Newsletter Week 4, Term 4
Principal Pen
Hello Aitkenvale Community,
Can you believe we’re nearly halfway through Term 4? Time really does fly when you’re having fun and learning. With just six weeks left in the school year, the finish line is in sight, but there’s still plenty of learning and laughter to be had before we get there.
One of the things we’re most proud of this term is the consistency of practice across our classrooms. Teachers and students are working together, ensuring that every day counts and that routines remain strong right up to the final bell of 2025.
Our students’ behaviour, effort, and engagement have been outstanding—thank you to families for your ongoing support in helping us maintain such high standards. It truly takes a village, and our Aitkenvale village is thriving.
World Teachers’ Day – Friday, 31 October
Tomorrow, we celebrate World Teachers’ Day—a chance to say a huge THANK YOU to our incredible Aitkenvale teachers. They’re the heart and soul of our school, always going above and beyond.
If you see one of our teachers tomorrow, give them a smile, a thank-you, or maybe even a chocolate—because they really do teach, inspire, and make a difference every single day.
Year 6 Transitions
Our Year 6 students recently visited Pimlico State High School and what a wonderful experience it was! The students represented Aitkenvale beautifully and are already starting to think ahead to their exciting next chapter.
We’re proud of how they’re preparing for high school, both academically and emotionally.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Believe it or not, planning for 2026 is already underway! If you know that your family will be moving or leaving Aitkenvale at the end of this year, please let us know as soon as possible. This helps us make sure our classes, teachers, and programs are well-prepared for next year’s learners.
Prep Enrolments for 2026
Prep enrolments for 2026 are open! If you have a child starting school next year, or know someone who does, please encourage them to contact the office to arrange an enrolment interview. We can’t wait to welcome the next generation of Aitkenvale learners.
With six weeks to go, there’s still lots of work to get through. Our students and teachers are doing a fantastic job staying focused as the year winds down. Let’s keep the energy high and the learning strong.
Thank you for your continued support, positivity, and community spirit. Aitkenvale is a great place to learn, laugh, and grow. That’s thanks to each and every one of you.
Have a wonderful week ahead!
Lee Braney
Camp Australia
Updates from the Admin Office
Office Hours 8:00AM - 3:30PM
Supervision on gates begins at 8:00am
Gates Close at 2:50pm - all remaining students will then be escorted to the office to await collection.
Important Dates
- 💲 All Outstanding Payments - Due Now
- 🏊 Prep - Year 2 Swimming Commences 21st October- Permission Note - Due Now
- 🏫 Prep Readiness Program - Every Monday 9:00am - 11:00am
- 🔴 Day for Daniel - 31st October
- 🧑🏫 World Teacher Day - 31st October
- 🏊♂️ Year 2 - Year 6 Swimming Carnival - 21st November - Permission Note - Due 7th November
- 🎓 Year 6 Graduation Ceremony - 10th December 6:00pm
Reminder: No parking allowed at any time in the administration entrance driveway. Please use the designated car parks for all pick-ups and drop-offs.
Important Update: Consent Forms Now Available via QParents or Email
We would like to inform all parents that, moving forward, consent forms will no longer be printed. Instead, they will be sent home electronically through QParents or via email.
This change will help us streamline communication and reduce paper waste. Please ensure you’re signed up for QParents or keep an eye on your email for any upcoming forms.
If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to contact the school office.
Fortnightly Wrap-Up
Reading Fun
Reading Fun in the Pink Area! 
It’s awesome to see our students enjoying the new tables in the Pink Area — not just at lunchtime, but also during learning time! 
Students have been working together in small groups, sharing stories, and diving into their reading activities. It’s wonderful to see so much engagement, collaboration, and enthusiasm for reading — both inside and outside the classroom!
Prep Readiness Program
Prep Readiness Program – Week 2! 
Our Prep Readiness Program is now in its second week, and it’s wonderful to see our future 2026 Preppies getting excited and ready for school!
