Let’s Make Every School Day Count

Being at school is the best place for our students. It’s where they learn and grow alongside their friends, and where they benefit the most.  Every COVID-safe measure is being taken, so that every student can learn in class safely.  If your child is well enough to attend school, being in the physical school environment is the best place for them.

From next week, small changes are being introduced to how we record attendance to support the transition back to face-to-face learning for students who have been learning at home during Term 1.  If your child has been learning from home, please contact the school to discuss how we can best support a safe and supportive transition back to learning onsite for your child. We look forward to having all our students in class with us.

For more information on the importance of regular school attendance, please visit the Department of Education website.

If you need support translating or interpreting this information, contact the Translating and Interpreting Service on 131 450.

Covid Update- Changes To Close Contacts

Please continue to notify the school office if your child is absent due to COVID.  As of Monday 2nd May, close contacts are no longer needing to quarantine for seven days.

What this means for our students:

Students who are a close contact are able to attend school if they meet the following requirements:

• Are well and not showing any COVID symptoms
• Have returned a negative RAT or PCR test when notified they were a close contact
• Continue to test daily before leaving the house to attend school during the next 7 days and continue to return a negative result
• Secondary school students must wear a face mask in indoor settings.

There are no requirements for students/parents to notify the school that they are a close contact.

Please note the above requirements also apply to anyone visiting our sites.  It continues to be critical that if a person is exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms, they must stay at home and get tested. If they test COVID-19 positive, they must isolate for seven days.

Carolyn Watson

Principal

Would you know what to do if you saw someone hurt or unconscious?

Most people would step in straight away to help, but the real first step is to check for danger to yourself and the injured person.

That's what our students learnt last week, when Roxy Cowie from St John Ambulance visited our primary classes to deliver the St John First Aid - Schools program. 

Students learnt some basic first aid skills including bandaging, how to check for danger, checking response, how to send for  help, checking airway and breathing, and the recovery position.

If your child hasn't mentioned this valuable class experience, take some time to have a talk to them about the new skills they have learned.

Supporting resources, posters and activity sheets are also available from:

St John First Aid Schools Program

In the best Autumn conditions – not too hot, not too cold – the 2022 Cross Country event was held on Wednesday 18 May.  The secondary students competed in their events in the morning, followed by the primary events in the afternoon.

116 Kindergarten to Grade 6 students arrived with house coloured face paint, coloured hair, house-coloured running clothing and amazing costumes – ready to have THE BEST TIME!!   The event catered for those who enjoy fast paced walking, casual jogging and also for those who enjoy the challenge of running competition. 

The courses had been prepared in Term 1 and our Kindergarten – Grade 6 students had been training in PE for 5 weeks within their Fitness Development unit of learning. 

Thanks must go to the secondary students who took on the roles as course checkpoints and place recorders.  Our upper primary students were buddy runners with younger siblings, course runners, judges and warm-up captains.  Thank you to the entire EFA crew who supported with providing spectator chairs and course set up.  Special thanks to Olivier Chartrain who prepares rough areas of the course to make the track safe for all competitors.  Our teaching staff and teacher assistants were fantastic in their roles – supervision, timekeeping, judges and cheering.

All Gr. 3 – 6 runners 1^st – 3^rd received a place ribbon.  All Prep- Gr. 2 students received a participation ribbon and the Kindergarten students will soon be receiving a certificate of participation.  A team of approximately 54 runners from Gr. 3 – 6 has been chosen to represent our school at the ENE Cross Country Carnival at Winnaleah on Tuesday May 31.  We wish our team all the best for the day.

2022 Grade 3 – 6 Champions

Grade 3  -   Oliver Bunton and Ellie Haberle

Grade 4   -  Levi Woods and Ella Gillies

Grade 5   -  Fergus Burbury and equal champions Halle Gillies and Sienna McGiveron

Grade 6 - Brodie Faulkner and Paige Walker

2022 Over all House Champions

Please enjoy this selection of photos from the primary cross country races.

Results for 2022

OVERALL HOUSE RESULTS - COMBINED SECONDARY AND PRIMARY

Thank you and congratulations to all students who attended school and had a go on cross-country carnival day.  It was a fabulous day, and we were so impressed with the participation in both the dress-up competition and the running events.

Shout out to Zali Taylor who was the only secondary student to complete her course in under 15 minutes, scoring a bonus 10 points for her team (Blackwood).

Congratulations to the best dressed winners, champions and runner-up champions and we wish our representative squad all the best at the Inter-High carnival in Launceston on Tuesday 31^st May.

 Laura Swanson

Grade 1/2A are learning to investigate the properties of materials. To support this learning, they have been investigating vocabulary that will be helpful when they are describing materials.  Some of the words they have investigated are: materials, mixture and binding agents (used to bring other materials together).

They are also learning to use words to describe the observations they make using their senses. When making playdough, they investigated all of the materials before mixing them together. They then compared the individual materials with the finished product.

They worked together to create some charts to record their observations of the dry materials included in playdough.

If you would like to make your own playdough at home here is the recipe.  

