Dear Families,

It is hard to believe this is the final newsletter for the term, with the weeks having flown by as we have engaged in teaching and learning in classrooms and beyond, challenging and inspiring students to do and be their best. Since our last newsletter:

• Year 10 students have engaged in Live 4 Life Youth Mental Health Training;
• Year 8 students participated in the Live 4 Life launch event at Bendigo Stadium in St Helens;
• Year 5 and 6 students experienced an amazing learn to surf day as a result of a Sporting Schools grant;
• Secondary students represented our school proudly at the Inter-high Swimming event in Launceston;
• Primary students participated in the ENE Combined Athletics carnival in St Helens;
• And Secondary students participated in the AFLW Gala day at Kings Meadows HS.

Over the past few weeks student and staff attendance has been impacted by illness, and yet even with this disruption, teaching and learning has continued uninterrupted by these impacts, with settled classroom and a focus on learning the priority for all.

Progress Reports

We wish to advise that all our students should have received their Progress Reports in the mail this week. This report presents a snapshot of how the year has started for your child/ren, with the report providing a rating on key attributes that are important for successful learning. While it is too early in the year to include an academic achievement rating, this report will give a clear indication of how your child is working in each subject.

Staffing Update

I would like to welcome Ms Tanya Ringuet to our staff and into an AST role. Even given how busy the final weeks of term are, Ms Ringuet has already made a positive difference, getting to know staff and students whilst stepping in to cover Mrs Cook’s teaching while she has had to have some unexpected leave. Next term, Ms Ringuet will take on the leadership of our Years 11/12 programs and work alongside Mrs Cook supporting secondary staff and students, working mainly in Years 9-12.

Next term, we also welcome back Mr Peter Young from long service leave. Mr Young will be working with our primary classes, teaching specialist art. My thanks goes out to Mrs Helen Munro and Mr Andrew Kelly for covering Mr Young’s teaching while he has been on leave. Our students have really enjoyed working with you both.

I wish you and your family a very safe and a wonderful school holiday and I look forward to seeing everyone back for the start of Term 2 on Monday 28 April.

Carolyn Watson

Principal

What a positive and productive start to the school year we have had in the Primary Sector.  

Our teaching staff have worked tirelessly to create engaging learning environments, and the results are already showing in the quality of student work and classroom participation. 

There have been many highlights to this term including the shorebirds excursion for the Grade 3/4s, ‘come dressed as a pirate day’, concluding with a fabulous performance from pirate Alan who wowed us with his magic.

Primary students have had the opportunity to participate in art workshops to support them creating entries for the upcoming Bay Of Fires Youth Art Prize competition that will be on display in St Helens in June. The whole school mystery read aloud was a highlight for many, providing laughs and entertainment to young and old. Students have had the opportunity to show their sporting skills in the Primary Athletics carnival, with some students being selected to represent our school at the East North East carnivals. Grade 5/6 students made the most of the good weather and travelled to Beaumaris to participate in a learn to surf program. Whether it be through these events or in the classroom, there has been a strong sense of connection and collaboration displayed across all year levels. 

This term we’ve also placed a strong focus on student wellbeing and positive behaviour, with students engaging in The Resilience Project lessons. Students in Grade 3-6 have relished the opportunity to develop their leadership skills in accepting roles on the Primary Leadership Board (PLB), House Captains and bus monitors. It is great to see the students take on extra responsibilities and supporting their peers.  

As we head into the Term 1 holidays, I encourage all students to take time to rest, recharge, and reflect on their goals for Term 2. We’re looking forward to returning in Term 2 with renewed energy and continuing the great momentum we've already built this term. 

Learning about food chains- by Seth

The past few weeks we have been learning about food chains, producers, consumers and decomposers and about what they do.

We had to draw a picture of a mythical creature and write about its diet, size and food chain. We also wrote how it fits in the food chain, is it an apex or prey? Is it a carnivore, herbivore or insectivore?

We drew detailed pictures of our creatures and underneath put the size of it and on the front show how tall and long the creature is.

