Term 4, Week 11 Newsletter 2024

Principal's Report

2024 has been a year of growth, resilience and adaptation. Despite the hurdles, our students have shown remarkable dedication and commitment to their learning and our staff have continued to provide outstanding support and guidance. It has been inspiring to see the passion for education that permeates our school community, whether through our virtual classrooms or the many creative ways we’ve engaged with one another.

A highlight of our year has been the creation of the Cairns School of Distance Education music video, brought to life by the talented Josh Arnold during his visit to our Mini Schools this year. Josh had the opportunity to travel to Cairns and Mount Garnet, capturing the unique spirit and energy of our school communities. This video beautifully highlights the incredible experiences, achievements and connections that make Cairns School of Distance Education so special.

We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed seeing Josh create it. You can view the video on our Facebook page: Cairns School of Distance Education Facebook.

As we bid farewell to the year, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you – our students, families and staff – for your unwavering dedication and collaboration. You have all contributed to making Cairns School of Distance Education a vibrant, innovative and supportive learning environment.

Looking ahead, we are excited for the opportunities that 2025 will bring. We have exciting plans for continuing to grow and evolve as a school and we look forward to working together to create an even brighter future for our students.

For those of you who are transitioning to new adventures or schools, we wish you all the very best. Your time here has been meaningful, and we hope you take the lessons, skills and memories from Cairns SDE with you.

On behalf of the entire Cairns School of Distance Education community, I wish you all a safe, relaxing and enjoyable holiday season. May it be a time of rest, joy and reflection, ready for the opportunities and challenges that the new year will bring.

Thank you for a wonderful year, and I look forward to what’s ahead!

News from the Primary Deputy Principal

This year has certainly been a very productive and exciting year.  Our students, home tutors and staff have worked incredibly hard to ensure that our children and students have been learning and thriving at Cairns SDE. 

Reading

Reading has been a priority in 2024 and will continue to be a priority in 2025.  We have accomplished a lot together this year and it is important to look back and reflect.  This year we:

• Get Reading Right phonics lessons in Prep-1 – extending to Prep-3 in 2025
• Introduced reading assessments to identify student reading skills and next steps
• Sounds Write intervention for students
• Literacy Circles for reading comprehension and enjoyment
• Many reading activities such as Writer’s Festival, Simultaneous Story Time, Readers Cup, Premier’s Reading Challenge, Lunch time reading, and Book week to just name a few.

Version 9 Curriculum

This year, it has been exciting to work with the primary HODs and teachers as they develop new and engaging unit of work for our students with the implementation of version 9 of the Australian Curriculum.  We trialled this new unit development in the Digital and Design Technology units this year.  The feedback from students and staff has identified that students love learning online with short snippets of information, interactive quizzes and games and hands-on activities with home tutors.  In 2025, our English units will be in a very similar format.  During 2025, we will be working on Maths, Science, and HPE.  By 2027, all eTeach units will be replaced with new units.

 Beginning 2025

At the end of this term, we had some Bump Up transition activities for our students.  This is an opportunity for students to meet their new teacher and classmates for 2025.  We also had transition activities for our Kindy into Prep students.  Both of these initiatives were very successful and will continue next year.  During the year, we also had Induction sessions for our new students and families throughout the year.  These were also very effective and appreciated by our families.

The first week of school next year is Orientation Week.  The primary staff have many activities planned to assist students with being prepared for the school year.  This week provides an opportunity for students to learn about each other, set up their calendars and work schedules, familiarise themselves with the new QLearn courses and be ready for learning. 

We wish all our families a safe and happy Christmas and New Year.  We look forward to working with you all next year.

Lurelle Hodge
Prep to Year 6 Deputy Principal

Facilities Update

Exciting developments are underway for our school facilities! New furniture for the recently completed P Block is scheduled to arrive in Week 10, just in time to prepare for the year ahead. Over the Christmas holidays, two rooms, XF Block and O Block will be converted into teacher workstations to support the increase in student enrolments, enabling teachers to deliver lessons effectively. These spaces are anticipated to be ready for use in 2025. 

