Principal’s Points..............................................................22

Principal's Points......

The Gap State High School

It was Science Week in August. Normally our Science Department would host lots of fun hands-on science activities during lunch breaks for students to get involved in but this year due to Covid restrictions we had to do things a little differently. This year we offered great competitions, puzzles and community activities via our Facebook page to celebrate science and how wonderful it can be.

At The Gap SHS we encourage our students to step up, think big, pay it forward and be kind, these are our school values. When students display our values they are given a sticker. On Friday mornings any student who has received a sticker throughout the week can come to the quadrangle to receive a hot chocolate.

In Science, our Year 11 students are learning all there is to know about the process of fermentation. They have made some delicious sour dough bread, cheese, kombucha and strawberry wine. To make their bread they started with their own culture which they made from flour and water. To make kombucha they made their own SCOBY which is a Sympbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast. They have eaten the bread which was a huge success, the cheese, wine and kombucha are still in the process of ageing.

We are very lucky at The Gap SHS to have an emotional support dog. Hunter is a six month old German Shorthaired Pointer and is beautiful. He will play an important role in our Guidance Area. When Hunter is fully trained he will provide emotional support to students as well as putting a smile on sell. Our first opportunity to sell items was a great success for the Sustainability Club! Thank you to all the community members who visited the stall. This project is called the ‘Market Garden’ where students are given an opportunity to partake in becoming little entrepreneurs, with the goal of making our school more sustainable. With this experience, students will be able to analyse which items sell and make stock decisions based on patterns and trends. What an opportunity! The Market Garden aims to be open on the first Friday of each month, for school families to purchase from the Sustainability Club. In the month of July, students of The Gap State School heard the call from the Sustainability Club representatives, to bring in no or low plastic in their lunch-boxes. On the first day of school, students gathered together to enjoy a picnic style lunch where the sustainability students were able to raise awareness of just how important it is to reduce, reuse and recycle plastic. Little by little, we are all making a change.

At the end of July, our school Track & Field team competed at the North West District trials, with many great results and personal bests achieved on the day. Well done to all the students involved. A special mention to our Girls 11 and 12 Years relay teams who finished first and second, respectively, in the finals. Congratulations also, to Charlotte H, Erin S, Josie M, Isabel E and William L on qualifying for a place in the district team.

Warm regards,

Joanne Nicholls - Principal

students faces when he makes surprise visits to classrooms.

In July we hosted the Write a book in a day competition. We had 84 students from all year levels taking part, they worked in teams or as individuals and they worked in the library from 8am to 8pm. By the end of the twelve hours students had written and illustrated a book and raised money for The Kids Cancer Project. The books are uploaded to an online library for children in hospitals around Australia.

Along with 11 other LGA’s our school experienced a snap lockdown midway through the term. Our students learnt from home for week four, with the school providing support for our essential workers children. Our students and teachers are becoming extremely resilient and are quick to adapt to the changes we have faced over the past eighteen months. Overall, we had some very positive feedback regarding our online learning module from both parents and students which was very pleasing. Obviously, we hope for school to return as normal as we have some major events in the school calendar which we hope will proceed as we approach the final months of schooling for our Year 12’s.

Anne McLauchlan - Principal

The Gap State School

On Saturday 17 July, students of the school’s Sustainability Club were able to showcase all of their hard work over the past 12 months by setting up a stall to sell plants at the community event, Jonty Bush’s Eco Forum. Over the year, students have been working together to propagate, recycle pots, and pot up plants to

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Rotary Carols by Candlelight is Back

The Rotary Club of Ashgrove/The Gap, with the support and backing of the Brisbane City Council, is pleased to advise we will be back to again organise the Carols by Candlelight Concert and Fireworks on Saturday, 11 December, 2021, at Dorrington Park, Ashgrove. Put the date in your diary.

We hope this will be a welcome interlude for our community in what has been, a horrendous Year.

Any person, organisation or performers, who consider they could be involved in either or both the program or with assistance in the set up and dismantling on the night can contact John Giles on 0412 740 360.