15 August 2018

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

As announced at our sharing assembly we received some wonderful news last week! St Marys (including the Fingal campus), St Helens and Bicheno were successful in our application for a Middle Years Literacy Grant. This project has significant resources each year from 2019 – 2021 and is absolutely focussed on improving literacy specifically for students in Grades 4 – 8. This will commence with the appointment of a lead coach to coordinate the work of the East Coast Schools, to mentor and coach staff and provide alongside support in classrooms across all four campuses. Utilising a recognised research base the focus of this umbrella of support is to develop a Cycle of Inquiry to determine what impacts deep learning in literacy. The initial phase of the project will involve a scan and assess of the current Literacy practices and data used in all schools and professional development for staff. The project will then determine common data sets across all schools to identify our starting point and set targets for improvement. As Literacy and our partnership with parents is a high priority I have attached ‘Family Literacy Tips from A to Z’ as the first of other literacy support materials we will include in newsletters for families. Also, special thanks to all parents and community members who come in on a regular basis and help our students with their reading!

On Sunday morning I had the privilege of watching Hallie, Polly and Grace playing netball with the Surfside Division 3 for a place in the grand final. They played the strongest team in the competition who had previously beaten them by over 20 points. Although they lost by two goals, they were courageous in their best team performance of the season.

Other great news is that Caleb, Isak, Axel, Ned, and Tarrant had a significant win for the East Coast Giants in their AFL game last weekend and are now playing in the Grand Final at Aurora Stadium on Sunday 26 August and we will all be barracking for them on Sunday week. Also special congratulations to Caleb on being recognised to attend the ‘best and fairest’ award ceremony. This is a special honour in recognition of both his high ability as a team player and also the great respect for how he plays the game every week.

It’s that time of year where we undertake our school perception survey with students, staff and parents. It is crucial we get as many people as possible in our school community completing the survey as this helps us celebrate what we are doing well and also areas where we need to focus for school improvements (for our four year strategic plan). Please see the section in this newsletter which has more information.

On Thursday 23rd of August we will be having our Book Week parade walking from our school up to the vacant block between the Blue Edge bakery and the Farm Shed. Last year this was such a special event with our students and staff wearing some wonderful costumes. Please refer to the note home for more details.

This week we are celebrating Science Week with excursions, and our feature event the Mouse Trap design challenge. Unfortunately I am at a Principals’ Conference and Mr Woolley will again be taking leadership of this exciting event.

We are still in the process of finalising our school motto, and our commitment statement and we will share these with our school community once our staff, student leaders and School Association finalise them.

Have a wonderful week everyone and stay warm!

Rob Presswell

Grade 3/4 Sandwich Algorithm – program your sandwich robot.

Students had to create an algorithm (a precise set of instructions or rules to achieve an outcome or solve a problem) to instruct a pretend robot (teacher) to make a sandwich. One of the steps towards writing a good algorithm that can be converted into code is precision. Precision doesn’t come naturally to most humans. Another computational thinking skill is evaluation in this case “is my algorithm fit for purpose” or “Does it work at all?, does it work efficiently?”. The ‘Sandwich Robot’s interpretation of their algorithm helps students to evaluate its effectiveness and make changes if needed (‘Debugging’). Is it an algorithm or is it coding though… who cares, we had lots of fun with our ‘trial and ERROR, ERROR, ERROR’!

Watch these videos to see how clever we were at programming our robot

Chess Tournament

On Monday 13th August, 12 students from Bicheno Primary School competed in the Regional Chess tournament against students and teams from St Helens and St Marys District School. Many brains and tactics were strained and tried throughout the day.

Congratulations to Tarrant Wynne who was placed 2nd boy overall.
Bicheno Primary A team placed second in their division.
Bicheno Primary B team placed third in their division.

Enjoy the pictures taken by Mrs Bosua

What’s happening in our classrooms?

Prep/1

English

Rereading our writing to check:

• If it makes sense
• have we used full stops and capital letters

Maths

• Measurement
• Using 20 frames to show how we use the make to ten strategy (e.g. for 6 plus 8, think: 8…. 2 more to 10 and 4 more …. 14).

Science

Why do I live here?

During this term we will examine a range of living things to explore the links between the external features of living things and the environments they live in.

Social focus

How can we be a good friend?

