Newsletter - 28 June 2023

Principal's Highlights

Welcome back to school for the start of Term 3! 
It has been so wonderful to see staff and students back this term, refreshed and ready for a wonderful term of learning!

On Monday, 24 July, our staff worked together for a day of Professional Learning and it was a rich and valuable experience.  We discussed the vision and direction of the school for the rest of the year and how we can provide a creative, strengths-based, inclusive and Inquiry focused environment for our students.  We would love to collaborate with our students, School Association and families, so please follow the link later in the newsletter to answer the question,
‘What type of learning community do we want to be?’.

It has been a great first week of term!  As Principal, I try really hard to visit classrooms and talk to students about their learning.  It is so lovely to have students enthusiastically and proudly show me what they are working on and hear about what they are learning.  I am regularly amazed by our articulate, enthusiastic, confident and capable learners at Mount Nelson Primary.  Each day I see clear examples of Inquiry, student agency, voice and valuable learning experiences.  I am delighted to be part of such a dynamic community of learners.

I hope you can keep Wednesday, 2 August free for our Mount Nelson Primary School Event!  Clinical Psychologist and founder of the Resilience Co, Lisa Ford, will speak to our community from 7.00 pm until 8.30 pm in the Multi-Purpose School Hall.  This is part of a grant from the Australian Government’s ‘Student Wellbeing Boost’ for wellbeing activities.  Tickets are free but need to be booked on the Qkr! app or by email to mount.nelson.primary@decyp.tas.gov.au 

Kind regards
Catherine Grace
Principal

Reading as an Inquiry

This term our school has focused reading, through the lens of Inquiry learning.

Our staff are implementing Inquiry approaches in Reading which incorporate fostering curiosity and wonderings, teacher and student led questioning, facilitating students to explain and justify their thinking, strengthening student voice, extending vocabulary, documenting student thinking and the use of the learning assets (being researchers, collaborators, thinkers, communicators and self-managers) and personalised learning across all areas of the Reading curriculum.

Our teachers have been focusing on the teaching of reading through our Reading as Inquiry Workshop Model.  All our Teachers K-6 are implementing specific reading strategies in their classrooms to make a difference to student learning and their engagement with reading.  We encourage our families to support children through being interested in their reading and showing enthusiasm about reading and books!

Our Reading as Inquiry Model is an instructional practice where our teachers support differentiated small groups of students to read a text independently. This instructional model is based on the teaching and learning principle that the optimal learning for a reader occurs when they are supported by an instructor to decode and understand a text with strategic and explicit direction.  Our Reading as Inquiry Model based on Guided Reading allows our students to apply and consolidate effective reading strategies.  It fosters student agency as it supports our students to develop greater control over the reading process through the development of reading strategies which assist decoding print and pictures and help construct meaning.  Our teachers guide or ‘scaffolds’ our students as they predict, make connections, read, think aloud, discuss and think their way through a text.

 So, why not ask your child what they have been reading in class, what reading looks like in their classroom, what their reading goal might be, talking about favourite authors and text type, what reading strategies they are learning about and what new words they have learned?  It all helps to build a love of and excitement for reading!

Attendance

Winter Wellness

COVID-19 Update

Just a reminder as we are in the colder months and flu season:

• Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) are still available from the school office for students
• Maintain a supply of RATs in your home in case your child becomes unwell
• If your child is unwell, it is important that you keep them at home
• If they have COVID-19 symptoms, they should be tested for COVID-19

Winter has certainly arrived! Unfortunately, there are quite a few nasty bugs around. Please make sure that you keep your children at home if they show signs of COVID or the flu (coughs, sneezes, fever, sore throat, upset tummy).  It is also a good idea to get some RATs which are available at the school office.  However, if your child is requiring support with school engagement, please reach out to your child’s class teacher or advise senior staff.

We would like to thank our wonderful families for the kindness and understanding that you have shown to staff throughout this year.  We have had a lot of teachers away due to illness and due to other schools being in the same situation, finding relief teachers is proving very difficult.  I would like to commend students on their resilience in dealing with change and the respect they have shown to teachers coming to help in our school. 

NEW - Welcome to your Child's Tasmania Education

A new section on the DECYP public website has recently launched...
Welcome to your child’s Tasmanian education.
This provides a single location to access DECYP information for families with school-aged children. 

Communication Services and Strategic Policy and Projects have been working to improve the way that Tasmanian families find information that DECYP provides across our multiple online platforms. This page is a first cut at providing a hub on our website focused on information that families would find useful for their child’s education.  

Please visit the page and share with people or groups who you think may find this useful. We'd also appreciate your feedback through a short survey available from the webpage

Welcome to your child's Tasmanian education - Department for Education, Children and Young People (decyp.tas.gov.au)

Student Voice

Welcome back and we hope everyone had a good holiday.

All the best to everyone who is going to Learn to Swim.  We know you’ll try your best and learn some new skills.  Our whole school Inquiry this term is around the idea of ‘Place’.  Our whole school question is, ‘In what ways does our connection to place shape our identity, wellbeing and purpose?’

We look forward to sharing our learning with you at the end of Term 3!

Finn and Amber
Part of the 2023 School Executive

Sports Report - Media Team

The netball season has now ended for the 5/6 Eagles Team.  We had an incredible score of 26-10 to the Eagles... they obviously won!  It has been an amazing season for the 5/6 team, and we hope the teams get into grand finals!  Player of the week for netball last week was Joe F for being the most outstanding player on the court. 🏐

The soccer team of Grade 6 Sharks score last weekend was 2-2.  Soccer teams have about 4 more games to play until the season is over.  The games have been incredible so far and we hope we can keep that up! ⚽

Stuart, Max, Sam, Mason and Archie
Grade 6 Media Team

Outstanding Invoices

There are a number of outstanding invoices still to be paid.
It would be appreciated if arrangements for payment can be finalised by this Friday, 30 June 2023.

