21 November 2018

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

I hope everyone is recovering from a busy and fun weekend! I would like to thank the following 19 students from Bicheno Primary and St Mary’s District School who volunteered at the festival, for being such great ambassadors of our schools and doing such a professional job:

Bicheno Primary: Zali Taylor, Georgie Featherstone, Bayli Casboult, Lola de Boer, Ruby Sparshott, Natarlie Webb, Maceo Schneiders, Axel Bannister, Isak Oswald, Isla de Boer, Stephen Omenka, and Connor Baldwin

St Mary’s District School: Laura Sliskovic, Elijah Harvey, Kyia Ham, Chelsea Jackson, Elise Sliskovic, Louis and Xavier Langoulant

Of these students a special mention must go to Ruby Sparshott and Connor Baldwin who volunteered and worked tirelessly for the whole day!

Throughout the day I received excellent feedback back from so many people about how hard all students worked, their friendly and respectful behaviour, and how wonderful it was to see students giving back to our supportive Bicheno community.

Data around the economic benefit to Bicheno and the East Coast; ratings of festival and areas for improvement was collected through 128 surveys carried out by our student volunteers. Students will also be involved using this data in a real life learning exercise to estimate the economic benefit of the festival to Bicheno and the East Coast. Although analysis of this data is in its early stages, a couple of interesting graphs are listed below i.e. 74% of the over 3000 people who attended, stayed in Bicheno with 32% in commercial accommodation.

Of the 128 people surveyed the average rating for how satisfied they were with the festival was 9 out of ten!

Due to ongoing negotiations between our Secretary of Education and the Australian Education Union (AEU), the AEU has organised a Stop Work meeting on Tuesday 27th November which our teachers will be attending. As a result the Minister for Education has determined our school will closed in the morning until 10.30 am. Could all parents please undertake the necessary arrangements regarding buses and child care services as soon as possible for your children to arrive at 10.30 am rather than the normal 8.30 am. We are currently checking with bus companies re their services operations on that day. I will update parents with information as required.

Last Friday Jill Bosua and Gemma Donnelly presented our 2019 literacy planning ideas to a literacy leaders’ professional learning group involving 8 other schools. This was very well received and will help shape not only our 2019 School Improvement Plan, but also how we work with St Mary’s and St Helens District Schools as a part of our 2019 to 2020 East Coast Schools of Excellence Middle Years Literacy Project.

On Wednesday last week our staff and the leadership teams from St May’s and St Helens attended our third educational leadership workshop facilitated by Shireen Thomas. Through these sessions we aim to build everyone’s capacity to apply for positions when they are advertised in our schools, but most importantly building our shared understandings of leading quality teaching.

We have many exciting happenings over the next few weeks including:

1. Grade 6’s transition to St Mary’s District School on the 28th – 30th November;
2. Surf School 3.30 – 6 pm on the 10th and 11th of December (parents are welcome to help our students out in the water)
3. Grade 6 Leavers Celebration at White Sands 18th December

I hope everyone is getting organised for Christmas!

Rob Presswell
Principal

BEE-BOT DRESS UP DAY IN GRADE 1/2!

We designed and created a jacket for our Bee-Bots to change their appearance.

Our next step is to write an algorithm or a sequence of instructions to help our creations move from one place to another.

School Closure – 27 November

Dear Parents

Public sector unions have called stop work action in the north of the state on 27 November 2018.

As a result of the number of teaching staff participating in this action, there will not be enough teachers on duty at the school to ensure adequate supervision for students. Therefore the Minister has decided that the school will not open until 10.30am.

This will mean the following arrangements for the day:

Staff will be on site from 10:30. Please do not drop students at school before this time.

The Coles Bay bus run will collect children from the first stop at 9:45am, so all other collection points will be one hour 45mins later than normal. For more information please phone Calows Coaches.

I sincerely regret the inconvenience to parents and the disruption to the learning program for students; however, student safety is my primary concern.

Yours sincerely
Robert Presswell

What’s happening in our classrooms?

Prep/One

We have recently finished our science unit “Dinosaurs and more’. We know animals have different features to assist them with surviving in their habits. We learnt about how animals defend themselves, such as what dinosaurs used to survive. We made our own dinosaur shields to demonstrate our learning.

