End of Term 1 2021

As term 1 is drawing to a close, many in our school community would feel like things have only just started! This would be a fair reflection as the school term was just under 9 weeks due to where the Easter holidays fall. Next Wednesday 31^st March will be the final day of term 1 for students, as all teachers state-wide will be coming together on the Thursday for moderation and professional learning. This is critical time for teachers to collaborate together and review student learning with colleagues from other schools as a platform to inform teacher judgments of assessment standards within the Australian Curriculum. Our secondary teachers will be working with Sheffield, Ulverstone, Latrobe, Reece and Devonport High schools, and our kinder to grade 6 teachers will be working with four of our neighbouring primary schools.

As a result of the shorter first term, term 2 will be longer than the standard 10 weeks, with the first day of school being Wednesday the 21^st of April. Please check that you have the correct dates marked on your calendars as the changes to the school term were made late last year. This will be our final newsletter for term 1.

Capital Works Updates

Please note that the perimeter fencing around the secondary campus is being moved in the coming days. The new Ironcliffe Rd carpark will be opened and families will need to access the secondary campus from the western side of the building via the new administration building from day 1 of term 2. As a result of the building works moving to the eastern end of the school, access around drama and the boys/girls changerooms will change and the signage will need to be followed. We will continue to update our students on a weekly basis through grade meetings on the changes so they have an awareness of safe movement around the site. The early responses from students about the administration and food and fibre technology classrooms would indicate that we have some students that are very appreciative of their new working/learning environments.

‘The colours are warm and inviting and make the areas look bigger’ Kyla

‘We have much better access now to the fridges and freezers for catering’ Mackenzie

‘I like how it is much easier to get access to what we need’ Olivia

‘I can’t wait to get in and do the barista course next term’ Yazmyn

Canteen Update

We are currently reviewing the canteen menu in readiness for term 2. It’s great that we can review our canteen service as the result of feedback from students, parents and staff. Next term we will be introducing payment options through the use of the Qkr app and contactless EFTPOS. We will start trialling early to mid term 2.

NAPLAN Online

Students Australia wide have been working through some of the demonstration tasks through the NAPLAN online portal. This is an opportunity for student to become familiar with the platform and the format of questions, and for the school to test and trial processes for how we conduct the tests locally.

Practice NAPLAN link for the home demonstration website https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site is available for parents to review if they would like to know more. If there are any further questions or queries, please contact either of our assistant principals, Matt Perry matthew.perry@education.tas.gov.au or Geoff Davis geoffrey.davis@education.tas.gov.au