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Dear Parents/Carers
As we reach the end of week 6, I would like to thank parents and families for their support with our focus on school attendance. Teachers and ASTs have been monitoring student attendance closely and contacting parents and carers to check in, particularly regarding any support we might offer to ensure every student is at school and participating in learning programs every day, unless they are unwell. These conversations have been informative, and the sharing of information is helping to build strong and positive partnerships between home and school. You may have also noticed that our teachers are working hard to make regular calls or contacts with parents. This year class teachers have one period a week on their timetables dedicated to these home contacts and our focus during this time is to share positives and learning achievements with families. So, if you receive a missed call or a message from the school, please call back and have a catch up chat with a teacher.
Additional Learning Programs
During Term 1, many of our students have had the opportunity to engage in a variety of additional learning programs and we are excited to share some of these with you. I would like to congratulate the students across our school who have been successful in being accepted into one of the following Gifted and Highly Able Programs being offered online through DECYP:
- Ad Astra Junior
- Ad Astra Senior
- Smart Bots Junior
- Tech Time
- Pathway to Mathematics Methods
Hands on Learning is once again being offered this year and we are excited to be running both Hands on Learning – Café and Hands on Learning – Build each week. Twenty students across years 7-10 have been selected from an expression of interest process to participate in these groups from next week, with a number of reserves ready to step in if a space opens up during the course of the year.
Initiated from our focus on student engagement and wellbeing we are thrilled to be able to offer a number of additional support, wellbeing and extension programs in our school and local community with most of these already underway and providing students with opportunities to strengthen skills and build knowledge and expertise in areas of interest or future pathways. These programs include:
Visual Art
Boxing*
Cooking
Café
Music
Garden
Textiles and Design
ICT and Computing
Woodwork
Sport/Swimming
Mountain Biking**
*Not yet started **Planning for Term 2 is underway
Lunch time activities and groups are also soon to be offered with plans for a Pride Group and a Chess Club in discussion currently.
I would like to recognise the efforts, flexibility, imagination and teamwork of our staff in working together to ensure students at SMDS are being given access to such rich and engaging learning experiences and opportunities.
Student Arrival Time
This week we have had a number of students arriving at school or being dropped off well before 8.30am. It is important I advise parents and carers that although there are often staff on site from early in the morning until late into the evening, staff are only on duty and providing active supervision from 8.30am until 3.20pm. As a result, students should not be onsite outside of those times unless they are participating in organised sporting activities through any of our user groups (e.g. sports clubs) or in specifically defined school events. Nevertheless, we understand that parents are often juggling multiple commitments and do the best they can to get students to and from school. If students are on site outside these times, please be aware that we are unable to actively supervise them.
New Communication System: EdSmart
Our School will be switching over to a new messaging platform for communicating with you. This will replace our current SMS system.
The new platform, called EdSmart is an Australian platform which is designed to improve communication in school communities by allowing electronic messaging i.e. SMS and emails. For now, it will be used to manage absences messages i.e. you will receive a SMS or email alert if your child is absent from school requesting a response. It will also allow us to send a communication message to all parent/guardians.
The platform will, over time, be rolled out across all Tasmanian Government Schools and new features will be added.
You will receive a text message and/or an email with further details. Note, the text message sender will be a shortened version of our school’s name - Please keep an eye out for it!
Further information is available on the Department’s website:
Validation Form Reminder
Thank you to those families who have returned the annual validation packs. Schools are required to have families update this information each year. If you have not yet done so, please complete these forms as soon as possible. This ensures we have current contact details, permissions and up to date medical information. Thank you in anticipation.
School Uniform
It has been pleasing with how the vast majority of students are attending school in full school uniform every day. This week, we have noticed that sports shorts or football shorts have being worn by a few students. Sport shorts/football shorts are not part of our uniform and should not be worn to school. As a state school, we have a uniform policy and a dress code and therefore expect every student to attend school dressed in their full school uniform. My sincere thanks to parents for your co-operation and support in this regard. While uniform has no direct relationship to learning outcomes, it has many other positives. Wearing of uniform contributes to school culture as it is inclusive and equitable, it fosters a sense of belonging and identity, it supports student safety in making it easy to identify anyone who should not be onsite and it helps prepare students for the world of work where uniform or a standard of dress is required.
Passenger Conduct Code for School Bus Services
The Department of State Growth (DSG) has a Passenger Code of Conduct (the Code) for School Bus Services.
Bus travel is an integral part of how many students get to and from school each day. A significant number of St Marys District School students travel on buses to attend school, and all students have the right to feel safe while waiting for, travelling on, boarding and disembarking from buses.
The Code sets out the expected standards of behaviour for students when using a bus. It provides guidance and processes for bus operators and drivers to follow when a student breaches the Code, ensuring that all students, and breaches of the Code, are treated in a fair and consistent manner.
All operators of School Bus Services have adopted the Code as conditions of travel for the purposes of regulation 11 of the Passenger Transport Services Regulations 2013.
You can access information about the Code at:
Passenger_Conduct_Code_for_School_Bus_Services.pdf (transport.tas.gov.au)
Regards
Carolyn Watson
Principal
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Henna and Molly represented SMDS at the International Women’s Day conference in Fingal. Penny Terry, radio presenter and podcaster, was the keynote speaker and inspired us with the message to tell our stories. We came away with the knowledge that our stories are more powerful than we think, and sharing them will help us connect with other people and also help us get what we need.
