What a fantastic start to the year we have had here at Forest Primary School. We have welcomed new staff – Elyse Poke to our 1/2, Ryan Nibbs to Health/PE and Jasper Perry as a Teacher Assistant. Our students are the lucky ones to have such dedicated staff to support them to improve their outcomes. Here at Forest, we pride ourselves in providing quality teaching and learning for ALL of our students as we have high expectations for everyone!

In our school some of our targeted Interventions (based on MTSS) currently include;

Phonological Awareness and Phonics – with targeted Prep/Year 1 students

GAPS (Early Years)

Minilit and Macqlit Programs (Year 1 – Year 6)

Gross Motor Intervention – Kindergarten/Prep

Oral Language – Kindergarten/Prep

Maths Bonds Blocks – up to year 5 classes.

Extension Maths groups

SNMY (zones) – 4-6 students (Year 3 students – Place Value Intervention)

Forest Primary believes that regular home reading is an essential part of the partnership between home and school. Research clearly identifies the benefit and gains to student learning through home reading. Reading skills and in particular, comprehension, continue to develop as we start to read more complex texts and so it is essential for students to practise reading increasingly complex texts as they progress through primary school. A home reading program reinforces the understanding that reading skills are valued and provides the practise to consolidate these skills.  Please continue to support your child to read at home as we positively reward this here at school.

We have been developing our School Improvement Plan and in consultation with School Association and Parents & Friends Association I would invite our community to come and speak with me about it and provide us with some feedback, as we always value your voice to support us to improve our school.

Our priorities for 2024 include – Reading, Numeracy and Wellbeing (attendance and safeguarding)

Just to recap a busy Term 1:

NAPLAN Our school commenced NAPLAN testing for Year 3s and Year 5s – they were assessed against writing, conventions of language, reading and Numeracy. Just to remind you all that this is a one-off assessment that is part of a bank of assessments that teachers use to inform their planning.

CONGRATULATIONS – STATE CHSSSA Representatives

Congratulations to Ari, Brooke and Sienna who were selected to represent North West at the State Carnival.

A special shout out to all our student leaders at Forest Primary! Now that we are at the end of term 1, we can now see that many of our programs are running very smoothly thanks to these leaders.

Daily PE (Leaders) runs like a well-oiled machine every morning, SRC have many exciting events planned for next term and the canteen operates during lunchtime and flag monitors are ensuring that our flags are being raised and looked after.

School Association have held their AGM and had 2 meetings. These meeting are held on Mondays (once or twice a term) at 3pm. It would be good to see as many people coming along to support our school. Please feel free to come and speak with myself or call the office.

Parents and Friends have had a positive start to the year as they have already had some successful fundraising events. Slimefest will be held tomorrow and I believe the student who has fundraised the most gets to slime me!!

Parents and Friends have held their AGM and have elected office bearers. Congratulations to these people;

President: Lynne Van Norden

Vice President: Toni Popowski

Secretary: Danielle Ollington

Treasurer: Rebekah Lardner

As a school we encourge all families and the commmunity to come along and join the Parents and Friends meeting and share your ideas, meetings are held once a month and there is no expectation to attend every meeting.

Our Year 5s and Year 6s are getting excited to attend AGFEST in the first week back of term 2 and our Year 6 students are off to Hobart for their week long camp and will be accompanied by Ms C, Miss Pop, Margaret and Mr Moles. Have a great time!

Our Kindergarten playground is looking absolutely amazing and if you have a chance, please feel free to pop on over to Kinder and speak with Kel and Rhiannon to have a look at this wonderful learning environment.

Communicating Evidence of Learning – Parent/Teacher will be happening next term and we would encourage you all to come in and speak with your child’s teacher.

We are holding a parent information session on the 8^th of May @ 6pm. It would be wonderful to see as many families come along to discuss what is happening and what to expect here at Forest Primary School.

A special thankyou to Danielle Stone from the Children’s University and to Alisha from the Cancer Council for attending our assembly yesterday. We look forward to a continued partnership with you both.

Have a safe and enjoyable holiday break with your families. Take care,

Megan Hills

Principal

In our recent Health and Physical Education (HPE) sessions at Forest Primary, our students investigated the importance of healthy eating. Exploring the Five Major Food Groups, they identified which foods belong to each category. Additionally, they took a closer look at their own lunch boxes, assessing whether they included items from each group and brainstorming ways to make healthier choices.

Excitingly, during our PE component we were luckier enough to have Coach B, along with Ina and Zoe from the Smithton Basketball Club, leading basketball clinics for five weeks. It was great to witness the enthusiasm and effort our students displayed throughout these sessions, making them a great success.

Looking ahead, I am excited for further exploration and learning in HPE next term.

Ryan Nibbs - HPE Teacher 

Forest Primary School Little Learners will start up again on the first day of Term 2 on Monday 29th April 2024, 9 - 10.30 am. Come and join us and have some fun learning and discovering through jumping, running, dancing, talking, singing, listening, colouring, painting, counting, tasting, eating and pretend cooking!
Talking about cooking, Bake and Take Roster is starting up again for Term 2. This is where a family from Little Learners comes into the school's kitchen, meeting up with student siblings, to bake food and take it home! It was popular last year and provides such a great way for families to become involved in school life. Please have a look at the roster attached and see what could be a suitable opportunity for your family and let me or the lovely ladies in the office know - 6458 3141.
Fran Joyce, Forest Primary School Little Learners

What a successful year our P and F had this last year. We managed to run some major fundraising events which all proved successful. 

• Trivia Night 
• Puzzle Night 
• Election Day Cake stall 
• Pop up lunch days 
• Christmas Raffle 
• Christmas BBQ 
• Grade 6 Dinner 

With this we managed to raise over $12,000 which is a huge amount for such a small community. 

What I believe is more rewarding is to see and be a part of how all the money we raise is put back into the school to benefit all of our children. We took on some huge financial projects last year:

• Soft Fall 
• Mural in Student Entrance 
• Wet Weathers & Smocks for Kinder 
• Kinder Playground Contribution 
• Science resources for the whole school 
• Country Gold contribution for our representatives 
• Grade 6 school Trip 
• End of school trip to Riverbend 

All up we managed to contribute over $38,000 worth of funds that went back into our school which is a huge figure and something we all should be very proud of.  

None of this would be possible without our committee and the work and effort that everyone puts in. It does makes it all worthwhile when we reflect on the figures above but please know you are all appreciated in everything you do big or small, it all helps.   

Not sure how Megan feels sometimes with some of our out their ideas and the Risk Managements she has to tackle to bring it all together so thank you Megan & Danielle for all the extra work you do behind the scenes.  

Here is to 2024 to being another successful year. 

Lynne van Norden

President

2024 Election of Office Bearers:

President: Lynne van Norden

Vice President: Toni Popowski

Secretary: Danielle Ollington

Treasurer: Rebekah Lardner

A note from Nurse Lisa

With all the beautiful sunny weather for Autumn, here are some activities to keep kids interested over the school holidays and weekends.

Being outside gets children moving and minds active. Anytime outdoors, away from screens is great for children.

Use nature to Move - Dig - Splash Create - Discover – Imagine

And don’t forget to slip, slop, slap.

Get your Slime on, Forest Primary School is hosting a Slime Spectacular Run 4 Fun!

Our Slime Spectacular Run 4 Fun will be on 12^th April.

Students have received a sponsorship book with instructions on setting up their cybersafe, online fundraising profile at www.australianfundraising.com.au. This is an entirely online fundraiser; all cash donations must be converted to online donations to redeem your prizes.

For more information, please contact Lynne van Norden on 0438 365 933.