Today sees the last day of Term 1 for students and a great time to reflect with your children on the learning they have achieved this term. At the same time you can look forward to the learning opportunities that you will be providing during the school break. We value the partnership that we have with you as parents in your child’s learning.  We also value parents and carers input into how Burnie Primary School runs and what it will look like in the future. It has been great to see the huge number of parents and carers that have made the time to come in and discuss student learning this week. As always, we look forward to continuing the conversation throughout the school year.

Last Thursday 4^th April, we conducted the AGM of our School Association and our Parents and Friends group met after this to set some direction for the year. It was great to see the parental support for these meetings and to fill the roles within these groups. It was also pleasing to see the understanding of both groups and where they sit with our constitution and how both groups can complement the work that they do. The School Association identified that they can help with more of the administrative duties and roles as the P&F is actually considered a sub-committee of the School Association. This allows the P&F to take on the more practical roles within our school community.  For the School Association we have Stuart Rattray as President, Stacey Wilson and Emma Duncan as co-Vice Chairs, Rachel Johnson and Diane Williams as co- Secretaries, and Brendan Hyland as Treasurer. On behalf of our school community we congratulate and thank these parents for contributing to these important roles for this year. Our Parents and Friends meeting provided us with an opportunity to discuss the purpose of the group and to plan for the year ahead, and we were excited to see so many new and long serving faces present. The group looked at ways we can foster parent engagement in their children’s learning. Social events like the student disco next term were discussed as great ways to get parents together as well as students. We are also looking at fundraising for the new play equipment we are looking to purchase before the end of the school year, and engaging e-safety expert Susan Mclean to work with Grade 5 & 6 students, and importantly our parent community to ensure you as parents and carers understand the important role you have to play to ensure your child is safe when online.

Teachers will continue their professional learning at the student free professional learning day tomorrow. Burnie Primary School will be working with all teachers from Ridgley, Havenview, Somerset and Romaine Park Primary Schools to come together to look at student work to help get an understanding and to moderate that student work against the Australian Curriculum. It’s important that students' ratings are checked against other students' work from around Burnie. As it’s an Australian Curriculum, these ratings should be consistent for students at their grade level in Burnie as it should be for students in Broome or Burke, and we certainly look at moderation samples online from around the country to help teachers inform their ratings. It is also a valuable start to developing a network of teachers from other schools to continue the conversation throughout the year about student work at their grade level.

We wish all within our school community a happy and safe term break, and we look forward to seeing you all back in Term 2 on Monday 29^th April.

Andrew Starick

Principal