addie, Brody, Emme and both our senior relay teams all proceeding to the Northwest carnival. A special congratulations to our boys senior relay team who broke the 55.77 second Northwest senior boys relay record that MGPS broke last year with a 54.81!
You Can Do It!
We are continuing to implementing the ‘Keys to Success’ for You Can Do It. This term we will be focusing on Confidence and Resilience.
Confidence means knowing that you will be more likely to be successful than to fail at things when you are giving effort. It means not being afraid to make mistakes or try new things.
Positive Habits of the Mind that develop a young person’s confidence include:
· Accepting Myself– not thinking badly about myself when I make a mistake.
· Taking Risks– thinking that it is good to try something new even though it may be hard.
· Being Independent– thinking that it is important to try new activities and to speak up even if my classmates think I am silly.
· I Can Do It—thinking that I am more likely to be successful than to fail if I try.
Please remember to check the What's Happening in School Bytes, which is updated every Friday.
Peta Deiderick