Principal's Message

Term 3 Week 8                                                                       3 September 2026

From the Principal

Hi Everyone,

We have just finished Teacher Aide Appreciation Week and at Ironside State School, our TAs have a different title and are called Education Support Officers or ESOs. Across our school our ESOs do a wide variety of roles, and our school is simply a much better place to be because of them. So, a huge thank you to our ESOs, we hope you have had a wonderful week and please know that we are grateful for you every day!

I was lucky to have many professional development opportunities this week.  Myself and our Reading Collaborative Learning Community team, had the privilege of going to Toowong State School on Monday and watching some of their teachers conduct reading lessons. It was very special to be at Toowong State School. It is a truly wonderful school, and they are doing great things. Despite our two schools having many differences, this has still been a great opportunity to learn from one another and apply the professional development we've been having through our Reading CLC. I would like to thank Toowong State School for the warm welcome that we received.

Today, our Collaborative School Improvement Team came here. So, we welcomed the principals of Indooroopilly, Rainworth and Ashgrove State Schools, as well as our supervisor Mr Evan Willis. Our school improvement team looks very closely at educational aspects of our school that we would like feedback on. Today the team were looking at a very specific part of a reading lesson, called fluency pairs. They looked at this right across our school from Prep to Year 6, to look at the vertical alignment of this section of the reading lessons. They were very impressed with what they saw, and we were very grateful for their expert eyes, analysis and feedback. I want to thank our wonderful teachers who welcomed our visitors into their classrooms to watch them teach. Thank you to Mrs Gillian Bishop, Mrs Leanne Nebe, Mrs Simone Fitzgerald, Mrs Taylor Wilton-Knox, Ms Georgia Perkins and Ms Katie Paterson and of course thank you to all the children in these classes.

Yesterday I went to a Principals Conference. It was an excellent conference, where our Director General and many other leaders in our system, gave great presentations around the direction of education QLD and where we are headed. I felt very inspired by what I was listening to and left with a great sense of optimism for state schooling.

Congratulations to all our children who received a Merit Certificate at our Year 4-6 Assembly, we are very proud of you.

Ms Hannah Ersser and Ms Lea Benjamin were able to thank and congratulate all our Wellbeing Warriors on assembly this week. Congratulations to these children who have dedicated their time to volunteering to make our school a better place and thank you to these two teachers for leading them. 

It wasn't just the children getting thanked or rewarded on assembly this week, Councillor Penny Wolff came in and did a special presentation on behalf of a community member who wanted to thank and acknowledge the work of Mrs Georgie Parkes! Mrs Parkes runs the swim school in our pool and has dedicated herself there for 15 years.  There are countless numbers of children and families who adore her and have learnt how to improve their swimming due to Mrs Parkes and her team. Congratulations and thank you again Mrs Georgie Parkes!

Our Junior Band has come so far! I enjoyed their performances so much on assembly this week. Congratulations Junior Band and thank you Mr. James Kukulies! Next week, on Monday we will have the Prep to Year 3 Assembly, and our Year 2 Choir will be performing, I look forward to that enormously!

Next week our Senior Strings and our Intermediate Strings are getting to be part of the Music Fest. Thank you so much to Mrs Trudy Weekes for organising this great opportunity for our students

We have had a lockdown and a fire evacuation drill over the last fortnight. These have been unannounced, so both children and staff have not known that they were going to happen. This is important, legislated practice and thankfully everyone did a great job. These practices highlight any system issues we may have; hence we do them.

Thank you to everyone who attended our P&C meeting this week. It really is a great way to support your child's school.  Some decisions were made at the P&C meeting and no doubt the P&C will have a wrap-up of information in their section of the newsletter.

This afternoon we had the P&C Father's Day BBQ. Thank you so much to our wonderful P&C for supplying all of the food for myself, Chappy Roslyn, Mr Dahlan Bytchewsky and some volunteers to cook. It was a great opportunity for our Dads to come together with their children and families to have a sausage sizzle and a bit of a game on the basketball court. We hope you all have a truly wonderful Father's Day. As it turns out tomorrow is a pupil free day and maybe some of you Dads are getting to have a long weekend with your families. Whatever you do. I truly hope you know the important role that Dads play in our community and world at large. Penny Wolff did let us know that the Saint Lucia Block Party is being held on Father's Day at the University of Queensland at the Great Court. It sounds like there will be a variety of different things that you can do there for free. What a great option for Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Dads!

Servabo Fidem

Keep the Faith

Angie Kelly

PS There have been a couple of concerning behaviours involving our children outside of school recently. They are concerning because they could lead to our children getting hurt. 

• Some of our children have been playing a game called Ding Dong Ditch, where they go to a person's house knock on the door or ring the doorbell and run away. As you can imagine this causes aggravation for the person inside the house, and we are unsure how they will react to this. Can I please ask that you talk to your children about not playing this game.

• Along the same lines, some of our children have been barking at dogs in yards. This is incredibly dangerous behaviour, as no one knows how a dog will react, especially if their territory is threatened. They may jump a fence and hurt one of our children. Again, I would ask that you speak to your children and warn them of not doing these behaviours.