Upcoming Events

Professional Learning and Public Holidays

2022 Term Dates

Over the past weeks, we have had students out of school due to being a close contact or with COVID. I have been so impressed with student’s attitude and behaviour as they returned to their schooling and settled back into their class routines. Many students inform me they had COVID and chatted about what it was like. It has been very enlightening to hear of a student’s experiences, based on their age, and how they explained COVID. The majority of students have been happy and excited to return to school. 

Congratulations to our office staff for the work in this current COVID setting. Mrs Gail McLaren, Ms Jessica Campbell and Ms Melissa Connors have been managing the extra workload and responding to parent queries. A huge thank you to our parents who have provided information; your honesty has been greatly appreciated. Ms Melissa Connors is our COVID administrator and has been doing a fantastic job keeping up with all the COVID information and changes that have occurred.  She has also visited many of our family’s letterboxes in the East Devonport area, dropping off RATs and information.

Last Friday, all classes went to assigned areas for 'Clean up Australia' to clean up East Devonport Primary School. Everyone was congratulated as there was very little rubbish on site. The most picked up was by 5W, as their area was the front of the school. Many 5W students stated their class collected the most rubbish as it was flown in from the street. Please see photos in this edition.

East Devonport Primary term 1 reports will be a tick box with no comment. Prep to Year 6 reports will be sent home on the 1^st of April.  Kinder will have a parent/teacher conversation over week 7 and week 8.

Reminder: TasTAFE School Lunch Program starts tomorrow (Wednesday 9^th March).  Only students who have returned their signed parent permission form can participate.  A huge thank you to Mr Keith Sanderson and his team of students.

The Passenger Conduct Code for School Bus Services (the Code) sets out the expected standards of behaviour for students when using a bus. It also provides guidance and processes for bus operators and drivers to follow when a student breaches the Code. Please see the link below for the Code.

One of our talented volunteers is Mr Nigel Elliott. As a music teacher Nigel has shared his love and knowledge of music to provide tuition free of charge to groups of our interested students in playing brass instruments once a week in the afternoon since 2014! We would like to thank Mr Elliott for his long partnership with our school. 

This year our school photos are being held on Tuesday 29 March. Students will bring home order forms this week which must be returned in a sealed envelope with correct change to the office before photo day. Please note the office does not have the facilities to provide change. School EFTPOS is not an option to pay for photos as they are conducted by an external supplier.

Sam Jordan our school chaplain, works across three primary schools, East Devonport, Andrews Creek and Miandetta. 

He has completed various training, including a Bachelor of Ministry and a Certificate in Horticulture. Sam has previously served as a youth pastor, has two children, and his wife is a social worker. He has known from his teen years he wanted to make a difference by serving others. Sam finds multiple ways to connect with students, from teaching guitar and woodwork, to kicking a ball in the playground, attending breakfast club, or helping to manage the school garden. For Sam, it’s about being available, present, and investing in the one in front of you.

East Devonport School Association Committee are seeking members for the 2022 year.

Nominations are requested before Friday 18th March and forms can be accessed at the school office.  There are vacancies for 3 parent/community members.  Elections (if more than 3 apply) will be held on Wednesday March 23rd and sucessful nominatees will be notified in time to attend the AGM/Meeting on Tuesday March 29th at 5.30pm.

This year East Devonport Primary School will again be supporting the Children’s University Program. Students who participated last year are encouraged to participate again this year with parental consent rolling over to cover for 2022. On March 15th during lunch, CU facilitator Jesse Brendan will be visiting our school to touch base with our students and to sign up any students who are interested.

Public Health has reviewed their advice about hay fever in the current COVID-19 environment.

Hay fever symptoms are similar to COVID-19 symptoms, so it’s important families know what they need to do if their child experiences hay fever symptoms.

If your child has hay fever symptoms, please keep them at home and test for COVID-19 using a rapid antigen test (RAT).

If your child tests negative on a RAT and symptoms continue, Public Health advises that you must do a second RAT 24 hours later or seek a PCR test.

If the second RAT or PCR remains negative, this is sufficient evidence for your child to return to school if they feel well.

If symptoms change or increase in severity, please see your treating medical practitioner for review.

Please know that Public Health advice can change at short notice, and we appreciate your patience as we respond to these changes as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions, please contact the school office. For more information, please visit the Tasmanian Government Coronavirus website or contact the Tasmanian Public Health Hotline  on 1800 671 738, or Department of Education COVID Support Hotline at COVID19support@education.tas.gov.au or on 1800 816 057

This year in Launching into Learning we have some fantastic programs planned. The start of LIL has been delayed this year but families can access the online LIL sessions each week through the Great Start Website. Sessions include songs, stories and fun activities to do at home. 

Please go to the website https://greatstart.tas.gov.au/ and enter the password lil22 to watch the online sessions. 

We hope to see you at our face-to-face sessions when we start again. 

1 in 6 Australians experience some form of hearing loss in their lifetime.

For 1 in 3 Australians with hearing loss, it could have been prevented.

Source: https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/ear-health

To prevent damage to your hearing:

• Keep your music, TV and radio down — you should be able to easily talk to someone 2 metres away
• If you use headphones or earphones, limit use to an hour at a time then take a break
• Don't listen to music at more than 60% of the maximum volume

Source: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/hearing-loss#prevented

Some reasons parents may get their children’s hearing checked include:

• They have trouble focusing or paying attention
• They seem slow to respond when they can’t see the person speaking
• They look at others around them to figure out what to do (especially in preschool or school)
• They have frequent ear infections or earaches
• You’re concerned about their speech development

 

Source: Hearing Australia Brochure - “Hearing and your child”

If you have any concerns about your child’s ability to hear, you can request a free hearing assessment at school with your School Health Nurse, Alex. Please talk to your child’s teacher or call the school office for more information on making an appointment to see Alex.

