Mount Ommaney Special School eNewsletter

A Message from Mike Curtis - Principal

Dear Families

As we wrap up Term 2, one clear theme has emerged: our students have been thriving as they consolidate their learning beyond the school gates. It’s been a joy to see, and it’s only been possible thanks to the arrival of our third bus. We now have a fleet! With expanded access to the community, students have been able to engage in rich, real-world experiences that bring learning to life and build confidence in new environments.

Some highlights from the Semester include:

Daisy Hill Koala Centre: Students in Years 7, 8, and 9 explored Queensland’s koala conservation efforts and enjoyed getting up close to them. The calm, bushland setting supported engagement and curiosity throughout the visit.
Wonderbox by QPAC: This sensory-rich, interactive theatre experience captivated our younger students. With its calm pace, inclusive design, and visual storytelling, it encouraged participation, imagination, and was just good fun!
Darling Point Fun Run: Our Junior Secondary students embraced this event with enthusiasm, teamwork, and resilience. Many achieved their best while enjoying a fun, inclusive, and community-focused atmosphere.
GOMA Visit (May): Students had a fantastic time exploring interactive art spaces and sensory-friendly exhibits. They were engaged, curious, and made some great connections.
Pullenvale Environmental Centre: A hands-on, nature-based experience where students remained curious while enjoying tailored, sensory-rich activities in the outdoors.
Interschool Bowling: Year 5 and 6 students joined peers from five other special schools in a relaxed, social setting. They loved the opportunity to build friendships and confidence while out in the community.

A big thank you to our staff who work closely with our Heads of Department-Curriculum and Education Program Officer to ensure these experiences link meaningfully to classroom learning. These excursions and community-based programs continue to support rich educational outcomes and help students make real-world connections to their learning.

Staffing Updates:

Adele (Teacher in G1) will be finishing at the end of term. Adele has made a big impact and will be deeply missed by students, families, and colleagues. We thank her for all she’s brought to MOSS and wish her the very best.
Mona (Teacher Aide in J5) is also finishing as she returns overseas. Mona has supported a number of our students with strength, care, and calmness. Her contributions have been truly valued.
We’re thrilled to welcome back Sandy Waller next term from maternity leave. It’ll be wonderful to have her back with us.
And we’re also looking forward to Tamra Allen’s return in August. We can’t wait to have her back on board.

Wishing you all a restful and safe holiday break.
Warm regards, Mike Curtis - Principal
Mount Ommaney Special School

A Message from Chrissy Hamilton - Deputy Principal

Wellbeing for Families

Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time. Occasional worries can help keep you safe and be motivating, but when anxiety is ongoing or overwhelming, it can affect your ability to:
• concentrate
• sleep
• carry out ordinary tasks

These apps can be used to help you practice deep breathing and manage anxiety.

Headspace: Excellent for meditation and anxiety relief, suitable for both adults and kids.

Calm: AZ well-known app for meditation and anxiety management.

Othership: Focuses on breathwork sessions to help users manage anxiety.

Pocket Breath Coach: Guides users through deep breathing exercises with calming sounds and animations.

Simple Habit: Offers various breathing exercises and meditation techniques to reduce anxiety.

A Message from Katie Bartholomaeus - Deputy Principal

Celebrating Staff Capacity Building at MOSS

This term has been a testament to our collective commitment to growth and excellence. Not only have our students made significant strides, but our teachers and teacher aides have also engaged in meaningful professional development. At MOSS, we prioritize building staff capacity through a variety of tailored initiatives.

Beginning Teacher Program

Our Beginning Teacher Program continues to provide invaluable support to new graduates. Each beginning teacher is paired with a mentor to set and achieve personalized goals. This term, they've participated in WOW (Watching Others Work) sessions, observing experienced educators to gain insights into effective curriculum delivery for diverse learners. Mentors also observe their mentees in action, offering constructive feedback to foster continuous improvement. These WOW sessions are not exclusive to new teachers; many seasoned educators engage in peer observations to explore new strategies and enhance their practice.

Engagement Coaches in Action

Our Engagement Coaches have been actively collaborating with teachers across classrooms, providing on-the-ground support to address challenges and implement targeted strategies. It's heartening to see a growing number of teachers seeking this support, resulting in enriched learning experiences for our students.