In addition, infrastructure maintenance on A, C, and E Blocks will include replacing gutters, downpipes, and gables. These essential upgrades, coordinated by QBuild, are scheduled for the holiday period to minimise disruption to school operations. 

We are excited to start the new year with upgraded and enhanced facilities for both staff and students!

Cairns & Mt Garnet Mini School Quilts

We are excited to showcase two beautiful picture quilts created by students from last term's Mini School in Cairns and Mt Garnet. Using the ‘visualisation’ comprehension strategy, students listened to stories and then transformed their imaginative insights into these stunning quilts. The Cairns group worked with the picture book Fabulous Friend Machine, which teaches important lessons about online safety, while the Mt Garnet group, during their jungle-themed week, listened to Jungle Drums. These wonderful quilts are now proudly displayed in the library for everyone to enjoy.

Sunnys adventures with Prep this year

Dear CSDE,

Let me tell you about my adventures with Prep this year. I was so lucky to visit these amazing kids. They were so kind to share their lives with me and teach me new things. It was so much fun learning from them and having so many new experiences.

I got to start my adventure by going on a plane to visit Aaron who read me a story and took me out to sushi. I love books that are hilarious. What about you? Gabe showed me around his farm and I got to meet the nicest chickens.

After spending time in North Queensland, I flew down south to see Finley who took me dancing and she introduced me to lavender; it smells so good! Frankie took me to the rodeo and we went camping. It was nice and cosy in the swag.

It was then time for an overseas trip to visit Chloe and find out more about Japan. We were very lucky to have a fire with toasted marshmallows. Yum! Back in Australia, Oliver looked after me with walks and taking me to the beach. We enjoyed watching the sun set.

Then it was time to help out in the yards with Beau. He showed me how to feed the wieners. During Book Week, I got to enjoy lots of stories with Florence and see her dress up. It was lots of fun!

Solomon was over in PNG so he showed me around his place and I met his puppies. They were so small. I headed back to North Queensland to spend time with Amarni. I got to help with the chores and we had a sack race.

Finally, it was time to head back to Cairns where I’ll rest before deciding on my next adventure. I have loved visiting all of the super students in Prep this year. The best part of visiting everyone was the tight, snuggly cuddles. They looked after me so well this year. Thank you Prep!

Have a safe and happy holiday,

Sunny (Meerkat)

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Almost a Prep

Prep Transition during Term 4 has peeked the interest of new families in finding out what lies ahead at ‘big’ school in 2025 at CSDE.

Parents explored how we stay organised and prepared for learning when taking on the vital and complex role of Home Tutor. Strategies and ways to support foundational skills for learning like oral language, fine motor skills and beginning reading behaviours where discussed and clarifying questions about the year ahead were answered.

eKindy students and those children interested in joining Prep at CSDE in 2025 didn’t miss out. Lots of fun was had while getting to know each other, reading a story and drawing the main character. We became mini-meteorologists while constructing playdough weather symbols to share the weather from all the different places we were logging in from.

Student transition packs have been sent, a count down calendar is about to start and the fun and joy of learning at CSDE is just over the horizon. We are ready for the challenge: bring it on!

Year 9 Visual Art Still Life

In Term 3 the year 9 visual artists of CSDE explored the genre of still life through the study of the works of Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh and Australian artist Margaret Olley.

Looking at the works by these impressionist, post-impressionist and modern artists allowed students to explore the medium of painting to create their own still life drawings and paintings.

“The students were able to explore objects through drawing to gain a better understanding of line, tone and colour and then developed these into paintings that allowed them to be more expressive and gestural with their painting style to create unique and highly individual responses” said Mr Kelly one of their teachers.

Alicia said, “I really enjoy the way Vincent Van Gogh used his brush strokes to give texture and movement to his work, I was really happy to experiment with techniques like that in the unit”.

Ashanti said, “I really enjoyed the unit on still life, my favourite part was panting a flowerpot. I loved learning about Vincent Van Gogh’s and his amazing artwork”.

Heidi said, “I really liked this unit of art. Painting still life was an area I had never tried before, so it was definitely a cool experience. I liked trying to paint a picture of a wine bottle on a tablecloth. It was challenging, but I liked learning the different techniques to make it look more realistic!”

