Upcoming Events

Professional Learning and Public Holidays

2022 Term Dates

EDPS has had a very settled start to the school year.  At the time of writing this edition, EDPS has been hit with many students being a close COVID contact or themselves tested COVID positive. Please note the majority of students testing positive have shown little to no symptoms. A huge and grateful thank you to parent/carers for your open and honest communications during this time. The Office staff have greatly appreciated the information provided when COVID positive, close contacts and the receipt of medical certificates. I encourage all parents to use the provided RATs each week. If your child or a family member is COVID positive, please contact the office and let us know ASAP. Also you must register each COVID positive RAT result by following the link https://www.coronavirus.tas.gov.au/ and selecting Register your RAT result (see image below).

Our school curriculum program will operate as usual. At times, your child may have a relief teacher, who is trying their best when teachers are sick. Please understand that regular routines may be interrupted, and students may be worried or unsettled due to changes of their teacher so early in the year. If a specialist teacher - Science, ICT, Music, Health and PE - is not at school, these programs will not operate.  

The NWPSSA Interprimary Athletics Carnival has been given the green light to go ahead without spectators. Our Athletics Carnival will look a little different this year. Instead of our usual Athletics Carnival, Mrs Sharman with your child’s teacher will hold try-outs for Years 3 to 6 students. These will be held in an afternoon block mid-term, so selection for inter-primary athletics can be made. The date will be set when COVID cases settles and the majority of students are back on site. We appreciate your support and understanding that spectators will not be invited. 

SRC nominations are in and voting will occur this week. All staff on site will read and vote for their top six nominations.  The announcement of successful applications will be either end of week 4 or early week 5.

Our Pilot School Lunch program will commence on Wednesday 9^th of March (a letter will be sent home next week). TasTAFE will have a set of 3 menu items each Wednesday. They are Spaghetti Bolognaise, Butter Chicken and rice, Savoury Mince and Mash.  Students make a choice of 1 of the 3 items on a Wednesday morning, The TasTAFE class will cook it freshly and deliver to the classroom in takeaways for lunch eating time.  There will be no cost. A huge thank you to TasTAFE and Loaves and Fishes for their support of this program.

We farewelled Mr Neville Horton last Thursday with a morning tea. Neville was employed at East Devonport Primary School for 23 and half years as a permanent Education Facility Attendant. He was employed part-time in this role for 12 months before becoming permanent. Neville was a highly capable and hardworking member of our school who built strong relationships with current and past staff, students and families. We will miss you Neville and wish you all the best for your retirement. 

Kayla Simpson - 1 Simpson

My name is Kayla Simpson and I am teaching Year 1 at EDPS. It is my first year on class from graduating university with my Bachelor of Early Childhood Education in 2021. I undertook my Practicum last year in 1-2 Portlock and thoroughly enjoyed my time here, so I was very excited when I was offered a position. I look forward to a great year at EDPS.

Eve Marcus - PrepSM & Early Years AST

My name is Eve Marcus and this year will be my 17^th year as a Primary Teacher. I've just recently moved here from NSW where I was an Assistant Principal. I am really enjoying being closer to family in Tasmania and have loved getting to know the East Devonport community. I have experience teaching students from Kindergarten to Year 6 and am looking forward to having a positive impact at EDPS. Please come and say hello when you see me around the school.

Nico Toorenburg - Art

My name is Nico Toorenburg lovingly referred to as Mr T. I have been teaching for approximately 30 years predominately in the private school sector before moving to Tasmania from Queensland. I retired in 2010 because of my health and with a change in climate in Tasmania I have found a new strength and excitement to return to teaching mainly as a relief teacher.

I have held various positions or responsibility in schools in both middle management and management and it is great to be teaching face to face with young people again. I am teaching art this term which is great fun. My wife is an artist and early childhood trained so together we collaborate on the learning your children program to be implemented in the classroom.

Coral Crossin - 6 Crossin

My name is Coral Crossin, and I am excited to be working at EDPS. I began my teaching career as a mature aged student and started at Railton, followed by Latrobe Primary and then Sassafras Primary Schools. I made the transition to Latrobe High School, some 15 years ago, teaching a variety of subjects, but mainly Science to years 7, 8 and 9. My hobbies are bushwalking and working in my garden. 

Tessa Lee - Music

My name is Tessa Lee, I am a mum at East Devonport Primary School (my twins are in Prep this year), and this year, I have begun work as the Music Teacher here at East. I started teaching music at Smithton High School about 10 years ago, and then spent two years at Latrobe High (where I met Mrs Crossin!). Next up was teaching part-time at Nixon St Primary, before transferring here. I love singing, performing, and playing guitar in my spare time, as well as gardening (zucchini anyone?!). I'm really pumped to get the early years singing and playing instruments this year, as well as continuing with the dedicated Choir crew. You'll see me around on Wednesdays, as well as dropping my kids off every other day. 

Kerrie Lee - School Social Worker

Hello, my name is Kerrie and I am really happy to be East Devonport Primary School’s Social Worker this year. I have worked in lots of schools in and around Devonport over the years, most recently Reece High, and actually started my career at East Devonport Primary over 20 years ago. It’s great to be back and I am looking forward to meeting students and families. I share my week between East Devonport and Hillcrest Primary and am here on Mondays and Tuesday mornings. Outside of school I love seeing my (grown up) children, painting and looking at other people’s art and taking my dogs to the beach.