Grade 1/2

English

• Comparing characters in stories
• Adding ed and ing to base words

Maths

• Doubles
• Being maths detectives to solve number sentences with missing parts, eg. 4+ _ =9

Social focus

• What is a good friend? How can I be friendly?

Grade 5/6

In Maths we have continued our learning of fractions; moving our focus to subtraction and addition of fractions with related and uncommon denominators. In English we have been studying the Gary Paulsen novel Hatchet, investigating words with a double consonant when adding a suffix and when to use “ie” or “ei” within a word. In Science we have been learning about natural disasters of a geographical nature and the role that the earth’s structures plays in causing earth quakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. In HASS we have been learning about the history of immigration in Australia, why people came, where they came from, how they were/are treated and the contribution they have made to Australia.

Indonesian

Kinder are continuing with the ELLA Indonesian program.

Prep/1 and 1/2 are looking at the cultural similarities and differences when comparing their everyday lives to those of young children living in a rural Indonesian village.

Class 3/4 are continuing to create a Barong mask and using the related language for body parts and colours.

Class 5/6 are continuing to translate Indonesian text using authentic readers and also to participate in a discussion about the Lombok earthquake.

Gempa bumi/earthquake

Merit Winners from our Sharing Assembly

Kinder excursion Artwork

Kinder visited the St Marys farm as part of their excursion to St Marys District School

Here is some artwork which describes their memories from the excursion

Science Week Challenge Program

National Tree Day

KEON students and community leaders, assisted by many parents helped to plant over 40 trees kindly donated by Forestry Tasmania for National Tree planting day. We have delayed planting the trees and shrubs because of recent bad weather. We hope that these various smalls shrubs will attract and be home to many birds in the future.

School Satisfaction Surveys

Annual School Satisfaction Surveys for students, parents and staff are being conducted during August 2018 across Tasmanian government schools.

The surveys provide an opportunity for students, parents and staff to give important feedback on what the school does well and where we can improve. Questions cover a range of topics about our school.

All responses and secure and anonymous.

Students from grade 3-6, parents and staff and invited to participate. Parents will receive a letter in the coming days. This letter will provide parents with an online code for accessing the survey. If people would prefer to do a paper version of the survey they can simply swap their letter over at the school office. The school office will also have iPads and laptops available for parents to complete the survey at school if they would prefer.

We encourage you to complete the survey to give out school a clear direction for future programs and services for student.

Rob Presswell

Canteen this Friday

Launching into Learning August Calendar

School Association Update

2018 Major fundraiser “Country Hoedown”

Yee-haw! Friday 14th September is our annual major fundraising event. Put the date in your diary, shine up your best boot scooting dancing boots and start saving those gold coins!

Ticket sales will be at the school each Monday at drop off and pick up times.

There are a number of tasks in the lead up to the event and on the night which require volunteers. We won’t take up much of your time or stop you from having free time to enjoy the event. Please see any of the School Association members if you would like to find out more.

Canteen:

We hope everyone’s children enjoyed their lunch orders in term 2. To keep offering a regular canteen service we rely on volunteers from our school community. This is also a great way to be involved with your school and meet new parents without committing a large amount of time.

If you have working with vulnerable people clearance we need you!

1 hour - count and collate the orders.

2 hours – make and pack morning tea and/or lunch

Working group for a Shade Solution for the playground:

We have now received the funds from our successful RACT Community Grant bid and will be committing funds raised at the Country Hoedown.

The next step is for a group of parents/community members to come together and workshop ideas. Please speak to Carrie or any of the committee members if you would like to be involved in this exciting project. As always, we appreciate any amount of time you can give, whether it be only an hour to research or simply to share your experiences with a similar project you may have been involved with.

If you become aware of any grants available to community groups you can email any info you have to megan_coelho@hotmail.com and we will do the rest.

Important School Association dates

School Association Footy tipping margins update

Round 19 winner was Lisa O’Neill
Round 20 winner was Steve & Sandi from Tide Lines
Round 21 winner was Anne - Marie Polack

Important dates

Information for parents

A friendly reminder that the school has a duty of care for student from 8:15am, extending to 3:15pm. Students on the school grounds outside of these operating hours must be under parental supervision. The school toilets and classrooms are closed at 2:45pm. There are public toilets located next to Little Penguins Child Centre.

Rob Presswell

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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