23 October 2019

Newsletter Articles

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From the Principal

Highlights

1. 2019 Swimming Carnival

Last Thursday we had a very successful swimming carnival up at St Mary’s District School swimming pool. Our students were courageous, competitive, happy and supportive of each other and congratulations to Apsley who edged out Denison on the day. What really impressed me was the courage many students demonstrated on the day not only having a go, but completing the races to the best of their ability. Particular thanks goes to Jen Sliskovic and Sam Kelly for their coordination of such a successful carnival and also to the parents who helped out with various roles and also cheered for the students.

2. We have a new Minister for the Environment and a Deputy Minister

Each year Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Services hold a meeting in November with representatives from each of the 12 Wilds’cools to share environmental projects they are working on. Each school is represented by a Minister for the Environment (and/or their deputy) and it is a wonderful opportunity to not only share projects, but also to gain new ideas from other schools. Our Student Leaders met and through a secret ballot elected Ruby Sparshott as our Minister of the Environment and Connor Baldwin as our Deputy Minister for the Environment. Congratulations to both of these students and I look forward to travelling to the meeting with them once the date is finalised.

3. PAT Assessments

This week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday our Grade 2 to 6 students are involved in PAT testing. All 5 schools within our muka layna (salt water fresh water) collaboration (Bicheno, St Helens, St Marys, Winnaleah and Campbell Town) are doing similar assessments so we can use this information to measure our impact on student learning in Reading and learn where our teaching focus needs to target. It will be very exciting as we extend this collaboration into 2020 and beyond as we target other subject areas.

Could all school leaders, staff, parents and school community members please be vigilant in promoting student safety, particularly when riding bikes around busy areas.

4. 2019 NAPLAN results

Over the next few newsletters I will share our NAPLAN achievements and future focus as we review our data, our 2019 School Improvement Plan and start the process of building our 2020-2021 School Improvement Plan.

Today I share our Grade 5 results. This year we have maximised the number of Grade 5 students participating in the NAPLAN assessment process, many of these did not participate in the Year 3 assessments. Although our Year 3 results were strong our Year 5 results demonstrate areas for improvement in Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation, and to a lesser extent Numeracy. We also have to remember that our small numbers of students sitting the NAPLAN tests results in cohort fluctuations. Our teachers have been analysing our NAPLAN outcomes for 2019 and identifying what our students have done well in and also areas which require explicit teaching focus.

5.Safety Reminder again!

Recently we have had many reports of children riding bikes in a dangerous manner. Can we all continue to encourage all students to use:

• the appropriate school crossings
• walk their bikes around the IGA and other shops areas where pedestrian and car parking creates dangerous situations
• walk bikes across major roads where there is no pedestrian crossing
• use bike paths and not ride bikes on the major and busy roads, and finally
• wear a safety helmet

Have a great week!

What’s happening in our classrooms?

Kinder

Children are curious about nature and are naturally drawn to outdoor play. Play allows children to learn as they discover, improvise and imagine. It provides children with many opportunities for learning and development, such as testing out ideas, challenging themselves and others, asking questions, solving problems and thinking critically.

Kinder and Prep/1 have begun to look at not only play as a tool for learning, but inquiry. Inquiry based learning is student centered and the adults in the room are the facilitators of learning. There is an emphasis on “how did we learn that” rather than “what do you know”. Children in inquiry based learning are the co-constructors of their learning, the learning intentions and success criteria. Children are learning while they wonder, inquire and explore and the learning reflects their interests and goals. The inquiry process is led by a big idea and this reflects the children’s wonderings, observations and interests. Our big idea is: “what is special about animals in our local environment?” As part of this inquiry process, Kinder and Prep/1 students are engaging in a weekly Beach Discovery Time on Waubs Beach. We are asking lots of questions about our natural environment and making lots of observations about the animals in our local environment, the sea and pollution found on the beach

Prep/One

Social/Emotional:

• We are learning to take turns.
• We are learning to wait while others are speaking.

Reading:

• We are learning our set 13 sounds.
• We are learning to read independently.

Writing:

• We are learning to use capitals, finger spaces and full stops.
• We are learning to underline words we are unsure how to spell.

Numeracy:

• We are learning to solve word problems.

Science:

• We are learning about living and non-living things.

HASS:

• We are learning about past, present, future.

Grade 1/2: Holiday Recounts

Exploring Digital Technologies utilising materials and equipment that will allow students to identify and practically apply elements of the Australian Curriculum Digital Technologies key concepts, key ideas and related ways of thinking. To engage students in thinking and working with data and computational thinking we are exploring the uses of coding.