Nathan Kelly
Visual Arts & History Teacher

Year 9 Visual Art Pop Art

This term Mr Kelly and Ms Meyer’s year 9 Visual Art class studied the pop artists of New York City, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Students looked at how the took everyday items, magazine clippings and comic strips and transformed them into fine art.

“The 1960’s was an amazing time of social and political upheaval and this was reflected in the art world where the pop artists reacted against the serious introspection of the abstract expressionists like Pollock and De Kooning, making work that was fun and colourful yet seen by the art establishment as banal” says Mr Kelly.

Students took a contemporary approach to creating their work using the Australian context as inspiration to make their work.

Ashanti said “I really liked pop art because my teacher made it really fun, and I loved painting. I am painting Blinky Bill which is a classic Australian icon”. Alicia says of this terms work, “I really enjoy the bright colours pop art uses; I chose Kirk’s creaming soda because the cans use images that remind me of a stereotypical 50's or 60's themed diner”.

Nathan Kelly
Visual Arts & History Teacher

CSDE Literary Competition Results and BLA Literary Competition

Last term, students submitted short stories for the BLA Literary competition.  Whilst we are still awaiting the final results, we do know that Mackenzie B's short story, A dish best served cold, is one the prize winning stories - congratulations Mackenzie. The BLA finalists' award ceremony was on Thursday, 28 November.

This year we combined our very own inaugural CSDE Literary competition with the BLA Literary Competition.  Students who entered our CSDE competition were judged by a panel of English teachers to award 1st-3rd place.  The BLA now only allows two entries per section per school - we submitted the 1st and 2nd place stories.

The following students have won our own CSDE Literary Competition. Congratulations to the following students for their amazing short stories. They each won a CSDE Student Writers' pack. 

Year 7-8:

1. Mason A – Taking the rubbish out
2. Oberon B-M – The Mission
3. Daisy D

Year 9-10:

1. Ruby F – In the end
2. Freya F – 7 Minutes
3. Rory G

Year 11-12:

1. Mackenzie B – A dish best served cold
2. Ava A – Amber Lights
3. Courtney C & Jonathan J

The following students received a CSDE participation prize for their short story submissions. 

Year 7-8 Students – Participation Award

• Levi M (Year 8)
• Pheonix S (Year 7)
• Rachel K (Year 7)

Year 09-10 Students- Participation Award

• Emma H (Year 10)
• Finnlay F (Year 10)
• Kayla C (Year 10)
• McKinley M (Year 10)
• Malik M (Year 10)
• Rowan J (Year 10)
• Scarlett M (Year 9)
• Shiannah N (Year 10)
• Zara T (Year 9)

Story Time!

The Year 8 Indonesian class got creative with their language skills in Term 4. Reflecting on storytelling traditions and practices, the students were able to make connections between aspects of their own culture and identity and compare them with Indonesian language and culture. We explored how stories from both cultures have morals that are intended to inspire readers and listeners to become good people. The class also read and reviewed some Indonesian children's stories, demonstrating their comprehension and evaluation skills. After reading stories about Kancil (Mouse-deer), the students were inspired to write their own short story about an Australian native animal. Writing a story gave the students an opportunity to extend their vocabulary and enhance their creative and critical thinking.

Stories included:
- A cat befriending a duck
- Kangaroos learning to jump
- A singing platypus
- A rolling wombat
- The smallest kangaroo
- A snake saving a platypus
- A helpful kangaroo
- A kangaroo and a bird helping each other to get out of a trap
- A kookaburra helping a koala to retrieve its favourite leaf
- A great white shark saving a manta ray from a fishing net

Their stories were informative, creative, and entertaining. Hebat Kelas 8!

STEAM Robotics

Term 4 Highlights

VEX IQ Interschool Competition
In Week 4, students dived into the exciting world of VEX Robotics at our dynamic STEAM workshop. They honed their skills in programming and robot control, before competing in the inter-school VEX IQ competition. A special shoutout goes to Henry and Finn for securing 2nd place in overall points for the primary division and to Oberon for taking 3rd place in the middle school division. Well done to all participants for their impressive teamwork and dedication!

