School Association

We have scheduled our first School Association meeting for the year; this will be an AGM to elect parent and community representatives held on Thursday 26^th March at 3:30 pm. We have a number of vacancies to be filled and we are keen to have strong representation on School Association in order to maintain and strengthen connections between community and school.  If you are unable to attend but would like some input or have a topic for discussion, please contact me at the school.  

Forest Primary School Athletics Carnival

Students, staff and parents all enjoyed the athletics carnival held last week with high levels of participation from all students, earning points for their House! A huge thank you to Mrs Barnard, Murray Horton and Margaret Ollington for their organisation of the day and a bigger thank you to our House Captains who did an amazing job all day motivating, encouraging and organising students for their events. These students demonstrated exemplary leadership skills throughout the day.

The CHSSSA Athletics Carnival will be held on Thursday 27^th February at Smithton Primary School with 38 students from Forest Primary competing in the carnival. Our top performers will then have the opportunity to compete at the next level of competition at the North West Athletics Carnival on Wednesday 11^th March.

Japanese

In 2020, we are moving away from the online Chinese lessons and into face to face Japanese lessons with a teacher.  Having a teacher on staff with exceptional capacity to immerse students not only in the language but the culture is extremely important and something which was missing from the online program.

We welcome Mrs Mina Howe to Forest Primary as our new languages teacher. This week, students in Grades 3-6 will have the opportunity to begin learning Japanese, working with Mina every Thursday afternoon. Learning Japanese is not a compulsory subject, although all Grade 3 students will initially participate in the first few sessions before deciding if they would like to continue.   

Big Ideas

From weeks 6-10, students will have the opportunity to opt into preferred learning areas on a Tuesday afternoon. The subjects on offer will primarily focus on the Arts with music, dance, mural art, abstract art, movie making, drama, computer coding media and cooking on offer. Engaging children to choose their learning is one important element in motivating learning and with so many rich forms of art on offer, students will have plenty to choose from.

Term 1 Reporting

Teachers will be sending home an initial progress report for students in Grades Prep -6 on Friday 13^th March. The purpose of this report is to give a clear indication of how children are settling into their new class and their general work habits. It will also indicate where there may be issues to discuss further with the teacher.

Student Support and Learning

AST, Ms Toni Popowski, and I will be working together in the school’s Support Teacher role. We have started meeting with teachers to develop updated learning plans which are reviewed each term. Ms Popowski or I will be in touch with parents of children who currently have learning plans to seek feedback about what you feel are the important learning goals to be included in the plan.

We are in the process of updating referrals for our team providing support services; speech pathologist, social worker and school educational psychologist. We may be in contact with parents for consent to have updated assessments done. These assessments provide valuable information to teachers which they can use to make adjustments and modifications for individual children in the classroom.

As a school, we are committed to providing systems and programs to support students who are either struggling with literacy and numeracy or those students requiring learning extension. Late last year and during the beginning of this year, students have been assessed for their reading fluency and comprehension, knowledge of place value and other mathematical skills. Students requiring additional reading support will begin participating in either the Mini Lit or Maqulit program. Parents will be contacted with further information regarding this support.

Early childhood student groups requiring support in understanding important concepts for place value have been identified and teachers are working specifically to support their understanding of these concepts either through whole group or small group learning.

On Tuesdays, students in Grades 3-6 will work in cross grouped sessions with 7 staff. Students have been grouped based on their assessments and will be given additional support or extension learning based on their knowledge of number addition and multiplication.

Cluster Professional Learning Teams

During 2020, staff across all cluster schools will be working in learning teams. These teams are made up of staff from each school in the Circular Head area and are currently in the process of developing units of work which can be shared. Teachers from grades 1-10 will be using a common teaching and planning format for these units; providing greater consistency of teaching across primary to high school.

Parents and Carers of Students in Year 4-6- Student Wellbeing Survey

The wellbeing of our students is important to us.

To get an understanding of how students across Tasmania feel about their own wellbeing, students in Years 4-6 at Forest Primary School will be taking part in a wellbeing survey.

The Student Wellbeing Survey is part of the Department of Education’s Child and Student Wellbeing Strategy.

 The details for the survey are:

When:                                          From 16^th- 27^th March

Who:                                            Grades 4-6

What do I need to do:               

 You and your child don’t need to do anything. The survey will be done in class time and will not require your child to prepare in any way.

A letter with more information has been sent home with all Year 4-6 students, including Frequently Asked Questions and a form to sign and return to the school if you do not want your child to participate in the survey.   

If you would like further information, please contact school.

Thank you for supporting us to ensure that all our learners are safe, feel supported and are able to flourish, so they can engage in learning.

The School Association Committee has a vacancy commencing 2020.  There is 1 parent member vacancy on the Committee.  Positions are for a period of 2 years.

