14 February 2018

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

It has been a privilege to watch our students return to school excited, cautious (for some), happy, and energised for learning at the start of our school year. Thank you to parents, staff and students for your great support in enabling this as a true whole-school community effort! To our staff, who worked tirelessly for the last two weeks to get classrooms, programs, and our grounds ready for our students returning for the 2018 school year we appreciated all their efforts.

To all of our new students Bayliss Sawyers – Prep/One, Finn McCabe – Grade 1/2 and Bayli Casboult – Grade 5/6 we offer a warm welcome to Bicheno Primary School and our school values of Courageous, Friendly, Respectful Learners. We know your time at our school will incorporate an initial getting to know everyone and also a place where you feel safe, valued and part of our learning community. We also warmly welcome all our Kinder students at the start of their school journey; Phoenix Ashley, Ari Briggs, Sienna Coelho, Lilly Edwards, Sienna Jaeschke, Atticus Lockhart, Johanna Lucas, Alice Marshall, Ivy McCulloch, Dorothy Omenka, Rubi-Mae Quin, Celeste Taylor, Frankie Wade, Priya Welch, Tori Whittred and Halle Williams.

Our school association have organised for a 2018 Welcome Back BBQ from after school until 5 pm on Friday 16 February for all students and their families (including grandparents if you would like to come along). This is a lovely opportunity to get into classrooms, meet staff and walk through our school grounds. There will also be a BBQ sausage sizzle to ease the hunger pains and celebrate our great school!

For those that haven’t seen our 2018 School Improvement Plan (Version 8 February) it is displayed at the school entrance and emphasises our focus on two priorities: Quality Teaching in Literacy and Wellbeing. If anyone would like a copy of our plan please contact the front office.

Next week on Wednesday 21 February, our Grade 3 to 6 students, staff and some parents will be heading off to Maria Island Discovery Camp for an educational outdoor education experience, returning on Friday 23 February. We are all very excited about the team building, practical curriculum learnings and excellent activities that are planned, also the wonderful opportunity for us all to get to know each other so early in the year.

Tentatively, I have scheduled our Athletics Carnival for Tuesday 13 March on the Council oval. I am attending an East North-East AGM meeting this Thursday where inter-school dates will be finalised for this and other sporting events. I will be focussing our PE/Health lessons around fitness and skill development leading up to the carnival. If you can encourage your children to also do some fitness at home this should assist both with the Maria Island bushwalking (Grade 3 to 6 students only) and also for competing in the track/field events at the Athletics Carnival.

Sadly during the holidays and over the recent weekend we have had some vandalism, pulling plants out of the ground/pots, damage to basketball rings, damage to timber structures around the school, damage to the ballerina’s on the Kinder storage shed, and to softfall under the playgrounds. As we value responsible use of school resources out of school hours could we ask that all school community members keep an eye on the school and if vandalism is witnessed let the school know and we will follow up with the Police. Our aim is to improve our facilities to maximise responsible community usage of facilities, particularly the youth who don’t have any other places to play basketball, netball, soccer and AFL. So wasting money on unnecessary repairs rather than improving facilities doesn’t make sense. One of the improvements involved a joint School association and school funded new playground for the Early Childhood playground and the students love it!

As with last year Carrie Wallis (School Association Chairperson) and I are always available to discuss school improvements with any school community members and we look forward to working with our broader school community building a 2018 - 2021 Strategic Plan during a very exciting school year!

Robert Presswell

Meet our new class for 2018

Thank you

Thank you to Hank de Boer who has beautifully handcrafted and donated 3 easels for our school.

What’s happening in our classrooms?

In Prep/1 this week:

We have been getting to know each other and learning how we can look after each other in our class and the playground.

We are learning about the routines of our class and deciding on our class rules to create our calm learning environment.

We are learning how we can look after our classroom and our school.

Grade1/2

In Grade 1/2 we are focussing on:

• Getting to know each other
• Learning our class routines and expectations

Grade 3/4

Smiley, Happy Students. Grade 3/4

Grade 5/6

In Grade 5/6 we have been settling into our new class; establishing routines and getting to know each other.

Indonesian

In Prep/1 and 1/2: Traditional Indonesian dance. (Tari tradisional)

In Year 3/4 and 5/6: Asking and answering questions about what languages we speak and are learning. (Saya belajar Bahasa Indonesia, I am learning Indonesian.)

School Association Meet and Greet BBQ

From the Office

Please return Student Validation Forms to the Office by Friday

Tennis letter

Important dates

School dates for 2018 as released by the Minister

How to set PUSH notifications on SZApp

Make sure you check that Notifications are turned on under the Manage tab on the SZApp as per the image.

School Information

Phone: 63751222
Email: bicheno.primary@education.tas.gov.au
Principal: Robert Presswell
School Business Manager: Sandra Silberberg

Teachers

Kinder and LiL: Eliza Spykers
Prep/One: Emily McCormack and Jen Sliskovic
Grade 1/2: Bron Pierce and Ali Jones
Grade 3/4: Matt Woolley
Grade 5/6: Jill Bosua
Support Teacher: Robert Presswell

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