We are excited about what lays ahead over the next few weeks! We have our school Disco, whole school performance and Footy Colours Breakfast. We cannot wait to see our community back on site!

New Public Holiday

Due to the passing of the Queen, we will have a public holiday next Thursday 22 September. Unfortunately, we did have a few events planned for this day which we have had to shift. Our Footy Colours Breakfast and Staff vs Students footy match will be held on Friday 23 September. Kinder students will be encouraged to wear their sporting colours on Wednesday 21 September and still attend the breakfast on Friday with an adult.

Teacher Assistants Appreciation Day

Last Wednesday we celebrated our Teacher Assistants with a special morning tea. We cannot thank these staff enough for what they do to support our school. The work they do alongside staff and students is amazing and without them our school would not function. A huge thank you from all our community for the wonderful work they do.

Chess Tournament

The inaugural Austins Ferry Primary School Interschool Chess Tournament was held last Friday with seven schools participating. Our school team finished in second place and qualified for the state finals. Our students represented our school with courage and aspiration. We would also like to thank Mr Gatenby for his work supporting and organising this event.

Parent/Teacher phone calls (Reporting Term 3)

A reminder to all parents/carers that we are currently undertaking parent-teacher phone calls as part of our Term 3 reporting requirements. If you have not booked a phone call time please use the link below to complete this.
https://www.schoolinterviews.com.au/code/vxatc

If parents/carers don't book a time teachers are still required to make contact and will try and call directly, this is often difficult and we do not catch parents/carers at convenient times. To avoid these issues please use the link to book a phone call with your child's class teacher.

Hats – Term 4

As we head into Spring, our Hat Policy will be implemented in Term 4. I would like to highlight that at the beginning of Term 4 all students will be required to wear a school bucket hat or similar. No students will be permitted to wear non-school caps as these do not support our Sun Smart Policy or provide sufficient protection to face and neck. Any students in Term 4 who bring non-school caps to school will be asked to remove them and told to sit in the courtyard under the shade during breaks. We ask families to support this policy and ensure all students are sun safe.

The 2022 School Satisfaction Surveys are coming!

Every year the Department of Education conducts School Satisfaction Surveys to find out what your child(ren)'s school does well and where it may improve.

We would be grateful if you completed our online survey about Austins Ferry Primary School. Your feedback is very important to help us inform our school planning and decision-making.

The survey is open from Monday 29 August 2022 until Friday 23 September 2022 and should take about 5 minutes to complete.

Take the online survey by clicking this link or pasting it in your browser: https://ncv.microsoft.com/cNRutDEywz

The survey is carried out on a secure website and all responses are anonymous and confidential.

All families in this school received the same survey link and no identifying information is collected. A summary of the survey results will be provided to schools, with responses from individuals or small groups NOT disclosed to any Department of Education staff.

Please contact AFPS if you require any assistance.

Thank you for taking the time to fill in this survey.

Mr Nicholas

New changes to COVID-19 isolation

Public Health has recently changed the mandatory COVID-19 isolation period from seven days to five days.

This means COVID-19 cases can leave isolation, provided they:

• are no longer displaying symptoms on Day 5 of their isolation period, and
• have had no fever for 24 hours prior to Day 5.

People that leave isolation on or after Day 5 must wear a face mask in all settings for Days 5, 6 and 7 – even if they are not displaying symptoms. People are strongly recommended to wear a face mask indoors on Days 8, 9 and 10.

Students under the age of 12 and all primary school students are not required to wear face masks when leaving isolation.

To read more about this change, please visit the Tasmanian Government Coronavirus website.

For any COVID-19 enquiries, please contact the Tasmanian Public Health Hotline on 1800 671 738, or Department of Education COVID-19 Support Hotline at COVID19support@education.tas.gov.au or on 1800 816 057.

If you need support translating or interpreting this information, contact the Translating and Interpreting Service on 131 450.

The Year 6 Leadership Camp at Gumleaves will be occuring in early Term 4 - Wednesday 2 November 2022 to Friday 4 November 2022. Would parents/carers please ensure that payment of $50 is made to the school office by Wednesday 26 October 2022.

Cash or EFTPOS payments can be made at the school office or via the Qkr! app.

In 3/4 Gollogly we have been developing our informative writing skills by exploring the language features and structure of an informative text. The three endangered species we have written about are the Tasmanian devil, spotted handfish, and striped marsh frog, all of which can be found in Tasmania. While researching and learning about these creatures, we practised note taking and built our own descriptions of the animals using facts. To accompany our written work, we have created diagrams of the animals by ‘painting with paper’. This process involved tearing up paper to create a collaged portrait of each animal.   

This term, the class was also very busy completing the Swimming and Water Safety Program at the Aquatic Centre. Throughout the course, we saw the students grow and gain more confidence within themselves. Their courage and perseverance have been admirable!

There has been lots happening in our room this term! We are working hard to develop our inquiry skills, to share our wonderings, ask questions, research our answers, and share our findings with others.

We started the term investigating ‘How can we have a positive impact on our environment?’ We developed a recycling station in our classroom to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill! We love using our recycling station, especially taking our compost to the school garden.

This week we have started our second inquiry ‘Why is the ocean important?’. This is because we have an exciting excursion happening in week 10! We have all chosen an ocean animal to research and cannot wait to become experts and teach others. 

In Prep Luttrell students have been investigating materials and their properties. On Thursday 8 September Prep Luttrell together with Prep/1 Seymour, went on an excursion to The Recovery Shop in Glenorchy to further explore materials and how they can be recycled. Students engaged in discussion around sculptures that had been made around the grounds of The Recovery Shop using recycled materials. Students were able to identify materials used and could explain why those materials were chosen.

On Friday 16 September 2022 we are excited to host 2 student performances at Austins Ferry Primary as a final celebration of Book Week. Each performance is based on a book shortlisted from the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards 2022.

At 9:30am there will be a performance of Stellarphant for the younger students. 

At 11:30am there will be a performance of The Detective’s Guide to Ocean Travel for the older students.