Professional Learning Every Monday Afternoon

Our commitment to professional growth is further demonstrated through our weekly professional learning sessions every Monday afternoon. It's been inspiring to witness staff embracing these opportunities to enhance their skills and knowledge. These sessions have been delivered by our Head of Department (HOD) Curriculum, Engagement Coaches, and Department of Education (DoE) Therapists, ensuring a diverse range of expertise and perspectives. The collaborative nature of these sessions fosters a culture of continuous improvement and shared learning, benefiting both educators and students alike.

A Message from Melissa Farrell - HOSES ECDP

“A long time ago when I was very little, I dreamed about being on stage. Some people told me I would never be able to do it, so I only paid attention to those who told me that I could.” (Lauren Potter, Actress, Advocate, and Comedian with Down Syndrome)

Term 2 at the ECDP has seen us welcome over eight new families.
The ECDP staff would like to wish our new families a very warm welcome!
The children have engaged in play-based activities to help us celebrate ANZAC day. They loved meeting the camels and getting camouflaged with face paint.
We also celebrated Under Eights Week. The theme was ‘Unleashing Scientific Thinking Through Play’. We had great fun outside testing how far we could throw planes and rockets!
We ran a Mother’s Day raffle to raise money for resources for the ECDP. We made $452 dollars. A big thank you to everyone in the community who supported us.
We are finishing the term with a parent session about Special School on the 19th June – one of the pathways prep. The deputies from Mount Ommaney Special School and Western Suburbs Special School will be joining us.

A Message from Emma Lancaster & Jenni Hakl Head of Department - Curriculum

This term has been filled with rich learning experiences and school celebrations and commemorations that have connected our students to culture, history, and storytelling.

Curriculum Engagement

Our students have been exploring a wide range of curriculum activities that promote communication, creativity, and connection. Through hands-on learning, sensory experiences, and collaborative tasks, students have shown fantastic engagement across key learning areas. Whether it’s building confidence through drama, developing motor skills in PE, working in the beginnings of our school garden project or exploring numeracy through play, we’re proud of how each student is growing in their own way.

ANZAC Day

Our school community came together to respectfully commemorate ANZAC Day. Students participated in class discussions, created poppy-themed art, explored ANZAC-themed sensory activities and engaged in imaginative play in the animal hospital. The ultimate hands-on experience was the visit from our soldiers and their two serving camel soldiers Sgt Vernon and Sgt Penny. These experiences helped build understanding of courage, sacrifice, and national identity in ways that were meaningful and accessible for our learners.

National Simultaneous Storytime

In May, we joined thousands of schools across the country for National Simultaneous Storytime. This years’ book, The Truck Cat by Deborah Frenkel was shared with enthusiasm, and students enjoyed listening, acting out scenes, and participating in themed art and literacy activities. It was a wonderful reminder of the power of a shared story to spark imagination and inclusion.

NAIDOC Week

In week 10, we celebrated NAIDOC Week with a range of activities honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Students enjoyed music, storytelling, and creative arts that highlighted the 2025 theme, “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy”. It was a vibrant and respectful celebration of culture, strength and community with amazing hands-on activities developed by our wonderful teacher aide librarian, Sandy Sirriss.

Bookish Play

Our amazing teacher aide librarian, Sandy Sirriss, has been engaging classes in bookish play this term. Junior classes have absolutely loved attending Sandy’s library sessions where reading texts has been a very hands-on, sensory and immersive experience. More to come in term 3!

We look forward to continuing to build strong connections between our students’ learning and the world around them in semester 2.

NSST

Louise and I would like to share some of the fantastic engagement moments from this term.

Staff have been actively supporting students to communicate across the school using Intensive Interaction and their individual AAC systems. It has been heartening to see students using a range of communicative behaviours—eye contacts, vocalisations, facial expressions, body movements, and physical contact—to interact with both familiar and unfamiliar staff. These moments of connection have brought joy to both staff and students and have played a vital role in forming meaningful relationships that support deeper engagement in learning.

