Brighton Primary School eNewsletter

Newsletter 12th April

Filter Content

Newsletter 12th April

Dear Families,

Thank you for your support during Term One – your willingness to talk with us about your child and to contact us to check in on their learning progress helps us to support them at school. We value working with you in a partnership between home and school as best support for your child. If you have not yet had the chance to connect to your child’s teacher via the SeeSaw App, please take the opportunity to do this early next term. All you need do is to let your child’s teacher know that you would like to receive SeeSaw messages. These messages are directly about your child’s learning and can include samples of their work being sent to you, classroom updates and information about excursions or learning routines. Other information about school events or changes to school routines is provided on our Facebook page.

Staff and students have been very focused this term on deepening their learning within our school priorities of Reading and Positive Behaviour Support. Our staff are committed to supporting students to gain foundational skills in reading, using an evidence-based approach to teaching. This has involved having a guaranteed two hour literacy block, systematic and explicit teaching in phonics and word recognition and ongoing use of screening tools for assessment which help teachers know what learning your child needs to progress. Teaching staff have been involved in professional learning this term to further develop their understanding of learning routines to support all students in the classroom to develop foundational literacy skills.

Positive Behaviour Support has involved assisting students with strategies to help them regulate their emotions, supporting them to be ready for learning. There has been a particular emphasis this term on developing classroom routines for moving in and out of the room. When these routines are in place and familiar to students, it increases organisation and calm movement which helps to maximise learning time.

Our school is very grateful for the support of the University of Tasmania and 24 Carrot in providing our students with the chance to learn outside of classroom walls. Further information about UTAS’ Childrens’ University and our 24 Carrot Kitchen Garden is provided in today’s newsletter.

During the last two weeks, all families should have received a progress report for their child. This report gave information on how your child has settled into school so far this year. If you have not received this initial report, please contact our School Office on 62688200.

As you may have read in our last newsletter, our Inter-primary Athletics teams have been representing us in competition at the Domain Athletics Centre. These competitions have students from many other schools and our students did a great job of giving their all, with Brighton B coming third in their division and Brighton A taking out Division C. Well done on living out our school values, particularly growth and courage! Selected students from these teams have been invited by the Southern Primary School Sports Association to take part in the Champions Carnival which will be held on Wednesday 1^st May at the Domain.

Our students will also represent our school community at the ANZAC Day Service at Brighton on Thursday 25^th April. Student Leaders and Childrens’ University students have been invited to attend. An invitation is also extended to Brighton Primary students who wish to attend with their families and come along in school uniform. This is certainly a day of the year that so strongly represents all our school values: Connection, Respect, Responsibility, Growth and Courage. The service will be held at the Remembrance Park, 1 Menin Drive, Brighton and will begin at 10.30am.

School wishes Mr Gunn well as he takes leave for Term 2. We are currently continuing to work with our Learning Service to finalise Mr Gunn’s replacement for next term. We hope to provide this information as soon as possible.

School has been advised that Ms Miezitis continues to be on leave but will not be returning to Brighton Primary. I'm sure you join with me in thanking her for all the support and guidance that she has given to our school over many years. As Ms Miezitis is not returning to our school, I have been offered the Brighton Primary Principal role permanently. I am excited to accept this position and look forward to working closely with our families, students and staff into the future.

As we head into school holidays, we ask for your support in keeping our school grounds safe and clean for our students. If you are in or around school during the holiday break and see anyone not looking after our buildings or grounds, please make a report to Tas Police. Non urgent reports can be made by phoning 131444. Any emergency reports should be made to 000. We really appreciate the efforts made by parents this term to report damage and inappropriate activities.

We look forward to seeing you when school returns on Monday 29^th April.

Kind regards

Sonya Plunkett-Smith

Principal

Thank you to all the parents and family members who were able to attend this week’s Grade 3 and 4 Assembly. It’s great having such an appreciative audience.

This week the two sharing classes were Grade 4 Gunn and Grade 3 Hedington. Grade 3H were very brave and got up and performed a RESPECT rap. Well done on singing out and learning lots of fast tricky words.

Grade 4G presented their Science work on the Transfer of Energy. It was great seeing the students’ understanding of this energy cycle represented in careful diagrams and explanations. Here are four excellent examples of this work.

Thank you to Mrs Pape and the Marimba group for entertaining us with their first performance for this year playing the Mbira Jam. It was an excellent performance and we look forward to hearing you all many more times throughout the year.

A big congratulations go to the 12 students who were chosen by their class teachers to receive a Values certificate for demonstrating consistent values of either Respect, Courage, Responsibility or Growth.

Addalyn 4T Growth, Isaiah 4T Growth

Willow 3 P/S Growth, Riley 3 P/S Growth

Ryan 4H Courage, Matilda 4H Courage

Nikyah 3H Courage, Austin 3H Growth

Rocco 3D Responsibility, Isla 3D Respect

Oliver 4G Respect, Mason 4G Courage

Finally, three excited students had their names drawn from the Golden Ticket Barrel to receive a $10 voucher to spend at the Canteen. Congratulations to Hunter, Bailey and Ethan.

Dorothy Raymond

3/4 Sector Head

Kinder Latham, have been looking at who is in our family and that all of our families are different.

The Grade 3 and 4 students have loved every minute of their time in the Kitchen and the Garden this Term. A massive thank you to Kristie and Gabriel for your passionate work with our students, teaching them how different plants grow, what is special about them and how they can be used in the cooking of delicious and healthy food. We hope your children have come home inspired to cook and try new foods. As well as enjoying the cooking and the eating you might be surprised at how much the students have enjoyed the manual labour of digging and weeding and just generally being out in the garden talking with and learning from Gabriel who has a wealth of garden, plant and science knowledge. Next Term you might see some changes in the garden. We are lucky to have our Partnership with 24 Carrot Gardens and they are currently preparing some new designs to give our garden a makeover. To celebrate the 10th Anniversary this year of 24 Carrot Gardens and to say 'Thank you'. Gabriel had students working on a special Art Installation, Gabriel even had students creating earthy colours with compost.

Some of the favourite dishes cooked this term have been: home made pizzas, lemon myrtle ANZAC biscuits, Damper with bush spiced tomato chutney, zucchini meatballs, chocolate spider Easter nests and scones with jam and cream.