Nominations for these vacancies close on Tuesday, 23rd June 2020. If there are more nominations than vacancies, elections will be held on Thursday 25th June 2020 at 3:30 pm.

Further information on the School Association can be found at: 

• The School Office
• https://www.education.tas.gov.au/community-and-providers/school-associations-tasmania/

Forest Primary School Association invites you to consider nomination for one of these positions.  To nominate please complete a nomination form from the link below, or contact the school office.

Completed forms can be posted, scanned and emailed to: forest.primary@education.tas.gov.au or passed in at the School Office. Please check all details carefully as incomplete forms will not be able to be accepted.

A copy School Association Constitution is available from the office or by visiting the Online School Association Constitution Register at https://documentcentre.education.tas.gov.au/Pages/schoolassociations/a-z.aspx.

Q: What snakes are good at doing sums?

A: Adders

Bar Graph:

A graph drawn using rectangular bars to show how large each value is.
The bars can be horizontal or vertical.

Parent Tip:

Demonstrate how to calculate the amount of ingredients when you want to change a recipe.

Primary Challenge:

How many different ways can 4 people stand in a line?

Early Childhood Challenge:

Freddo has had a nice swim in the bottom of the well and decides that now is the time to get out. Freddo climbs 3m up the wall of the well and then rests. But the wall is slippery and he then slips down 1m. He is so tired he goes to sleep for the rest of the day. The next day he does the same thing.  He climbs up 3m, slips back 1m, and goes to sleep. In fact he does this every day until he gets out of the well.

Now the well is 13m deep. How long does it take Freddo to climb out of the well?

Congratulations to Kirrily, Matilda, Lilliarna, Meia, Ella, Joseph, Nate and Zoey who are the first two groups of students rewarded for demonstrating our school values with a pizza and icream lunch with Miss C! 

Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a great student leader?

Well on Wednesday 19^th February the Grade 6s went along to the GRIP Student Leadership Conference in Burnie to find out.

Great student leaders:

• Lead the way
• Show generosity
• Show sacrifice
• Plan out and be clear about ideas
• Bring their ideas to life
• Take ownership and are great role models
• Don’t have to wear badges – everyone can be a leader

We are certain that everything that we learnt will help us as we grow as leaders here at Forest Primary.

Sophie Perry – Grade 6

2020 has had a great start for us in 3/4 Poulter. Our first couple of weeks have been spent learning our classroom routines, getting to know each other and starting new units of work. In the first week, we made a 3D face of ourselves, these were decorated to look (almost) exactly like us and had some facts and goals writing on the sides.

We have also done some work around our school value of Respect and what that looks like in and out of the classroom. One of our favourite activities involved toothpaste! In groups, we had to empty all of our toothpaste out of the tubes onto some scrap paper. Mrs Poulter then gave us teeny, tiny toothpicks and we had to try and get all the toothpaste back into the tube! An impossible task! We used this activity to remind us of how harsh words and actions can never fully be taken back and we have to careful and considerate with how we treat others.

1/2 Skellington have had a fantastic start to the year. We have been reading George’s Marvellous Medicine together and have enjoyed hearing about all of the things George put into the medicine for his Grandma. We have thought about how George’s Grandma would have been as a child and we have imagined how we would make a medicine for her, what it would look like and what it would do.

We have also been learning about rubbish and how it affects our planet. We are learning about recycling and composting and have been interested to find out the different things that can be put into our class recycling bins.

During the past two weeks we have begun to work in our reading and maths groups. We have been working really hard to complete the activities we have been given and to work together during group tasks.

Congratulations to our student leaders for 2020.

House Captains

Norwood House Captains – Mason Brown, Sarharna Horton and Toby Mullins

Norwood Vice Captain – Brady Lardner

Hillsbury House Captains – Chad Dillon, Lily Dunstan and Sophie Perry

Pascoe House Captains – Kirrily Ralston, Isabella McGlone

Pascoe Vice Captains – Xavier Thompson, Jade West, Elijah Champion-Smith

Student Council - Term 1 & Term 2

Aussie Sports Leaders

Toby Mullins, Emilee Heald, Jayden Charles, Ella Horton, Brady Hursey, Sophie Perry, Tyrone Lee, Mikayla Kingston, Elijah, Champion-Smith, Ethan Phillips, Matilda Lockett, Amber Brown, Sarharna Horton, Carter Bransden, Amiee Gardiner, Tori Medwin, Isabella McGlone, Riley Monson, Ayden Gale, Breagha More, Cooper Morgan, Lily Dunstan, Nate Kingston, Sophie Ettlin and Mason Brown

Bring your little ones along for some fun to our Little Learners program on Mondays!

9:00 am - 11:00 am in the Kinder room

Our Grade 5-6 students need shoe boxes!

If you have any shoe boxes that you no longer need, please bring them into the office.