Dear Parents/Guardians 

Welcome back to Term 3!  I hope that students, parents and families enjoyed a relaxing, and restorative break.

Values 

Throughout this Term I would like to allocate time to highlight each of the new DECYP values and the important role they play in guiding our school community.  

The first focus value is Connection. 

The DECYP value of Connection plays a pivotal role within the St Marys District School community. The value of connection is integral to fostering positive relationships and creating a sense of belonging among students, staff, and the wider school community.  At St Marys District School, the value of Connection is foundational in shaping our school culture. Strong and positive connections between students, staff, parents and community are vital in building positive wellbeing and  learning, bright lives and positive futures. The value of connection supports the work of actively promoting inclusivity to ensure that every student feels valued and recognised. This is achieved through various programs and initiatives that encourage collaboration, mutual respect, and understanding including Hands on Learning and other extension, engagement and intervention programs; multi-grade excursions and events and peer mentoring and leadership programs, where older students support and guide their younger peers, fostering strong relationships and building a connection across our K-12 school community. These, along with sports competitions, cultural celebrations, and community projects, all provide students with opportunities to engage with one another in meaningful ways. By participating in these activities, students learn the importance of teamwork, appreciate diverse perspectives, and develop a sense of responsibility towards their community.

Connection also extends to the relationships between teachers and students. We promote open communication and encourage teachers to build supportive and nurturing relationships with their students. This approach helps in creating a positive learning environment where students feel safe to express themselves, take risks,

The value of Connection at St Marys District School is about creating an environment where everyone feels included, respected, and connected. It is about building a community where positive relationships are the norm, and a strong sense of belonging is cultivated. This focus on connection not only enhances the overall school experience but also equips students with the social and emotional skills necessary for success beyond the classroom.

Book Week

This year’s book week theme is: READING IS MAGIC

To celebrate book week, on Friday, 23 August all students from Kinder to Year 12 are invited to dress up and wear a costume based around the theme READING IS MAGIC or their favourite book character. I’m looking forward to seeing a wide range of ‘characters’ at school and on parade on the day. Students will also be engaging in other Book Week activities during Book Week including our annual Book Fair.

Attendance

It is timely to be reminded that regular school attendance is critical.  We monitor attendance regularly and record it daily.  As has been stated, please keep your child home if unwell but if this is not the case then students should be at school each and every day to maximise their learning and to strengthen their connections with staff and students.  Being at school each day provides students with purpose and regular routine, and these in turn support wellbeing.  If you need any help or assistance in supporting your child/ren’s attendance at school please contact us through the office on 63723900.  Please remember to notify us if your child is absent from school for any reason.

Carolyn Watson

Principal

BOOK FAIR : Monday 19 August – Friday 23 August 2024

In addition, as part of Book Week we are excited to announce that the annual Scholastic Book Fair will be held from Monday 19 to Friday 23August. The Book Fair will be set up in the foyer of the main office with books being available to view and/or purchase between 8:30am and 3.30pm. All students will be given the opportunity to visit the Book Fair in small groups to look at the books. In addition, we will post images of some of the books available on our Facebook page throughout the week. Credit card, phone, online or cash transactions will be available. Details for phone and online purchases are on the back of the attached flyer.

All profits from the sale of books will be used to purchase books for our school libraries. The school is entitled to purchase books to the value of 30% of all sales. If we are able to sell $500 worth of books, we will be able to purchase books to the value of $150 for our library for everyone to enjoy! If you are able to support our Book Fair, come along and purchase some great books and support reading development in our community.

Parents are more than welcome to visit the Book Fair throughout the week it is on display.

BOOK PARADE – Friday 23 August 2024

On Friday 23 August all students are invited to dress up as their favourite book character or as something related to this year’s theme. When considering costumes please consider the weather and suitable footwear so that students are warm enough and can walk the distance comfortably. Please remember that it is not necessary to hire or purchase a costume. Some suggestions include:

• Using existing clothing from home to dress as the book character,
• Accessorising with a prop; a wand, a basket, a golden ticket from a favourite book,
• Bringing their favourite book to carry in the parade or a copy of the book cover on a lanyard also helps to identify the character.
• Visit the Op-Shop for inspiration

All St Marys District School students will have the opportunity to participate in the much awaited Book Week Parade and, as experienced in previous years, we will be taking the parade to the community. At 11.20am Primary students, the Student Leader Board and Secondary students (in costume) will depart from the St Marys District School front entrance and will walk into the St Marys township, following the path on the map below. Upon the conclusion of the parade, students will return to school and engage in their timetabled lessons for the remainder of the day. This year, each class in primary and secondary will be decorating their classroom entry doors in celebration of Book Week. Classes will participate in a school-walk, whereby doors will be enjoyed.