Outstanding invoices do have an impact on the school.
Please contact me if you wish to discuss.

Thank you.
Michelle Hickey
School Business Manager 

Class Spotlight - 5/6D

5/6 D have been looking at “What do good readers do before they read?” and “How can we demonstrate our comprehension of text by constructing summaries?”.

Here are some samples of our tuning in!  It turns out we had a lot of prior knowledge about Rhinos!

Here are some snippets of our summaries:

The scientists found that the population of the white rhino even though it originally had more is declining in numbers while the black rhinos are growing. It explained how the white rhinos are having less babies and the same death rate and that the black rhino’s death rate has gone down.
Stella B

In the years from 2011 to 2017, around 4100 died which is mostly white rhinos. As the population of white rhino was 8400 at the start and like 4000 died. Most of the white rhinos died of natural causes than poachers but less black rhinos died because black rhinos eat leaves and white rhinos eat grass. And the drought dried up the grass but not the leaves.
Henry B and Eric

Instructional Rounds

On Tuesday, 27 June 2023, four Grade 6 students attended Instructional Rounds with Rachel and Sarah Chiu at Sandy Bay Infant School.
Instructional Rounds provide an opportunity for teachers from local schools to get together to support schools in solving a problem of practice.  Sandy Bay Infant School wanted to find out ‘What does effective feedback look like in a maths lesson?’  Our students represented Mount Nelson Primary really well, were articulate and great contributors to the conversation.

Girl's Mini Soccer World Cup

2024 Kinder Enrolments - NOW OPEN!

We are now starting to look at enrolments for Kindergarten 2024 (born in 2019) from families within our school catchment area.

We encourage all families with children who will be starting Kindergarten in 2024 to fill in their details below!

Music Soiree Recap

Congratulations to all the students who performed in the little Music Concert last week.  It was wonderful to see how excited they were about performing for parents and class mates.  I am looking forward to seeing how they develop their confidence, skills and stage presence in future performances.  The Marimba Ensemble will be preparing for Marimba Mania, the choirs for mini musicals/pantomimes and the Recorder Consort will hopefully be able to add some different sized recorders. 
Sarah Tollner
Music Teacher

On the Thursday, 22 June 2023 our school held a Music Soiree.
To begin the concert, India introduced the marimbas, who played the Happy African Song and Butterfly.  Next, we had the 5/6 choir sing Blackbird and The Ping Pong Ball with Stella B starring in a solo.  After that, we had the junior choir sing My Brother Eats Cockroaches and Little Sir Echo.
To finish, we listened to the recorders play a lovely piece of music by Mozart. 

Thank you to Sarah Tollner for organising the concert.
By Maddi and Sophie O

Canteen News

NO CANTEEN NEXT WEEK, FRIDAY 4 AUGUST, 2023 

The next Canteen date will be the following Friday, 11 August 2023. 

From the School Association

Welcome back to school everyone!  It's already looking like a busy term for the school community and students. 

All parents and carers are invited to a workshop with the school on Thursday, 10 August, straight after school (classroom to be determined) to discuss how we can support the school with its literacy focus.  It would be great to hear how parents/carers would like to be involved by volunteering time, starting new projects, or donations to upgrade readers for our students. 

On Wednesday, 30 August, we will be selling fun socks and chocolates for students to purchase something special for the fathers and special people in their lives for Father's Day. 

Save the date - Saturday, 2 September, for a fun night for all parents and carers with live music, woodfired pizzas, yummy desserts, and a Mount Nelson Primary School Signature Cocktail!  We are looking for donations of 'Tasmanian products', pizza ingredients, and desserts.  More information and ways to donate will be provided shortly.  It's been a couple of years since we've been able to host a fun, fundraising night, we hope as many of you as possible can come along!

Cheers, Mary

Weekly Soccer Wrap

The weekend of 17 June 2023 was our week back after the King's Birthday weekend break, I hope you all had a nice long weekend break before getting into it!

We are officially out of the grading round and most rosters should be up. 

The Fireballs played such an incredible game, winning against South Hobart Primary School, there was some fantastic team work. 
The Bandicoots battled wind at Campbell Street Primary School and couldn't pull off the win but enjoyed the play equipment!
The Gold team had a hard fight against Collegiate and came out with a draw while the Sharks also had a draw against Immaculate Heart. 
The Tigers had a tough game and couldn't take home the win but Cooper scored his first ever goal!

A big shout out to Sam, Jamie, Elijah, Liam and Valentino for stepping in for second games.

Hope to see the flashes of yellow and big smiles on the fields soon!

Kind regards
Jaymie Barwick
Mount Nelson Soccer Club President
jaymiebarwick@gmail.com

ADHD Conference

Tasmanian ADHD Conference My Spirited Child

MS Readathon

This year, our community is embarking on a magical adventure for one incredible cause this August... and you're invited to join us!

The MS Readathon is a one-month reading challenge that challenges students to read as many books as they can and raise funds for families living with MS. 
Whether you've already registered, or if you're yet to sign up, hit the link below to join our school page for the MS Readathon and get ready for the adventure of 2023!

MS Readathon - Mount Nelson Primary School

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