Our priority areas in 2023 are Reading (K-2 Phonics and 3-6 Vocabulary), and Numeracy (our work with Burnie Counts).These priorities have come from our data that continues to show that although students at Burnie Primary are doing well even more learning and growth is possible. We hold the highest expectations for every student and continue to strive for improvement in leading, teaching and learning.

We know the importance of partnering with our families to help us achieve even better results. Next term we look forward to providing more opportunities to connect with our school.  We love having our families and community volunteers back in our school post COVID! If you have not had a chance to complete our Lift survey, please do so by scanning the QR code below – we currently have had 32 responses.

Celebrating Success
I would like to congratulate Junior Deputy Mayor Hudson Bain for his recent election at the Burnie Youth Council.

When I spoke to Hudson after his visit to the council, he was looking forward to learning more about his role. 

Staffing Update
As we conclude Term 1, it is time to farewell one of our staff members. Mrs Olivia Meldrum will take a period of maternity until the end of this year. While we can’t wait to have Olivia back at school, we wish her all the best during this special time. We thank Olivia for her contributions to our school community over the past few years .  

We are very fortunate to have a dedicated team of teachers and support staff at Burnie Primary School. Our staff really go above and beyond to provide our learners with the very best opportunities and experience. Next term we are excited to expand our expert team with a newly appointed Assistant Principal (AP) and Advanced Skills Teacher (AST).  At the beginning of next term we welcome Jackson Ansell to our team. Jackson was the successful applicant for our AST postion here at Burnie Primary School. Jackson joins us from Spreyton Primary School. We will provide more information about our AP once the recruitment process has been finalised.

Breakfast Club
We are excited that Breakfast Club will be starting again in Term 2.  We are currently seeking donations to be able to provide this service to our families. If you are interested in supporting our Breakfast Club in anyway, please let the office know.

Moderation Day Thursday April 6th - Student Free Day
On Thursday April 6, the staff from Burnie Primary School will travel to Somerset Primary School for Moderation Day. This opportunity enables our teachers to build shared understanding of expected learning pathways, know where students are in their learning and plan for the next steps in learning. We look forward to working with Cooee, Natone, Burnie High and Somerset PS on this day.

Road Safety - School Safety 
Road and school safety awareness and compliance are everyone’s responsibility. Several parents have recently contacted me about their concerns of unsafe driver behaviour in our car park and surrounding areas.   Please ensure that you are moving safely within the school zone.

Swimming and Water Safety Program
The Department of Education, Children and Young People (DECYP) provides the opportunity for every Year 3, 4, 5, and at-risk Year 6 students in Tasmanian Government schools to participate in quality swimming and water safety instruction. In 2023, Burnie Primary School has supported our entire year 6 cohort in this excellent program. This program consists of ten consecutive lessons per year – totalling a potential of thirty lessons, in which to become a competent swimmer and be water safe. Our annual ten lessons were conducted at the Burnie Aquatic Centre.

The program has a strong emphasis on water safety, including boat safety – with experiences using personal flotation devices, survival swimming, reach to rescue, entering aquatic environments safely, as well as efficient stroke development and building swimming stamina. These elements are imperative as our student’s engage in numerous leisure and sporting activities in lakes, rivers and the sea as part of family and community life. These elements also build the foundation for participation in aquatic activities in adult life.

The Swimming and Water Safety Program supports the Australian Curriculum Health and Physical Education, Personal, social and community strand and Movement and physical activity strand – in particular the focus areas of Safety, Health benefits of physical activity, Fundamental motor skills and Lifelong physical activities.

Our SWS Program finishes on Friday March 31^st. We thank our families for ensuring our students arrived daily with their required items. It is no easy feat to wash towels and bathers every night and have them ready for the next day (for ten days!)

And finally, as this is our final newsletter for the term. I personally would like to wish all families a happy, restful Easter holiday break and look forward to welcoming you back to school for Term 2, on Wednesday the 26^th of April.  I look forward to sharing and celebrating our ongoing successes with you into a productive Term 2.  