Our Kindergarten students ventured out into the wider spaces of our school landscape in PE this week.  One of the learning intentions was to feel and describe how their bodies reacted when they moved in different ways.  The students were able to recognise when their heart and lungs were getting “huffy puffy” or when their muscles were feeling warm and “pully”.   

Our students also engaged in learning how to identify and locate landmarks for their Fun Run race on the K – 10 Cross Country Day in Term 2.   

The Kindergarten students learned about the direction their Fun Run would take by participating in a nature treasure hunt around their course.  With a clip board, a list of treasures to find and a plastic collection bag in hand, our students found their way to “the starting tree”. 

As the students walked around the course, they were required to use their senses to hear sounds, look for the items on their treasure hunt list, practice ways to move safely in the outdoors, learn not to touch certain things like certain plants/bugs and to understand ways to care for our environment. 

What a wonderful hour of healthy movement, investigation and chatter in the Autumn sun! 

Please enjoy these photos of our students on their PE nature treasure hunt. 

Our students have continued to develop their aural skills by investigating sound.  They have been identifying different noises and music.  They have been using their voice and objects to imitate sound, pitch and rhythmic patterns.    

They have been enjoying how to create a SOUNDscape.  Some students were able to confidently explain that a LANDscape might include things we see around us such as trees, houses, school buildings or water.   With deeper thinking, our students were able to explain that a soundscape included all the noises and music they might hear in their environment. 

After each student chose a noise or sound that had occurred in their life at some point during the week at school or home, the class created an amazing soundscape with all these imitated sounds using their voice, objects or hands.  These were some of the sounds included in the soundscape: 

• dog pitter patting down the hall in her house 

• the sound of a creaky door 

•  a tap dripping while they tried to sleep  

•  the wind whistling in the trees next to their bedroom 

• Mum making banging noises when making breakfast 

The cacophony of these combined sounds made by twenty students at the same time was brilliant! 

Our students have also been learning a new Australian Indigenous song called Inanay.  They have learned the lyrics in the Yorta Yorta language.  The main idea of the song is about a goanna that needs “shoo-ing” away.  Our students followed up with an investigation about the Australian goanna – what did it look like,  what eye and skin colour did it have, how many claws did it have, did it have a tongue and what shape was it?  Each student then used their imaginations and drawing skills to depict a goanna in their Music books next to the lyrics of Inanay.   

Please enjoy these wonderful hand drawn images of Australian goannas.  

Our Grade 5 & 6 students have been engaged in a unit of work called “Being safe for you and Me”.  Students are developing skills and knowledge to help keep themselves and others safe.   

Students have defined the words “safety” and “emergency” and through individual and group work, they have given examples of unsafe behaviours and examples of emergency situations.  

They have created a list of more than twenty types of safety to consider (sun, bike, kitchen, electrical, drugs/medicines, bush, gun, sharps, boat, recreation, food, animal etc).  Students chose one of these areas as a basis for writing a challenging scenario.   

Students have recognised the four main reasons unsafe behaviours occur: 

• Accident: unexpected, unintentional, resulting in damage or harm 

• Careless: not giving sufficient/enough attention, thought or care to avoid injury or harm 

• Negligent: failing to give proper care and attention 

• Deliberate: an action performed on purpose 

Each student read out their scenario to their classmates.  Students had created a grid in their Health books in which they had to categorise each scenario as an accident, careless, negligent or deliberate.  It has been absolutely rewarding to hear our students identify and discuss times when they have been careless, deliberate, negligent or hurt in an accident and how they could have made a better safety decision. 

  Examples of the student scenarios were: 

• A child went for a ride on his bike and had a bad crash.  The boy was not wearing a helmet.  The child was in hospital for a month. 

• A family went camping.  When they left the camp site, they did not put out their camp fire.  A bush fire developed engulfing seventeen homes in the area. 

• A man went fishing in bad weather.   He was located alive four days later. 

