Staffing Update

I would like to congratulate Mrs Lynette Yodgee on her successful selection as acting principal of Yolla District High School for the rest of the 2021 school year. Lynette takes up this short-term position from Monday 30 August and at this stage will return to SMDS in 2022. Lynette works tirelessly to ensure the best possible educational outcomes for students and I would like to take this opportunity to recognise her hard work and commitment as well as thank her for the positive contributions she has made to our school.  Best wishes on your new position Mrs Yodgee!

 2021 School Satisfaction Surveys

Each year the Department of Education conducts School Satisfaction Surveys in Tasmanian Government schools, to gain feedback on what you think our school does well and where you think we may improve.

I encourage you to complete the survey about St Marys District School. Your feedback is very important to help us inform our school planning and decision-making. You can complete the online survey at any time until Friday 17 September 2021. The survey link has been emailed to parents this week.

All survey responses are anonymous and confidential with the survey carried out on a secure website.

Feedback is only accessible to the school principal and teachers and relevant Department of Education staff, in online summary report formats with no individuals or families identifiable.

Attention: Parents and Carers of students in Grade 4 to Grade 12

Student Wellbeing and Engagement Survey

The wellbeing of our students is important to us.

To get an understanding of how students across Tasmania feel about their own wellbeing, students in Grade 4 to Grade 12 at St Marys District School will be taking part in a wellbeing survey.

The Student Wellbeing and Engagement Survey is part of the Department of Education’s Child and Student Wellbeing Strategy.

The details for the survey are:

When: Beginning Monday 30 August and finishing on 3 September 2021

Who: Students from Grade 4 to Grade 12

What do I need to do: You and your child don’t need to do anything. The survey will be done in class time and will not require your child to prepare in any way.

A letter with more information has been sent home with all Grade 4 to Grade 12 students, including Frequently Asked Questions and a form to sign and return to the school if you do not want your child to participate in the survey.   

If you would like further information, please contact the school Administration Office on 6372 3900.

Thank you for supporting us to ensure that all our learners are safe, feel supported and are able to flourish, so they can engage in learning.

For any assistance please contact Education Performance and Review by emailing: schoolsurveys@education.tas.gov.au.

Thank you for taking the time to fill in this survey.

An Update on Reading in our Early Years Classrooms

Exciting things are happening across our school in Reading.   Teachers across our school are working extremely hard to support students to improve their reading skills and knowledge and become better readers every day. As a school we have identified a small number of reading strategies that we are teaching consistently in every classroom every day.

Students in our Early Years classrooms are focusing on increasing their awareness of the individual sounds in words (Phonemic Awareness) as well as having daily letters and sounds instruction (Phonics).  The evidence of this learning is clear, with all students demonstrating growth in both reading skills and confidence.  Students, teachers, and teacher assistants are very excited by the impact of this work and share stories of reading success with me daily.  If you have noticed a difference in your child’s reading, we would love to hear about what you are noticing at home.

Carolyn Watson

Principal

Getting to school isn’t always easy. And COVID-19 certainly hasn’t made it any easier. If students are unwell, they need to stay home. That’s the reality we all understand.

On the superstitious date of Friday 13 August, our Primary students attended a Spooky Social! The social was organised by our not-so-scary Student Leader Board (SLB). This spooky social included music, games and a ‘spooktacular’ variety of costumes! Despite their scary appearance, all students upheld our school values and thoroughly enjoyed their year level’s social. A highlight of the 3-6 social was seeing how far Mr Gledhill and Matt H made it through in the Limbo contest! Our Primary classes thank the SLB and look forward to seeing what they plan next!

A cast of excited colourful characters arrived at St Marys District School on Wednesday  28 August to celebrate Book Week.  Students (and staff) dressed as their favourite book character.  Students and staff paraded through the St Marys Township to give the community an opportunity to see the  hard work they  had put into their costumes.   Community members  lined the parade route, stood in driveways, sat in cars or on park benches cheering and waving our students along.  Local businesses went to the trouble of joining in the fun and creating imaginative displays to celebrate the theme of "Old Worlds, New Worlds and Other Worlds.

Thank you to the St Marys Community for joining in the fun and building a strong connection with the students of our school.

Following the parade, students were treated to a reading of "The Singing Seal" by Merv Lamington and Allison Langton.  Mr Martin, who read the story assured all of us that this was one of his favourite books.  

