16 May 2025

What’s Happening

Principal’s Report

Welcome wonderful Southport community. I trust all is going well within your learning community as I know it is here at Southport.

P&C Mother’s Day Stall

A big ‘Thank You’ to Donna McGee and Matt Anderson, our P&C Presidents along with our parent helpers for organising and running the Mother’s Day Stall throughout Week 3.

We see first-hand how special this opportunity is for our students, and we are very grateful for this opportunity.

We hope that each of our mums had a very happy Mother’s Day last Sunday and that you enjoyed getting spoilt!

Report Card Survey – Outcome

Thank you to the 170 parent respondents that took this opportunity to have your say with how our report cards should look like in 2025.

Report cards will have the following components:

• General overview for each subject that describes what students have been learning about throughout the semester with a grade.
• Behaviour Comment
• Overall comment which includes 1x area of strength comment for either English OR Math and 1x area for improvement comment for English OR Math (teacher discretion)

We appreciate your voice and trust that you find these reports easier to understand and useful.

Queensland Association of State School Principals (QASSP) Leadership Conference

I attended the QASSP Conference this week held in Brisbane from 12 to 14 May. It was a great opportunity to hear quality speakers, build networks and discuss latest innovations in leadership and learning.

By attending this conference, not only was I investing in my leadership capacity, but I accepted the challenge to see through a different lens. We embraced the atypical and divergent thinkers. Those who, through their unconventional approaches, encourage us to uncover hidden opportunities and extraordinary possibilities. Together, we answered the provocation: "Do You See What I See?" 

I look forward to trialling some of my key takeaways in the years to come.

Boosting our P.E. and Sporting Equipment

A massive thank you goes out on behalf of all of our students to Mr Matt Anderson who has generously donated over $1 000 of sporting equipment through his connections at Hart Sports.

Equipment included:

• HART Rainbow Dodgeball Set - Large balls
• Hart Rebounder net
• Hart yellow Euro Handball Size 1 x 4
• Hart open reel fibre glass tape x 3
• Hart colour stop watches set
• Hart field marker 100 pack
• Hart mega field marker stand x 1
• Hart hand Dynamometer digital - $129
• Hart safety agility pole set
• Hart beaded skipping rope – Yellow – 5m
• 10 orange handle skipping ropes
• 18 green handle skipping ropes
• Hart squistle
• Hart official referee whistle
• Hart Rainbow whistle set
• Hart Electronic whistle
• Hart bucket
• Hart 4L STORAGE bucket x 2

What a massive effort and is greatly appreciated. I can’t wait to see the students utilising this equipment.

I am really looking forward to the next fortnight with events such as Under 8’s Day and The National Simultaneous Story Telling Day – I love reading books to inspire young children. Stay safe and have a great fortnight.

Andrew Stewart
Principal

Deputy Principal Senior Report

Last week, our Inter-school Sports Competition kicked off with great energy, with over 100 of our Year 5 and 6 students representing our school across four different sports. Congratulations to all students for their outstanding efforts and behaviour — we are incredibly proud of the way you represented our school. A big thank you to the teachers who supported each sport on the day, and to Mr Milloy for his organisation of the event. While this week’s round (Week 4) has been cancelled due to rain, we look forward to getting back into the competition with Round 2 next week.

Thank you also to our wonderful P&C for running the Mother’s Day Stall last week. This was a lovely opportunity for our students to find something meaningful to treat the important mothers and caregivers in their lives.

Finally, a reminder that our next Senior School Assembly will be held in Week 6. As part of this assembly, we’ll be presenting awards for our recent cross country trials. Since there is no assembly this week, Student of the Week awards will be presented in classrooms for students to take home and celebrate with their families.

David Capill
Deputy Principal Senior School

Deputy Principal Junior Report

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)

At Southport State School, we promote and encourage the following values which have been identified by our school community. These values are upheld by both students and staff:

“I am a Learner, I am Respectful, I am Safe”

Each week students engage in a PBL focus lesson. These lessons promote the school values and we talk to students about the behaviours associated with them.

What are the benefits of using the PBL framework?

• PBL helps schools to be consistent in the way they support and respond to behaviour. 
• PBL enables schools to develop clear expectations and boundaries for behaviour and ensures that behaviour support is differentiated according to need.

The week 3 & 4 PBL focus value is Respectful.

Southport State School is committed to providing quality education for all in a safe, respectful and disciplined learning environment. We believe these values teach and promote our high standard of responsible behaviour.

Late arrivals and parents running late

I have noticed that we have had an increase in students arriving late to school. Our school start time is 8:55am. It is important that students arrive on time so that they don’t miss vital morning messages and routines and are not missing out on their learning.

Additionally, our school time finishes at 2:55pm. If you are running late, which is arriving any time after 2:55pm, please call the office to let them know, so the teacher is aware and/or the students can be brought to the office and supervised until you arrive.

If you are unable to consistently pick your child up at 2:55pm then we do have the Outside School Hours Care that you can enrol your child in and they can be contacted on 55311138.

If you have concerns regarding your child’s attendance, please contact the office on 5531-9111 to make an appointment to speak with your child’s Deputy Principal.

Gabrielle Baldwin
Deputy Principal Junior School

Head of Curriculum

Tania Biddulph
Head of Curriculum

Guidance Officer

Four ‘S’ approach with Discipline

Last newsletter, I wrote about the importance of when a caregiver Shows Up for kids and offers The Four S’s: Helping them feel Safe, Seen, Soothed, and Secure.  This week we consider how we maintain these Four S’s approach with discipline.

The information provided below is from the book Whole--‐Brain Discipline by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D.

Because we share this incredible privilege and responsibility of teaching our children how to make good choices and how to be kind, successful human beings, we want to also share with you how we handle behavioural challenges, in hopes that we can work together to give our children a consistent, effective experience when it comes to discipline. The book states when disciplining children, we offer soothing connection then we redirect behaviour. 

Below are eight basic principles:

1. Discipline is essential.
2. Effective discipline depends on a loving, respectful relationship between adult and child.
3. The goal of discipline is to teach.
4. The first step in discipline is to pay attention to kids’ emotions.
5. When children are upset or throwing a fit, that’s when they need us the most.
6. Sometimes we need to wait until children are ready to learn.
7. The way we help them be ready to learn is to connect with them.
8. After connecting, we redirect.

Even when we say “no” to children’s behaviour, we always want to say “yes” to their emotions, and to the way they experience things.

For more detailed information please click on the link provided.

Marisa Anderson

Mind Matters

Welcome to Mind Matters with Ms. Kiana, your school-based psychologist! This new fortnightly column will be dedicated to supporting the mental well-being of students and their families. Each issue will explore practical tips and insights on topics relating to psychology in general, and each student’s well-being. If there’s ever a topic you’d like to learn more about or if you have any questions, please feel free to email me. I'm here to help guide and support our school community in fostering healthy, happy minds!

For our first instalment, following April being Autism month, it only felt fitting that our first infographic be on embracing neurodiversity, and helping us all understand Autism a little better. Autism is a unique way of experiencing and interacting with the world. Individuals with autism have diverse strengths, challenges, and perspectives that contribute to the richness of our community. This infographic highlights key characteristics, strengths, and common difficulties of autism, while also offering simple strategies for supporting individuals with autism at home. By understanding and embracing neurodiversity, we can create a more inclusive and supportive environment where every student can thrive.

Kiana Bresic
School – based Psychologist

P&C News

Student of the Week Award – Week 2

Student of the Week Award – Week 3