Across various settings, staff have engaged with students through their personalised AAC systems, helping them to express preferences, needs, wants, opinions, make comments, and participate in social interactions. This has given students a powerful voice and a sense of agency in their learning.

A variety of pedagogies have been implemented to support engagement and learning, including play-based learning, sensory experiences, ICT, Active Learning, movement-based activities, and Comprehensive Literacy approaches. Students have explored a range of alternate pencils in their writing, such as alphabet flip charts, AAC alphabet pages, concrete letters, magnetic letters, keyboards, and onscreen keyboards—resulting in many creative and interesting texts!

Curriculum content has been thoughtfully integrated into play-based and sensory-rich experiences across multiple Hubs. Students have been highly engaged in hands-on, motivating activities delivered in a variety of environments—classrooms, decks, playgrounds, and gardens—supporting their different learning styles and preferences.

By making meaningful connections with students’ personal experiences and the real world, staff have helped deepen understanding and supported the generalisation of knowledge and skills. This approach continues to help our students make greater sense of the world around them.

A heartfelt thank you to all staff for making learning such a rich and joyful experience for our diverse learners. We look forward to continuing to support student engagement in the coming semester.

Sharon & Louise

Variety Sunshine Bus

Have you seen our new bus? We have finally taken delivery of a brand-new Ford Transit 11-seater bus which has already been put to good use. Our students and staff are very proud to drive around with the logos of Variety, Keystone Private, Bremer Ford and the name of our school all clearly displayed on the bus. This additional bus will increase our students’ access to community programs and excursion opportunities. The bus was handed over at an event involving guests from all our sponsors and some very excited students who presented thankyou cards and posters. Guests were then treated to a delicious morning tea baked by our senior hospitality students. Grateful thanks to our sponsors and to all those who helped make the handover event a very enjoyable event for everyone.

Bunnings Garden Bed Donation

With the generous help of Bunnings, we have been able to add to our garden bed numbers with two new beds installed up near JK and L Hubs. These raised beds were supplied, installed and planted up with edible plants by our local Bunnings in Rocklea. With increased numbers of garden beds around the school we can provide even more access for students to engage in a gardening program. Our Junior Rotary students can also fulfill part of their community service requirements by watering and weeding the garden beds whilst also developing their gardening skills. A huge thanks to Bunnings for their continued and valuable support of our school and students.

IGA Partnership

This term has seen development of a partnership with IGA, Jindalee, who now donate fruit on a weekly basis for morning tea for some of our classes. Our students are enjoying learning about different fruits and how to prepare them. Thank you, IGA.

Rocks Riverside Community Garden

Students from across the school regularly access the MOSS garden plot at the Rocks Riverside Community Garden (RRCG) as part of their curriculum activities. Members of the garden also support our students and help out on our plot. Recently, on hearing that the garden could sometimes be too hot for our students, two members constructed a shade structure over our plot to help make it accessible for more of our students. As a thank you, we recently hosted 5 members of the RRCG for a lunch and tour of our school. MOSS hospitality students, under the guidance of Natascha and supported by Sylvia, made a delicious pumpkin soup and pumpkin cake with pumpkins grown on the plot. They also made a very tasty soda bread. The request for recipes after showed how much everyone enjoyed the food. The lunch was followed by a tour of the school during which our visitors enjoyed an impromptu musical performance, asked many questions and engaged with our students and staff across the school. MOSS really appreciates the support of our local community and thanks the RRCG members for all their support and encouragement as our students learn to navigate different places and develop their skills.

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) at MOSS!

Our whole school PBL expectations are Be Safe, Be Respectful and Be Your Best.

Each term the PBL team looks at the behaviour data across the school and makes recommendations for our whole school focus of the week. This term students focused on:

I follow directions.
I am a good friend.
I am private with my body.
I have a go.
I keep my hands and feet to myself.

Each class differentiates the way they teach and acknowledge these expected behaviours. Staff acknowledge positive behaviour in many ways. They offer immediate praise and name the positive behaviour that they see, they work towards different preferred items or activities throughout the day, they collect stickers to fill their chart and once or twice a term they come to the office to choose a prize and get their photo taken. This year we have also introduced our end of term celebrations as a final acknowledgement for positive behaviour. Staff have really enjoyed celebrating with our students at all the different levels and look forward to planning future activities.

