What a wonderful JAAM assembly that was held on Tuesday.  I would like thank our specialist teachers for putting on wonderful showcase of some of the amazing learning opportunities which are being provided at Forest Primary School. 

This term has been a busy one – students have had access to a range of learning experiences including; special guests in classrooms, Agfest, Year 6 camp, Cross Country events, a Silent Disco, Brixhibition, Year 5/6 Netball championship, Spice Kids Eras tour – how amazing was this tour (thanks so much to Annette), Tas Networks Incursions and Fire Safety Education happening this week. There is a lot happening in our little school.

We have partnered with the Children’s University for this year and are about to sign up students who are interested in making this commitment.

There is always so much happening – Facebook is a great place to follow our school’s journey alongside our other communication methods.

In our school we have been through an External Review, and I would like to thank each and everyone of you for contributing to this process.  This review supports our school to target our improvement journey over the next 3 years based on these recommendations.

Our continuing priorities for 2024 include – Reading, Numeracy and Wellbeing (attendance and safeguarding).  Our actions for the year have been monitored closely and we are definitely on track.

At Forest Primary School we embed a culture of ‘high quality teaching and learning’ across our staff, students and community.  I ask and invite you all to provide me with feedback in regard to what we could improve on to ensure Forest Primary School continues to be a great school to be at.

Communicating Evidence of Learning and Reporting – we recently held our parent/teacher and student meetings.  This was a wonderful opportunity to share and discuss your child’s evidence of learning and report.

Today we saw our Kindergarten room transform into their very own art gallery! We thank everyone for joining us today and celebrating our Kinder student's artistic journey and to experience the world through the eyes of our talented students through various art forms. I know we have all been inspired by the fresh, unfiltered creativity of our amazing artists!

A very busy term, but a great one at that.

Megan Hills

Principal

Reading at home with your child sets them up for life.

Reading unlocks everything we do – learning, working, participating in society.

Supporting your child to read at home is one of the most powerful things you can do for them.

Encourage and celebrate all the reading your child does.

This includes reading recipes, instructions and websites – it doesn’t have to be a book. All reading is good reading!

Encourage your child to:

• Read books they bring home from school.
• Borrow books from your local library, Sora App or street library and read them.
• Read books, newspapers, magazines you have at home, including those you might access online.

If they struggle to read or are reluctant readers, try to find reading material that taps into their interests. Is it gaming? Mountain biking? Roblox? Cooking? Music?

Offer to read books to your child even when they can read by themselves – this is still boosting their vocabulary and comprehension.

For more tips and ideas check out Let’s Talk (talk.tas.gov.au).

Prep – Year 2

In Prep to Year 2, your school will send home short books designed to help your child practise the reading skills they are learning in class.

Many schools have used a home reading program that ranks books by level of difficulty from 1 to 30 and beyond.

According to the latest research, these “levels” do not accurately measure a child’s ability to read.

This year all Tasmanian schools are phasing out this levelling system.

Decodable Readers

Your child will bring home “Decodable” readers. These books are specially written to match the letter-sound relationships your child is learning in class.

Rather than being ranked in difficulty, these books are organised by the letters and sounds they focus on. They have been designed to build your child’s confidence in reading as they match what they are learning at school.

You can support your child to read these books by helping them sound out words.

When your child has mastered all the letter-sound relationships they need for reading, they will move on from decodable readers.

For some children this will happen in Year 2 or earlier. Other children may need to keep using decodable readers for longer. Decodable readers that have been written to appeal to older students are also available.

Years 3-6

In Years 3-6, your child will still bring home books to read from school. These books are likely to be related to their interests.

Encourage them to spend time reading everyday. Even 10 minutes will support their learning.

If they are reluctant readers:

• Try comic books or graphic novels.
• Offer to read with them – you read one page, they read one page.
• Offer to read to them.
• Encourage them to listen to an audio book which they can borrow for free from your local library or Sora App.