VEX V5 Queensland State Championships
In Week 5, our older students truly shone at the Queensland VEX VR State Championships! They competed fiercely in the High Stakes competition, earning points through teamwork challenges, autonomous coding tasks and exhilarating driving skills contests. All participants should be incredibly proud of their achievements, as they demonstrated remarkable sportsmanship on and off the field. A huge congratulations to Frederick, Natalis and Justine for winning the prestigious Judges' Award—an honour recognising their exceptional robot design and outstanding teamwork!

2025 Overview

New Kits
Our STEAM workshops cater to students of all ages, and we’re excited to announce the addition of VEX 123 kits, which are perfect for students from Prep onward. These kits introduce several levels of coding, starting with touch-based control, progressing to coding cards, and finally, drag-and-drop block coding. For our middle and upper primary students, we’ve also purchased VEX GO competition field kits, which will challenge them with themed games such as Ocean Science Exploration, City Technology Rebuild, Village Engineering Construction and Mars Math Expedition. These new kits will be used throughout the year to inspire and engage our younger learners.

STEAM Workshops
In Term 1 Week 9, our workshop will focus on preparing students for the Robocup competition, where they will design, build, and code a robot to compete in either a dance or line-following challenge.

In Terms 2 and 3 Week 9, our upper primary and secondary students will work on building, driving and coding robots in preparation for the 2025-2026 VEX IQ and VEX V5 competitions, which will take place in Term 4.

We will continue to offer weekly robotics online club for those students wishing to extend themselves.

2024 Student Feedback
We’ve received wonderful feedback from our students this year. Henry, one of our passionate participants, shared:

“This is my third year of being part of the stem robotics family.  I have loved and love every minute of it.  I love creating a new robot every year and working with it to improve it.  It really does become part of our family, even mum would talk to it.  Being part of the stem workshops has given me confidence in myself, shown me the benefits of team work and increased my love for all things robotics. I have made some special friendships and partnerships.  Stem camp is one of the highlights of my year. Of course this would not be possible without the expertise, passion and kindness of the teachers and staff that help, organise and encourage us throughout the year. Thank you to all.” 

Yolanda Tandy
STEAM Co-ordinator 

Minecraft Competition

Hi, I am Emily and I am writing about the recent Minecraft Competition we competed in. The competition was held by the AEL (Australian Esports League). The objective was to build and design a public space to accommodate people of all abilities. We had a team of 5, including Neveah, Mia, Aaron, Ms Mccoy and Myself. The team met twice a week to discuss and create the build. Careful Consideration and care was put into the build, making sure to include every possible scenario and factor in any problems that could occur. We planned strategically, in hopes of success. Alas, we did not win, but the build out team entered in got 30 out of 35 points.

Shortened AEL Comp World Overview.mp4

Hambledon SS has success with Indonesian

Early in 2024 Hambledon State School joined the Yr5 - 6 Indonesian program at Cairns SDE. For most of the students this was their first experience with distance education learning as well as learning Indonesian. The students demonstrated all the Cairns SDE PB4L, their resilience during the early days of online learning was fantastic and they quickly settled into the QLearn routine. It was also great to see all the 5-6 students being responsible learners who did their best to navigate the Canvas platform. Luckily the Cairns SDE teachers were able to visit Hambledon SS several times, culminating in hilarious class activities inspired by Indonesian Independence Day celebrations, see the photos below. The students demonstrated being respectful by taking turns and helping each other. There has been lots of laughter this year as students learned about surprising aspects of Indonesian culture, and hopefully the Year 5s and 6s have made some lasting memories. Cairns SDE Indonesian teachers are looking forward to bringing some of the Independence Day fun to Culture Day in 2025.

Ms Itin Hadijah
Indonesian Teacher - Years 5-6, 9-10, 11-12

Susannah’s Amazing Experience at Japanese Bootcamp!

Year 8 student, Susannah had an incredible time participating in the Japanese Language Bootcamp, part of a new pilot program offered by the Department of Education International in collaboration with University of Queensland Institute of Modern Languages! 