In case of wet weather, the Book Parade will take place in the school gym at 11.20am. In the event that the gym will be used, the following information will support students, staff and visitors. Access to the gym will be via the main entrance doors which can be found by following the path around the gym. To assist us with our planning should we have to use the gym, please RSVP no later than Monday 19 August. Seating will be made available for all visitors who wish to attend. Information regarding this change will be shared via Facebook and Schoolzine.

Throughout the year in Health Education, there has been a huge focus on the development of personal skills and social skills, using many resources including the Tasmanian DECYP Respectful Relationships Education Learning Package.   This has included how to identify different emotions and how to manage the different feelings attached to a range of emotions.  For example, a child might be angry and respond with hitting another student or breaking something.  Another student might be angry but choose to ask for some time out, go for a walk, listen to music, talk to a teacher or friend.  Students have been exposed to a range of strategies to cope/respond to different emotional circumstances.  Sometimes these strategies need lots of practice and can take a long time to develop.   

Our students have discussed how to identify and solve problems.  They have practised a number of strategies to solve conflicts.  Our young students are acquiring skills in order to be respectful to others and using kind language when communicating.  They have been able to describe and show ‘empathy’ towards others.  They have been engaged in group tasks, reading stories, writing letters, completing work sheets, using sock puppets and participating in ‘yarning circles’ to share thoughts and ideas about how to develop positive relationships.  Our students have been describing what ‘trust’ is, identifying elements of trust and identifying people in their lives they can trust.  

Our students are currently engaged in understanding the concept of ‘consent’.  These are our focus questions: 

• What do ‘permission’ and ‘consent’ mean? 

• When do I need to seek or give my permission or consent? 

• What are my personal boundaries? 

• How can I respect others’ personal space?  

They are learning about every-day situations to give and seek consent such as asking to go to the toilet at school, asking to read a different book or being asked by someone to share a toy or borrow a pencil.  They might need to respond to someone taking something from their desk without asking or how to respond to someone giving them a hug that makes them feel uncomfortable. Other situations might include asking a parent/family member to have a play-date, a sleep-over or to go to a birthday party.   

The inclusion of consent education within our Health Curriculum will also support the strong messages given in the Bravehearts Ditto Safe Education Programme that our school includes every 2 years for our Early Childhood students.  The purpose of the Ditto programme is for children to understand that we all have the right to feel safe; express our feelings; identify warning signs and to take action if they feel unsafe.    

As Term 3 progresses, our Health focus will include ‘recognising unsafe situations’, ‘responding to unsafe situations’, ‘personal safety’ and ‘protective behaviours’.  The key questions “How can I respond to a situation I feel is unsafe?”, “What are different types of touches?”, “When don’t you keep a secret” and “How can I react and respond when I feel uncomfortable or unsafe?” will be delivered in a respectful and age-appropriate manner using the Tasmanian Respectful Education Learning Package. 

Please enjoy this selection of photos of our Early childhood student engaging in Health Education.  

Prep/1A have been learning about the 2024 Paris Olympics. We made our own Olympic torches. Students were amazed at how the torch travels around the world. We are excited to learn more about the Olympics over the next few weeks.

Being read aloud to is such a special experience which can evoke feelings of wonder and astonishment as we get swept away with the characters and actions within a text. Sitting back, listening and being transported to another time or place is certainly a relaxing activity, however, it is the reader who brings these stories to life and that is no easy feat. Students from Grade 7 have had the opportunity to consider the elements needed to captivate an audience and why not throw them in the deep end with the most critical of judges, our Kinder students! Elise chose a crowd favourite, ‘I Need a Hug’ by Aaron Blabey to share where she practised and applied the reading skills of pace, pitch, tone and volume in significant parts of the text to bring the story to life. Not only were the Kinder students enthralled with the story, but they were also delighted to have a high school student visit their classroom.

Building strong relationships and connections among our community of learners through the sharing of books is something special indeed!

Prep/1 and Grade 4/5 have begun ‘buddy reading’. It was lovely to see our upper primary students take a leadership role and guide our younger students in reading and comprehending stories. We are looking forward to our next session together.

The National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence has a new name—Bullying No Way: National week of action.

Bullying No Way Week, 12 to 16 August 2024, is Australia’s key bullying prevention initiative and connects schools and communities to find workable solutions to prevent bullying.

Purple is the new hero colour representing Bullying No Way: National week of action and our commitment to standing against bullying.

The theme for 2024 is 'Everyone belongs'. We invite students on Friday 16August to wear purple to celebrate and recognise that everyone belongs to our school community.

When we all feel like we belong, bullying struggles to find a place. It's about embracing who we are, respecting everyone's differences and standing up together against unkindness.

