Dear Families

Thank you to all those parents/carers who took the time to attend Parent Teacher Learning Conversations last week.  It was encouraging to see so many parents in the school and teachers greatly valued the opportunity to share your child’s achievements.

NAIDOC Week celebrates the history, culture, and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to celebrate NAIDOC week, students across the school participated in a range of activities.  This year’s theme – “get up! stand up! show up!” - encourages all of us to champion change, ensuring our First Nations people are listened to and heard.

We held our first assembly practise last Friday with Kindergarten to Grade 2/3.  We were highly impressed with outstanding audience behaviour, as for many of our students this was their very first assembly.  Our Kinder children and Prep/1’s were absolute stars with the 1/2’s and 2/3’s being fantastic role models. 

The term is fast drawing to a close with the last day of term being on Friday.  We have an exciting term 3 planned with many opportunities to celebrate learning, participation and engagement.   Thank you to all our families for your support this term.  The first day back after the school holidays is Tuesday 26 July as Monday 25 July is a Student Free Day.   Have a safe and happy holiday.

In 1/2 we have been learning about place value. We have been making numbers using popsicle sticks, and MAB blocks. We have been counting how many tens and ones are in a number. We were given a cut out of a donut and a number. Some of us have also been looking at three-digit numbers and counting how many hundreds, tens and ones are in that number. We used MAB sticks to create the sprinkles on the donut to represent our chosen number. We hope you enjoy our donuts.

To start Naidoc Week, 5/6B learnt the traditional craft of twining from Mrs Tanya Langdon, a local Aboriginal Community member, who we greatly thank for sharing her time and expertise. It was so relaxing, enjoyable and educational. We used raffia, soaked in water, to create remarkably flexible twine. This twine could then be used to make handles and baskets.  During the week, some of the upper grade students will be sharing this knowledge within our school community.

Every School Day Counts

Getting kids to school isn’t always easy. But being at school is the best place for our kids.

If your child is unwell, they need to stay home. But if your child is well enough to attend school, they should be at school. Every day, Monday to Friday.

Reality of missing school

Data shows us that regular school attendance is one of the best things a child can do to set them up for success. But if they don’t attend, things get harder for them.

Let’s do the maths:

• If your child misses even just one day a fortnight, that adds up to 20 days of the school year. That’s the same as missing four whole weeks of school!
• If they miss one day a week, that doubles to eight weeks of school they’ll never get back.
• Over the course of their childhood, that equals two and a half years of vital education they’ll never receive…

We mean it, every school day counts. It all adds up.

Bright futures begin at school

The data also tells us something else: the better a child’s attendance rate, the better off they’ll be. Their future will be filled with more opportunities.

School is where they learn and grow alongside their friends, and where they benefit the most. Going to school not only promotes academic success, but also helps build important social skills, relationships and confidence.

Good attendance habits in primary school lead to good attendance habits in high school. This will help expand your child’s options even further as they grow older.

Watch this video to see the benefits of going to school.

It’s ok if you need help

If you’re struggling to get your child to school, help is available. Please talk to us at school about your situation. We’ll support you, in whatever way we can.

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

We would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to our local Woolworths for providing our school with fruit supplies.  Children have been cutting up fruit and delivering to classes to share.  Also a special thank you to Kelly for collecting the fruit each Monday.

Yesterday students from our SRC met with Brittany from Brighton Council and Miriam from Play Street to discuss design options for a new park being built on the corner of Lamprill Circle and Calvert Crescent.  Construction of the new "Swan Park" will be underway around Christmas this year and should be completed within 12 months.

Our students put forward some suggestions and thoughts on play equipment and what they would like to see in the park.  Thank you to Brittany and Miriam for visiting our school.  A plan has been left at our school for students in all classes to have their say.

Congratulations to Jaylah T. who has been representing Tasmania this week in junior lawn bowls.

This photo is of Jaylah and Margaret Cornish, the president of St John's Bowls Club.

We wish you all the best in the tournament Jaylah, well done.

The Bridgewater, Gagebrook & Herdsmans Cove communities are invited to join the Australian Red Cross NAIDOC Week event, featuring the Children’s Book Sea Country and author Aunty Patsy Cameron.

Aunty Patsy will read Sea Country, discuss the book and answer questions which you can submit prior here. This meeting will be held virtually* via Microsoft Teams with communities welcome to join the virtual meeting at the Bridgewater Library with Joselle Griffin - Red Cross Community Development Project Officer.

*You can join this meeting from the link below either via the app or web browser on your device. This is a Microsoft Teams meeting and will be recorded.

Australian Red Cross acknowledges the National Indigenous Australians Agency & the Smith Family for supporting this event.

Microsoft Teams meeting

Join on your computer or mobile app

Click here to join the meeting

Or call in (audio only)

+61 2 8318 0090,,313069079#   Australia, Sydney

Phone Conference ID: 313 069 079#

Find a local number | Reset PIN

Learn More | Meeting options

Top Ten Accidents

The majority of injuries to children are unintentional; events that are often described as "accidents". Unintentional injuries account for about 96% of injury hospital admissions and about 90% of injury deaths in children up to 14 years of age. Most unintentional injuries are both predictable and preventable and result from a lack of child safety.

Transport related injury and drowning are the leading causes of injury related death for children aged 1 to 14 years in Australia. Falls and transport related injury are the two leading causes of injury related hospital admission.

The top 10 accidents for children and safety tips on preventing them:

One of the ways the School Nurse Program supports Herdsmans Cove Primary School is by providing nutrition education to the whole school community. As part of this, I will continue to add healthy recipes to the school newsletter you may like to try. We also provide access to the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating - today we have included a poster of food and drinks we need regularly for health and wellbeing.”