Children are enjoying fun learning activities, meeting new friends, and becoming familiar with our school environment. It’s a great start to their learning journey at Aitkenvale State School
Breakfast Club
Our Breakfast Club program runs each weekday morning in the Community Hub Kids Club. Start the day right with a healthy breakfast of fruit, toast and cereal, proudly supported by donations from Fuel for Schools and Foodbank. A huge thank you to our amazing volunteers from Uniting Church Aitkenvale and our dedicated staff who help serve our hungry students each morning.
Programs like this wouldn’t be possible without your generous support — thank you for helping us make a difference in our school community!
Year 5/6
The students on the 5/6 Brown play area have been amazing over the last few days! It’s been fantastic to see so many students actively involved in Touch Football, Basketball, and Tennis. The level of participation and teamwork has been outstanding — and it’s especially heartening to see so many of our girls out on the courts, particularly enjoying tennis. Keep up the great effort, everyone! 🎾🏀🏈
3B Learning Wall
Our Year 3B students have been busy building their Learning Wall as they explore the classic story Charlotte’s Web! The wall helps students understand what they are learning, how to be successful, and how to use feedback to improve their work. Through this novel study, students are learning about characters, themes of friendship and loyalty, and developing their reading comprehension and writing skills. The Learning Wall grows as their knowledge grows — showcasing key vocabulary, examples of great work, and strategies for success. It’s wonderful to see 3B using their Learning Wall to reflect on their learning journey and celebrate their progress 
World Teacher's Day
World Teachers’ Day
Tomorrow we acknowledge and celebrate all of the wonderful teachers at Aitkenvale State School. Thank you for nourishing young minds, guiding positivity, and inspiring our students every day. 
To mark the day, we asked our teachers to share a favourite quote or tell us why they became a teacher — and this is what a few of them said! 
Your dedication makes a difference — today and every day!
World Teacher's Day
School Uniform
Aitkenvale State School Uniform Reminder
Students are expected to wear the school uniform every day.
Senior shirts are to be worn Monday to Thursday. Uniform shirts can be purchased from the office for $30.00, and sports bucket hats are available for $17.00. For more details, please refer to our Uniform Policy on the school website.
Sun Smart
Sun Smart School Reminder 
We are a Sun Smart School and encourage all students and staff to wear a wide-brimmed or bucket hat whenever they are outside. 
Caps are not permitted as part of our Sun Protection Policy and School Uniform Policy. Please help us keep everyone safe by ensuring your child has the correct hat each day. 
For more details, visit our Sun Protection Policy on the school website.
Australian Curriculum Version 9 English – Reading and Viewing
This year we are implementing the revised Australian Curriculum, Version 9 for this first time. This term, all students from P-6 have a Reading and Viewing Task. Students have been engaged with narrative texts across the term and given the opportunity to practice decoding these and answering questions about these year-level texts. Students also continue to receive explicit differentiated teaching of decoding skills at their skill level.
In the English assessment task, students are expected to independently read the age-appropriate texts provided to allow teachers to gather information against the assessable element, Reading and viewing, of the year level Achievement standard. Independent reading requires both the ability to decode and make meaning from printed text.
We recognise that reading is difficult for many students and adjustments to access the assessment task are provided. This might include: providing more time, enlarging the text, annotating the text or chunking the text into smaller parts. In these Version 9 Reading and Viewing assessment tasks, teachers are unable to read the text to students. This may impact on the results students achieve in this task.
The results from these Reading and Viewing tasks is fundamental to ensuring that students with reading and writing difficulties are provided with the tailored supports, focused and/or intensive teaching and adjustments that they need to fully participate in learning.
For Semester Two academic report cards in English, teachers make on-balance judgements about student work against all assessable elements assessed in the reporting period: Speaking and listening; Reading and viewing; and Writing and creating. The results from this term’s Reading and Viewing task is just one part used to help determine the students’ overall grade.
The best support you can provide your child is providing opportunities for them to interact with books, listen to and read books, and discuss what they have read and viewed to develop their confidence. If you have specific questions about your child’s learning needs, please contact your child’s teacher via the office to make an appointment.
3/4 C Assessment ready
Scholastic Book Fair
Scholastic book fair is on now at the library.