Our staff joined in the fun.   The administration team went with an Egyptian Theme, Miss Smith was dressed as a unicorn,  Mr Martin as a  mountain climber (which he is at the weekends, so that might be cheating).  Mrs Burbury dressed as "Max" (Where The Wild Things Are) and Mrs Seabrook as "Chicken Little".  

Class doors are a very competitive area in our book week celebrations.   Designs are kept top secret and students work very hard to create an imaginative portal into a storybook or theme.  This year our secondary classes also joined in.

Congratulations to Grade 8/9 who won the creative competition.

On Thursday 19 August 2021, Year 5 students from 5/6A, 5/6B and Fingal went on camp at Rostrevor, Scotch Oakburn’s Valley Campus just west of Fingal. The camp was planned for months by Mrs Burbury and Mrs Seabrook.  The St Marys Campus Year 5 students took turns cooking slices, muffins and biscuits for our snacks on camp.

On the day of our overnight trip, we arrived at school at the normal time, met in 5/6B and after the attendance was taken we all excitedly carried our bags and sleeping bags to the bus. On the way to Rostrevor we picked up the Year 5’s students from  Fingal Campus. We’d started our trip and we all talked to our friends on the way!

When we got to camp, we got all our stuff from the bus and discussed who was in which cabin with whom!  We all went to our cabins and got all our beds and stuff ready. Then we went to the oval for our first team building activity called “River Crossing” where we split into two teams and had to transport an imaginary fox, chicken, bag of corn and our whole team to the other side of an imaginary river… the only thing was, we couldn’t leave the chicken with the corn or the fox with the chicken! We had to walk on things called gator-boards that are kind of like team-skis. After that we played “Croc Pit” where we had loads of items to get across an imaginary swamp of crocodiles as well as our whole team. We also made damper in our cabin groups and cooked it on the fire. Between damper-cooking and dinner we had team-bonding where we could also practise an act for the camp talent quest that would happen after dessert!

For dinner we had two choices: spaghetti bolognaise or butter chicken, both cooked by Mrs Hodge and her high school students – to them we say “Thank you!” We played Spotlight after dinner and it wasn’t set by the teachers, just some people wanted to play it and everyone joined in. After about an hour we all went to have apple crumble and ice cream for dessert. Next we had a talent quest and had popcorn and fruit for supper.

The next day we all had breakfast that included toast, cereal and hot milos. After that we played a game called “Finding Tassie” where each cabin group had to find their own 10 x puzzle pieces of Tasmania. The pieces were hidden all over the Rostrevor campus without any clues. When you found them you had to glue them together and locate St Marys, Fingal, Scamander and 2 x other places of your choice. After that we played the “Chocolate Game”, watched a movie and had a BBQ for lunch. A funny thing that happened on the first day was when we played football and I accidentally got Brodie’s football stuck in the tree and Mrs Seabrook had to climb the tree and use a pole to get it out. Our cabin was next to Mrs Burbury’s and she had to remind us to go to sleep a lot, then again at 4:30am when Steely’s alarm went off! We all had a great time and thank Matt H for coming with us and thank everybody that helped out. It was a really great experience and it will stay in our minds for a long time!

Written by Ping Grade 5/6B

Please enjoy this slideshow of camp photos.

Life Skills is a semester option where students learn some of life’s essential skills… like how to cook eggs! We boiled, fried and scrambled. And, tasted them all. The next life skill was washingup.

Softcrosse and Scoopball with Miss Bramich

Who wouldn’t want to travel to Fingal every Thursday to spend time with our Fingal students?  Again, our Fingal students have demonstrated the ability to accept new and sometimes difficult challenges, try new skills and refine the skills they currently have.

Depending on the weather, our students are engaging in 2 units of work – “gymnastics” for all students plus “hitting/striking” development for Gr. 1 – 2  (Scoopball) and sports education for Gr. 3 – 5 (Softcrosse).

Please enjoy these pictures of our students engaging in activities requiring them to think about their hand grip on their softcrosse stick or scoop, body shape while moving in different directions, keeping their eye on a small sized ball, opposite leg forward when throwing from their stick or scoop and of course, remembering at all times, how to  participate in a safe manner.

Well done Fingal kids – you are amazing!!! 