Susan Barnard
Acting Principal

In writing we have been working on information texts. The focus has been writing correctly structured paragraphs. We worked in groups to organise information into subheadings and have independently written paragraphs. We have also worked on putting information into our own words.

Predators and Dangers
Little Penguins have both natural predators and introduced predators. Some natural predators are Sea Eagles, Fur Seals and snakes. Some introduced predators are foxes, dogs and cats. Humans can also be a danger to Little Penguins by walking through their habitats and scaring them away from reaching their young. Other threats to Little Penguins are global problems that humans created like pollution, diseases, climate change and even habitat loss. We all need to be mindful of our impact on Little Penguin's lives.

By Darcey 6MW

Motorbikes
Motorbikes have a long history, and their invention has been useful to everyone. A motorcycle is a vehicle used to transport a person from one race to another. In 1901 the first working motorbike was made by Indian Motorbikes in Springfield Massachusetts. A well-known manufacturer of motorbikes is Harley Davidson.  Motorbikes have been a good invention for us and for the world. It has helped us to go from one place to another quickly.

Written By Leon 6S

Diet
Fairy penguins live and are associated with water, their diet is 76 percent fish, 24 percent squid, 1 percent squid. Fairy penguins consume their body weight in food every day. The major food item fairy penguins eat is a small school of fish. Fairy penguins hunt for their food only on the surface waters as they are not deep divers. They catch their food with their tip of the beak and firmly grasp their prey. When it comes to feeding chicks, the female and male fairy penguins take turns to provide for their young. They scoop the fish into their mouths and feed it to the chicks when they return to land.

By Gaelle 6MW

Creatures of the deep
Below sea level live hundreds of unknown creatures in a place we know as the deep dark depths of the ocean.  A hundred years ago scientists dragged big heavy nets across the sea floor and found worms and crabs and strange looking fish.  These fish weren’t normal.  Scientists found that they live in extreme temperatures 900 metres under the sea and their organs glow to attract littler fish which they can then eat.

Written By Kobe 6S

The Burnie Primary School Parents & Friends are here to support our school community through our fund raising and volunteer efforts during the school year. We welcome and encourage new members, you may have children, grandchildren, know friends children, nieces, nephews or just be friends with someone who works at the school, all are welcome!

Last year our major fundraising focus was to brighten up the school yard by having the line work repainted, and we had added a colourful hopscotch rocket, 2 four square courts, and a colourful alphabet snake. As you can see in the photos, the result is very pleasing and certainly brightens up the playground. We have also supported the Year 6 Leavers Dinner, milo mornings, the school disco and athletics carnival.

Our fund raising efforts included a Hot Cross Bun drive, sausage sizzle lunches, pizza lunches, Sockable sock drive, Bunnings BBQ and a Pie drive.

Please keep an eye out for our future fundraising efforts, meetings and need for volunteers by following our P&F Facebook page, you can scan the QR code to join.

We look forward to welcoming you soon!

Your P&F

In weeks 5 and 6 of Term 1 students in Grade 1 – Grade 6 were involved in cricket clinics with three Cricket Tasmania coaches during PE. During the program students in Grades 1 and 2 were introduced to the Captains Challenge a throwing and catching challenge being given to students from Kinder to Grade 2 across Tasmanian schools. In this challenge students are required to throw and catch a ball as a team along two lines in a zig zag pattern, throwing along the line as far as they can without dropping the ball. They also learnt bowling, batting, and fielding skills in mini games and activities.

In Grade 3 to 6, students learnt bowling, batting, and fielding skills as well as the roles of different positions within mini games of cricket. All students enjoyed the cricket sessions and gained valuable skills and information from the coaches. A highlight of the program was the warmup game called ‘In the Water’, which the Grade 6 students have now been using in their daily PE sessions.

