Dear Mudgeeraba Special School Families, 

Welcome to our Bumper Issue of Mudgeeraba Special School’s newsletter.  As many of you are aware we sadly had to say farewell to one of our lovely students, Mia.  Last Wednesday was her service and many staff and some students attended.  We were also able to send along students from ‘Music Melodies’ to sing one of Mia’s songs. I would like to thank the whole school community for their support at this very sad time.

In week 5 we had our Mudgee Car Show, it was a big success and everyone had a great time.  A big shout out to Kustom Cars for coming and showing off all the very flash cars.  Even Lightening McQeen made an appearance.

It was a fantastic day and our winners are:

Head of Department-Curriculum Retreat

Last week our 3 HoD-C’s went to a 3 day Alliance Retreat at Sea World Resort with the other special schools in the region.  It was great to have all the HoD-Cs working together collaborating and working through the changes to Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum, moderation, planning.

Fun Mudgee moments:

Warm regards,

Renee Zhu

Acting Principal

HASS – Junior Secondary One WEEK eight

Junior Secondary One students have started the semester by exploring important historical events in the Medieval Times, and things that have happened in their past. They have been introduced to the units’ vocabulary of ‘past’ and ‘Medieval’, something that has already happened, ‘present’, something happening now, and ‘future’ something that hasn’t happened yet.

A favourite component has been the castle making and naming the parts of a castle such as turrets, moat, tower and drawbridge.

We are looking through the school archives and find photos of the students from previous school events, beginning to retell these events to their peers. They have engaged with a subject specific chat board to aid their communication about what is happening, how things are different and what has changed.

Later this semester students will combine their media arts skills and take images of themselves in the present. 

The African Performer Shakere Beats visited the school last week and we had a fun time trying out African drums and other instruments, as well as dancing to different drum beats and tunes.

Our Senior Students have started their Certificate I in Active Volunteering practical electives.  Students in the car wash program were practicing their skills on the Cars show cars this week.

Please join us at our Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday 20th March at 9:30am.  All Executive and Non-Executive positions will be open for election.  You can download the nomination forms here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10Bkt7lRXlXrl0XKq25wR0osBV51TxAaK?usp=drive_link
And you can email them to us on mssspandc@gmail.com or drop them into the office. 

The evening started out so calmly.   I turned the Webber on to warm up for 10 minutes as I am supposed to.  After the Webber had warmed up I got the sausages, placed them on the trivet and began to cook.  Generally, it's 7 minutes on each side on a low heat and they're absolutely perfect and I have done it that way many, many times.  I closed the lid on the BBQ there was a lovely breeze blowing across my back courtyard as the final rays of the sun began to fade and evening started to fall.   I went inside confident that the sausages were going to turn out absolutely perfect.  I sat down on the couch and began to watch a YouTube clip.   For safety I had set my count down timer for 5 and a half minutes to make sure there was no problems.  

“ Honey the sausages are burning.”   A voice screamed breaking me away from the video of a man who was just about to catch a mud crab with his bare hands.   I looked at my watch the sausages had only being on the BBQ for around 3 and a half minutes. The sausages couldn't possibly be burning.

I looked outside and to my absolute horror, smoke was coming out of the Webber.   I even saw some flames escaping from under the lid.   I rushed outside turned off the gas to the barbecue.  Then standing a safe distance away from the BBQ I open the lid to let the flames escape.  They licked the roof for a moment and then died completely away, almost.  The drip tray under the Webber was still burning.   So I very carefully put my hand under the Webber pulled out the drip tray and put it in the middle of our  paved back Courtyard where I knew it wouldn't cause any more harm and it could safely burn itself out.

This incident demonstrated clearly to me that things are not always consistent and that change both good and bad can happen without reason and without warning.  We need to be aware to not take things for granted and know that one slight change like a different bag of sausages, or a different year and teacher at school, behaviours we have not witnessed before can change situations quickly.

When our loved ones are restless or seem distant, talk to them find out what is changing and help move each other forward and perhaps avoid undesired consequences or more positively try to turn changes into better more honest discussions of our feeling or lives.  Move our relationships forward to stronger and healthier ones.