It’s been a fantastic term of movement, fun, and teamwork at school, with students taking part in a variety of exciting sporting experiences both on campus and out in the community.

Our Year 5 and 6 students had a blast at Zone Bowling, joining an interschool event with students from nearby special schools. Interschool sport is important because it teaches many important life skills, like teamwork, resilience and patience. The students also get to experience activities that they may not get to otherwise. This is the first of hopefully many more special school interschool sporting events.

Our Year 7–9 students enjoyed a gorgeous day at the Darling Point Fun Run, held along the beautiful Manly foreshore. Students walked, ran, and rolled their way through a 4km course, soaking up the sun and the smiles. Vincent came away with second place in the 13+ boys’ group, and Nicholas received the Best Effort Award for his resilience and enthusiasm - only five weeks after double knee surgery! This event is quickly becoming one of our staffs’ favourite events to attend each year.

Vincent, Hayden, Lachlan, and Cameron represented our school at the Metropolitan West School Sport cross country come and try day for students with disabilities. With the support of their families, all four boys tackled the 1km course impressively - each finishing in under 6.5 minutes! Vincent was especially thrilled to take out first place in his category. This event is the first of its kind from Met West School Sport and we are looking forward to the athletics days next term.

Back on campus, there’s even more to celebrate. Students from A, B, D, J, K and L Hubs all swam this semester — some for the very first time in our pool. So many of our students have strong connections with swimming and the water. It’s very rewarding for us to see the students enjoy the lessons so much.

Students in C, H and I hubs will swim in term 3 and G and E hubs will swim in term 4. Classes that haven’t had swimming have been practicing our cross-country course as well learning fundamental movement skills. J, K and L hubs have been playing tennis this term as part of their throwing, catching and striking unit.

Next term, we are looking forward to the following activities:

C, H and I hubs swimming,
iCan Basketball Day for selected year levels,
MOSS sports day,
District and regional athletics days.

As holidays are approaching, here are some activities that you may choose to do. Courtesy of Brisbane City Council:

Brisbane City Council - Active and Healthy Events

Inclusive Sports

If you are looking to get your child involved in sports, here are a few organisations who may be available to help. Some mainstream clubs are also happy to help. There also dance studios who are very inclusive.

Modified Rugby Program (MRP)

Soccer - Inclusive Football

Brisbane Paralympic Football Program (soccer)

Richlands Lions Powerchair League (don’t have to be a regular wheelchair user)

Touch Football – Brisbane Metropolitan Touch Association

Cricket

G Hub

We have had an exciting term in G Hub watching the children grow in confidence and build relationships with teachers and peers. There have been lots of little friendships developing between children in different classes during outside playtime which has been wonderful to see.

With the weather finally beginning to cool down we have been able to enjoy weekly combined outdoor learning sessions. Activities have been designed around various themes and the children have engaged in lots of different sensory and learning engagements. Some of our themes have included ducks, science, gross motor development, camping and a garden tea party. Communication has been our main goal and the children have used their personal talkers as well as PODD, symbols and Alternative Language Displays to communicate with teachers and peers.

In Math this term we have had a focus on money and shopping. The children have enjoyed buying and selling products from many different types of shops including cafes, bakeries, toy shops and florists. With their own credit cards and coins, they have become quite familiar with the shopping experience.

We have been working hard on our personal learning goals and it is very exciting to see the children making great progress. The smiles on their faces when they become confident in their new skills is just magical and brings so much joy to the hub. We look forward to sharing the children’s progress with their personal learning goals as well as their academic achievements in our upcoming Semester One reports. We hope you all enjoy your winter holiday and we look forward to more fun and learning in Semester Two.

What a wonderful and action-packed Term 2 we’ve had in the D & E Hub! Our students have been immersed in a range of exciting, engaging, and sensory-rich learning experiences that have sparked joy, curiosity, and connection.

