Term 1 Week 4 2025

From the Principal

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

What a fantastic start to the year we have had at Mapleton State School! It has been wonderful to welcome our students and families back. Our classrooms are buzzing with energy as students engage happily in learning alongside their friends, teachers, and support staff. Thank you for your ongoing support in making the start of 2025 such a positive one and welcome to all the new families that have joined our school community.

NAPLAN – Year 3 and 5 Students

Our Year 3 and 5 students will be participating in NAPLAN from the 12th to the 17th of March. Our school consistently performs exceptionally well, and we use this valuable data to refine our teaching and learning programs to better support our students. It also provides parents with insight into their child’s progress compared to peers across the state and nation. In the coming weeks, we will be conducting preparation activities to help students familiarize themselves with the online testing environment.

Life Education

Life Education notes have been sent home, and sessions will begin on the 10th of March. This program plays a vital role in supporting students' well-being, teaching important lessons on topics such as healthy choices, resilience, and personal safety. We encourage all families to take advantage of this valuable learning opportunity.

School Photos

School photos will take place on the 11th of March. Students have already received envelopes for photo orders—if you have not received one, please contact the school office. Whilst photos will take place during school time it is important to note that sibling photos will be at 8:45am in the hall.

Cross Country

Our Interhouse Cross Country event is set for Friday, 21st of March. We look forward to an exciting day of competition between the Eagles, Sharks, and Kangaroos! This will be followed by the Small Schools Cross Country on Tuesday, 1st of April. We encourage all students to participate and give their best effort.

P&C Updates

A massive thank you to our P&C for 2025, who are already making a great impact with exciting fundraisers planned for the year. We recently received 2 additional sound fields to support our students at a cost of over $7000 thanks to their efforts in securing a grant last year.

One of the biggest events coming up is the School Trivia Night on Friday 21^st of March, raising funds for an upgraded junior playground! A special thank you to the team at KidzMob for offering their support and opening during this event, making it easier for parents and community members to attend.

The school garden is continuing to take shape, with a new cover installed this week. A big thank you to all involved for their contributions. The Student Council is already brimming with creative fundraising ideas for purchasing new plants, and we look forward to seeing this space flourish throughout the year.

School Grounds

A friendly reminder that our school grounds open at 8:30 am each morning. Prior to this, direct supervision is not available. If you require an earlier drop-off, the team at KidzMob provides excellent care and has availability for students.

Facilities – K Block Update

Whilst work had halted on K Block due to provisions for extra work being required. I am happy to announce that we have been approved for the additional funds required and work will get started on the building in the coming weeks. Special thanks to Lois who has been instrumental in getting this project off the ground, we hope to open to our year 5 and 6 students in term 2 along with a new class set of laptops.

Communicating Concerns Respectfully

At Mapleton State School, we value open and respectful communication between families and staff. If you have any concerns regarding your child’s learning or wellbeing, we kindly ask that you discuss them first with your child’s classroom teacher. In most cases, this is the best way to address concerns promptly and effectively. If the matter remains unresolved or is of a sensitive nature, please contact the principal for further discussion.

We also remind families that expressing frustrations via social media can be counterproductive for all involved. Such actions often do not lead to constructive solutions and may fall outside our Parent Code of Conduct, which promotes respectful and collaborative communication. We appreciate your support in maintaining a positive school environment for our students, staff, and community.

Afternoon Pick-Up – Car Park Safety

The school car park is a busy area in the afternoons, and we ask for your cooperation to ensure student safety. As the car park is council-owned and signed accordingly, we kindly request that students do not run across the road without parental supervision. We will also reinforce this message at parade. Additionally, we ask all parents to follow the signs and use the ‘pick and go’ approach as efficiently as possible to maintain a smooth flow of traffic. Your support in keeping our students safe is greatly appreciated.

Thank you again for a fantastic start to the year. We look forward to working together to make 2025 a successful and rewarding year for our students.

Warm regards,
Aaron
Principal
Mapleton State School

Curriculum News

Dear Parents,

I hope this message finds you well. My name is Kristy Thomas and I am excited to introduce myself as the acting Head of Department - Curriculum here at Mapleton State School. I am absolutely thrilled to be part of this wonderful school community and to work alongside such dedicated staff, enthusiastic students and supportive families.

In my role as HOD-C, I am here to support all of our wonderful staff with understanding and implementing the Australian Curriculum and teaching Health to students in Prep – Year 4. I am passionate about supporting students, both academically and socially and emotionally, and collaborating with teachers and support staff. My main goal is to ensure that every student feels supported and empowered to reach their full potential in a positive and nurturing environment.

