Message from the College Director & Principals

Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome back to Term 3! We are all feeling refreshed and re-energized after our break and are looking forward to another busy and successful term.

WELCOME

We are delighted to welcome some new staff members this term. Karen McCord has been appointed as the Principal of our Senior School. Karen has been acting Principal of Noosa District High School and prior to that was Principal of the Senior School at Kawana Waters College. She has also had long experience in P-12 Colleges on the Gold Coast so we are very fortunate to have someone with such expertise to open and establish our Senior School.

Welcome, also, to our new Head of Department for Information and Communication Technologies, Russell Sky. One of our goals at Meridan is to make our College a leading school in technology and Russell has the skills and experience to make this happen. Two outstanding teachers have also joined our staff, Michelle Robinson, who is taking Year 7, and Katie Robinson has replaced Alex Jennings on Year 5. We’ve also welcomed back some ‘old’ staff who have been on leave or at other schools – Kasey West and Alex Low in the Middle School and Brett Gripske on Year 4.

JUNIOR SCHOOL WAKAKIRRI

The Yr 3 – 6 Wakakirri team are organising their final rehearsals prior to their big performance on Tuesday at the Caloundra Event Centre. A team of 67 students have been rehearsing with a dedicated group of teachers for the entire term. The story they are presenting is called Maia’s Child. We wish them the very best of luck and know they will do us proud.

SENIOR SCHOOL

Have you noticed how quickly our Senior School is taking shape? Our state of the art facilities will be well and truly ready for our Year 10 students next year. Thank you to all the parents who attended our latest Parent Information Session this week. We were delighted with the large attendance and really appreciate the wonderful parent support we always receive. If you are interested in finding out about our Senior School and haven’t been able to attend our evening meetings, please let me know ( Julie.Kornmann@eq.edu.au or 54902666) and I will organise a session during school hours.

PARENT SURVEYS

Your opinion of our College is very important to us and so to give you the opportunity to have your say we will soon be sending home a brief survey to every family. Later this term the official Education Department Parent Opinion Survey will be distributed, but that only goes to a limited number of families and we want to give everyone the opportunity to let us know what we’re doing well and what we could do better. Please complete the survey and return it to the College – we really value your feedback.

RAINFOREST CAFÉ

Our P&C and the café staff do a wonderful job of running our café but they really need your support. If you could spare any time at all to volunteer it would be greatly appreciated. Even if you can only spare an hour or two once a month it would make a difference and our students just love it when Mum or Dad or Grandma are working in the café. Please ring our Convenor, Rose, on 54902668, if you can help us out.

MIDDLE SCHOOL ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

Our Middle School Athletics Carnival on Wednesday 22/07/09 was an outstanding success. Student participation and behaviour was excellent and the depth of Community Spirit displayed was a credit to the staff and students. It was fantastic to see all students having a go at so many of the track and field and novelty events. Congratulations to the winning Community “FREEMAN” and to all of our age champions and event winners. A special thank-you to our carnival organisers Ms Shillig, Ms Mullins and Mr Seijbel for their dedication and hard work to make the day such a success.

YEAR 8 CAMP

Year 8 camp is fast approaching and our students and staff are busily preparing for this fantastic event. Students have had their first camp meeting with Camp Co-ordinator Mr Towner and attended a presentation by our Year 9 students who enjoyed the experience so much in 2008, which has led to much excitement and anticipation about the up and coming event.

The camp is situated at Emu Gully at Helidon, outside Toowoomba. Emu Gully has an Anzac theme, with activities built around epic Anzac events, such as the Siege of Tobruk, the Western Front and the Kokoda Track. These activities provide a “hands on” history lesson of a very important part of our Australian Heritage and are great teambuilding and leadership activities, not to mention a lot of fun. More importantly, they confront participants with the Anzac character values of courage, perseverance, self-sacrifice and mateship.

Parents are encouraged to ensure outstanding payments are made as soon as possible to ensure their child’s participation in this wonderful experience and to allow for final numbers to be organised. If any student is unable to attend camp, an alternate program will be provided back at school for students to participate in.

MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT RECOGNITION PROGRAM

It has been a wonderful start to the term, with all students displaying a renewed focus on being engaged, motivated and committed to their learning and meeting our school expectations. Congratulations to 7M who were announced as the winners of our Class Challenge in Term 2. In Term 3 our Student Recognition Program will involve individual student recognition by our Heads of Community. Each week our HOCs will present awards to two students from each Community recognising the students’ commitment to the FISH Philosophy and their achievement high standards across different aspects of their schooling. Congratulations to all students who have already been recognised as award winners. Each award winner will receive a certificate and a prize.

STEPS TO SUCCESS

Middle School Year 8 and 9 students have begun participating in the Steps to Success Program for this year. The program focuses on developing the ‘whole’ student, focussing on:

• leadership development
• team building and social skills
• emotional intelligence including personality and learning styles and
• career and education planning.

In Year 8 the work students will complete will lead to a successful transition to Year 9, as well as the commencement of our Student Leaders selection process for our 2010 Middle School student leaders. In Year 9 the program will focus on preparing students to successfully transition to the Senior Phase of learning and Year 10.

JUNIOR SCHOOL CORE VALUE FOCUS FOR TERM 3

Our Core Value focus for this term is CHOICE. Teachers will work with student to understand that all that they do and say is a choice and with every choice comes a consequence. You can help to support our students by discussing the following behaviours with your child.

We demonstrate making great choices when we:

• arrive at school on time each day
• make sure I am organised for my learning
• think about the possible consequences of my actions before I act
• keep things in perspective and don’t make mountains out of mole hills
• choose what I know is right even when it isn’t easy
• accept the consequences of my actions
• bounce back from disappointments or mistakes.

Regards
Julie, Robyn, Leasa & Karen