Dear School Community,

Congratulations to all the students who participated in the Devonport Basketball tournament on the weekend.  Burnie Primary was represented by a number of teams and all students tried their best.  Thank you to the parents, carers and family members who attended to cheer on and support the students.  An enormous thank you to those parents and families who took on active roles for the weekend of coaching, managing, scoring etc.  Without your support these opportunities cannot go ahead for the students.  A big thank you also to Mr Dome for all of the management and organisation to ensure that Burnie Primary was involved in the event.

A fortnight ago Burnie Primary had a stall at the Burnie MakerX Fair that was organised by the University of Tasmania.  Nine students from Grade 6 organised and ran a stall that showcased the learning they are involved in when in the Makerspace and in STEAM education.  Over 2000 people came through the fair on the Sunday and it was an enormous success.  There were over 70 stalls at the fair and Burnie Primary was awarded the people's choice for the most popular stall.  Congratulations to the students who were involved and we look forward to being part of this event again next year.

Book Week was again a fantastic time at Burnie Primary School.  There was a fantastic range of costumes that children wore to school to represent a favourite character or book.  It was great to see so many staff also dressed up for the Wednesday.  At Burnie Primary we do not award a prize for best dressed as we believe that everyone who gets involved in Book Week and everyone who reads a book is a winner.

Please remember that every day counts for students attending school.  It is accepted that students may miss some school days due to illness or unavoidable family matters.  Unfortunately, ongoing absenteeism from school is very detrimental to a child’s academic and social wellbeing.  This includes arriving late to school and leaving early on a regular basis.  From an academic perspective, ongoing absenteeism means that a student is missing crucial learning opportunities that cannot be recovered.  Research shows that regular absenteeism has a direct effect on an individual’s success and wellbeing throughout their life.  There is also the impact that absenteeism has on the opportunities that a child has to interact on a social level with other students and the school community.  How we develop as a person is just as important as how we develop academically.  Parents and carers are required to contact the school to inform the front office as to why their child is not at school on any given day.  All student absences are recorded in a central database and ongoing absenteeism results in the school having to follow a legislated process of intervention with the family.  A new process that has been introduced is the involvement of an Education Registrar.  The involvement of this office is activated when there is no improvement in a student’s attendance, despite ongoing school intervention.  The Education Registrar is able to convene legally binding conciliation conferences that can result in court mandated requirements.  The reality is that every parent /carer wants the best for their child and attending school on time and as much as possible is in the best interest of every child.

Just a reminder that if you wish to discuss schooling matters with a teacher or senior staff member, please contact the front office with the request and this will be forwarded to the relevant staff member.  Please avoid non organised meetings before school or straight after school as these are very busy times for staff in setting up and finishing off a learning day.  Many of our staff use the SeeSaw app to communicate to parents and carers the learning experiences their children are involved in throughout the day.  Please do not use this platform as a means of discussing concerns with staff around your child’s learning and/or social interactions.  This is the same in regards to utilising staff emails.  It is always best to organise a meeting and discuss a matter in person.  Thankyou

Next week is my last week in the Principal’s chair and we will be welcoming back Mr Starick in week 8.  Thank you to everyone for their support during my time in the role and I look forward to continuing to work alongside you in my Assistant Principal role to support the learning and wellbeing of your children.

 Regards

 Andrew Woodard

Principal (acting)

Benji Lavell  for displaying positive values.

On Wednesday, 28th August Kinder Hyland and Kinder Snooks had an afternoon tea to celebrate Father’s Day.

We had lots of fun sharing the food we cooked, playing games, singing and listening to the "Piranhas Don't Eat Bananas" story.

Devonport Basketball Tournament

Fifty nine excited Burnie Primary School students spread across seven teams, ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 6, participated in last weekend’s Devonport Basketball Tournament.

 Rachel Jones coached the Grade 1-2 girls. Their team consisted of Layla Cann, Harper Newton, Heidi Timmins, Zara Richardson, Lucy Redman. Ivy Pringle, Eve Baker, Sari Armstrong and Murphy Bain. Many of these girls were playing in their first tournament. However despite this and looking a little nervous, they played very well and were the winners of C Grade. It was great to see their smiles and medallions on Monday morning.

The Grade 1-2 boys were coached by Stuart and Elena Bain.  The team consisted of Hudson Bain, Billy Donnelllan, Diesel McCulloch, Cooper Smith, Archie Hill, Louis Stretton, Elijah Gillam, Lucas Hyland and Ryan Ambrose.  There was a mixture of experience here as the Grade 2s were back for their second tournament and the improvement from last year to this year was amazing.  They helped the Grade 1s and won all of their pool games, eventually going down in a thrilling A Grade Grand Final by 2 points.

The numbers were high in the Grade 3/4 area with both the boys and girls fielding two teams.  The 3-4 C Grade girls were coached by Sarah Young and included Maddie Smith, Chastity Powell, Inndii Powell, Indee Beattie, Pippa Beaumont, Alicia Ross and Hope Lockett.  The girls improved as the tournament went on and managed to take out C Grade. They also had some medals and smiles for us on Monday morning.

