19 June 2020

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

We have of course had lots of adjustments due to COVID-19 and a fantastic response from the entire school community. I would like to acknowledge the additional workload of students, parents, teachers, administrative staff, teacher aides and cleaners during the past few months. We have an amazing school community and staff, and our students have certainly benefited from the co-operation and hard work of all. It has been fantastic to have all our students back for the last month and they have settled well into their regular routines.

Changed 2020 Captains

Congratulations to Isaac Jeynes who will assume the role of school captain for the remainder of 2020. Kayne Duncan has accepted the position of vice captain due to work commitments. Thanks Kayne for your great representation of the school to date!

Reporting and student absence

Reporting will occur in all subjects (on a 15 point scale) in all year levels in week 3 term 3. Unfortunately parent-teacher interviews are not yet able to resume.

Please remember that if your child is unwell they should stay at home. Please contact your child’s teacher or year co-ordinator if you are concerned about them missing schoolwork.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish our students all the best in their final assessment prior to reporting and a great end of term break!

School Opinion Survey for Parents and Caregivers

Parents and Caregivers are invited to participate in this year’s School Opinion Survey and have a say about schooling during the COVID-19 lockdown. You are also given the opportunity to provide feedback about our school more generally.

Participation in the survey is anonymous and you are encouraged to take this opportunity to have your say. The survey form has been designed so that it can easily be completed on a computer or smartphone. The online survey will be available until Friday, 17 July 2020, and should take less than five minutes to complete.

To access the survey, please click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:

Please contact the school if you have any questions about the survey.

Kind regards
Kirsten Dwyer

Domestic and family violence services

Challenging times can unfortunately result in relationship strain and abuse. Families and young people are encouraged to reach out for support. Domestic and family violence services are continuing to operate.

In an emergency, always call the Police on triple zero (000).

DVConnect provides crisis support for domestic and family violence issues. 1800RESPECT is available for 24/7 web and telephone counselling. Kids Helpline is available 24/7 for children and young people seeking counselling and support.

The Queensland Government’s Domestic and Family Violence portal provides useful information on local domestic and family violence services.

Video competition focuses on Great Barrier Reef

Students aged 6 to 13 have the opportunity to combine their creativity and desire to protect the Great Barrier Reef and its marine life.

The Reef RADicals film competition welcomes 90-second videos addressing one of five challenges: marine pollution, climate change, habitat loss, food waste or explore ideas that activate.

The competition is presented by Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef and James Cook University.

Entries close midnight 9 August. For more information, go to the link below.

Love a good podcast?

The Department of Education has its own series of podcasts covering interviews with award winning scientists, tips to help parents with their child’s move from kindy to school, a series on looking after your wellbeing and more! Search for “Queensland Department of Education” in your favourite podcasts app or visit the link below.

Early departure from school

Parents are reminded that the procedure for releasing your student early is as follows:

• Send a note with your student requesting an early departure from school.
• In an emergency a student can be located but depending on the whereabouts of your students this cannot always be achieved in a short time.

If your student has an unexpected appointment that arises during the day, please advise the school at least an hour before the appointment.

Around the grounds with the HPE Department

The annual inter house Cross Country carnival has been re-scheduled and is due to take place on the last day of term 2, Friday June 26. The course has also been re-designed so that the students don’t leave the school grounds, which means that there is no parental permission required for this event. At this stage, the event will not lead onto further selection in the Rocky High Inter School Team to compete at the Rockhampton District Trials against students from other schools in the region. Students are not required to nominate for this year’s event, they will be asked to marshal on the oval, in their AGE Groups (not necessarily grades) in the following time slots:

Session 1

Session 2

The Meares Dingoes are looking to go back to back and claim their first title of 2020 following their humbling defeat in this year’s swimming carnival. We encourage all students to participate and contribute towards their house points tally!

Earlier this month, Grace Grace MP released information pertaining to the reduction of COVID – related restrictions and the potential “re-booting” of interschool sports for Queensland students from July 10, 2020. At this stage, there has been no formal resumption date for interschool sports in the Rockhampton District, nor has there been the release of any revised trial dates for Rockhampton District and Capricornia School Sports. Our district sports committee is currently awaiting further clarification and direction from Queensland School Sport, who have issued a revised “interim” calendar providing information regarding the Queensland School Sport State Events for the remainder of the year. It can be found at the following link:

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact the HPE and Sport department via email if you have any queries.

Yours in Sport

Damien Kelso
HOD of HPE and Sport

Street food markets an overwhelming success

Congratulations to Mrs Lane and her Year 12 Hospitality students for planning and implementing Rockhampton SHS’s first ever street food markets on the 16th of June as part of their assessment this term. Students were excited to bring this unique dining option to both students and staff, creating mouth-watering dishes including Texan BBQ ribs, Honey chicken, Naan butter chicken, Risotto, BBQ pork and Korean popcorn chicken. Tickets sold out in just 12mins; a testament to the efforts of all those involved.

Students serving up their dishes:
Maikala Fogarty; Maddison Clarke & Keearna Collis

Year 11 Hospitality students Coffee Shop project

Students oversaw the operation of the school coffee shop this term as part of their assessment. They were involved in all aspects of planning and operation, developing and refining their food production and coffee-making skills over a 4-week period. Congratulations to all those involved, especially Ms Clark for assisting with coordinating the project, and thank you to the school community for supporting students.

Mrs Granville
Home Economics HOD

The Support Team are excited to announce a new initiate – The ROCKET Project.

