12 September 2018

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Last week we forwarded the individual 2018 NAPLAN Student Report to parents of Grade 3 and Grade 5 students. A bit like politics people have many varied opinions around NAPLAN, however it is a national assessment that all schools participate in across Australia.

The benefits of participating in NAPLAN testing:

• NAPLAN tests the skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life such as reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy;
• NAPLAN results provide valuable information on how your child is progressing against national minimum standards of literacy and numeracy skills expected for each year level;
• The NAPLAN tests provide you as parents with an individual report that shows your child’s results and a comparison of your child’s performance against all other Australian students in their year level;
• Teachers use the NAPLAN results to determine your child’s areas of strength and where future focus is required and how best to provide support or extension activities;
• School teachers use the online NAPLAN Toolkit to analyse your child’s results. The Toolkit provides detailed information right down to the individual question with links to teaching strategies; and
• Principals, senior staff and others use NAPLAN results to inform school planning and to allocate resources and support including informing decisions around targeted programs and initiatives for individuals and groups.

Today I have included our NAPLAN 2018 Summary Report Year 3 results for our school. Although this report is challenging to interpret it does demonstrate comparative data for the school between 2016 - 2018 and also compares our results against similar schools, Tasmania schools and Australian schools. With a 100% participation rate our Year 3 achievements reflect results above similar schools, Tasmanian and Australian schools in Reading, Writing and Numeracy which is an excellent outcome. In Spelling our results are better than similar schools, comparable to Tasmanian schools and slightly less than Australian schools. Our area for improvement focus is in Grade 3 Grammar and Punctuation. Overall the results support our schools focus on continuous improvement in literacy and numeracy and also helps to identify specific areas for explicit teaching focus.

This week we trial online NAPLAN tests with our Year 2, 4 and 6 students. Participating in this trial is important as it will help us ensure we have adequate internet connectivity, and whether students have access to sufficient number of devices for NAPLAN testing. During the trial, our school will have the opportunity to practice managing the classroom logistics for an online assessment and the new test administration processes.

This week is a very exciting week to be a part of our school community. Our Swimming and Water Safety Program commences this Wednesday and continues through to Tuesday next week. Our School Association is working hard in preparation for our Hoedown which is shaping up to another great fun night for our school community. KEON met on Monday night and created some wonderful decorations with recycled and reused materials. Special thanks to all those parents who helped our KEON kids create some amazing art decorations.

Just a reminder around our school communities and departmental value of respecting ourselves and others. It is crucial as adults that we all model the behaviours that we want our children to adopt. Please ensure we all treat everyone with respect and if anyone has any concerns please either talk to myself, staff or School Association parents. We have an excellent school at Bicheno Primary and it is crucial that we continue to create a high expectations and aspirational environment through positive communication and role modelling.

We are also conducting a survey to allow our school community to help us select a new school motto. This motto will be used to reinforce our school values of being courageous, friendly respectful learners. The survey will be open for one week and we encourage everyone to have a say in deciding on our new motto.

Have a great week everyone and get your Hoedown boots polished up and ready to hoot nanny!

Prep/One: The Power of Yet

In Prep-1 we have been discussing what a Growth Mindset is. We have learned that a Growth Mindset is understanding we can all learn knew things with HARD WORK and SUPPORT. This will help us learn anything we can’t do YET.

The book ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’ by Giles Andrea tells the story of a giraffe called Gerald who could not dance. He met a friend who supported him to learn. With a great deal of practice and hard work he learnt to dance. At the beginning he couldn't dance YET but with a Growth Mindset he achieved his goal.

We have talked about what we can do now and what we can’t do YET. As a class, we have been choosing a daily mantra that we will say when we face a challenge in our day. Some of our mantras so far are:

• ‘I’ll keep on trying’
• ‘I will have a go’
• ‘I will ask support and help when I need it’
• ‘I can learn from my mistakes’
• ‘mistakes grow our brains’

We have also been recording what we can do and what we would like to learn to do ….. what we can’t do YET. We all wrote a first draft and below are our the finals drafts of our work.

