As we move closer and closer to the end of the year – I’m continually surprised by how quickly the year passes – schoolwide testing shows just how much children have learnt and understood as a part of the work completed in classrooms this year.

End of year communications with families in the next couple of weeks will again provide information to families through an annotated piece of student work and a report sharing students application to learning. It is worth noting that we have collaborated with neighbouring schools each term this year to moderate student work. Moderation is about teachers understanding the expectations of the Australian Curriculum, looking collaboratively at student work and ensuring there is consistency of teacher judgement. This ensures that all teachers have the same understanding when it comes to assessing student work and assessment between schools is consistent.

PAT testing across the school in the last couple of weeks supports the decisions teachers make regarding how much children have progressed this year. It is great to see so many students take responsibility for their learning, applying themselves to testing in the best possible way. While we encourage students just do their best, it is still a test, which can make some children nervous and stressed. As PAT testing is finalised, teachers will use this data to finalise student assessments for the year and look towards class groups for next year.

Reading has been and will continue to be a priority in our school. It was fantastic to see so many students attend the celebratory excursion to Bounce this week as a result of strong home reading. We can’t stress enough the importance of parents supporting children to master reading by reading. We encourage families to continue working with children at home. Read to your children, have them read to you, talk about the stories you read. When you are out and about talk about the environmental print that is always around us – what’s on billboards, signs and advertising. When we have strong literacy skills the challenge of other learning is so much more achievable.

As the end of the school year approaches, we also review student attendance – it’s really disheartening to see students who don’t succeed – for many it is because of poor attendance. There is a direct correlation between student attendance and learning. Students won’t learn if they are not at school. Several parents have shared with me that they find it hard to get children to school and having two children of my own – I understand what you are saying. However, we owe it to our children to give them every possible opportunity to succeed at school. Please persevere of a morning. Please be extra firm and get them up, dressed and to school. If you can do that – we can do the teaching and support learning!

Most importantly, it is still work as usual in classrooms. We still have more than half a term to go – it is so important that all children can be successful.

Imaginative Stories:

Kinder/Prep Gray students have been learning about the basic differences between informative and imaginative books. The focus of the last few weeks has been characters, settings, and story structure in picture books.  As part of this, the students brainstormed and voted on a main character, where this character might live, and then thought up a problem for the middle of the story that needed to be solved.  This resulted in the story of Fatemeh the mermaid who needed to be rescued from a big, grey shark by Super Gherkin! The student’s storytelling and illustrations showcase their amazing imagination and creativity! Way to go, K/P Gray 

Mrs Emily and some of the Kinder/Prep students 

Prep/1 have been thinking about how we collect information and show it in different ways. They had fun making these monster glyphs. Can you answer these questions. 

In prep/1, how many people like apples the best? 

Can you say how many people are an only child? 

What do we have more of - people born in spring and summer or people born in autumn and winter?  

Grade 3/4 Grech have made a great start to the final term of the year. Students arrived back from the holidays ready to get straight into their learning. We have been having a big focus on our sentence writing, which will continue throughout the term. Students are working on writing more complex sentences, and challenging themselves with the punctuation they are using. They are also being encouraged to continue their nights of reading and get as many done before the end of the year arrives.

Our maths focuses for this term will be angles, probability and fractions. We have already made a great start on angles, learning about the different types, and finding them in our environment.

Our science for this term is Earth Science, where we will be learning about the properties of rocks, soils and minerals. We have been investigating different soil samples and have created soil solutions that will show us what soil is made up of.

We are looking forward to all the exciting things coming up in term 4, including excursions, Christmas performances and more!

Hi my name is Nee Hser Ku and I'm absolutely thrilled to be sharing what I did in the first term. I wrote a letter to three members of parliament  Mrs. Tanya Plibersek, Dr. Rosalie Woodruff, and Mr. Anthony Albanese telling and showing my idea to help with ocean pollution. I also convinced them to do something about plastic pollution in our oceans. The best part? They responded positively!

Have your say on Child & Youth Safety in Glenorchy

LINK: www.letstalk.gcc.tas.gov.au/child-youth-safety (QR code and poster attached)

A new law was passed in Tasmania earlier this year called the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Act (2023). Under this new law, Glenorchy City Council needs to make sure that everyone who works or volunteers for Council, lives in the City of Glenorchy or uses Council facilities understands their rights, their responsibilities and how they can report any concerns about children or young people’s safety.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Fill out this survey before 30 November 2023 – leave your email address to enter the draw to win some great family prizes:

• Adult prize: Village Cinema family ticket (4 people)
• Youth prize (15-24): $50 JB Hifi vouchers
• Children’s prize (14 and under): $30 Big W vouchers

Annual Future Direction Survey

LINK: www.letstalk.gcc.tas.gov.au/future-direction-survey (QR code and poster attached)

Glenorchy continues to grow. There are more houses being built, and more families choosing to live and work here. Council services are fundamental to supporting this growth.

Let us know your thoughts about Council’s future direction and budget priorities for the 12 months from 30 June 2024.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Complete the Survey before 15 December 2023, you will go in the draw to WIN 1 of 3 $100 Shopping Vouchers!

Cultural Celebration Grants 

LINK: https://www.gcc.tas.gov.au/services/community/grants-sponsorships-and-funding/ (QR code attached)

Grants of up to $25,000 are available through Council’s Cultural Celebrations Grants Program.  Activities supported through the grants should aim to break down barriers by showcasing cultural diversity and welcome people from different cultures. Activities could include cultural events, musical performances, cultural demonstrations or workshops, food stalls or cultural cooking classes, etc.

Applications are open now until 31 March 2024, or until the funding is expended.

Item 6: Free NBN Internet for Eligible Students

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AUDIENCE: ALL SCHOOLS

Share with: Families

The Australian Government School Student Broadband Initiative (SSBI) follows a commitment to deliver access to 12 months of free broadband for up to 30 000 families with school-aged children who are not connected at home to a retail service via the NBN network.  SSBI is a targeted affordability measure to help boost education opportunities.

To be eligible for the SSBI, families must have at least one child studying in a Tasmanian school in grades K-12 and live at premises with no active broadband service over the NBN network.

SSBI is a national initiative and quotas will be used to enable an equitable distribution of services between the states and territories.

The SSBI is to be available across all NBN technologies (Fibre, Fixed Wireless and Satellite) with a 50/20Mbps speed tier and a modem/router to be included. This means that NBN will install connection equipment at the premises of the student. The internet connection will be a standard unfiltered NBN internet connection, which will need moderation of use by the student’s parent or carer.

The student will need access to a device for use on the NBN service. This may be a device 'loaned' to the student from their school where available.

Families can contact the National Referral Centre on 1800 954 610 (Mon-Fri, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm AEDT) or by visiting www.anglicarevic.org.au/student-internet.

Information to include in newsletters for parents and families is attached.

AFL Tasmania are running a Superkick program for girls aged 8-12 commencing on the 9^th of November in Hobart. This program is perfect for girls that are looking for more than Auskick but aren’t quite ready for competition footy. Superkick will run for 6-weeks in Hobart and cost $50 per participant (participants will receive a footy). Each of the sessions will include some skill-based activities (warm up) and football games with modified rules (no tackling). The aim of the program is to help girls develop their footy skills and practice playing the game. The program is suitable for all different levels of experience, from those playing for the first time to girls looking to further develop their skills.

If you want to become the next AFLW player, have fun or make some new friends, Superkick is a great program to join.      

Link to join https://www.playhq.com/afl/register/ca1232