Commencing Term 3, the Support Team will be facilitating lunchtime activities as part of the ROCKET Project. The ROCKET Project aims to support and promote student mental health and wellbeing. These activities are aimed to engage students from all year levels and interests and provide students with an option to engage in activities in a peaceful space during lunch times.

In addition, The ROCKET Project includes two programs to selected students that will be delivered during the ROCKS lesson, Grit and Drumbeats.

The Support Team:

Mr Smith – Guidance Officer
Miss Spencer – Guidance Officer
Ms Penny Peers – Youth Support Coordinator
Damien – Chaplain
Stacey – Community Education Counsellor
Loretta – School Based Health Nurse

Join in the Dolly’s Dream

Rockhampton Online Family Workshop Tuesday June 23rd @ 7PM.

Social networking - are your children ready for it?

The actual age of your child, as well as their level of maturity and resilience can affect their experiences on social media.

Every social media site and app has its own criteria for minimum age requirements. Most require users to be at least 13 years old before they can register, although some sites are created especially for children under 13.

For more information visit:

Loretta Green
School Based Nurse

It’s been a busy time for everyone in our school community and the EXCEL cohort are no exception. Students from Years 7 – 10 have been working very hard on improving their content knowledge and embedding inquiry-based learning into their classrooms. The Year 9 EXCEL Science class will be participating in a 3D design challenge next week which will see some of their designs printed by our 3D printers in the EXCEL room! The Year 7 Science students have been investigating whether the length of a lever plays a role in the force applied to an object when thrown. They’re busily working on submitting their final assessment tasks so they can move onto an investigation regarding parachute size and air resistance!

Year 8 Science has focused on minerals and rock types this term. Students have been working on identifying rock types from features such as striations, crystallisation and hardness. If you haven’t been to Pebble Beach, down by Rosslyn Bay, there are some great examples of rock types strewn across the beachfront as well as in the massive rock walls that circle the bay.

The Year 9 Maths EXCEL class have been factorising quadratics and working on triangle geometry and looking at similarity and trigonometry. They’ve also started delving into the theory of trigonometry and working on some introductory geometric proof work.

Year 10 EXCEL Humanities students are finalising their study of historical key events that helped promote Indigenous Australian Rights while in Science the students have been investigating whether concentration of acid rain contributes to a faster degradation of marble statues, as well as whether an increased surface area also plays a role in statue degradation.

Part of the EXCEL Program includes outreach to community organisations and our parents. Please ensure you are following the Facebook page for up to date and amazing opportunities for you and your children to participate in – these opportunities are not limited to students in the EXCEL Program. If your child has an interest in anything STEM-related that we share on the Facebook page and would like more information about the opportunity, please message the Facebook page or contact Mrs Sinnamon direct on bsinn11@eq.edu.au. In the past few weeks there has been many opportunities for extension and immersion in STEM-based learning shared on our Facebook page. Some of these include:

Mrs Sinnamon
EXCEL Coordinator

Queensland Virtual STEM Academy at Central Queensland
Hosted by Rockhampton State High School

Round 2 has begun with 145 Young Scholars enrolled in Grand Challenges and Skill Builders. A brand new Grand Challenge, Mission to Mars, is being offered this Round with Professor Steven Moore from CQUniversity as the guest expert. Sophia (Year 7), Nate (Year 8), Georgia and Emma (Year 9) have interacted with Professor Moore and students across the state to discuss concepts such as space shuttle design, health in space and the dangers of radiation exposure. They will begin ideating solutions to the problems associated with colonising Mars in the first week back after the holidays.

Professor Steven Moore discussing centrifugal force with the Mission to Mars cohort.

We welcome William and Royce (Year 9), Xander and Hayden (Year 7) to the QVSA Young Scholars at Rockhampton State High School for Round 2, and we welcome back Jared (Year 9) and Tobias (Year 7) who have previously been Young Scholars and are returning to Grand Challenges this term. William, Xander and Hayden, along with Keeley (Year 7) are part of the Biomimicry Skill Builder which sees students designing new and novel creations with nature as its base design. Royce is participating in the Biomaterials Grand Challenge with Tobias, Jared and Mackenzie (Year 8). These students are looking at ways to reduce the use of plastics in our world, substituting plastic-based materials with biomaterials with Dr Padraig Strappe (CQUniversity) as an expert, as well as studying microplastics in the oceans under the supervision of Dr Angie Capper from Gladstone’s CQUniversity Campus. Will and Lachlan (Year 9) are part of the Microcontroller Arduino Skill Builder course hosted by GTF NQ and have both received their own Arduino kits to practice on and retain.

The QVSA program allows students to participate in authentic, real-world STEM-based research through connections with industry professionals and researchers from CQUniversity and around the world. The QVSA at CQ also offers Programs to students in Year 5 and 6 from the CQ Region. This Round we offered Grand Challenges in Bushfire Reduction, Missing the Night (analysing the impact light pollution has on humans, the environment, and the world at large), Mission to Mars (junior cohort), Waging War on Food Waste and an iSee licence and scientific inquiry Skill Builder.

Breeha Sinnamon
QVSA at Central Queensland Coordinator

Choose how to add this event to your calendar:

Apple Calendar iPhone, iPad, Mac - Download .ics file

Outlook Desktop Outlook - Download .ics file

Android Calendar Android devices - Download .ics file

Other Calendar Google Calendar, Yahoo, etc. - Download .ics file

Download Event