Term 4 is such a busy time so please make sure you regularly check schoolzine, Seesaw and notices home to keep informed of what is coming up.  Some of the main events scheduled include:

• Toonschool
• Grade 4 excursion - Sisters Beach Wild Life
• Grade 5 Camp - Fulton Park
• Grade 6 BHS Transitions (including full day)
• Fun Day
• Family Fitness
• Grade 2 Excursion - The Hive
• Grade 3 Excursion - Wings Wild Life Park & The Hive
• K-2 & 3-6 Socials
• Grade 6 Celebration Day & Dinner
• K-5 Assembly
• Grade 6 Presentation Asssembly

On Friday 3rd Novemebr our staff had a very productive Professional Learning Day. We spent time analysing data sets to begin our process of identifying our 2024 school priorities.   Some of the areas covered included: 

• Aligning our work in our state-wide reading prioirty. Our 3-6 teachers worked with Lyn Anderson on orthography and our K-2 team delved into the explicit teaching of phonics and decodable texts.  
• Preliminary analysis and discussion of PAT data, NAPLAN and, Student Wellbeing and Engagement data.

We look forward to sharing our priorities with you.

Remembrance Day  
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day, a day of national commemoration. On this day at 11.00am, Australians pause in silence for one minute to remember the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women who lost their lives while serving Australia and its allies in wars, conflict and peacekeeping operations. Services are held at 11.00am at War Memorials, schools and in towns across the country. During the service the ‘Last Post’ is sounded by a bugler, followed by one minute of silence and the ‘Reveille’. Our student councillors will lead us through this service. We thank them for helping us commemorate this important day.  

In partnership,  

Susan Barnard  

This week our year 1-6 students had the privilege working with cartoonist Jeff Taylor to explore their creativity and lateral thinking. Each year group spent an hour creating growth mindset cartoons.

At BPS we are courageous, and this term the DECYP Value of Courage is the focus for our Morning Meetings.  

 Acting with courage means: 

• accepting challenges and embracing opportunities 
• thinking creatively and being brave 
• being prepared to stand up for what’s important 
• not giving up 
• having difficult conversations  
• being innovative and taking calculated risks in some situations.

It is with mixed emotions that we farewell Nurse Rob from BPS.  We want to express our deepest gratitude for her dedication and professionalism. She has been a wealth of knowledge for both students and colleagues alike and her presence will be greatly missed.   We wish Nurse Rob the very best in her future endeavors. 

This fornight we welcome Lina, Kenzie and their families to Burnie Primary School.

Jackson Ansell is our (AST) and is responsible for student leadership. This includes assisting the SRC in planning fundraisers, lunchtime clubs and decision-making in the school, along with planning for whole-school Daily P.E. with the sports leaders. Jackson liaises with UTAS to assist in placing pre-service teachers at BPS, develops whole-school timetables and coordinates values assemblies.

This term, Jackson has been working alongside the High School transition coordinators to organise the transition to High School for our Grade 6 students. This provides our students with an opportunity to become more familiar with the High School that they will be attending. Jackson has also been busy organising upcoming incursions and excursions that are occurring in Term 4, such as Toon Schools, Bush to Beach, and EMUsicians. 

Alanna Smith is our Quality Teaching Coach for literacy and numeracy. She works with teachers to analyse data and identify areas of improvement in teaching and learning. This year our two identified areas for improvement are in reading (P-2 Phonics and 3-6 Vocabulary) and number.
Alanna leads our number initiative through the Burnie Counts which is a cluster of schools who feed into Burnie High. Meeting fortnightly, the leaders of Burnie Counts have developed sequences and tasks to support the implementation of the number curriculum. This has also involved teachers from the 5 schools meeting twice termly to assess student work samples to ensure consistency within report ratings. There have also been community initiatives that Alanna and the team of leaders have developed such as the Burnie Maths Trail, Maths Relay for Grade 5s and another exciting initiative coming soon!
The way we teach reading is changing as new research about the brain and learning is developed. Alanna has been investigating Professional Learning (PL) for our teachers to undertake in ‘Phonics’ and ‘Vocabulary’ in order for our students to be developing as proficient readers. On our professional learning day on Friday, the Prep-Grade 2 team participated in a webinar about the instruction of phonics and the Grade 3-6 team worked with Lyn Anderson on Orthography; the writing and reading system. a
Alanna also leads the school in data, assessment and reporting processes. As part of the new requirements for reporting to parents, we have been providing ‘Evidence of Learning’ for different subject areas and learning plans which you will see in Week 4 and 7 of this term for Maths and English.
If you have any questions regarding literacy and numeracy teaching and learning please feel free to contact Alanna at school.

We all want the best for our children – for their futures to be as bright as possible. Showing up every day to school really matters. It gives your child every chance to learn, grow and find their interests. 

This last stretch of the school year can sometimes be tricky. Keep it up, because each day is another chance to: 

•  be around friends
•  learn new things
•  find interests
•  create dream futures (whatever that may be!).

If you’re looking for tips on how to create better attendance habits, visit the Anything can happen website.  

Please always talk to us if you’re having trouble getting your child to school. We’re here to help. 

Burnie Counts would like your feedback on helping your child with mathematics at home. By filling in the survey you could be the lucky winner of a $50 Burnie City voucher.

https://forms.gle/9oiq44MhDWwqvQVM9