Each Book Fair is designed to give kids access to more books they want to read, from relevant new-releases to classic award winners. As your children grow, book fairs make it easy to be sure their home libraries grow with them. And since all proceeds benefit your child’s school, parents can rest assured that their kids’ classroom libraries will be growing as.
P & C News
Christmas Hamper Raffle Donations
Our P&C Association is kindly asking for donations of non-perishable items for this year’s Christmas Hamper Raffle. Please drop donations to the school office.
Raffle tickets are available to purchase for $2.00 each, with the hamper raffles to be drawn at our annual Celebration Concert.
Thank you for supporting the Aitkenvale State School P&C Association — your generosity helps make our community shine!
Homework Activities
At Aitkenvale, we highly value opportunities for students to develop their literacy, numeracy, communication and social skills. We recognise the family/home unit as a key teacher in these areas and the way these skills can be developed through everyday interactions. The importance of allowing sufficient time for family, recreation, and community and cultural activities is also valued. Homework is therefore encouraged but non-compulsory.
Suggested homework activities will be communicated through the fortnightly school newsletter. There is no need for students to return / show their completion of these tasks – if they want to, they can, we always love to see our students’ progress. Please see below this fortnight’s homework activities which you can do as a family:
Numeracy | Digital Literacy | ||||||||||||||||
Preps: Compare collections of items. For example, look where your cutlery is stored. Collect all the forks. Collect all the spoons. How many forks are there? How many spoons are there? Which collection has more? Year 1: Get moving and counting! Can you do 120 star jumps? Bounce and catch a ball, for every catch give yourself 5 points. Can you get to 120 points? Year 2: Copy and continue this growing pattern. Write the matching number sequence underneath.
Year 3: Choose any 2- or 3-digit number and practice what is 1 more than the number? 10 more than the number? 100 more than the number? Year 4: Practise finding the unknown values: 45 + ____ = 80 - 10 ____ + 25 = 90 - 30 67 - ____ = 24 + 6 12 + 38 = ____ - 20 100 - ____ = 45 + 25 Challenge: Create your own equation with an unknown value and give it to a grown up to solve! Year 5 and 6: Practise finding the unknown values: 3 × ____ = 24 ÷ 2 ____ × 4 = 16 ÷ 2 8 ÷ 2 = ____ × 2 5 × 2 = ____ ÷ 2 ____ ÷ 3 = 9 ÷ 9 Challenge: Create your own equation with an unknown value and give it to a grown up to solve! | If you have access to a computer, play Typing Club. Talk with your family about managing online safety – what online tools are safe to use? Who should know about what you are doing online? What should you do if you are unsure or feel unsafe? Reading Read or listen to stories. Talk about who are the characters, where is it set and what happens. Remember you can borrow books to take home from our school library. Did you know you can borrow books from the Townsville City Council library on Petunia St, Aitkenvale? It is free to join! Day for Daniel 2025 Friday October 31 is Day for Daniel. It is the largest child safety and awareness event in Australia. It is a day where we focus on building a future where children are safe from harm and abuse and have the opportunity to thrive. Watch this video to learn more about understanding feelings, recognising body clues and body ownership, suitable for children from 3 years of age. https://youtu.be/1i7HoGwSejs Keeping kids safe – Discuss who you can go to for help when you are feeling unsafe. Complete the hand activity. https://danielmorcombe.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/DMF_Report_Safety_Network-1-3.pdf STEAM Paper Tower Challenge Materials: Paper, tape (optional) Use one or two sheets of paper. Build the tallest free-standing tower possible. You can roll, fold, or tear the paper, but it must stand on its own! |
Student of the Week
Student of the Week 24/10/2025
Class | Student Name | Comment |
Prep A | Gracias | For always approaching writing task independently and persevering to complete them. Keep it up. |
Prep B | Aayat | For settling into our class and learning rules and routines quickly. Welcome to Prep B! |
Prep B | Istahil | For working hard to learn and understand school behaviours and classroom rules. Keep it up! |
1A | Nada | for being a Superstar student and always working her best. |