I am committed to fostering strong connections between home and school and I truly believe that by working together, we can create the best experience for our students. 

Thank you for the warm welcome and I am excited to be part of your child’s journey at Mapleton State School.

Warm regards,
Kristy Thomas

Prep News

First term in Prep has been busy! The Preppies have settled in well and are managing the routines confidently. We have learnt several sounds and are blending and segmenting small words. We are exploring patterns and numbers to 10. We have had lots of fun with fine motor activities to build our finger strength. The children are learning to work together in their learning and their play.

Year 1 News

Year 1 are off to a wonderful start with their learning.

We have learnt that the ‘ay’ digraph represents the long /a/ vowel sound.

We have also been learning and practising positional and directional language. Keep up the fantastic learning Year 1! 

Year 2 News

We are thrilled to welcome back Marissa and Rafie from Story Dogs this year.  I know how excited the students are to share their reading journey with these pair.  Please make them feel welcome.

In technology we are designing puppets and have enjoyed painting puppet theatres last week. So far we have made finger puppets, stick puppets and paper bag puppets.  We have only just begun!

In Science we are learning about materials and their properties, testing strength, durability and if they are waterproof.  Following our investigations, later in the term students will make a lunchbox based on these choices.

In other classroom news we have a new student, welcome Colton!  It is nice to see how students are already demonstrating the Mapleton Way and wrapping around to support a new friend. 

Have Fun!

Mrs Shillig

Year 3 News

We have had a great start to our year 3 learning journey. In English we are learning to relate ideas and express opinions about an imaginative text. We have read ‘Maad Magpie’ and ‘Silly Birds’ by Gregg Dreise. 

In Maths we are learning to interpret and create a map. We are using our classroom to create a ‘Top View’ perspective map. We have drawn a draft in our Maths books and will use the iPads to create our final map.  We will then provide directions to three areas of the room using directional terms such as ‘go between’, ‘walk around’ and ‘turn left’.

We have welcomed Charlie to our class and look forward to welcoming Malakai in the next few weeks.

We are excited to have Mrs Harold return from maternity leave in Week 6 and thank Mrs Jones for helping us until her return.

Year 6 News

Hello everybody!

Today I'm going to be talking to you about what we are learning in the Year 6 class.

First of all, Maths. Currently in Maths we are learning about cartesian planes and where to plot coordinates and to create tessellating patterns. We are also learning about number lines, profit and loss and positive and negative numbers in a financial context on vertical and horizontal number lines.

For English we are reading a book called Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman. It is about a boy called Jamal and a girl named Bibi, who are siblings and both dream of becoming professional soccer players and want to play for the Afghanistan national team and when the World Cup. The thing is the Afghanistan government bans girls from playing soccer and even playing soccer in general because they're embarrassed that they have no famous soccer players from Afghanistan. They face numerous problems and try to move to Australia.

For Science, we are learning about solids, liquids and gases and the process of melting, dissolving and solubility. We are conducting lots of experiments to do with dissolving and melting.

For HASS, we are learning about everything to do with Aboriginal rights in the 20th century, from Federation, the Australian Constitution to the Commonwealth Native Title Act. We are putting very important historical events on a timeline and talking about whether those events are a change in law or actions of a group. We are learning about how all the rights of Indigenous people were very bad and how they got treated horribly. We learned about the Stolen Generation who got taken from their families and got put with white parents and were forced to learn English and follow British culture and religion. If they were caught following or studying their culture, they would be in big trouble.

For Music, we are looking at a short clip called “The man who was afraid of falling”. We are responding on a couple questions about the scene but the main part of it is that we're going to be making music using garageband on the iPads.           

In P.E. we are learning about cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance and flexibility. We are doing various exercises, including the beep test and more running games. In Health, we are learning about our identity, our role models and who influences us. We're looking at nutritional advertisements and we see if they’re from reliable sources. Finally, we are looking at our whole background, our culture/religion, our strengths, our beliefs and values, our habits and behaviours, our physical features, the significant people in our lives, our hopes and dreams and why it is important to have a special and unique identity.

For Design Tech, we are investigating and playing with circuits and making our own games with circuits. Finally for Visual Art on we are learning about different mixed media sculptures and we're learning about different patterns and lines, including curvy, straight, thick, thin and jagged.

EL7 (Ethan Levinzon) Grade 6

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