Our students are learning about the fundamentals of gymnastics – flight, spring, take-offs, landing, solo balances, partner/group counter-balances, swing, hang and support – in a range of grade appropriate PE activities.  Each lesson, our students participate in a warm-up specifically for the body parts being used in the gymnastic activities and as a class, they listen and discuss the learning intentions for the lesson.   Our students are learning about the specific safety requirements for gymnastics.  They are responsible for carrying the gym mats (not dragging!!) to the designated space in the gym.  They are learning how to be “spotters”.  Spotting is when a student supports another student doing a gymnastics task.  Students are learning to position their body and hands to support a student just in case they lose their balance and cannot control their movement. 

Please enjoy these pictures of our students using the mini-trampoline, landing mats, balance benches and a “flying slither” – not a “flying fox”!! As the term progresses, our students will be participating in tumbling, hanging skills, balance beam activities, mini-trampoline tasks and rhythmical gymnastics using hoops, balls and ribbons.

So what do Grade 6 students do when the Grade 5 students are on camp?  What else but explore how codes and ciphers were used in the past.  They were introduced to Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiforms from Mesopotamia, atbash from Ancient Judea, scytale from Ancient Greece, Caesar Cipher from Ancient Rome before finishing off with the role the Enigma Machine had during World War II.

Students were keen to develop their own ciphers and they have created a challenge for you all.

Below there are several coded sentences students have written.  See if you can decode them.

Keys and answers will be in the next edition of the newsletter. 

Science Week was celebrated across the school last week with students in all grades participating in some exciting activities.  

A group of Grade 6 students conducted a fun science experiment with the Kindergarten class as part of our Science Week celebrations.  The students worked in small groups, adding food colouring and dishwashing liquid to milk.  To the Kinder children, it appeared very magical as the colours spread out and the milk became a swirl of colours.  It was amazing!

Whilst it appeared to be magical, the effect is all science!  It is a chemical reaction with surface tension in action!  The dishwashing liquid reduces the surface tension of the milk so that the food colouring can spread out.

The students had a wonderful time together, talking, drawing and having fun.  We really hope to work together again soon.

Grade's 5/6

Our Science Week coding motto was:

“Get creative, get connected, get coding!”

A highlight was when students coded and tested ‘step counters’ as well as dice (that would change numbers upon shaking the micro it), a ‘hamster’ that would make noise/change it's facial expression when ‘patted’ on the touch sensors as well as lots more!

BALLOON ROCKETS

Every year, the local Salvation Army, through Envoy Melanie Norton organises donations of winter woollies that have been handmade/knitted by dedicated volunteers from both near and far.

Boxes and bags of cosy, unique and stunning beanies, jumpers, scarves and blankets were collected and distributed to students at the end of Term 2 for ‘Bless Up Day’.  Children were delighted to be able to pick an item of their choice. 

Knitters from all over Australia donate their time and financial resources, purchasing wool at their own expense to knit for this cause.   A warm and grateful thank you to the Salvation Army (in particular, Melanie) and especially to the team of awesome knitters!

Students were also able to chase the chills away with a variety of clothing items and blankets which were also kindly donated.

Last Friday, students and staff said a fond farewell to Mr Shan Wilmot, who has commenced a period of Long Service Leave, prior to retiring at the end of the year.   Mr Wilmot has been a staff member at St Marys District School for 40 years, working mostly in the Manual Arts Department.  Recently he has been also supporting students in the classroom.

Reflecting on his time at St Marys, Mr Wilmot said that he had see a lot of changes and growth over the years, both in the Design and Technology curriculum as well as student growth.  He has especially enjoyed the spirit that the current students at St Marys demonstrate.

We would like to wish Mr Wilmot a lovely break.  A formal farewell will be held later in the year. 

In Grade 7 we are developing our skills in Algebra.  We have been exploring how algebra can be used to describe patterns and solve problems.  We have learnt about different ways to represent numbers and are developing our algebraic vocabulary.  A popular warm up has been solving picture problems, so we decided to make some of our own.  Here is a sample for you to try.

These notices have been sent home to parents in the last fortnight.  If you did not receive one and would like to receive a copy of the notice, please contact the school office on 63 723 900.

PRIMARY

SECONDARY

WHOLE SCHOOL

Student Wellbeing and Engagement Survey Term 2   2021-   Students in Years 4-12.