2A | Ikran | for always sharing great idea and joining in with class discussions. |
2C | Theing | being a helpful member of the class |
P-2 Pathways | Zacharius | For attentive listening and following instructions when creating his 'Pig the Pug' sentence retell. Great work Zacharuis! |
P-2 Pathways | Ekyochi | for completing her sentence work independently in Pathways lessons and reading her work back confidently. Great work Ekyochi! |
P-2 Pathways | Rodina | For improved attitude to effort |
3A | Koumbal | for demonstrating a positive attitude. |
3B | Abdillah | For always being diligent and conscientious. |
3/4C | Addison | For demonstrating excellent learning skills to complete all class tasks |
3/4C | Philemon | For always trying his best at learning. |
4A | Joy | For doing her best with her work all week! |
4C | Denzel | for being a kind classmate and helping new students in class. |
5A | Clement | For always striving to do his best. |
5B | Ikraam | Impressive, impactful and inspired inclusion and initiation. |
5/6C | Rayaan | For continuously showing dedication and perseverance in all your learning tasks. |
6A | Joyce | for doing good writing in class |
6B | Dakota | Excellent independence and excellent maths work! |
Yr 3-6 Pathways | The Whole Pathways Class | For being such great Aitkenvale SS representatives - welcoming our new Pathways students to our school with kindness and offers of friendship. Well done Yr4-5-6 Pathways students! |
LOTE | Nadia | Great focus in Japanese lessons |
LOTE | Innocent | Excellent origami skills in making paper sushi. |
Camp Australia | Tyler | Tyler is kind to everyone and willing to lend a helping hand. He shows great teamwork, a positive attitude and is a good friend and classmate. |
Student of the Week - Week 3
Student of the Week - 31/10/2025
Class | Student Name | Comment |
Prep A | Jaques | For developing independence when writing. |
Prep B | Fabien | For your increased confidence in using sounds to write sentences independently. Keep it up! |
1A | Faila | For working really hard on her English recount and not giving up. |
1B | Keira | For consistently showed dedication in her amazing English recount. |
2A | Shenelle | For showing great effort and persistence in all her work. |
2B | Raeli | For showing kindness to and helping her classmates during reading groups. |
2C | Samantha | For doing a good job moving quickly and calmly between activities. She is always ready to learn! |
P-2 Pathways | Promise | For excellent improvement and working hard on his handwriting and shaping of letters. Great work Promise! |
P-2 Pathways | Pamella | For showing persistence, and growth in attitude and participation in Pathways lessons. Great work Pamella! |
P-2 Pathways | Jayden | for working hard to write a recount of Tashi and always being aspirational. |
3A | Aldridge | For being a positive example in the classroom. |
3/4C | Tristan | For showing resilience during writing tasks. |
3/4C | Name Withheld | For showing respect and resilience during learning |
4A | Dominic | For being an enthusiastic learner. |
4C | Dieudonne | for being calm and respectful when resolving a problem. |
4C | Declan | For being calm and respectful when resolving a problem. |
5A | Riziki | For always being a diligent learner. |
5B | Anika | For actively achieving, attending, and an awesome attitude all-round! |
5/6C | Leonardo | For consistently demonstrating motivation, dedication, and a positive attitude toward all areas of learning. |
6A | Tresor | For drawing a detailed story map in our novel study |
6B | Uniqua | Consistent attendance and applying herself diligently |
Yr 3-6 Pathways | Aaron | For working hard in Pathways lessons - showing knowledge of his sounds and spelling words. Great work Aaron! |
Yr 3-6 Pathways | Riyan | For showing improvement and working hard to pronounce her sounds during Pathways lessons. Keep working hard Riyan! |
Important Information for Families
To ensure you and your child stay safe when using e-scooters or e-skateboards, please remember:
Only those aged 16+ can ride e-scooters and e-skateboards unsupervised.
Helmets must be worn with the straps properly fastened (bicycle or motorcycle helmets) and bells fitted for devices with handlebars.
No passengers/doubling – only one person riding an e-scooter.
Speed limit of 12km/h on footpaths and shared paths.
Serious fines may apply to riders, and parents, if caught breaking the rules.
StreetSmartsQld features educational videos and other helpful safety tips for riding e-scooters and e-skateboards.