**For gluen free, replace with Gluten Free flour. 

**Supervision is always recommended.

During the first weeks of Term two, Grade 7/8 have been learning about a range of different scientific concepts relating to wrapping up our unit in Biology and commencing a new unit in Earth Sciences.

Depending on class and year level, students have completed models of Cells and research projects on Invasive Species. There have been some excellent creations and high levels of quality and effort invested toward completing these tasks – great to see. Submitting these in electronic format on our learning platform STILE has enhanced our digital literacy skills and we would encourage students and parents to use the mobile version of STILE this at home called SQUIZ.

Grade 5/6 have completed structural projects relating to designs which consider the impacts of natural disasters by using the engineering design process. Thinking, drafting and creating has been the theme of this unit and students have also demonstrated some excellent capabilities to create electronic presentations on platforms such as Powerpoint and Word.

This week, we began a new unit on Flight and students have started to think about the processes and concepts around designing something that will fly and building on previous experiences in term one. Lots of fun and creating.

 Mr Templar

WHAT IS SQUIZ ?

SQUIZ is a free flashcard app available on smartphones and tablets that explicitly teaches definitions of scientific terms required for a particular STILE unit. It was designed and heavily prototyped with students to use as a pre-work, consolidation or revision learning activity for students to do in their own time.

It is the perfect accompaniment to STILE — every Year 7–10 unit in STILE has a corresponding Squiz with 2–3 levels of vocabulary to master. The vocabulary in each level becomes increasingly complex from the simplest vocabulary in Level 1 to more difficult in Levels 2 and 3. Students must master each level before moving onto the next one.

Android:  Squiz - Apps on Google Play

Apple: Squiz on the App Store (apple.com)

NETBALL

DIVISION 1: DHS 37 defeated SMDS 9

DIVISION 3: Prospect 20 defeated SMDS 1

FOOTBALL: SMDS 68 defeated RHS 21

SOCCER: RHS 3 defeated SMDS 2

Thank you and congratulations to all students who represented in a team this week. Please enjoy some pictures from round 2.

Laura Swanson

Secondary students who selected walking club as their round 2 short course finished the five-week course with a walk through Winifred Curtis reserve and along Scamander Beach to the river mouth. We were extremely blessed with the weather throughout the five weeks, only having to miss one walk out of five - South Sister. It was a lovely way to finish the week for our students and the opportunity to challenge fitness and perseverance - especially the walk up St Patricks Head. Thank you to Mr Martin for accompanying us on this short course. Please enjoy some photos of our final walk in Winifred Curtis Reserve and on Scamander Beach.

 Laura Swanson

On Wednesday 25 May, our primary students were able to enjoy some time together as a group outside, and listen to the National Simultaneous Story Time book "Family Tree", read by Mrs Scolyer.

National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS) is held annually by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). Every year a picture book, written and illustrated by an Australian author and illustrator, is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, pre-schools, childcare centres, family homes, bookshops and many other places around the country. Now in its 22nd successful year, it is a colourful, vibrant, fun event that aims to promote the value of reading and literacy, using an Australian children's book that explores age-appropriate themes, and addresses key learning areas of the National Curriculum for Foundation to Year 6.

This year's story was Family Tree, a sweet book written by Josh Pyke and beautifully illustrated by Ronojoy Ghosh.  "It started with a seed, and that seed was me.  And, over time, laughter filled my garden ...".  The story is a heartfelt celebration of family, community and the seasons of life. 

If your child was engaged by the stories, please see the link below for some fun songs and activities that relate to the story, including seed planting, "grass heads", "My Family Tree" , crafts and puzzles.

Our Op Shop is for everyone who loves a bargain or needs some economical clothes, furniture, even electrical or small household items. There’s fresh things to discover every day, and you can do the environment and our school community a favour at the same time!

The team at the Op Shop have been very busy sorting and gathering warm winter clothing, as the cooler weather begins to arrive. The Mannequin display at the moment is bound to be a "heart warmer" and the heat pump will definitely make your shopping and fitting experience comfortable on cold days. 

Good quality winter clothing is in demand at the moment, and donations of warm clothing and bedding are urgently needed.  Please hold on to your summer items for a while, storage space is at a premium and the team would like to focus their efforts on the stock of winter products at the moment. 

Of course, if you want to help to create some space at the Op Shop for new products, please visit us for your bargains! There are variety of tested and tagged electrical items and larger furniture items, bric-a-brac, kids toys, books, music and more available at the moment.

If you are looking for an upcycling project to keep you busy in the winter months, the Op Shop team should be able to help you find the right project for you. Upcycling drawers into beautiful or quirky furniture items is on trend at the moment.   

A whole language has emerged to support the upcycling trend including:
Upcycling - converting ‘useless' waste products into new exciting products.
Free-Cycling - giving away to others, rather than throwing away unwanted items.
Trashion - the art of refashioning old clothes into designer pieces by upcycling.

The team have recently been hit with some illness, which has impacted on some operating hours.   If you would like to support the Op Shop with regular shift hours, or on a relief basis, please pop in and ask for an expression of interest pack.  We hope everyone  on the Op Shop sick list recovers quickly, so that we can once again see their smiling faces at the counter.

PRIMARY