It is week 8 already! With only 2 weeks of school remaining in 2022, there is so much to celebrate! It is vital that our community keep up to date with our socials to ensure everyone is aware of dates, times and details of events. Our students are hard at work finalising their end of year activities and teachers are busily putting together reports and performances for end of year events. We are really excited to welcome our community back on site for these events with limited restrictions!

Recently, we have also been receiving very pleasing student results linked with our PAT testing and Di Siemon’s Big ideas in number testing. The structures and strategies being developed by staff through inquiry rounds is having a great impact, which is fantastic to see.

Christmas Carols event – Thursday 8 December

We are excited that our annual Carols event will take place again this afternoon! We will have the general class stalls which will sell a variety of craft, games and food items. Mr Curley will again support classes to present carols on the courtyard steps with some special guests throughout the night.

Primary Schools Triathlon

I would like to say a big thank you to Mr Bailey for supporting this event and organising with families the logistics behind bikes and teams. We had around 40 students participate in the event and we were very lucky to have had fantastic weather. I would also like to thank our parents, including Mrs Midgley, who supported with bike transport on the day.

Awards Assemblies

It is very important that during these end of year events families limit their attendance to 2 people per child. We have limited space in our gym and with COVID restrictions hanging in the background we want to ensure the safety for all of our community. Both the Prep-2 and Year 3-6 Awards Assemblies will be beginning at 9:15am in our gym.

2023 Class Placements

We have now finalised class lists and begun early transition steps for those students who require more support. Some students with a learning plan will receive information about their 2023 class teacher shortly, followed by visits over the coming weeks. All other students will receive their class placements alongside end of year reports on Monday 19 December and meet new class teachers on Wednesday 21 December.

The School Association Christmas Raffle will be drawn next Thursday 15 December at the Year 3-6 Awards Assembly.

Please return the raffle books either sold or unsold to the school office no later than Tuesday 13 December 2022.

A big thank you to those families that have already sold and returned books. If you are able to sell more tickets please contact the school office.

Prizes to date include:

2 X Christmas Hampers

$80 Woolworths voucher donated by Elise Archer

2 X $50 vouchers for Mezethes Greek Taverna donated by Stas

$50 voucher for Coffee on Wyndham donated by Mark

$50 voucher for Moonah Bar & Cellars donated by Kristie Johnston

$30 voucher for Pop of Sass Nails & Beauty donated by Stacey

Ukele donated by Madeline Ogilvie

Bottle of wine donated by Andrew Wilkie

Bonorong Park - children passes

Levies are one of the many ways that families contribute to our school community.  Levies support student learning by contributing towards the cost of essential items and services. After consultation with the School Association the following levies have been set for 2023: 

Kindergarten              $180.00

Prep – Year 6              $245.00

When setting school levies and charges the school:

• Considers inclusive education, community expectations and family financial constraints
• Sets levies at the lowest amount possible
• Consults with the School Association of the school

This levy contributes to the cost of your child’s education program and includes learning materials, stationery, performances and excursions.

Levy invoices will be mailed to parents/carers in early February 2023.  There is an expectation that levy payments will be finalised by the end of Term 1 – Wednesday 5 April 2023.

Payment of levies and charges can be made by:

• Cash, cheque or credit card at the school office during office opening hours
• Bpay using the Biller Code and Reference on your invoice
• Service Tasmania by cash, cheque or credit card
• By mail - forward your cheque, money order or credit card details to the school, with the payment slip from your invoice attached
• Qkr!
• Using Centrepay – a service provided by Centrelink

Parents/carers are encouraged to discuss payment of levies and charges as early as possible if there is difficulty in affording any element of the levy or charge. Please make a time to speak with the School Business Manager, Rhonda Turner, by phone 6275 7222 or email: rhonda.turner@decyp.tas.gov.au.   A levy instalment plan including Centrepay is made available to parents/carers who are unable to make a full payment at the beginning of the new school year.

Instalment plans offer flexible, sensitively negotiated payment options to assist parents/carers to budget for this cost. Payments can be made weekly, fortnightly, monthly or at other agreed times after payment of an affordable deposit.  Please see the School Business Manager for assistance with this process.