In the classroom, we explored learning around money and shopping through imaginative play-based activities. Students enjoyed setting up and participating in pretend shops, using play money to “buy” and “sell” items, take turns being the shopkeeper, and practise social language such as “How much is it?” and “I would like…”. These activities supported numeracy, literacy, communication, and social interaction in a fun and purposeful way. The students have also been learning key Auslan signs through songs, stories, and role-play to support everyday communication. Auslan continues to be a powerful and inclusive tool for enhancing communication and connection with the students and staff.

A standout moment this term was our ANZAC Day commemoration, made extra special by a visit from two very unique guests — Penny and Vernon the camels! Students were captivated by the chance to meet these gentle giants up close. The army truck was another big hit on the day, with some students getting a chance to sit in the driver’s seat. There were also lots of amazing hands-on learning experiences on the day, including an army-style obstacle course and play areas, painting and playdough poppies, and of course the chance to get camouflage face paint — just like soldiers put on their faces. The day was a big hit, bringing smiles, wonder, and lots of amazing interactions from the students.

We also celebrated Under 8s Week, with the 2024 theme: Unleashing Scientific Thinking Through Play. Students had the opportunity to explore the wonders of science through engaging, hands-on activities that encouraged observation, curiosity, and experimentation. The students loved the fun and active animal-themed obstacle course, where they moved around stations featuring different Australian animals — for example, jumping like a kangaroo or crawling like a wombat. There were also amazing science experiments that piqued the curiosity of the students and craft activities that gave the students a chance to experience the different textures of Australian animals. What a great day!

Another highlight was National Simultaneous Storytime, where we joined schools across Australia to read The Truck Cat by Deborah Frenkel. This beautifully illustrated story of a cat’s adventure on the road captured the students’ attention and they enjoyed engaging a range of creative experiences in the classroom — including craft and storytelling.

To wrap up the term, our students went on an exciting excursion to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre to experience the incredible Wonderbox show. This beautiful, immersive, multi-sensory performance delighted our senses with light, sound, movement, and magic — a truly unforgettable experience for all who attended. This was the first excursion for our students, and they should be commended on their behaviour and engagement throughout the day.

Finally, a big thank you to our families and carers for your continued support. We are proud of each student’s progress and can’t wait for more learning, laughter, and discovery in Term 3. We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday.

At the beginning of the year, the A/B Hub staff got together and workshopped what the MOSS Values really meant to us and how they would shape our daily work. What were our aspirations for COMMUNICATION, TRUST, RESPECT, EMPATHY, and TEAMWORK in A/B Hub? Why were these aspirations important to us? How would these aspirations positively impact the students in our care?

School life is very busy. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operational hustle and bustle and lose sight of our big picture strategic ‘whys’. The end of semester provides us all with a perfect point of reflection. So, what impact have our A/B Hub Values had on our students? The simple (and powerful) answer is growth! Growth through:

COMMUNICATION – fostering a communication-rich environment, valuing every voice.
TRUST – ensuring dignity, being honest, open and consistent, quick to praise, and seeing the best in our students.
RESPECT – embracing our students’ unique strengths, challenges and collaboratively developing Personalised Learning Goals with our families.
EMPATHY – displaying non-judgemental patience with all of our students, being present and showing genuine care.
TEAMWORK – sharing responsibility for the students in our care, and our support of each other and our families.

It’s been an incredible semester of growth and Semester 2 will see our A/B Hub Values front and centre again.

To all of our families, thank you, thank you, thank you for your never-ending support. We couldn’t do our work without you!

K/L Hub have immersed themselves in creating and communicating with integrated units on Visual Arts and English, and deepening their understanding of indigenous perspectives and sustainability when engaging in an integrated unit, ‘Caring for Country’ with a focus on places, as well as gardening and sustainability. Every class in the hub has taken a unique direction with unit content, as they’ve made the adjustments required for the unique needs of the learners in their class.

KL HUB has continued to celebrate our learners’ achievements at fortnightly hub assemblies, with a focus on the school’s Positive Behaviour for Learning expectations, ‘Be your best’, ‘Be respectful’ and ‘Be safe’. KL Hub learners have continued to shine! It’s wonderful to see our learners strengthen their social relationships by remembering the key messages in weekly PBL lessons.