Admin Team - Melissa, Gail and Jess

Whilst we are not new to EDPS many new faces do not get the chance to see ours right now! We have provided support to the EDPS team for many years, and have even had the chance to see previous students bringing their own children to attend.

EFAs - Steve, Kaye, Ann, Kerrie

Steve, Kaye and Ann all started here as relief staff in 2020. Steve is now a permanent member of our team. Kerrie has been with us for some time now as relief. Most recently she has been supporting the EFA team in additional cleaning measures for COVID. Have you noticed the excellent work this team has done in maintaining the grounds (especially the time and effort in the front garden).

For the first two weeks of the school year we have had four UTAS practicum students join us. These students will return on Monday 30 May and complete a further four weeks of teaching practicum.

David Metske. Fun fact: I was born in Europe and can speak two languages (Dutch and English)

Steven Connelly. Fun Fact: I love to run! Especially over long distance!

In the first week of school as a collaborative task the students in Year 3 to Year 6 were encouraged to complete a star for our display, Stars of 2022. The stars will then be used as a border for future displays. The students have loved looking for their stars.

Hello Everyone!

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Alex. I am the School Health Nurse for East Devonport Primary School, and visit every week on a Monday.

School Health Nurses focus on prevention, early detection, and health promotion/education. If it relates to health and wellbeing, I can usually provide some level support and assistance.

I have spent over ten years nursing on the North West Coast, and have a good knowledge of what health services are available for children and their families. If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s health, or you aren’t quite sure who to ask or where to start, I am always happy to help and steer you in the right direction.

For the first five weeks of Term 1, I will be spending time in classrooms building relationships with teachers and students. Your child may come home and tell you their class read a book or played a game with Nurse Alex!

You can contact me via the office, or via email on alex.clark@education.tas.gov.au

Warm Regards,

Nurse Alex

Students had a fantastic start to Art this week. For the younger ones it was their first introduction to the Art room and all the wonderful materials within.

We introduced and revised the Primary colours (Red, Blue and Yellow) and Secondary colours (Green, Purple and Orange) and did activities that centred around those colours. Some got to do some hands-on painting while the majority will have full painting lessons next week to work on their art projects.

Year 3 and 4 will be working on landscapes using only the secondary colours while Year 5 and 6 will be working with only Primary colours in the style of Dutch Artist Piet Mondrain.

Regards Mr T.

The first four days of Kinder have been all about getting into our routines and building relationships within the classroom. We have been having lots of fun outside doing this, building strong bodies as we play.

Wow! What a fabulous start to the school year. Prep SM have just finished their first full week of school and they were enthusiastic till the last bell!

Our Prep students have been learning all about school routines and expectations this week. They have been practicing making good choices and following instructions. We know that to get the best of our learning time, we need to be ready to listen and try our best.

During reading sessions, PrepSM have been learning to retell the main idea of a story. They have enjoyed listening to lots of stories and were very keen to borrow their own books to read from the school library.

During Maths PrepSM have been practicing counting and exploring different ways to represent numbers.

Mrs Marcus and Mrs Smith

Students in 2M have been brain storming ideas about why it is important to have and follow expectations in the classroom. 

In 2P we have has created some balloons to demonstrate the places they will go this year.

Having fun reading in the library.

We have been very busy in Year 3M.

Students drew a picture of themselves and brainstormed different adjective words to describe themselves. Then students wrote sentences using their words to describe who they are.

We also started a unit of learning focused around decisions, choices and rules. The students traced their hands and wrote a statement of choice that makes their life awesome.

We also took the opportunity of the lovely warm weather to complete some maths learning outside. The students skip counted on the lines near the canteen. Some students skip counted in 2s, 5s, 10s, 100s and even 1000s.

Finally, students got to finish their Japanese Koi, Sea Salt Art with Water colour paints.

Students are investigating the relationship between multiplication and division with hands activities.

Reading Groups in 4 Sherriff. Students are reading and learning about strategies and how to use these strategies to improve their reading and comprehension.

Students in Year 5 have been practising their chance skills through dice games.

During HASS we were looking at the environment around us and in particular the precarious nature of Bass Strait. We learned that there is such a thing as "The Bass Strait Triangle" and covered a major mystery from 1978. Ayden has provided a synopsis as to what he thought may have happened given some of the information surrounding his disappearance.

This week our first Science has focused on learning about cooperation, team work and persevering with challenging tasks. Year 6 Crossin did an amazing job and were proud of their achievements.

It was fantastic to see Jill and Leroy back on deck for the Story Dogs Program this year. The mission for the Story Dogs Program is to make reading fun for children, so they become confident lifelong readers. 

Story Dog Facts

• We help over 2570 children each week
• There are 521 current volunteer Dog Teams
• We partner with 353 schools in NSW, QLD, VIC, TAS, WA, SA, ACT
• We have 344 Dog Teams fully funded

The Sports Shed is up and running again this year. Our wonderful Sports Leaders are volunteering their time to ensure that all students have an opportunity to borrow equipment to play with at recess and lunch. It is a great way for students to stay fit and active while having fun.

Soccer registrations will soon be open for any children in Kinder through to Year 6 interested in joining a team. Season starts Saturday 2^nd April and goes through until the end of August. Games are played on a Saturday morning at Meercroft Park Devonport.  For more information please request to join our Facebook page - East Devonport Soccer 2022 or contact Prue Marshall via email on prue.marshall86@gmail.com