Recognise and explore digital systems (hardware and software components) for a purpose. (ACTDIK002)

Recognise and explore patterns in data and represent as pictures, symbols and diagrams. (ACTDIK002)

Follow, describe and represent a sequence of steps and decisions (algorithms) needed to solve simple problems. (ACTDIP004)

Reciprocal teaching is a guided comprehension reading strategy that encourages students to develop the skills that effective readers and learners do automatically (summarise, question, clarify, predict and respond to what they are reading) students will be learning to use these four comprehension strategies.

Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (ACELY1670)

Grade 3/4

English:

• We are learning to use the strategy of predicting to help us to understand a text.
• We are learning to work with a group of people to deepen our understanding of a text.
• We are learning use descriptive language effectively to build a character.

Maths:

• We are learning to measure the temperature with a thermometer using degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit.
• We are exploring the concept of probability and likelihood of particular events occurring.

Grade 5/6:

Last term, Grade 5/6 learnt about Earth’s Place in the solar system.

We enjoyed working together in small groups to create 3 dimensional models to demonstrate our understanding. We have included some photos to show our works in progress and look forward to sharing our finished models at the next Sharing Assembly.

School Association

1. Budget Meeting

BPSA held a budget meeting earlier this week with the following decisions being made;

• Uniform: BPSA will provide each student with one new polo shirt with logo at the beginning of the 2020 school year;
• School re-branding: BPSA will contribute to the cost of replacing signage around the school featuring the new school logo and messaging, as well as a brand launch BBQ;
• Sporting facilities: BPSA will contribute funds to upgrading basketball and netball facilities in the gym and in the outdoor area;
• Classes: each class will receive a donation to be used to set-up for 2020.

2. New Uniform

As you all know our new school logo has been confirmed. New uniforms with logos will be available for 2020 - details on ordering to follow from the School.

4. Annual General Meeting

An early heads-up that our AGM will be held in first term next year (date to be confirmed). The Association will be seeking nominations for Parent Members prior to the AGM with elections to be held on the day of the AGM. Please chat to one of us if you are interested or send us an email at BichenoPSA@gmail.com.

Being part of the Association is easy, fulfilling and, most importantly, fun! It's also a great way to support our fantastic school and engage with the school community.

Indonesian

Kinder are beginning to explore App 7 on the ELLA program. It has a focus on the language of shapes.

In prep/1 and 1/2 We are learning the shape nouns and related adjectives. For example we are learning how to say ‘Big, red, square’ segi empat besar dan merah.

In 3/4 and 5/6 we are focusing on identifying ‘key words’, kata kunci, when listening to or reading Indonesian. The key words can help us understand what the text might be about without understanding every word.

Swimming Carnival Report

On Thursday the 18th of October 2019 Grade 3-6 went to St Marys to compete in the annual Bicheno Primary School swimming carnival.

The first race was the 25m freestyle, the second race was 25m backstroke and the third race was 25m breaststroke. Then the 3-4 class were all involved in the Treasure Hunt to earn extra points for their house. Apsley came out on top, beating Denison 47 to 42. Then it was the Grade 5/6 turn, the win again going to Apsley; 62 to 61.

The next race was the 100m event for grade 5/6’s. After the 100m race it was the relays, with the grades 3, 4 and 5s combined; Apsley won, AGAIN. After that it was the Grade 6 relay, with Forest and Stephen making up the numbers for Apsley. It was really close, but Denison won.

After lunch the 50m races started with Freestyle followed by backstroke then breaststroke. The carnival ended with a tricky Butterfly race, for people who wanted to do it in Grade 3/4/5 and 6.

The swimming carnival this year was definitely one of the best carnivals we have ever had. Everyone did a great job and it was the first year that every Grade 6 went in all the races.

The next swimming ENE carnival is on the 14th on November

By Hallie and Forest

Educational Adjustments

Important dates

LiL calendar

Building Blocks

All Playgroup sessions start at 9am and finish at 10:30am, meeting at Little Penguins. Please don't forget to sign in and out.

Uniform orders for 2020

A uniform order for 2020 will go home to families next week

Information for parents

A friendly reminder that the school has a duty of care for students 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: Bronti Cooke and Bron Pierce
Grade 1/2: Bruce Campbell and Jen Sliskovic
Grade 3/4: Sam Kelly
Grade 5/6: Jill Bosua
Support Teacher: Bron Pierce

School Calendar