Thank you to the amazing coaches from Cricket Tasmania for coming into Burnie Primary School to run these sessions.

Burnie Primary School has recently appointed Georgette Moore as our first Safeguarding Lead.
Safeguarding Leads have been appointed in all Tasmanian state schools to help ensure all children and young people in Tasmania are known, safe, well and learning.
Georgette Moore will support the wellbeing of all our students and help us all understand that keeping children and young people safe is everyone’s responsibility.
Please support Georgette Moore in this new role!

For further information on Safeguarding in Schools please click here

From this year, parents and carers will get earlier, simpler and clearer information about their child’s NAPLAN achievement based on new, more rigorous national standards.

Education ministers have agreed to change the way NAPLAN results are reported to parents and carers, now that all students are taking the tests online, and with the move to an earlier NAPLAN in March. New proficiency standards with 4 levels of achievement for each year level will replace the previous 10-band structure that covered all 4 levels tested and the old national minimum standard set in 2008 when tests were on paper. The new proficiency standards include a baseline benchmark to identify students who are likely to need additional support.

“These important changes mark a reset for NAPLAN that makes use of the online adaptive tests to deliver better information for parents, carers and teachers,” said ACARA CEO, David de Carvalho.

“The standard for proficiency is set at a challenging but reasonable level. If your child is in the Strong or Exceeding category, it means they have demonstrated proficiency and that their literacy or numeracy skills are where they should be at this stage of their schooling.

“If your child has not yet achieved proficiency, then they will either be in the Developing category or the Needs additional support category.

“This is powerful information in the hands of parents/carers and teachers, and will enable much more meaningful conversations between them about how our children and young people are developing the foundational skills they need,” Mr de Carvalho said.

“The proficiency standards represent a reasonable expectation of student achievement at the time of testing, with questions in NAPLAN tests based mostly on the literacy and numeracy skills students have learnt from previous years of schooling. The standard will support higher expectations for student achievement and ensure students are gaining the important literacy and numeracy skills they will need throughout their lives.

“One of the issues with the previous national minimum standard was that parents and carers could think that if their child was at that level, then ‘everything is OK’. But it wasn’t. If your child is below the proficiency standard, then being informed that their skills are still developing towards proficiency is important. And it’s also important to know if your child needs additional support.”

The new achievement levels are set using the professional judgement of panels of expert teachers.

For national reporting, 2023 will mark the start of a new time series, now that all students are online and the tests are being held in March instead of May. The earlier timing of NAPLAN in March rather than May means students will have 2 months less learning time before NAPLAN testing than in previous years. This, in addition to the full transition of all schools nationally to the online assessment that delivers more precise information, makes this the right time to reset the NAPLAN measurement scale so that results no longer have to be equated to those from the paper era.

This will mean beginning a new results time series from 2023. Results from 2023 on will not be directly compared with results from 2008 to 2022. However, a continued focus on students at the lower end of the achievement scale will be maintained by taking historical results into account for baseline benchmarks in the new reporting.

Resetting the measurement scale and restarting the time series once all schools are online was a
recommendation of the 2020 Independent Review of NAPLAN.

NAPLAN continues to measure student achievement in numeracy, reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation. The new proficiency standard will be included on all NAPLAN reporting including the National Report, the My School website, the reports received by schools and the Individual Student Reports (ISRs) received by parents and carers.

NAPLAN INDIVIDUAL STUDENT REPORT
The numerical NAPLAN bands and the national minimum standard will be replaced by the following 4 levels of achievement:

• Exceeding
• Strong
• Developing
• Needs additional support.

The descriptors for each category will make it clear to parents what their child’s literacy and numeracy skills are at the time of NAPLAN testing, and support discussions with their school on their child’s progress.

Student reports will continue to show the national average and the range of achievement for the middle 60 per cent of students in their year level, allowing comparison of a child’s achievement against these measures. Detailed information on the knowledge and skills being measured in each NAPLAN assessment will be made available on the NAP website.