Grade 1/2 Book Week Art

One of the books we studied was called the Second Sky by Patrick Guest and Jonathon Bentley. It is a story about a penguin called Gilbert. “The first thing Gilbert sees when he hatches from his egg is the sky. It is love at first sight and from that moment on Gilbert longs to fly like other birds. But Penguins don’t fly, they waddle, and so begins Gilbert’s quest to find his place in the world. Great things happen when you reach for the sky.”

We created a background using dye wash, which we sprinkled salt onto. The salt drew up some of the wash and colours and made it look more interesting. We then drew a penguin and stuck it onto the background.

We hope you enjoy our artwork

Kinders Chicken Journey

Hatching time!! The kinder chickens have grown so much in the last month! We put 24 eggs in an incubator at the start of this term and 3 weeks later got 4 chickens. Richard and Lilly Edwards added 5 more chickens to our collection. Thank you so much to the Edward family for your support, resources and expertise during this exciting time.

What’s happening in our classrooms?

Kinder

Students in Kinder have been working more on their garden with Scott. Today they planted snow peas

Prep/One

English

• Continuing our work on writing to entertain.
• Learning to add details to our writing such as what our characters think, do and feel.

Maths

• Sorting and describing 2D and 3D objects
• Showing our maths thinking on a number line and with pictures.

Science

Why do I live here?

Continuing to 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

• What is a growth mindset and how can we develop it?
• What can we do and how we can learn what we don’t know YET? Understanding the power of YET.

Grade 1/2

Grade 1/2 have been working on producing visual 2 dimensional maps of places which are relevant to them. Let’s see if you can follow their maps

Grade 3/4

This week in English we have been learning how we can improve our writing by editing a piece of text called “The Most Boring Story Ever’. We found more detail isn’t always better.

In Science we are investigating how heat energy can be transferred from objects.

In Maths we have been learning how to tell the time to the minute as well as conquering our times tables with early morning maths games.

In HASS we have experimented with using a compass to find places in our school yard as well as learning more about cartography and different types of maps.

Grade 5/6

In Maths we have been learning to find the decimal equivalent to a given fraction and have continued to practise our skills in adding and subtracting decimals. In English we have been learning about the power of the comma in avoiding ambiguity and how they can change the meaning of a sentence. We have been learning to use more sophisticated connectives to in our formal writing and the different role or purpose they have. In HASS we have been presenting our collaborative research projects on Australia’s immigration history.

Indonesian

Kinder are continuing with the ELLA program.

Prep/1 and 1/2 are focusing on vocabulary around animals and what pets they have.

Grade 3/4 are continuing with the creation of a Barong mask and learning associated language.

Grade 5/6 are putting together information about 'self' and displaying personally relevant information.

Ini Saya/ This is me.

School Association Update

Bring along plenty of cash to support:

• Bar Sales
• Food Sales
• Bucking Bull rides
• Side Show Alley games
• Chocolate Wheel
• Auction

All funds raised at the hoedown will be used to purchase a permanent long-term shade structure for the children’s playground.

Design concept for shade structure

Tickets are nearly sold out and numbers will be capped, so if you haven’t purchased your ticket yet please purchase from a member of the School Association.

Don’t forget to whip up your favourite dessert and enter the BPS Hoedown Bake Off! The winner will receive an east Coast Hamper valued over $100. Entries will be sold on the night. Drop off your creations at the hall between 9am - 3pm on Friday.

Little Blue Sports

After school sports returns this term on Tuesdays: September 4th, 11th & 18th. The School Association is covering the cost of these activities so that your child can experience team sports free of charge this term.

Important School Association dates

Merit Certificate winners

Grade 3/4 merit winners

Bendigo Birthday celebrations

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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