Our Secondary students and staff have had a wonderful 2019 to date, a year that has brought challenges, joys, kindness and growth. I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge our Secondary Staff, who have worked extraordinarily hard throughout this year and have done so while maintaining a healthy environment of care and support for each other and for our students. Our staff are always hard working but with some extra complexities across Queensland education this year, they have been truly impressive and I am grateful for every one of them. May I encourage you to share a ‘thanks’ or email some encouragement to your child’s teachers/aides/administrative staff/RTC staff/LE staff/etc, and encourage your child to do the same, as we are truly blessed at Parklands with passionate, dedicated, talented, giving, caring and hardworking staff.

At our first staff meeting and Chapel this term, I challenged Secondary to ‘finish 2019 well’. This involves maintaining or improving the excellent work ethic that we’ve seen in so many, looking after ourselves and looking after each other by maintaining care, enthusiasm and momentum through these final weeks of the year despite our possible weariness, and keeping our standards high. This includes uniform standards, which I will discuss next.

Dress Standard

I’ve been very please overall this year with our students’ presentation and compliance with our uniform policy. Thank you for your support with this, and also for sending notes when something goes awry. We know issues can crop up with uniform items, and I really appreciate when Secondary parents send a note/email explaining this, it really affirms our partnership – thank you.

Our uniform policy remains the same, however we have seen some uninvited additions in this first week of term, which need to be remedied please. Some reminders that we would appreciate your support with:

• Jewellery: rings on fingers are not permitted. Students may wear a wrist watch. Necklaces are not permitted – yes, they can be seen inside the collar of the shirt.
• Earrings: Girls may wear only one stud or sleeper in the lower lobe of each ear.
• Nail polish and make-up are not permitted. Nail extensions of no more than three millimetres (3mm) permitted and of natural appearance.
• Hair: Girls’ hair must be fully secured back and of a natural colour and appearance. Boys’ hair must be off the face and collar and of natural colour and appearance. Please check that your son’s hair complies and is neat and tidy (minimum blade 2).
• Facial hair: boys must have clean shaven faces and be free of facial hair.

Please refer to our uniform policy http://parklands.qld.edu.au/uniforms for more information. We appreciate your support in maintaining our dress standard.

Our secondary staff are prepared for and looking forward to a fantastic Term 4 with your children. And I personally look forward to seeing you at some of our upcoming events!