Students will not be prevented from participating in any learning activities that are part of the curriculum if their levies have not been paid.

If your family has not paid their levies by the due date and has not organised to pay in instalments, the school will be in contact to remind you that payment is due and will check to see if your family requires support. If your levies remain unpaid and the school has sent two follow-up letters the matter will be forwarded to Finance and Budget Services within the Department for Education, Children and Young People to be followed up.  Under no circumstances will the status of payment of levies or charges be discussed directly with students.

You are a valued member of our school community and we welcome your feedback on levies and charges at our school.

You can contact School Business Manager, Rhonda Turner, if you have any questions or would like to talk about levies at our school. Personal information relating to levies will always be treated with total confidentiality.

The levies and charges we receive from families supports our school to deliver learning opportunities for all students. Thank you for your contribution.

Families who were approved and received STAS in 2022 have been sent correspondence regarding STAS 2023 directly from the Department and do not need to complete another STAS application.

If you are a new enrolment or believe that your family circumstances have changed and feel that you may meet the eligibility criteria you are able to apply for STAS 2023.  The eligibility criteria means that if a parent holds a current Centrelink Health Care Card, Pension Concession Card or Department of Veteran's Affairs Concession Card they are eligible to apply for STAS.

Families can apply online on the Department's web page at: www.decyp.tas.gov.au

Hard copy application forms are available from the school office.

If you wish to add a newly enrolling family member to your STAS file (a Kindergarten student) please email your name, the student's full name, date of birth, year level and the school they will be attending to stas@decyp.tas.gov.au

In 5/6 West we were privileged enough to have Sally Sunshine come along and take us for a balloon making masterclass! She showed us how to make dogs, belts, hats and swords and then gave us the opportunity to put in to practice all the skills we had learned together! It was great to be able to share in this activity with our buddy class 1/2 Smith. We really appreciate Sally coming in and taking us for this experience. 

Year 3/4 Sackley have been learning about Poetry in Literacy. We have been learning all about poetic techniques and have practiced using them in our writing. One of the techniques that we looked at was 'nonsense poems'. We found it really challenging but our poems in the end were great.

We started by looking at the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. We knew that it was a part of Alice in Wonderland books, although it was really hard to understand. We then looked up the words we did not know to see if they were nonsense words or old words that we had not heard before. We were able to find out that some of the words were old Scottish words and when we found out the meaning it helped make sense of the poem. This meant that we could infer what the nonsense words in the poem might have meant.

From there, we wrote a class rhyming poem and added nonsense words. Please enjoy and see if you can make inferences about what our poem might be about.

In 1/2 Howell, our class have been researching countries who are playing in the World Cup (soccer). With the help of our buddy class (5/6 Lewinski), our class researched a country of choice and found interesting facts about that country such as their population, food, cities, festivals and currency.

After our class researched their country, we decided to make the countries flags in Minecraft. Each student was given the chance to plan how they would make their countries flag using an 8x8 grid. They then used that plan to make it in a Minecraft world.

Finally, we gathered our information and sorted it on a A3 poster. You can find our posters and flags outside our classroom in the hall of Green Pod.

1. The senior staff members are very kind.

3. There’s lots of nice kids in the school. 

By Taylor.

COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses (like the flu) are still circulating in Tasmania. The official COVID-19 risk level has been raised to ‘Moderate’.

Together, we need to keep practising our COVID-safe behaviours to manage the risk.

Simple things we can do:

• do not come to school if unwell – stay home and test
• stay at home while you have symptoms, regardless of the result of a rapid antigen test (RAT)
• cover coughs and sneezes and wash your hands with soap and water, or alcohol-based sanitiser
• try to stay a reasonable distance away from others when you can
• consider wearing a face mask if you wish to – they are readily available for use at the school.

All students should ensure they have access to a quantity of RATs. If you need RATs, please ask for them at the school office so they are in your home ready for use if symptoms develop.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the school office.

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.

Summer holidays are an important time for kids with asthma.