Last week students in Kinder read the story "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss. As a follow on from this we had fun making scrambled green eggs and ham in the classroom.

In Kinder we have been learning with imaginative play, messy play and name recognition.

In Prep we have started a unit of work in reading about fairy tales. This week we looked at the story of the Three little pigs. We have been learning to retell the story through puppets and story stones and sequencing the pictures in the story. We have also been learning to recognise rhyming words within the story and how to show feelings in our voice and read like the characters.

We have also had a full week taking part in our Letters and Sounds program and have learnt the first four sounds- s, a, t, p.

In Maths, we have been focussing on counting forwards and backwards to and from 10. We have also been learning to sort and group familiar objects. Students knew they would be successful if they were able to sort objects into two or more groups and explain why. They were given a mixture of items from around the classroom to sort collaboratively. Some of the groupings included warm and cool colours, colours, soft and hard, yellow and not yellow.

Mrs Smith and Mrs Marcus

2 Portlock have been focusing on letter formation during handwriting sessions. In writing we have been learning about our ideas for writing. We wrote about feelings and we created more specific ideas for our writing using stairs.

Students in 2M having been participating in hands on learning during mathematics using and making their own concrete materials. They have been learning to ‘Trust the Count’. The students have come out from behind their desks to experience maths individually and co-operatively in small groups on the floor and outside.

Last week students in 3 Morice read "Grandad's Teeth", "Wilfred Gordon Mcdonald Partridge", "My Grandma lived in Gooligulch" and "The No Hat Brigade". Our old people art was inspired by the characters in the stories.

3/4 Scott started the year off with some creative artwork that bests describes them. We took side-facing portrait photos and cut them out. We then looked through magazines to find pictures of things we value and appreciate. We found lots of exciting books in old book club magazines! We then stuck them onto colourful paper.

On Friday the school participated in Clean Up Australia in Schools. Students in 5 Welling worked in the garden area at the front of the school. 

Over the last couple of weeks, 6C has been learning about the states and territories of Australia. We have found out that Western Australia is the largest state by area while the ACT is the smallest. Uluru is in the Northern Territory, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge can be seen in New South Wales. The capital of Queensland is Brisbane and Adelaide is the capital of South Australia. In Tasmania there are four cities with Burnie being the most northern city and Hobart the southernmost city.  Hobart is Tasmania’s capital city and people visit our state to see the Tasmanian Devil.

This is an informative poster on the state of Victoria with information sourced from books. It’s linked to our Australian study in HASS and created by Amelia, Indee, Mia and Paul.

The students have had a busy time in art over the last fortnight.

All classes have focused on both primary and secondary colours producing art work that reflected each particular area and cemented their knowledge of which colours belong to which group.

For the junior classes, Kinder through Year 2, this was achieved through exploration of different art medians. Students did sponge painting, potato printing, marble painting (a favourite for many) and the study of colour using a light board. The children continued on their journey by either painting a tree or landscape. To finish off we challenged our fine motor skills by using scissors for cutting paper leading towards our next art activity.

The senior class art students have completed paintings in the style of Piet Mondrian and I must congratulate a number of students for their wonderful interpretation of this artist. These students then started working on paintings which reflected a streetscape, depicting a building, trees, people and animals.

In Science we have been building structures. Our focus has been on co-operation, perseverance and looking for more than one option.

Students worked together to see who could make the longest chain out of one sheet of paper. The winner was Toby and Mason with 7.5m, and in second was Samara and Suvannah with 6.9m.

This year we have a new ICT room and the children have enjoyed coming to this new room. Prep and Year 1 students have started to create a digital story about themselves in pictures and writing. They have liked learning to use the different features in the app that lets them choose different colours and textures to create their drawings. Year 2 to 6 students have been logging on to their own accounts and we are starting to work on a typing program to learn about touch typing. This is a free program which children can use at home if you have a computer of laptop they can use. The program is Dance Mat Typing. (https://www.dancemattypingguide.com/)

During Recess and Lunchtimes, our students are able to choose to come to our library to play board games, Lego, and other hands on toys. At the moment, one of the favourite things for the children is to play is draughts or chess. If we have any community member with their Working With Vulnerable People Card who would like to start a lunchtime chess club at the school please contact our school office. 

Our mentor program is up and running agan this year. Mentors work with students and undertake a variety of activities (games, shooting hoops, cooking). Indy and Linda were in the kitchen this week cooking a delicious apple crumble.

Ticket to Play is a Tasmanian Government initiative designed to reduce the cost of participating in club sporting activities for Tasmanian children. The key objective of Ticket to Play is to increase the number of young Tasmanians playing sport and supporting the Tasmanian Government’s objective of Tasmania being the healthiest population by 2025.

Who is eligible for a voucher?

Applicants must be:

• living in Tasmania;
• aged between 5 and 18 years old at the time of application; and
• be listed on a valid Centrelink Health Care or Pensioner Concession Card (either their own or their parent’s, guardian’s, or carer’s) or be in Out of Home Care.

What can I use a voucher for?

The voucher can be used at approved activity providers who meet certain eligibility criteria, such as soccer, basketball and netball clubs.

The voucher is available for use toward the cost of membership fees. Other items such as uniforms, equipment, footwear etc. are not eligible.

If you feel you might be eligible for a voucher to help with the cost of sporting club registrations for children aged 5-17, please go to www.communities.tas.gov.au/ticket-to-play 

Ticket to Play voucher applications will close on Monday 30 May 2022 at 5 pm. Vouchers must be presented to an Approved Activity Provider by Monday 6 June 2022.

If you need help with the Ticket to Play application, contact us on 1800 252 476 or at tickettoplay@communities.tas.gov.au