Upcoming Events

Professional Learning and Public Holidays

2022 Term Dates

Today the SRC Executive, on behalf of the East Devonport School Community said thank you to the TasTAFE students who have been preparing our lunches on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during term 1 and term 2. The adult students have been learning all aspects of kitchen hygiene and food preparation. We are greatly appreciative the work their teacher, Mr Keith Sanderson, has invested into this program and how well it has operated over the 16 weeks, providing us delicious lunches. Below are photos of the TasTAFE students receiving their gifts from the SRC executive members.

Mr Keith Sanderson will train the next group of students during term 3 and term 4. The lunch program for Tuesday-Wednesday will not start until the 15^th of August (week 4) as the adult students will need to complete the hygiene training before starting in the Kitchen. If you are interested in being part of this program, please see the flyer included in this edition of the newsletter.

The Pilot school lunch program (Mondays) will start in week 2. Consent forms will not need to be completed if you have returned in term 2. As with term 2, students must arrive to school by 9.30am to order lunch. This day is run by volunteers.

We would like to update families that the team at School Food Matters, alongside Department of Health and Loaves and Fishes Tasmania have been working hard to improve their allergen management systems. Whilst they have made considerable progress more time is required to design and implement a risk management plan for food allergens for the School Lunch Project. As a result they are not able to provide food to students with an allergy or intolerance for the remainder of the 2022 school year. At this stage all meals provided by Loaves and Fishes may contain traces of allergens and substances that trigger food intolerances.

With COVID and now the flu we have had many families absent over the last fortnight.  A huge thank you to the parents who have contacted the office. Let’s hope the flu virus has passed us and we are flu free for term 3.

Reminders:

• Assembly this Friday. Sorry only invited parents to attend due to the assembly being whole school, the GP Hall does not have COVID capacity to hold too many adults.
• East Devonport Rotary will cook for us on Friday – sausage sizzle. A huge thank you to the team that volunteer to do this for us each term.
• NAIDOC week – on Friday, students who have permission (returned form) can try kangaroo sausage and/or mussels. Thank you to our Aboriginal Worker, Mrs Rebecca Hendrick for organising this.

Swimming and Water Safety (3-5)/Water Orientation (Prep-2) programs start from Monday 8 August next term. Major Excursion and Aquatic Consent forms will be sent home to students on the first day of term 3 and MUST be returned in order to participate.

I wish everyone a warm, safe, and enjoyable holiday break and we return on Tuesday 26^th of July.

Every school day counts

Getting kids to school isn’t always easy. But being at school is the best place for our kids.

If your child is unwell, they need to stay home. But if your child is well enough to attend school, they should be at school. Every day, Monday to Friday.

Reality of missing school

Data shows us that regular school attendance is one of the best things a child can do to set them up for success. But if they don’t attend, things get harder for them.

Let’s do the maths:

• If your child misses even just one day a fortnight, that adds up to 20 days of the school year. That’s the same as missing four whole weeks of school!
• If they miss one day a week, that doubles to eight weeks of school they’ll never get back.
• Over the course of their childhood, that equals two and a half years of vital education they’ll never receive…

We mean it, every school day counts. It all adds up.

Bright futures begin at school

The data also tells us something else: the better a child’s attendance rate, the better off they’ll be. Their future will be filled with more opportunities.

School is where they learn and grow alongside their friends, and where they benefit the most. Going to school not only promotes academic success, but also helps build important social skills, relationships and confidence.

Good attendance habits in primary school lead to good attendance habits in high school. This will help expand your child’s options even further as they grow older.

Watch this video to see the benefits of going to school.

It’s ok if you need help

If you’re struggling to get your child to school, help is available. Please talk to us at school about your situation. We’ll support you, in whatever way we can.

The last two weeks of term has seen a large number of our children and staff sick with cold symptoms and a nasty cough resulting in our whole school attendance dropping below 80% for a number of days. This can’t be helped and it is great parents have been vigilant in keeping their children home when they have been unwell. Hopefully next term we can try and increase our whole school daily attendance to 90%. Well done to Mrs Sherriff’s class who has had a number of days where their class attendance has been 100%. As an acknowledgement of this, the class enjoyed some extra time added on to their recess.

Playgroup

Our Launching into Learning program is going so well since we returned to in-person fun! Our Thursday afternoon playgroup has been filled with creativity in art, jewellery design and playdough creations. It is fantastic to see our regulars and we look forward to increasing our amazing network of little people. 

Pre Kinder

Pre Kinder sessions are held in the Kinder class on Wednesdays from 1.15pm. This gives our children the opportunity to engage with their future classmates, increase their gross motor skills and just have fun!

Wednesday Morning Play Sessions

We have been having fun on Wednesday mornings. Last week we made all kinds of interesting mixes in our potion creation and created some leaf masterpieces with paint and leaves. 

Kangaroo Kids

On Friday 29 July (first week of term 3), Kangaroo Kids will not be on due to the Devonport Jazz performance in the school GP Hall. Bookings are essential, please contact the CFLC to secure your place.

Thank you to those parents who attended our recent parent teacher conversations. Teachers and parents reported rich conversations about children's learning. This year our number of interviews was down which is very unfortunate. It appears that our interviews coincided with the nasty cold going around our community. It would be great if we have 100 percent of our families attend the next parent teacher sessions offered as it is a great way to work in partnership with each other to achieve the best outcomes for your child. 