English

• What it means to have your own point of view or opinion and how this is expressed in different stories.
• What is the difference between a statement a question?

Maths

• Revising how we use everyday language to describe position and direction of movement eg right, left, up, down in the context of mazes.
• Using doubles and near doubles as an efficient maths strategy e.g. 6+7… think double 6 is 12 and 1 more is 13.

Social and emotional focus

• Using meditation techniques to improve our attention and focus.
• Why is it important for us to be able to keep our attention on one thing at a time?

Grade 3/4

English: re-read and edit texts for punctuation, experimenting with the use of quotation marks

Maths: solving problems involving purchases and the calculation of change to the nearest five cents

HASS: Celebrations and commemorations around the world

Grade 5/6

In Maths Grade 5/6 have been learning to use the Lattice method of multiplication to solve equations involving increasingly larger numbers. This week we are learning about using more sophisticated positional language and refining our skills in reading coordinates of a map.

In English we have been continuing to develop our persuasive language and techniques by using them to write effective book reviews and have also looked at homophones and the different spellings and meanings of words that sound the same.

In HASS we are beginning to research a major European, North American (Grade 5) or Asian (Grade 6), country.

Indonesian

In Kinder the students continue to participate in the ELLA apps program.
In Prep/1 we are revising the numbers.
In 1/2 we are creating sentences about what animals we have at home.
In 3/4 we will be reflecting on the Suara Indonesian dance performance.
In 5/6 we well be reviewing the videos that we have created about our school (sekolah saya).

Students from Bicheno in Grades 3-6 had a great opportunity to attend the Indonesian Suara Dance Company performance. Bu Alfira and Pak Murtala performed a variety of dances from all around Indonesia with traditional costumes and extreme skilfulness. The students were able to participate in an interactive workshop where they learnt some sitting percussion dances from Aceh. They also participated in a form of traditional theatre from West Sumatra using Galembong pants where a fusion of rhythm and sound is created by hitting the big pants like a drum. The students were thoroughly engaged and also made strong connections to the language of Indonesia that they could confidently recognise. We were very lucky to have the Suara Dance company include us in their tour and create real connections for the students learning Indonesian.

Ruby Sparshott at the NAPLAN Presentation

Playgroup Party

Grade 3/4 Antarctic Diatoms

Bicheno Primary School students in Grade 3/4 participated in an inquiry-based unit of study related to Antarctica.

Supported by the CSIRO’s STEM in School program, the students and a research scientist from the Antarctic Division were partnered and worked alongside each other throughout their research.

This provided an authentic learning environment to help the students make connections to life-cycles, habitats, food webs and why this research is so important.

A video conference with our scientist and a virtual excursion using youtube 3600 gave students an idea of the Antarctic landscape and provided the ‘hook’ to the unit. Students then visited the Antarctic Division laboratories and used microscopes to discover the tiny world of diatoms.

Diatoms are considered the base of the Southern Ocean food web as they are responsible for 75% of its annual primary production through photosynthesis (Australian Antarctic Division, 2014)

To learn more about the intricate structures and shapes of the diatom, local artist Vanessa Richardson worked with the students to help create acrylic flow on canvas, producing a deep ocean backdrop for the silver diatom drawings.

Industry and community partnerships like this one broaden the horizons and open the students mind to possible career pathways and what skills they will need to navigate their preferred future.

Matt Woolley
3/4 Teacher. Bicheno Primary School

School Association Update

We are once again calling out for volunteers to keep our canteen operating. An hour or so is all we ask for. Please show your support by speaking with Carrie, Lisa, Sonia or Caroline about how and when you can help. Canteen dates are flexible and based around our volunteer’s availability.

Little Blue Sports

There are 2 sessions left for 2018:

• Tues 28th Nov, 2.45pm
• Sat 8th Dec, 10am.

The kids have been having a great time at the Little Blue Sports sessions, so let’s close the season with a great turn out!

Christmas Raffle

Coming soon! We welcome any donations that you or your business may be able to provide. Keep an eye out for raffle tickets coming home with your child soon.

School Association dates for your diary:

Next committee meeting: December 6th, 4.30pm @ BPS staffroom

East Coast Giants Meet and Greet

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

School Calendar