Dear Families,

Primary Progress Reports will be sent home this Friday 18 March for students from Prep to Grade 6. The Primary Progress Report will give parents/carers a snapshot of their child’s application to learning in the first 6 weeks at school.

Next week from Monday 21 to Thursday 24 March parents/carers of students requiring Learning Plans will receive a 'phone call from their child’s teacher to discuss Learning Plan goals and adjustments.

Last week we held elections for student leadership opportunities in our school.  The final votes for our Student Representative Council and House Captains are in and it gives me great pleasure to announce our student leaders as follows:

Jaylah T, Isabella, Kaidyn K., Summer, Naite and Leilani.

Blue House:    Maddison (Captain), Jayla D (Deputy)

Green House:  Taleyah (Captain), Emma (Deputy)

Red House:  Shakayah (Captain), 'Kylah (Deputy)

Carolyn Brown, Principal

In 1/2 we have been learning about digraphs. A digraph is when two letters are placed together to create one sound.

We brainstormed words where we can hear the digraph sound. We then looked at the written word and investigated to see if the sound is at the beginning of the word or the end.

We found that the word church has the ch digraph at the beginning and end of the word. We have also incorporated some craft into our learning by making shells to represent the sh sound and chips for the ch sound.

Hello everybody,

Last week during our HPE blocks we held the 2022 running trials.  We had the most perfect weather with the sun beating down on our speedy racers who gave their most to participate in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m timed races. With such wonderful participation it made the overall grade champions and runner up grade champions a very close affair. We congratulate the following champions:

Grade 3 Boys         Champion             James P       R/U Champion   Cooper L

Grade 3 Girls          Champions           Nevaeh S and Billi M         

Grade 4 Boys         Champion            Jasper M      R/U Champion   Toby H

Grade 4 Girls         Champion             Scarlett V     R/U Champions Mickey M and Amelia W

Grade 5 Boys         Champion             Kaidyn H      R/U Champion   Kaidyn K

Grade 5 Girls         Champion             Leilani P       R/U Champion   Isabella S

Grade 6 Boys         Champion             Tyler O         R/U Champion   Riley M

Grade 6 Girls         Champion             Emma H       R/U Champion   Maddison R

Our amazing House captains and Deputy House Captains also did a wonderful job of starting, recording and judging all of our races across the two days and it was their support and cheering that made our running trials such a huge success. It wasn’t quite as close as we thought it might be with the Red Team finishing third on 138 points, the Green Team in second on 217 points and the Blue team, our overall champions on 278 points. Congratulations to Maddie R (House Captain) and Jaylah D (Deputy House Captain) and the entire Blue Team!

Kind Regards,

James Milne, Assistant Principal

This year, you will notice some changes to reporting in Tasmanian Government Schools.

Firstly, you won’t see A-E reporting any more for Prep to Year 10 students.

Most families in Tasmanian Government Schools have told us that A-E reporting isn’t meaningful enough for them. So, the Department is introducing a new 9-point visual scale.

Along with the visual scale a worded description will be included to help you understand how your child is going against the expected standard for their year level. The 9-point scale will show more specifically where your child is at with their learning. This change won’t apply to students in Years 11 and 12.

The second main change you’ll see is that teachers will be communicating with you more regularly throughout the year, instead of providing written comments on reports.

This more regular communication might be through online communication, telephone calls, or face-to-face conversations.

By having more regular information about your child’s learning progress you’ll get a better understanding of how your child is going across the entire school year (not just twice a year).

What you should expect across the school year:

Families will be supported to understand the new reporting requirements and the changes to mid and end of year report as they are implemented.

Watch the video introducing the changes: Changes to reporting in 2022

If you’d like to know more about why these changes are occurring, visit Review into Reporting to Families - The Department of Education Tasmania

From time to time we receive concerns from parents in relation to Cyberbullying outside of school.  At the end of last year students from Grades 3 to 6 participated in ThinkUKnow presentations in regards to being safe when on-line.  Please note that there are age limit requirements in relation to using certain Apps, and generally children aged 13 and under should not have access to these Apps. In instances where this occurs police may be notified.

Attached with today’s Newsletter is a hand out students received to remind them how to  stay  safe when online.  Two great places with tips for parents to help keep children safe on-line are the e-safety government website https://www.esafety.gov.au/  and the ThinkUKnow Australia website https://www.thinkuknow.org.au/.   The  e-safety site regularly run  webinars for parents and are hosting one this evening between 7:30 and 8:30 pm.  We have posted the link to these sessions on our Facebook page.

The Kids Helpline also has resources for cyberbullying and provides support for parents and children around these issues.  The website is:  https://kidshelpline.com.au/kids 

Thank you to our local Brighton Lions Club for donating $150.00 to our school for our breakfast program.  Your support is very much appreciated.