Held during the school holidays at the start of each term, these bootcamps are the perfect way to boost language skills in a fun and interactive way. Susannah had a blast: Making new friends, Practicing Japanese in small groups, learning new skills and becoming more confident in her language abilities, doing fun activities that kept her engaged and excited!

She says it was a fantastic experience and highly recommends it to anyone interested in learning languages. Whether you're a beginner, intermediate, or advanced, there’s something for everyone! 

Student Achievement - Soraya, Year 12

Year 12 CSDE student, Soraya has been a student at Cairns School of Distance Education since Year 7. She began her ballet training at the age of 3 in Canberra.

Soraya is honoured to have been selected for the prestigious English National Ballet School. More than 1,500 dancers from around the world auditioned for a place. After attending the final audition in London Soraya was offered one of only 15 female places. She commenced her full-time training in London in September.

Before commencing at the English National Ballet School Soraya was chosen to compete as a semi-finalist in the Margot Fonteyn International Ballet Competition in London. She was awarded one of the fifteen scholarships from this competition.

Some of Soraya’s achievements are - Sydney Eisteddfod Ballet Scholarship - top 18 (2024), selected for full-time training at the Queensland Ballet Academy (2023), selected as a finalist for full-time training at the Australian Ballet School (2022), finalist for the Youth America Grand Prix (2021), finalist for Asian Grand Prix (2020 and 2019), and the Australian Ballet School Interstate Training Program (2016 to 2020).

Soraya has also received scholarships with Royal Ballet School of Antwerp (Belgium), Berlin State Ballet School (Germany), European School of Ballet (Amsterdam), Dutch National Ballet Academy (Amsterdam) and the Houston Ballet Academy (USA). She has participated in the Bolshoi Ballet Academy Summer Intensive (New York, USA) and the Russian Ballet International Intensive at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy (Moscow, Russia).

Student Achievement - Levi, Year 3

We are thrilled to share that one of our Year 3 students, Levi recently competed in the World Professional Jiu-Jitsu Championships in Abu Dhabi and came out on top with a win. Congratulations Levi!

Student Achievement - Jon, Year 11

Year 11 CSDE student, Jon recently had his composition Piano Quintet in G Minor, arranged for Cello Ensemble was recently premiered at the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Players concert in Brisbane, where it was one of the final performances for a sold-out crowd. 

Jon’s talent continues to shine, with his piece The Magic of Home selected to be performed by the QSO in their regional concerts across Queensland! 

And that’s not all - Jon also took home 1st place at the 2024 Australian Society for Music Education’s (ASME) Young Composers’ Competition! 

Congratulations, Jon! 

Student Achievement - Let us know

If your child has an achievement or you would like to share a story about your child with our school community, please send us an email with information and photos regarding your child’s achievement and it will be shared in our newsletter and on social media. Email: marketing@cairnssde.eq.edu.au 

QParents

Attention Parents & Carers!

If you haven't yet downloaded the QParents app, now is the perfect time! The QParents portal will provide secure online access to your child’s student information in one place, anywhere, anytime.

Here’s how to register:

1. Have your QParents invitation email ready. If you haven't received it, please contact us at: QParents@cairnssde.eq.edu.au
2. Gather documents for identity verification
3. Your child/children’s EQID (Education Queensland Identification number)

Check out the attached QParents guide for detailed registration steps. For more information, visit: https://bit.ly/3Weol5b.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to stay connected with your child's learning!

2025 EQ School Calendar

Start planning for next year with the 2025 school calendar now available on the Education Queensland website.

The calendar features school term dates, school holiday dates, public holidays and staff development/student free days.

If you’re looking for more room to write, check out the 2025 school planner which is now bigger and better at A3 size per term and notes each term week.

Calendar updates will follow later in the year.

Support organisations

Installing SZ App

Cairns School of Distance Education now has a school app - SZApp.  Schoolzine’s SZapp mobile application is a fantastic way to stay up to date with all of the latest news and calendar events.  The App is free and available for Android and iOS devices.

Did you know we have a Facebook and Instagram page?

Follow us for regular updates, news, photos & more.

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Instagram:  #cairnssde