Over the last two weeks our students have commenced learning about basic First Aid and Emergency care.  They are identifying ways a person can actively provide support to someone in need of immediate care.  Our students have been fully engaged in both theory and practical tasks to understand the basic life support protocol, DRSABCD and effectively calling 000 in an emergency. 

D = danger       R = response      S = send for help    A = airway     B = breathing     C = compressions      D = defibrillator 

Who knew that a bag of red PE sponge balls and a t-shirt printed on yellow cardboard would be the perfect tools for our students to learn about resuscitation?  

We have all seen stories on the TV where a five year old has called 000, or when an eleven year old has been able to perform CPR on a family member.  It is never too young to commence teaching our amazing students these valuable life skills.  

The unit will continue into Term 2.  Please enjoy this selection of photos showing our students learning about emergency care and life support.  

Over the latter part of this term, students in Year 3 and Year 4 have been learning about the text structure and language of recipe writing.

To show their learning in an engaging way, students created their own recipes for filled Easter Eggs.

Some chose to use egg shaped templates and others chose to use a conventional page layout. I think you will agree that there are some pretty creative individuals in the 3/4. 

Some of us do have a very sweet tooth! 

The last four weeks, students have been learning about visual literacy. We revisited how advertising using images to create various emotions to persuade you to buy their products. We analysed images and illustrations in various short stories, children and adult books, graphic novels, including the book ‘The Arrival’ by Shaun Tan which is a visual feast – no words.  

We discussed and analysed the various visual techniques used in books and their effectiveness to value add to the story, culminating on them producing their own visual narrative story.

I am so proud of how everyone in the class engaged with this learning. They all produced wonderful stories, which we read to the Prep/1 class. 

This years theme for the Bay of Fires Youth Art Prize is 'The Bush'.

On Friday 28 March students in Grade 1/2A were supported by Tash Lowe to begin their creations.

Our young artists were invitied to explore the Australian bush as a source of inspiration, wonder and environmental responsibility.

On Friday 4 April Grade 5 and 6 students travelled to Dark Hollow to participate in a learn to surf program with 42 South Surf School.

The conditions were perfect and the students had a fabulous time learning the basics of how to stand on a board, balance and catch a wave. They also got to do some exploring whilst at the beach, find some creatures along the way.

Hands On Learning: Build has kicked off for the year with students building birdhouses to install around the school. This program is a small group alternate learning session held every Monday where students build personal development while learning practical skills through projects that give back to the school and community. Hands On Learning is sponsored by 54 Reasons, an arm of Save the Children and is built on four main pillars: a place to belong, people to belong to, real projects and giving back to the community. 

St Marys Op Shop Volunteers

On Tuesday April 1, a small group of Fabulous Op Shop Volunteers travelled to Hobart to celebrated as recipients of the Bright Futures Recognition Program, which highights the passion and dedication of those who go above and beyond to support children and young people in Tasmania, endsuring they are known, safe, well and learning. 

The whole SMDS community knows how fantastic this group of volunteers are, and now the rest of Tasmania does.

Thank you to the School Association for suggesting that the attendees be supported with travel and accommodation, to make this important recognition accessible to them.

APRIL 2025

The AFP shares advice about the crime drama ‘Adolescence’

The Australian Federal Police recently shared information about the Netflix crime drama ‘Adolescence’. The show deals with some uncomfortable themes, including the dark side of social media, the influence it can have on youth beliefs, behaviours and actions, and how teenagers experience and engage with the internet and the online world. It’s an important reminder to regularly talk to your children about their internet use and understand what they are seeing, doing and experiencing online, and how this could be influencing and affecting them.

It’s also vital to educate yourself. If you don’t know, or understand, what your children are doing online, ask them to show you and seek out more information. There are multiple resources available to educate adults and to help start these important conversations. Visit www.thinkuknow.org.au/resources-tab/parents-and-carers or www.accce.gov.au.

Together we can prepare, educate and help protect kids and ensure their safety online.

(Content initially published by the Australian Federal Police, 3 April 2025)

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