16 March 2018

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Congratulations to all of our courageous students who participated successfully in our 2018 Athletics Carnival. As it was my first carnival at Bicheno Primary School three things impressed me on the day:

• The natural running style, determination and fitness of many of the placegetters,
• That all students demonstrated great courage in having a go and also in finishing the races, even if they had to walk part of the way they still finished strongly at the finish line; and
• The great support of our School Association in the canteen and all other parents who turned up on the day and supported in so many different ways

The weather couldn’t have been better and it was an excellent day all round. Special thanks also to Mrs Sliskovic for her coordination of the carnival! As the East North-East Athletics Carnival will be held on 28 March there will be training for the selected team members (and any other keen students) on two afternoons a week leading up to the ENE Carnival. We will notify the details once we know availability of our coaches. If anyone is able to help with training please contact the office?

Many parents and Bicheno community members have expressed a desire to volunteer their help for our students and the school. There are three current areas of need:

1. Reading helpers – we are aiming to have one day a week (our preference is a Wednesday) where all students can read aloud to an adult across our classes;
2. Our school is now a member of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Foundation so we are looking for people with gardening experience who can help get our garden functioning again and/or work with students teaching them about ‘growing harvesting preparing and sharing’ fresh, seasonal and delicious food; and
3. In order to utilise our courts and the Council’s oval more we are looking for people with either coaching/umpiring knowledge or just a general interest and willingness to work with our students after school around the different sporting areas leading up to school, regional and state carnivals (the first of these will be athletics training starting next week).

If anyone is able to help you will need to have a current Working with Vulnerable People card and you would like to help, either reply by contacting us through the SZAPP (see below for how to contact the school and let us know if you can help volunteer in one of these areas

• Reading Helper
• Garden Helper
• Kitchen/Canteen Helper
• Sports Helper

Rockpool Ramble

Grade 1/2 took their learning outside last week and explored the rocky shore around Waubs Bay. We discovered and observed many interesting living things under the guidance of Deb Gardner. Thanks Deb for sharing your expertise and passion with us!

Rockpool folder

Athletics Carnival

Thank you to Saskia Sparshott for taking all the photos from our athletics carnival. Individual results will be in the next newsletter.

What’s happening in our classrooms?

In Kinder this week

English: We are learning to recognise our name

Maths: We are learning to see numbers in our classroom and around the school

Social: We are learning to use a listening body during mat time.

Prep/1

In English we are learning to predict what may happen next in a story and recording this in our writing. The Preps are learning the most common sounds for the letters p and t and the Gr 1s are learning how we spell the ‘ch’ sound.

In Maths we are investigating how we count forwards and backwards from different starting points to support out problem solving.

Our social focus is exploring friendship and asking questions such as ‘How can we be a good friend?’.

Grade1/2

In English Grade 1/2 are writing recounts, predicting when reading stories and exploring the different ways to spell the ‘sh’ sound.

In Maths Grade 1/2 are exploring hundreds chart to help develop their counting skills

Our Social Focus is understanding that making mistakes are a part of our learning.

In Science we are exploring local rockpools to investigate the living things there.

Grade 3/4

In Literacy we are using the Tree-storey series by Andy Griffith & Terry Denton as a ‘seed’ for our ‘Writer’s Notebook’. Students are creating their own 13 storeys and weaving a story throughout their tree. They will then choose their favourite storey and add it to the class tree house. Once our 20 storeys are selected we will come up with a collaborative story incorporating a little bit of everyone’s.

In Numeracy we have started to look at how we can apply our knowledge of maths in the kitchen. We have begun by looking at the units of measurements needed. The next step is to choose some yummy recipes, add in a pinch of mathematics and use this to show our understanding.

In Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) we have started looking into the history of the food we eat and how this has changed over the last couple of generations.

Our social focus has been on trying our best and giving it a go. This is in line with our school value of courageous.

Grade 5/6

We have been learning about number properties including: factors, multiples, prime and composite numbers, and square and triangular numbers. We have designed a game to test our understanding of number properties and learnt about testing for divisibility when looking for factors and multiples.

Through our Writer’s Notebook we have been learning to use an editor’s code when proofreading our writing projects and developing our writing stamina through SSW (silent sustained writing)

Whilst reading our class novel; The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, we have been learning to recognise the difference between literal and inferential clues for meaning and identifying language features such as similes that the author has used to engage the reader.

We have been learning how to compose and send emails effectively and respectfully using email etiquette.

Before beginning our unit on Federation we have been revisiting how and why Australia was developed as a British colony.

We have finalised our Science research projects on an endangered species.

Our social focus has been making the most of our learning time and using integrity (doing what’s right when no one is watching).

Indonesian

Kinder will be underway with the ELLA program participating in simple songs.

Prep/1 will be learning colour vocabulary.

1/2 will be learning colour vocabulary and word order to describe colours of common objects.

3/4 will be learning how to ask 'Where do you want to go?' and vocabulary around places.

5/6 will be participating in conversations using questions and answers that are personally relevant.

Mau ke mana? ('Where do you want to go?', or' Where are you going?')

National Day of Action

Across Australia many schools will be involved in a National Day of Action on Friday 16 March 2018 focussed on providing students with opportunities to talk about bullying as an important part of making a positive change in reducing unsafe and inappropriate behaviours. Our school will be using the ‘Bullying. No Way’ program resources to assist students to understand what bullying is and strategies to deal with bullies within a school community. Although our school has very low incidents of bullying, we still do deal with incidents and our goal is to become ‘a bully free zone’. It is important to remember that this applies to our whole school community and it is crucial as parents and staff that we model ‘Bullying. No Way’ behaviours to our children/students at Bicheno Primary School. Working together we can make a difference!

What makes us special – Prep/One

We have been learning more about each other and what is important to us. We shared our “Me Bags” and drew the contents of one of our classmate’s bags.

Footy Tipping – School Association

Footy Tipping – Tennis club

Don’t forget

Our imagination

Grade 1-2 created artworks showing what their imagination looks like. Here are some very imaginative imaginations…

School Association Easter Egg Raffle

Lego Brick Competition

Important dates

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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