3 August 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principals Report

Hello everyone,

We have had lots of positive feedback about our first electronic edition of Focus. Thank you to those families who have taken the time to share their thoughts. If you have any ideas for things you would like to see in Focus please let us know.

P&F Ladies Night

Congratulations to Liz Jordan and her amazing team for the wonderfully successful Ladies Night held on Friday evening in the school’s Performing Arts Centre. With over 200 customers through the door, 60 stall holders, lucky balloons, lucky door prizes, bubbles and supper it was a great night’s entertainment and a fantastic way to raise money for our school. A small group of dedicated people have worked very hard to ensure the evening was a success; hall decorations, gathering prizes, catering and enticing the stall holders to see Exeter as a viable place to sell their wares. Thank you to our families for supporting the event and to those who shared the word and brought along friends and family on the night. We look forward to hearing how much the event raised!

School Nurse

Last week we welcomed Juanita Du Vergier, our School Health Nurse. Juanita will be working in our school every Tuesday. The School Health Nurse role will include, vision and hearing screening in Kinder, general health assessments, provision of advice and information to students, parents and school staff on child health, physical activity and nutrition, promotion of good health and wellbeing and helping to address any medical issues that may be impacting on learning. Juanita is keen to get to know our school community and in a few weeks’ time will be starting a morning drop in session for parents. If you have any questions or would like to talk with Juanita, our School Health Nurse, please contact the school office.

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Children's Day

NAIDOC Week runs nationally from 3 to 10 of July, due to school holidays falling at this time we have decided as a school to celebrate the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day on August 4th. National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day theme for 2016 is, My Country, Our Country – We All Belong. National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day is the largest national day to celebrate our children.  Children’s Day is celebrated across Australia each year on 4 August. Children’s Day is a time for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families to celebrate the strengths and culture of their children. The day is an opportunity for all Australians to show their support for Aboriginal children, as well as learn about the crucial impact that culture, family and community play in the life of every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child. Classes will celebrate Children’s Day throughout this week and Ms Jory has coordinated a whole school art activity to explore the theme of belonging and identity. Each class will design their own ‘totem pole’ and work together to paint the pole. When completed the poles will be placed together in the playground to represent, our children, our school and our country.

Options Program

Last week we began our Options Program for Term 3. On Wednesday afternoon there was a flurry of activity as students moved off to their new option. The Options Program provides our Grade 5 and 6 students with opportunities to work collaboratively to create and problem solve. For example the Minecraft group are working collaboratively to re-create ancient civilizations and the student newsletter group is working together to create a student newspaper for publication.

The Australasian Problem Solving Olympiad

We currently have a group of about 20 students from Grades 5 and 6 participating in The Australasian Problem Solving Olympiad. This involves the students sitting a series of problem solving tests in which they have to apply the problem solving strategies they have been learning in class. Their results are compared to schools throughout Australasia and results will be available later in the term.

Country Gold Trials

The Country Gold Trials were held at George Town last Friday. A number of our students participated in the Tamar Team Country Gold Trials with hopes of being selected to represent the Tamar Region. These students were selected by our school sports coaches. Successful players will compete in Football, Netball, Soccer and Hockey. The Country Gold Carnival will be held on September 15th and 16th and the Tamar Teams will compete against 5 other regional associations in Northern Tasmania.

Book Week 2016 – Australia! Story Country

This year we will be celebrating Book Week on Thursday 25 August. The Theme of Book Week is, Australia - Story Country, and we will be inviting people in on the Thursday to share a story with our classes. Student are invited to dress up as their favourite Australian book character on the day.

Regards

Lift

Family Maths

The answer to the problem in our last newsletter is;

It takes about 15 minutes for a heart to beat 1,000 times. On January 10, 2000, your heart would have beat about 1 million times. 27 years later your heart would beat about 1 billion beats.

Here is this week’s problem. Don’t forget to bring your answer to the school office and receive a Be Your Best ticket!

Farmer Joe has 5 chickens and 2 pigs in every pen on his farm.

Farmer Joe visits some of his pens. He counts 20 pigs.

How many pens has Farmer Joe visited?

For younger students:

Count and sort. Gather together a basket of small toys, shells, pebbles or buttons. Count them with your child. Sort them based on size, colour, or what they do (i.e., all the cars in one pile, all the animals in another).

Family Cooking

In our newsletter before the holidays we shared the recipe for Mini Quiche Muffins that our classes had made during their learning time in the garden. Over the holidays Carys Seddon cooked the muffins and I think you will agree they do look delicious! We will share the next garden class recipe soon.

Kinder Home Reading Program

This week our kindergarten students will commence their home reading program. We have chosen only beautiful, quality picture books for this program to help foster a positive attitude towards reading, develop imagination and a love of reading. Sharing these books with you child will help them to learn about different authors and illustrators, make personal connections to stories, develop active listening skills and extend their vocabulary. We anticipate parents will enjoy sharing these stories with their children as much as the children will enjoy this enriching experience.

Respectful School

Creating a Smooth Morning Routine

Children’s social and emotional skills develop all the time and it is a fact that a child’s family is the first and biggest influence on developing these skills. Arriving at school in a calm and happy state helps children to be in the optional space for learning. This clip will help families work together to set a morning routine that is calm and ensures every family member is responsible for their role in getting ready to start the day.

