The end of 2022 is fast approaching, this time of year is always busy and a time to celebrate student growth and achievement. I encourage families to attend our community events over the coming weeks and support students as they share their learning journeys!

I am looking forward to our Carols event on Thursday and can’t wait for our students to share their musical items and stalls to support our local charities.

Awards Assemblies

Yesterday we sent a letter home and shared on our socials how to book tickets for our 2 x award assemblies next Tuesday and Wednesday. Please follow the prompts on the letter to book tickets through trybooking, there are limited numbers available, and they will run out quickly. Due to COVID restrictions there is only 1 ticket per family available if you book. Students who receive an award have been notified by their class teacher and receive 2 seats to the assembly.

Christmas Carols event

Details of our Carols event was shared via our socials earlier in the week, please be aware that there is only one entry and exit point due to COVID restrictions and the event kicks off at 3.30pm Thursday. Our Christmas Carols event will again be a great opportunity for our community to come together and celebrate the school year while showcasing student work and raising money for community and school events. During the event we will have craft and food stalls, sporting activities, classes singing Christmas Carols and even staff and student rock bands.

Class Placements 2022

Students will receive their class placement letters along with 2021 reports on Monday 13 December. Students will then meet their 2022 teachers on Thursday 16 December just prior to recess. Those students with diagnosed disability or who require further adjustments may have further transition supports prior to these dates.

Families who were approved and received STAS in 2021 have been sent correspondence regarding STAS 2022 directly from the Department of Education and do not need to complete another STAS application.

STAS application forms for families who have not applied for, or been in receipt of STAS in 2021 including new enrolments who believe they meet the eligibility criteria are now available from the school office or families can apply on-line: https://stasonlinesubmission.education.tas.gov.au/

The eligibility criteria means that if a parent/carer holds a current concession card as listed below they are eligible to apply for STAS:

• Centrelink Health Care Card
• Pensioner Concession Card or
• Department of Veteran Affairs Concession Card

Please note: parents/carers cannot apply again online if they received STAS in 2021.  If a parent/carer wishes to add a newly enrolling student to their STAS file (ie: a Kindergarten student or sibling) they simply need to email their name and the student’s full name, date of birth, grade and school they will be attending in 2022 to: stas@education.tas.gov.au

Completed hard copy application forms can be returned to the school office or sent directly to the Department of Education by post, fax (6173 0315) or scanned and emailed to stas@education.tas.gov.au Please ensure that forms are signed and dated before submitting. 

It would be greatly appreciated if you would complete new applications prior to the end of the year to avoid invoices being sent in error early in 2022.

CHRISTMAS RAFFLE

Tickets $1 each

Raffle drawn Wednesday 8 December 2021 at the Year 3-6 Awards Assembly

Dear Parents/Carers

A huge thank you to the families that have already returned raffle books and have taken further tickets to sell.  Please return your book, either sold or unsold, to the school office no later than Tuesday 7 December 2021.

The raffle will be drawn at the Years 3-6 Awards Assembly on Wednesday 8 December 2021.

Prizes to date include:

Putters Adventure Golf - Family Pass

Dino Pizza - Voucher valued at $37.40 - Vouchres X 2 valued at $21.90

Jenni Jager - Christmas Quilt

Pennicott Wilderness Journey Voucher valued at $290

Christmas Hamper - valued at $100 - sponsored by Elise Archer MP

Crack’n’Cakes (Julie Sargent) - Christmas Pudding Chocolate Pinata X 2

Hyperdrive – Kart Racing package valed at $75

Shokuji Japanese Restaurant – 2 x $50 Vouchers

Granada Tavern - 3 x $50 Vouchers

Reece Plumbing - Toolbag

Kristie Johnston MP - $100 Voucher

Top Kutz - $50 Voucher

Josh Willie MLC – Wine

Rachel – Kambrook Meal Master Mini

Kat B - Lego

Braella Beauty - $30 Vouchers X 2

Fullers Bookshop - $30 voucher

Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary - Child admissions X 2 valued at $18 each

ZooDoo Wildlife Park - General admission passes X 2

Glenorchy Health & Fitness - 3 month free membership

Tahune Airwalk - Family Admission valued at $77.50

Andrew Wilkie MP - Hamlet Cafe goodie bag

Jenni Jager - Christmas Quilt

Thank you to these generous sponsors!

Grade 2 Gallen have been looking at how things are made and what we can do to reuse, reduce, and recycle materials. We had a ‘Maker Day’ where we had to design and make a gift for someone special from recycled materials. At the end of the day, we shared our creations with each other in an exhibition and celebrated how unique, thoughtful and well-designed each other’s gifts were.

Although we each made our own creation, the day was filled with collaboration, sharing, problem solving and encouragement of each other. We decided it was our favourite day all year!

Maddison, Ari-Lei, Heath and Taiyah loved painting their creations. Blaze and Eli enjoyed mixing up new colours with the paints. Seth, Allira, Khylan and Cole made gifts for their friends and made their day. Tobias, Zak, Max M and Bronte made playthings for their pets. Josh, Juri and Max J made their own games. Megan, Sophie and Laicee made thoughtful gifts for their family members. Braxton made an organiser for Mr Winkel. Cooper made a rain hat and Elijah made a TNT box from Minecraft.

On Wednesday 10 November 2021 Grade 3/4 Sackley went to the Sustainability Centre in Mt Nelson. When we arrived, the students had the opportunity to explore the centre and its incredible displays and learning centres. We sat together and completed the first activity which was to create a name tag using sustainable materials, in this case, bark.

Once we had done this we moved into a classroom and we were given a paper bag with some items in it. We were then required to use these items to create an item. The item could be anything that we wanted to create as a team, but we needed to be able to explain what we created. We had everything from cars, to flying foxes to people.

From there we discussed different types of renewable energy and we discussed each one. We were set a challenge to create a sustainable vehicle.  We worked in groups to create a vehicle design that would be able to race across the room in this case using wind power. We worked together on the design and then worked on creating the vehicle. We had the opportunity to use a range of materials and tools to construct these.

Then we had our race. It was so exciting and interesting to see the cars racing across the room.

We had the best day!

Once all the experiments were finished we had to try to figure out why some went further than others. We looked at the brand of drink, flavour, and whether it was diet or normal sugar. We also looked at whether shaking or squeezing the bottle made a difference.

It was a tricky question, but we learned a few things by entering the data into Microsoft Excel and sorting it in different ways. We now know that diet drinks work best, and that Coca cola brand isn’t as reactive as Woolworths or Pepsi brand.

By the end of the year, we plan on running a few more tests to determine how to make the biggest possible Mentos and fizzy reaction.

On Tuesday 23 November a team of 20 students attended the SPSSA Champions Swimming Carnival.

These students were selected to attend for their outstanding efforts at our Divisional Carnival, in which we placed 2^nd.

Stand out performers on the day were Ivy Holden who qualified for the final of the Grade 3 Girls Aquatic Underarm and Bella Balmer who qualified for the Grade 6 Girls Backstroke.

Well done to Zoe Alexander, Bella Balmer, Hallie Maughan, Shay Hallam, Samantha Cooper, Isaac Taylor, Isaac Hall, Maison Knight, Mahli Bird, Jamie Gibbs, Hannah Stacey, Shonae Naylor, Allison Wilson, Eliza Midgley, Emitt Triffitt, Mia Gilmour, Jobe Rainbird, Ivy Holden, Ashly Haste and Jetta Brown.