K1 students have been actively engaged in developing their early numeracy skills through hands-on activities. They have explored Australian money by identifying coins and notes, counting values, and recognising their use in everyday life. Students have also practised putting numbers in sequence, helping them build a strong understanding of number order and patterns. To support their learning of place value, they have used Multibase Arithmetic Blocks (MAB) to represent tens and ones, making abstract concepts more concrete and meaningful. These activities have supported their mathematical thinking in fun and practical ways. Through these interactive experiences, students are becoming more confident in recognising number relationships and using mathematical language to describe their thinking. Their enthusiasm and curiosity have made maths lessons engaging and enjoyable for everyone.

K2 have been super busy this semester! Learners loved role-play experiences like ‘going shopping’ and using Australian money or tapping our card to pay. Students engaged with digital artworks and hands-on activities while on an excursion to GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art). More recently the class celebrated National Reconciliation Week and explored First Nations symbols.

K2 students thoroughly enjoyed exploring animal-themed stories through a variety of multimodal texts in their integrated English and Visual Arts units. They engaged their imaginations to create and retell their own stories titled ‘My Trip to the Zoo’, sharing details about who they would visit the zoo with, the animals they could see, and their favourite animals. In Visual Arts, students brought their zoo adventures to life by crafting paper chain snakes and making animal figurines such as giraffes, lions, monkeys, and birds using a range of art materials. Using shoeboxes, they constructed creative zoo enclosures—hanging birds and monkeys from pipe cleaner branches and placing other animals on green crepe paper to represent grassy habitats. Literacy development was woven throughout these activities as students continued to build phonemic awareness. They practised reading and writing consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words using letter tiles, magnetic letters, and picture cards to support their learning.

This term L1 has had fun exploring learning out of the classroom. With visits to the community gardens, excursions, gardening around the school and our outdoor HPE sessions we have had lots of opportunities for fresh air and outdoor learning. Lower secondary have been focusing in on connecting to the land with the unit ‘Caring for Country’ across English, HASS, Science and Design Tech. Learners have engaged in stories from The Dreaming and learning how Indigenous Australians care and have historically cared for country, in the lead up to NAIDOC week. It’s been a great term learning about different perspectives of Australia and learning about the different ways we can all look after significant places.

This term, L3 has explored special places within the school and community. Students have gone on excursions to explore the importance of special places to different people, and how we and others can care for them. Literacy concepts have been embedded throughout, with students participating in daily reading, writing and phonics activities aligned to learning goals.
L3 has explored numeracy through a range of hands-on learning activities aligned to learning experiences, such as sequencing plant life cycles, counting in real life scenarios, and exploring 1:1 correspondence. Students have also explored the duration of special events and familiar activities.

This term L4 Learners threw themselves into creating an information report about places they found personally significant, Burleigh Beach, Daisy Hill Koala Conservation Park and Goodna Swimming Pool. Details and information shared included the location of the place on First Nations country, features of their place and how these special places can be looked after. Each student accessed a ‘pencil’ they needed to create text, including writing on whiteboards, typing, using pictures or photos, or using the dictation function on PowerPoint (talk to text). The class performed lots of practical tasks to compare minutes, seconds and hours when recognising and explaining time duration. Multi-modal content and hands on maths activities with a range of concrete materials and number line work helped everyone develop a better grasp of numbers and place value.

Getting our hands dirty in the garden and investigating living things in the environment, especially on excursions to Daisy Hill Koala Conservation Centre and Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre has allowed students to develop science knowledge and a better understanding of sustainability. We made bug houses, a bee hotel and butterfly attractors to bring pollinators into the garden. The class planted radish seedlings in the community garden at Seventeen Mile River Rocks to nurture and grow. K/L Hub have truly embraced ‘caring for country’ this term.

Thank you to our learners for a great effort with their work this term. A round of applause to our young people for showing their best, and for continuing to develop their unique talents and strengths to potential.

Wishing all our families a restful and safe mid-year break. We look forward to another exciting learning journey when Semester 2 begins.

This term, our students have been showing incredible determination as they have a go at new experiences and be their best as learners. Whether it’s exploring new sensory activities, engaging with stories in different ways, or using technology to support communication and learning, each student is making progress in their own way. We are so proud of their effort, curiosity, and the confidence they are building every day!