Birthdays

Our Learning Community

Growing Up

Last week our students from Kindergarten to Grade 6 participated in the Growing Up Program – a relationships, sexuality and protective behaviours program, run by Family Planning Tasmania.

For information on talking to your child about relationships, sexuality and puberty visit the link below where you will find a book called Talk Soon. Talk Often. A guide for parents talking to their kids about sex.

Literacy

Celebrating Levelled Literacy Intervention (LLI)

LLI is a structured, evidence-based reading and writing program that has proven to be effective in assisting students to make progress in Literacy. It provides regular, ongoing support to beginning and consolidating readers.

LLI gives students an opportunity to work in a small group situation on a regular basis to support the learning and reinforce the teaching that is happening in the classroom.

The program boosts student’s confidence and consolidates classroom learning. LLI focuses on building vocabulary, sight word recognition, develops reading strategies and makes connections between reading and writing.

For the first half of the year students from grade 2 were selected to participate in LLI based on their reading levels. It is great to celebrate that by the end of Term 2, 20 students had improved their reading by up to 10 reading levels.

In the last half of the year, our focus will be our Grade 1 students. These students are selected and grouped around their current reading levels. A letter will be sent home to inform parents of their child’s involvement in this program.

Science Technology Engineering Arts Mathematics (STEAM)

4-5 Clark Term 3

Don't know what STEAM is, then take a look at this video that 4-5 Clark have put together that will explain everything for you as well as how we have just started our own STEAM projects.

Minecraft Bitlink Options Group

The Options propram is held every Wednesday afternoon with the upper primary classes. Our Options include: Drumming, Lego Technic, School Newsletter, Illustration, Drama and Minecraft with Bitlink.   Here is what is happening in Minecraft with Bitlink.

Sport

Country Gold Carnival 2016

Congratulations to the following students who were selected to participate in the Country Gold Trials at George Town last Friday:

Liam Older, Joshua Beams, Daniel Jordan, Jed Squires, William Jones, Jaiden Betts, Dylan Grutzner, Ryan Geale, Jasmine Russell, Maddison Dunn, Will Radford, Gemma Shaw, Ella Greenhalf, Caitlyn Gumley, Lauchlan Ryan, Mason Black, Katie Grant DeHaan, Sarah Scott, Joshua Ryan, Sarah Young, Jenna Griffiths, Ellie Beadle, Bayden French, Jacob Cartlidge.

The following students were successful in being selected to represent the Tamar Region in the Country Gold Carnival to be held in September

Football – Liam Older, Jaiden Betts, Joshua Beams, Dylan Grutzner, Jed Squires, Will Jones

Soccer - Ellie Beadle, Jenna Griffiths

Netball – Jasmine Russell, Will Radford

Hockey – Mason Black, Lauchlan Ryan

Mr Habel and Ms Cunningham were both very impressed by the high level of sportsmanship exhibited on the day and the effort and determination of our team members.

Well done to all our students who participated and good luck to our Tamar representatives.

Parent Teacher Conversations

A reminder for those families that were not able to make an appointment last term there are appointments available every Wednesday or Monday (for teachers who do not work on a Wednesday) after school for the next 4 weeks. Appointments can be made online using the new code mudx4. I urge all families who have not yet done so to take advantage of this opportunity.

School Association

Chalk & Parent Direct Toy Catalogues

Thinking of Christmas…….

Kinder and Prep classes will receive their catalogues this week. This is a school fundraiser with 20 cents of every dollar you spend will be donated back to our school. Through parent purchases last year we received a voucher to enable us to purchase 4 Dual timeclocks for Grade 2 and Grade 3 with a value of $130 each.

If you are a parent of a child from Grade 1-6 and would like to have a look at the catalogues, feel free to contact us in the office and we can send them home to you.

If you do not wish to place an order could you please return the catalogues to the office.

All orders need to be handed into the school office by Monday Sept 19 to avoid disappointment and guarantee delivery.

Community News

Free Tasmanian Premiere Event

"This film should be a required course for all parents and educators."

- Film Threat

Tickets are limited, so please reserve your place this week as seat reservations will open to the public from next Monday 1st August.

Lead, Inspire, Grow – Application now open

Applications are now open for West Tamar Council’s youth leadership program – Lead, Inspire, Grow. The program is held over 3 days in the summer holidays at Camp Clayton, Ulverstone from January 9th – 11th.

The camp features games, challenges and guests speakers and is designed to build leadership skills. The camp is open to all West Tamar residents aged 12-16 and free to successful applicants. Places are limited. To apply visit: http://www.wtc.tas.gov.au/Your-Community/Youth/Leadership-Program or contact Stewart ( stewart.bell@wtc.tas.gov.au or phone: 63239206) for further information.

Census

August 9

cenus.abs.gov.au

Did you know that in August 2011 there were 495,354 people in Tasmania?

We know this because 2011 was a Census year, and this year we’re having another Census on Tuesday August 9 to find out how Tasmania has changed.

The Census collects important information about Australia’s people and their housing, which is used to plan services for your community.

From August 1, all households will receive information about how to take part in the Census.

This year the Census will count more than 24 million people in Australia. Out of this 24 million, we’re expecting 15 million people to complete their Census online. Paper forms will still be available for people wanting to complete their Census offline.

You can find out more information by going online and searching Census or by calling the Census Inquiry Service on 1300 214 531. You can also visit your local LINC to get online and complete your Census.