On Monday classes had an incursion with Cheryl from People Improvers to present the ReThink Waste presentation "What goes in which bin?". Students got to learn about what is recyclable, how to reduce landfill and how products are made from recycled plastic and are used in our community such as walkways and seats.

During NAIDOC week the students enjoyed learning about the history and culture of Indigenous Australians through art.

The students in 3-4S recently learned about Andy Warhol: ‘The Pop Art King.’ Pop art is a style of art based on simple, bold images of everyday items, such as soup cans, painted in bright colors. Pop artists created pictures of consumer product labels and packaging, photos of celebrities, comic strips, and animals. 3-4S practiced this using self portraits. They had to make sure each different shade of their face was a different, bright colour.

In science we have be learning about force. Force can be a push or a pull. Prep and year 1 students created a party popper and applied a pull force to release their confetti, which was environmentally friendly, made from cut up dried leaves.

It is always very busy in Kinder. This week we have played in the sand pit, worked on our fine motor skills with scissors, imaginative play and counting fun.

In Maths 5 Welling are talking about volume. In our groups we have been making a metre cubed so we can better visualise what that measurement means in real life. This is a good test of teamwork and a challenge to ensure stability of our cubes.

Both classes have been enjoying conducting their own experiments with a focus on control/variables/fair testing and using skills such as being able to form a hypothesis, use observation and measure during testing and formulate a conclusion. Everyone has been very motivated in their task design.

For  the last two weeks, classes have enjoyed a session during PE/Health with AFL Tasmania. The students really improved their skill development. 

Check out our Published Persuasive Writing texts

Year 3 have been exploring Procedure Writing. We deconstructed the procedure, How to Make Fairy Bread and then the students had a go at making Fairy Bread. Students have now been learning how to write detailed instructions. When students were making the Fairy Bread they realised that the instructions in the procedure were not very detailed, such as how much butter to put on the butter knife and how cut the bread in triangles.

Our first group of ten students have completed their 14 week program facilitated by Kristine Bull from Pathways Shed. Last Wednesday, the students invited Kristine, Kylie  and their parents to a morning tea where they each stood up and read what they had thought about the program. It appears all of our students loved the program and have felt they have benefitted from participating in it. If you would like your child to be involved in the next intake, please contact Mrs Whish-Wilson.

Congratulations to Spirit House for having the most points at the end of Term 2. Points were collated from Thumbs up Cards and also points from the cross Country. Spirit House enjoyed a scavenger hunt and icepole to celebrate their winning efforts. This year our Thumbs Up winners have received a $2.00 canteen voucher when Thumbs up draws have taken place.

Students in 4S have been looking at alliteration as part of our literacy learning. Alliteration is when the beginning sounds of words repeat. Some examples include:  

• A paper plane passed over my head
• Paula planted petunias in the pot
• Red roses wrapped in ribbons
• Names - Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, Spongebob Squarepants
• Tongue twister - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

Every student from Prep-Year 6 have made a car from a kit sourced by Mrs Kylie Clinton. During science lessons. each class is going to race their car along a track to see who will represent their class in a whole school event Thursday afternoon. This will see class winners race off to see who will be crowned EDPS 2022 Racing Car Champion. Year 5 and 6’s also will be competing in who will be crowned Balloon Car champion. 

In 2H we have been looking at informal and formal units of measurement. We cut out and used dinosaur footprints to informally measure items in our classroom. Some students even measured the length of our whole classroom.

6C have been working on improving their fluency by reading plays. Reading plays gives students the opportunity to improve listening skills, adjust and apply different reading rates to match a text and to show feeling in voices to read like the characters. The group below are praactising the play “The Gingerbread Man” and are beginning to add stick puppets and change their voices to match their allocated characters.

6C have also started daily PE.  Students have been paired and allocated a day on which they choose and run an activity for 15 minutes.  Activites that have been played so far are fruit salad, golden child, koabangan (find the hidden object) and soccer. Everyone, leader and participants, are having a great time.

Paper planes were flying around in 6C last week. Students were required to make three planes – to make the first plane, students had a set of instructions to follow, the second plane used the same instructions but students could alter the plane in a small way such as add a weight, alter the wings or dip the nose, while the last plane was a free choice plane. Out of all the designs only one plane made the allocated distance and as you can see from the photo below most planes went everywhere except forward.

In ICT the Prep and Year 1 students were exploring the shapes and drawing options in an app called Pages. They created their dream play grounds. Here are a few samples of the fantastic work they created.

Students in 6 Dolbey have been working on their persuasive writing. Their task: 

You and 5 friends are stuck on a deserted island. You ronly hope of being rescued is to write a persuasive message in a bottle and pray that someone finds it! Would you save them?

Please also see below an exciting piece of creative writing with fantastic ideas, hooking the reader in with excellent word choices, creating a picture in the reader’s mind.

creative_writing.pdf

CU children have been invited by Jesse Brennan from Children’s University to attend a range of activities during the school holidays. These are:

• Sunday 10 July - Burnie Regional Art Gallery 
• Wednesday 13 July - Burnie Regional Museum
• Friday 15 July - Bass Strait Maritime Centre
• Thursday 21 July - Devonport Regional Gallery

Students have been given their fliers and must RSVP if planning to attend.