As Semester 1 comes to a close, it’s been a pleasure to reflect on the incredible progress our senior students have made across our transition programs. Year 10 students have undertaken a hybrid program in which they engaged in curriculum four days each week and on the fifth day sampled enterprise programs. They are gaining workplace skills and beginning to identify their work preferences. Our Year 11 students continued to build their employment and transition skills through engaging enterprise learning, community-based experiences, and regular excursions. Our J Hub has been a hub of energy and purpose, with students running a weekly food hospitality service that feeds many hungry staff. From taking orders and preparing sandwiches and sweet treats to managing deliveries and processing payments, students have embraced the responsibilities with enthusiasm and growing independence. In addition, students have been actively exploring local community facilities, with enriching visits to the Mt Ommaney Library, Ipswich Nature Centre, local shopping centres, Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens and other local parks—fostering confidence, social engagement, and real-world awareness.

For our Year 12 cohort, the transition out of school has been a major focus, with most students now engaging with day programs or following carefully designed, bespoke post-school pathways. Through our Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope (PATH) process, students and their families have had the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations with staff, ensuring a student-centred approach to their post-school transition. It’s been rewarding to witness the collaboration between school staff, families, and external providers as we support each student to move confidently into their next chapter. It’s been a busy and productive Semester 1, and we look forward to building on this momentum as we head into Semester 2.

Michelle Waris - J Block Hub Leader

Community Citizenship and Environment

Computer Recycling

Dog Biscuit Production

Healthy Relationships Education

Hospitality

Independent Living Skills

Lunchtime Fun

Maths

Sensory Activities and Communication

Vocational and Transitional Pathways

Drama

School Holidays Events

Brisbane City Council Libraries Gold Star Reading Club

Children across the city will discover the joys of reading when the Gold Star Reading Club program commences in Council libraries on Saturday 28 June 2025, right in time for the school holidays.

The Gold Star Reading Club is designed to encourage and develop reading and literacy skills in children.

There are four great reasons for children to get involved in the 2025 Gold Star Reading Club.

1. Membership to the Gold Star Reading Club is FREE!
2. The Gold Star Reading Club can help children improve their reading and literacy skills.
3. Children will be rewarded for their reading efforts with a medallion and certificate of achievement.
4. It’s FUN! Children will have fun sharing their reading experiences with family and friends.

How the program works – it’s easy and free!
• The Gold Star Reading Club is a 2-month program for children aged 6-12 years.
• From 28 June, register for the Gold Star Reading Club online at brisbane.qld.gov.au/libraries or at your local library. Your child must be a library member to join Gold Star – signing up for library membership only takes a couple of minutes and is free. Each child’s parent or guardian must bring photo identification or proof of signature and proof of their address to any Council library, and you and your child can become library members in a matter of minutes. It’s that easy.
• From 28 June 2025, Gold Star members can visit their local library to collect a Gold Star Reading Club reading map.
• By reading for just 10 minutes each day and completing the 10 reading challenges (you’ll receive a gold star for every challenge you complete!), you will earn a medallion and certificate of achievement to be awarded at your local Gold Star Reading Club awards ceremony.

For more information about the Gold Star Reading Club, visit your local library or call Council on (07) 3403 8888.

Asia Pacific Triennial Kids Exhibition

The Children’s Art Centre is proud to present a collection of seven artist projects for Asia Pacific Triennial Kids. Children can explore their creativity through making and multimedia interactives and reflect on the experiences of others through drawing and video works by artists from India, Aotearoa New Zealand, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia / Palestine, Cambodia and Timor-Leste.

Asia Pacific Triennial Kids on Tour will be delivered to regional venues throughout Queensland.

When: Saturday 14th Sep 2024 – Sunday 13th Jul 2025

Where: Gallery of Modern Art & Children’s Art Centre, Stanley Place, South Brisbane 4101

Cost: Free

More information: Asia Pacific Triennial Kids Exhibition

2025 School Calendar

PDF Flyer

Day	Date	Event
Friday	27th June	Last Day of Term 2
Monday	14th July	First Day of Term 3


Friday	5th September	Student Free Day

PDF Details

Newsletter Sponsors

MOSS Newsletter - Term 2 2025