The second Grade 3-4 Girls team participated in A Grade and were coached by Kurt Reeve. The team of Sienna Reeve, Bronte Riley, Parisa Sangcumrit, Amarli Palmer, Addison Bester, Paige Jacobson and Ruby Cunningham tried hard in all their games never giving up and supporting each other in a challenging competition.

The Grade 3-4 boys C Grade were coached by Camilla Stretton and were Taj Lockett, Harlen Timmins, Jem Stretton, Lucas Kinch, Blake Bracken, Hayden Kinch and Max Redman.  These boys played with determination, showing great improvement over the weekend and whilst they had plenty of opportunities, the ball just bounced around the ring and wouldn’t drop the basket for them often enough.

The 3-4 boys in A Grade - Nash Armstrong, Oliver Rattray, Dechlan Ritch, Tobias Jordan, Johnty Dynan, Brooklyn Hill, Oliver Donnellan and Ryan Dick coached by Stephen Dome, played some fantastic team basketball and displayed a high level of skill.  Eventually they fell just 3 points short in a very competitive Grand Final.

Finally our Grade 5-6 Girls played in the A-B division. The team of Ella Reeve, Indi-Mae Armstrong, Grace Clarke, Savannah Dynan, Ava Denny, Kinley Booth, Briana Ross, Sharlotte Pegus, Sianna Bester and Por Smith found the two A grade sides too experienced but more than held their own against the B Grade teams.

I would like to thank all the coaches for training the teams and coaching them over the weekend.  Without parents putting their hand up to help out in this capacity, we would not be able to enter teams in these tournaments.

Also thank you to Sam Armstrong, James Dick, Dianne Hardy, Samuel Plapp, Mya Slatter, Stephen Gillam and Kylie Richardson and Jason Smith who gave up their time to referee our games.

Redcycle Information

The Redcycle bins have been put in every grade in the school. Some grades have been putting paper/paper towel in the bins. This has been an issue as the sustainability leaders have to go through the rubbish to remove it.  This rule applies to all of the bins in the school.

Please put scrunchable plastics in the Redcycle bins, paper in the paper bins, recyclable waste in the mixed recycling bins and paper towel in the normal bins.

Paper towel vs hand dryers

Last year the sustainability leaders looked into how much paper towel is wasted at this school, we have been researching alternatives such as hand dryers. We began to do more research on how the hand dryers would affect the hygiene of the staff and students, the cost and how it would impact the environment.  After researching we decided that hand dryers may not be the best option for our school.

 This is a chart we made to represent the pros and cons of paper towels and hand dryers.

Recommendations

As the table shows, the hand dryers may not be as good as we had hoped so we have decided to stick with paper towel. However a lot of paper towel is wasted at this school and we would like to advise everyone to not use a lot of it when drying your hands.

Remember, with paper towel, one will do. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/11/paper-towels-drying-hands-energy

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacteria-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823

 Accessed on 7/6/2019

 From the Sustainability Leaders – Melaiyne Harding, Sienna Dutton and Libby Hardstaff

Enrolments for next year's Kinder, for families living within our current zoning, are now open. Families that have already indicated that they will be attending have been posted enrolment forms this week. Completed forms should be returned to the office as soon as possible.

If you are aware of anyone in our area with a child born in 2015 please ask them to call into the office to collect enrolment forms.

Pre-Kinder Sessions

To help familiarise your child with Burnie Primary School and our Kindergarten room we will be holding four (4) Pre-Kinder sessions during November.  This is a great opportunity for you and your child to spend time in our Kinder room playing and meeting other families.  Children must be accompanied by an adult for these sessions.

            Location:         Kindergarten room

            Time:               9:30 – 10:30am

            Dates:              Friday 8^th, 15^th, 22^nd, 29^th November 2019

Pre-kinder session attendance is optional but we do encourage parents/guardians to bring their child along as it does assist in helping children to feel comfortable/safe in the environment.

Recorders, Recorders, Recorders!!!

Do you have an old, unused recorder lying around home and not sure what to do with it?

After the success of recorder becoming part of the Grade 3 Music program this year, Mrs Matthews is looking to expand it into Grade 4 in 2020.

Linking with our school focus on sustainability, what better way to reuse and reduce than repurposing instruments that might otherwise be gathering dust!

If you have a recorder at home that is in good condition (playable condition, no excess chipping etc) and you would like to give it a new, permanent home, then the Burnie Primary Music Department would be more than happy to take it off your hands. Donated recorders will be cleaned, serviced and given a new lease on life within our music program.

Any recorder donations can be left at the front office.

Thank you

Mrs Matthews

We keep a supply of spare uniform items at school for any emergency changes that may be required during the school day. We often lend out trousers after students have slipped over on these wet and sometimes muddy days.

We are very low on size 8 & 10 trousers at the moment. If anyone has some  trousers at home that are no longer required these would be greatly appreciated at the office.

Thank you.