On Thursday 27th June the Spice Kids and Annette went on tour. The tour was named the Eras Tour. We went to lots of different places, one of them included Smithton Primary and Smithton High School. We also did some Pop-Ups and went into the Council and walked around IGA singing. Miss Pop's daughter Clancy made all the Spice Kids friendship bracelets. We walked around the main street singing our favourite songs. We walked to Wyndarra and we sang lots of songs. They enjoyed it very much. We hopped back on the bus all the way to Emmerton Park and they all danced and sang. We loved talking to all of them. We ended the day with a play at Anzac Park then drove back to schoool. We are very grateful for Annette, Miss Pop and Mel for taking us on this amazing trip.

By Isabelle Heald and Zoey Amos.

Our Kindergarten class today proudly presented their very own art gallery! This delightful collection showcased the boundless creativity and imagination of our young artists. Each piece, from vibrant pop art to whimsical pictures and dioramas of our bedrooms and family, reflects their unique perspectives and joyful explorations of self identity, family, friendships and a sense of belonging. We thank everyone for joining us today and celebrating our Kinder student's artistic journey and to experience the world through the eyes of our talented students through various art forms. I know we have all been inspired by the fresh, unfiltered creativity of our amazing artists!

Thank you to our SRC who organised "When I Grow Up" dress up day today. From farmers to math teachers to electrians, to sports players and not forgetting the doctors and the animal carers, Forest Primary has a huge line up of trades people growing in our community!

On Friday 21st of June Grade 5/6 netballers at our school went up the coast to a netball tournament. On our way up butterflies were running around in our tummies and were making us sing songs all together. Danielle came as out Frist Aid person and Miss Pop came as a teacher. We needed one umpire so Lynne came along as well. Nana Max came and scored for us and cheered us on. Before we knew it we were at the Recreation Centre at Devonport ready to win! We were watching Stella Marist practise and then we realised we weren't practising so we headed over to the other end of the court and practised. Our first game was against East Devonport, we won by 17 points and were very happy. We then played against Penguin Primary and we lost for the first time. Penguin was a very good team. We were winning in the 1st half but then they had their talk and won by 9 points. We had recess, practised then played the Christian School and had out second win. We won by about 5. We then played Stella straight after and that went quickly. We lost by a bunch but that didn't let our spirits go down. To celebrate we went to Maccas and had icecreams and left Devonport with smiles on our faces. Thank you to Miss Pop, Danielle, Lynne and Maxine.

Report by Rubie van Norden and Peyton Dodd

Thank you to our families who supported our Pop-up lunch on Monday, party pies and sausage rolls are very popular! We hope you all have an enjoyable school holidays and keep warm! Our next P&F meeting will be held on Wednesday August 15th at 7pm at the school, we encourage everyone to come along. We have some very exciting events planned for the second half of the year, stay tuned!

School Photo envelopes were sent home yesterday, please grab them out of your child's school bag

Share your thoughts on school attendance

Help us better understand any barriers that may be in the way, and what supports are needed to help with getting to school.

The Department for Education, Children and Young People is doing statewide consultation on school attendance. 3P Advisory is independently running the consultation. Your answers are confidential, and you won’t be identified.

We want to hear from you. You can take part in an online survey, share or vote for suggestions, or join an online drop-in session via the 3P website. The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.

You can also share your thoughts about what you like or don’t like about our Every school day matters campaign.

As a parent or carer, please have your say. Please encourage your child/ren, too.

Every piece of feedback counts. Thanks for helping shape future DECYP initiatives, school-based engagement strategies and public awareness campaigns.

Tomorrow will be our final day of Fire Safety Week, we would like to thank Firefighter Craig for sharing his very important knowledge with us. Firefighter Craig along with Tasmania Fire Service would like to take this opportunity to thank Forest Primary for our ongoing support of the School Fire Education Program over the last 30 years!!