Newsletter of the Claremont State Special School Community

Newsletter of the Claremont State Special School Community Respect Independence Communication High self esteem

Claremont News

136A Robertson Principal: Trish Thiedeman Road Webpage: www.claremonspecs.eq.edu.au Silkstone. Ipswich. Email: [email protected] 4304 P&C President: Bryony Churchill Ph.: 07 3813 5333 Fax: 07 3813 5300

Newsletter Number: 16 Date: 24 October 2016

FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S PEN

Dear Parents and Carers

A very, very big thank you to our community for supporting the Trivia Night on Saturday. Support from local businesses, parents, friends and staff was amazing. The generosity of all is much appreciated. We are well on the way towards purchasing the new wheelchair accessible school bus.

I would like to acknowledge the commitment, persistence, and hard work of the P and C. The ladies including Bryony, Tracey, Amanda, Michelle and Sandra have done an exceptional job with this event, and the fundraising for the bus.

A big thankyou also to Chappy Bill for his hard work and support for this event.

A fun time was had by all! Thank you!

Day for Daniel Friday 28 October: WEAR RED on Friday when we celebrate Day for Daniel. Parents are invited to attend the event starting at 9:15am and finishing at 10:15am. All students are to wear red on the day, and we are accepting a gold coin donation which will be forwarded to the Morcombe Foundation.

School Expectations: I CAN LEARN, I AM RESPECTFUL, I AM RESPONSIBLE, I AM SAFE Newsletter of the Claremont State Special School Community Respect Independence Communication High self esteem

World Teacher’s day Friday 28 October 2016: Teachers will be recognised this Friday when we celebrate World Teacher’s day in Queensland.

Assessment in maths: RoleM end of semester assessment will commence in the school this week and continue for the next two weeks. In addition to this, teachers will commence moderation of student assessment tasks across learning areas in the lead up to semester reporting. What are we trying to achieve when we complete moderation?

 Common language for assessment amongst teachers  Common understanding and consensus of a set of ‘standards’ or ‘criteria’ that student achievement is being assessed against  Consistency of teacher judgement for student achievement

My door is always open. If you require any support, information or clarification of points, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Have a great week!

Have a great week! Regards

Trish Thiedeman Principal

WANTED!

Information about great disability friendly holiday and weekend programs and regular leisure, sporting and artistic clubs

Has your child participated in a fun leisure or holiday program? We are collecting information about services for a parent and community brochure and we’d love to hear from you. Please email [email protected] with the program name, cost, website if applicable or the contact details.

Thanks for your help 

LAWN BOWLS By Mr A.B.

Lawn bowls is a precision sport in which the goal is to roll an asymmetrical ball called a bowl closer to a smaller white ball called the ‘jack’ than the opposite team is able to do. Lawn bowls is a popular sport and leisure activity in most schools. Because of its relaxed pace and comparatively light physical demands, lawn bowls is a popular participant sport, particularly among students with special needs.

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, there were 300,000 adults aged 15 years and over participating in lawn bowls in 2014. School Expectations: I CAN LEARN, I AM RESPECTFUL, I AM RESPONSIBLE, I AM SAFE Newsletter of the Claremont State Special School Community Respect Independence Communication High self esteem

Lawn bowls is also a low-impact, therapeutic form of exercise and is intended for, but not exclusively for, those students who do not have the opportunity to participate in the more robust activities such as touch and soccer.

Claremont is a strong advocate for structured and organised sport and therefore it comes as no surprise that 7 teams from Claremont were nominated to participate in the 2016 Special School’s Regional Lawn Bowls carnival in the primary, lower secondary and senior division against three other special schools. The Claremont primary division team achieved 1st position, Claremont lower secondary team tied for 1st position and the Claremont senior team achieved 2nd position in the carnival.

Congratulations to our students for their outstanding effort. Special thanks to our teachers and their aides for encouraging our students to extend themselves during play at the carnival. The lawn bowls carnival concludes another very successful sporting year for Claremont. Well done Claremont!

KEY WORD SIGNING By Miss Sharon A number of staff at Claremont have the opportunity to learn/refresh their skills in a Key Word Signing class. Key word sign is used to encourage and support language development in children and adults with communication difficulties. The Main features of Key Word Sign include  Use of sign and speech concurrently  Sign the key word but say the whole sentence  Use of visual strategies including body language, facial expression and directionality  Use of symbols where appropriate  Some use of finger spelling Not everyone can learn to use sign to get their message across, however everyone can benefit from signing to help their understanding. “A communication disability does not just belong to the individual it belongs to the entire environment of which the individual is the focal point” (Sandwell).

PODD – Helpful Hints By Miss Emma

Some tips for using the PODD – by Miss Emma SLP

Several parents have purchased PODDs this year to use at home. Here are a few tips that may come in handy…

1) The PODD may still seem overwhelming and that’s okay – relax and accept that this is new, it doesn’t feel natural and is not innate. We are ALL learning.

School Expectations: I CAN LEARN, I AM RESPECTFUL, I AM RESPONSIBLE, I AM SAFE Newsletter of the Claremont State Special School Community Respect Independence Communication High self esteem

2) If you haven’t quite figured out where to start yet, make the only goal for the next two weeks to be that you’ll problem solve how to carry the PODD everywhere. You’re much more likely to use the PODD, if it is always with you. o Remember this motto: “See the child, See the PODD”.

3) Others may have been brave enough to open the front cover, and may be sneakily modelling a few things here and there – brilliant! Make your goals for the next few weeks to model pages 1a and 1b (core vocabulary/chat words). There are loads of opportunities in the day to model language with the chat words (e.g. ‘look’, ‘more’, ‘finish, ‘my turn’, ‘your turn’, ‘hurry up’, ‘wait’ etc.). You can even start combining words!

4) Once you’re feeling confident with the chat pages, focus on one or two branch starters to model by pointing to the ‘More to say’ symbol in the top right hand corner on page1 of the PODD (it takes you to page 2 of the PODD).

You may want to choose to model branch starters like, “I’m telling you something”, “I think it’s” or “Let’s Go”. These branches will take you to the categories pages, the opinion pages and the places pages.

5) Once you’re passed this stage, you are taking the system with you everywhere and are super familiar with the vocab on pages 1a and 1b. You may be feeling fairly comfortable with a few things which is fantastic.

6) Now it’s just all about practising your modelling and refining your technique. Remember, this should be relaxed, fun and casual. We also need to remind everyone that the ‘Oops’ symbol is there for a reason – Use it! Model it! The only way our students know that it is okay to make mistakes and have a go, is if they see us do this too.

TRIVIA NIGHT

It was a pleasure to see everyone on Saturday night having such a great time at the Trivia night . The laughter felt throughout the night was priceless and the heckling from the crowd was great .

Congratulations to everyone involved in putting together this event, it was a great success.

Tracey Mullin Secretary – P & C Association.

School Expectations: I CAN LEARN, I AM RESPECTFUL, I AM RESPONSIBLE, I AM SAFE