Belonging means we all have a role in preventing bullying. We're encouraged to speak up and create a safe place where everyone feels supported and respected, and our voices are heard and valued.

As part of our Resilience Project learning in Prep/1A we reflected on things in our life that we are grateful for. Showing gratitude is important as it helps you to identify positive emotions, appreciate the things in life and allows us to understand why we feel happy. Thank you to Janine McGill who sourced the arts materials and helped us to create our ‘crafty’ self-portraits.

Hands on Learning, a national program, sponsored by Save The Children Fund, provides a valuable learning experience for students. The HOL methodology is based on four pillars. The fourth pillar, giving back, encourages students to assist and help others. At St Marys we engage in a wide range of events and functions to imbed a spirit of both community and connection. On Tuesday July 30, HOL students mentored Prep/1 students with assistance from Miss Rossi, Sam Smithhurst, Amanda Jordan and Ken Stonehouse.

How do we move safely in different spaces?  How can we move objects in space? Which parts of our body can we use to move ourselves and objects in the space around us?  Our Grade 1/2 students have been applying the many positive relationship skills learned in Health Education to movement experiences in PE.  Our students have been demonstrating these social skills through ‘team work’.   

Our Grade 1/ 2 students have been experimenting with a range of PE equipment of different sizes, shapes, weights and texture.  They have been experimenting with the concepts of ‘flight’, ‘flick’, ‘roll’, ‘push’ and ‘release’.  They have put their imagination to the test!  They have had to rescue escaped animals from the zoo using hoops.  They have had to catch rats in the drain pipes (ping pong balls rolling in plastic pipes).  They have had to catch meteors that have plummeted into earth with fragments bouncing off!  Using small running hurdles and cones, they have had to use their throwing and accuracy skills to get the astronaut back onto the space ship! 

Please enjoy this selection of photos demonstrating the safe, fun and creative learning opportunities in Grade 1 / 2 PE. 

At the end of Term 2, our Kinder students were exploring the concepts of ‘pull’ and ‘push’.  They were exploring how their big muscles work to move their bodies, other students’ bodies and how to move equipment.  They also were comparing how big muscles worked differently (for gross motor skills such as hop, jump, roll, skip, run) to the smaller muscles (catching, rolling, bowling, bouncing and throwing). 

This term, our students are manipulating objects to find ways to explore the concepts of  ‘bounce’, ‘roll’ and  ‘rebound’.  Using of a range of equipment of different sizes, weights, textures and shapes, our students are experimenting with different ways of using equipment by moving both large and small muscles.  

Please enjoy this wonderful selection of photos show-casing our Kindergarten students’ development in PE.  

Towards the end of Term 2 and over the last few weeks, our Prep/1 PE class have been learning about the world and places in the world through movement.  Using gross motor and fine motor skills they have been using their imagination to go on trips around the world!   They have been to Africa and rowed down the Zambezi River using scooter boards as canoes and the scooter board poles as oars. They have learned to coordinate their individual movements and to cooperate with others to demonstrate different ways to move efficiently.  

They have turned into hippopotamuses and using scooter boards, beanbags, a bucket and a buddy, they have played the fun board game “Hungry Hungry Hippo”! 

They then had to climb the Swiss Alps and go cross-country skiing.  Each student had a pair of skis (2 pieces of paper) and some ski poles (pool noodles).  The students had to work out how to pull, push and slide their body in their skis and to coordinate their ski poles!!  It was tough work skiing on the slopes in such a cold environment!!  When they eventually climbed the mountain on their skis, they had a big team snowball fight.  The winning team was who ended up with the least snowballs on their side of the mountain!   

In recent weeks our Prep/1 students have been exploring the concepts of roll, bowl, bounce and rebound.  Using equipment with different shapes, textures and weights, they have been experimenting with how to move objects on different surfaces and through the air.  

Prep/1 PE is after lunch.  Sometimes the students are hot and sweaty from playing and need a little break before PE commences.  We then take the time to slow down and do some yoga in the classroom before heading to PE.  The yoga is calming.  It helps our students to re-set and prepare for the afternoon.  The yoga session goes for 10 – 20 minutes and usually has a theme.  It might be about movement in the jungle or a relaxing experience under the sea with fish and mermaids. 

Please enjoy this selection of photos showing how much fun our students have in PE whilst developing their physical and social skills. 

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

• Growth and Development Sessions - Grade 5-6
• 100 Days of School - Grades Prep -1.  Friday 16 August
• Grade 5 Camp - Rostrevor - Thursday 12 September - Friday 13 September
• Prep - Grade 6 Performance Thursday 15 August - "It's a Mad World"

WHOLE SCHOOL

• Book Week - Monday 19 August - Friday 23 August
• Book Week Parade - Friday 23 August