Prep/1 A students have finished creating their ‘Footprints in the Sand’ art pieces. Students have experimented with mixing colours and using a variety of materials to create different effects. Students are excited to share the end results!
Ceramic vessel for Bay of Fires Exhibition shell bowl by Rebecca - Year 12 & Year 8 colour theory tertiary and secondary colours. Visual Art with Mrs Lorenz
Short courses has been running for each Friday afternoon since the commencement of Term 1. We have had a fantastic journey in the Creepy Critters course where students got to learn about the design process. This consisted of them looking at assorted designs of soft toys that look ugly or finding inspiration from movies or toys. Students had to sketch their design, create a pattern, learn a variety of stitches including running stitch, back stitch, cross stitch, chain stitch, blanket stitch and how to sew on a button.
It was great to see so many students willing to give this subject a go, and as you can see there have been some very interesting designs incorporating the use of the different techniques.
Congratulations to the students enrolled, i look forward to seeing many more designs in the near future.
Mrs Jenkins
We have been investigating ‘minibeasts’ looking for them in our outdoor learning environment, as well as making our own ‘bug hotels’ which we have scattered around outside, eagerly awaiting ‘minibeasts’ to make their homes in them. The children will be very excited to show you these. We made a list of bugs and insects that we already know and are learning about new ones.
We have been engaging in letters and sounds exploring our names, sorting our names in numerous ways and exploring the sounds of letters in our names. We have been looking at numbers and letters and differentiating which is a letter and which is a number. We have been listening to environmental sounds trying to guess different familiar sounds. We have also started exploring how many syllables we have in our names, clapping each syllable.
We have been continuing learning about Australia’s First Nations engaging in various experience to greater our knowledge and understanding of their culture. Painting their flag and learning about the meaning behind it and dot paintings and learning Aboriginal symbols.
We have been exploring number and counting using one-to-one correspondence from 0 – 5 and 0 – 10, as well as singing number and action songs.
We have had a change in environment with some added resources and toys added with a change around of the furniture and socio-dramatic play space which is now the ‘Kinder Supermarket’ this has been a terribly busy play space.
Last week we made scrambled eggs using the freshly laid eggs (thanks to Lorraine) and enjoyed these for lunch. We then engaged in a sequencing experience to recount what we did in order when making the eggs. We have completed a number of literacy experiences in our writing books, and we encourage families to look at what we have been doing in these.
Mindfulness time has been very popular with children, with them asking to engage in this during the day. When practising mindfulness, the children find their own space on the floor and lie down with their arms by their sides, we then listen to relaxing music and practise taking in deep breaths concentrating on the sounds around us.
On Friday 8 March members of Student Leadership Board (SLB) including Helayna McGiveron, Lachie Woods, Arielle da Graca, Daniel Cook, Ava Howorka, Byron Woods, and the House Captains Mikayla Quillium, Sehn O’Dowd, and Cortney Smith, travelled to Launceston for the GRIP Leadership Conference held at the Trailrace Centre.
This event was held for all school SLB members, in hope to improve our knowledge to help us become better leaders and role models.
The conference included a series of events which included:
- Sacrifices a leader makes
- Examples of leadership
- What leadership and being a leader means
- How to improve and help our school to become more successful
Throughout the day for brain-breaks we had a variation of fun activities which encouraged us to be sociable and adjust to the new environment. The fun activities went from ‘is it cake?’ to ‘guess the singer’, and our favourite of all a dance battle, which our very own Lachie was brave enough to participate in. Embedded in these activities were hints to becoming a better leader.
By the end of the day, we were all exhausted from the huge day of learning. Thankfully the bus ride home was peaceful enough for some of us to rest.
This event was a great success as all of the leaders from St Marys took a piece of helpful information back with them. We would like to thank Mr Stephen Smith for organising this event, as well as coming with us, Janine Burt. We would also like to thank Doug Jenkins from Callows Coaches for driving us all the way to Launceston and back to take part in this amazing opportunity.
By Helayna McGiveron
SLB President
Android Issues Resolved
Android users may have encounted problems using the QKR Canteen App in recent months.
The QKR technical team have advised that the Android Phone issue has now been resolved, parents/users can now download the App from the Google Play Store.
Instructions on how to download and set up the QKR App can be found on the link below:
These notices have been sent home to parents in the last fortnight. If you did not receive one and would like to receive a copy of the notice, please contact the school office on 63 723 900.
PRIMARY
- Kinder - Grade 6 - Athletics Carnival -Thursday 28 March 2024
SECONDARY
- Secondary Swimming Carnival (Grade 7 - 10) - Tuesday 26 March 2024
WHOLE SCHOOL
- Open Classrooms Afternoon and Meet the Teacher BBQ - Wednesday 20 March 2024
- Performance "The Super Science Circus Shaw" - Wednesday 27 March 2024
SERVICES AUSTRALIA - TAS Remote Services team.
- We visit the East Coast every 3 to 4 months currently working from Bicheno and Swansea.
- We represent Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support and offer a face to face service via appointment.
- For students and parents we can assist them to create MyGov accounts and confirm student identification via their student ID card.
- We can link Centrelink services to MyGov and discuss eligibility for payments.
- We can link Medicare services to MyGov and set up students to have their own Medicare card.
- We can advise best ways to apply for a tax file number.
NOTICEBOARD