Home Readers are about to start again!

This year students will continue to track their nights of reading with certificates and acknowledgement along the way. We will also have an excursion at the end of the year for those students who do particularly well.

We encourage students and parents to read at home for a variety of reasons all related to improving student literacy levels. In the early years it is important that students develop a genuine interest and enjoyment in reading to support good lifelong habits. It may be that young children aren’t necessarily ready or able to read all the words in a book. Rather than push the point – and we should never push so hard that children are become upset or don’t want to read – talk about the book with your child. Make sure children are encouraged to work from left to right and ask them questions about what they can see. Read for them and encourage them to repeat after you. If the text repeats encourage children to say the repeated lines. If the text is quite familiar to them, stop reading and have them give you the missing word. Most importantly, always, always, always praise them no matter what.

As children get a little older, texts will become a little more complex. A home reader however should never be too hard. If anything, we prefer a home reader is actually a little it easier than what the child can actually read. We do this to support fluency and comprehension as well as a positive reading experience. Remember too, we read a book a number of times. The more practise the better and usually the bigger the smile on a child’s face. As children move into Grade 3 and 4 they can read a wider variety of texts and it doesn’t always have to be a book from school. They could read a book from home, a magazine or a newspaper. Any of these are appropriate. To reinforce their developing skills, have them tell you what they understood from the text they read.

Our Year 5/6 students are actually one of the hardest grades to motivate and yet reading is still so very important. Many children struggle to achieve grade appropriate outcomes in upper primary classes as the curriculum gets more challenging. Ensuring students can access a range of texts to support their learning is essential. Perhaps you are aware that a large number of students actually go backwards between the end of Grade 6 and the beginning of Grade 7? Reading over the summer holidays could easily stop this from happening. Also consider having your older children read to their younger siblings. Saves you time and builds a shared commitment to everybody’s skills.

Don’t forget we still have our book exchange trolley in the front foyer – need something new for children to read at home? Ideally you take a book and replace it with one you’ve read – if you don’t have anything to exchange it with, take a book and read it anyway.

Reading is such an important skill – everybody should be doing it. What are you reading tonight, can you share it with your child?

Meet Lulu

Lulu is a five year old Maltese X Shih Tzu dog and has joined our school community at Springfield Gardens Primary School as our school dog. Lulu has passed a Temperament Assessment which shows she has the right personality and nature to be safe in school and with children. She won’t be here every day but will be at school at least one day each week.

Some of the rules for Lulu at school include:

• she will always be with Mrs. Wilde – they work as a team
• she has her own space in the office for when she needs a break
• she will be moved away from anywhere or anyone where it isn’t safe or where she feels worried or stressed. Wilde will know when this, is by watching Lulu’s behaviour and body language.

When Lulu starts at school, students will be able to come and say hello. Mrs. Wilde has communicated with class teachers and is aware of students who may be nervous around dogs.

They will need to ask before patting her. Mrs. Wilde will show students the safe way to pat a dog.

Students will be reminded to wash their hands after touching her and definitely before eating or drinking anything.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Wilde through the office.

The 1/2 classes had a wonderful day at the Marine Discovery Centre at Woodbridge yesterday. How lucky we are to live in this beautiful sea country and to experience hands on so many of our amazing native marine species. The students listened carefully to Andrew and will use their learning in our upcoming science and literacy work. Well done the 1/2 classes!

Grade 1/2 had great fun and learning at the Marine Discovery Centre excursion on Tuesday.

Here is our excursion retell from 1/2 B:

My favourite part was……

My favourite part was the touch tank room and pat the shark -Aida

My favourite part was patting the see anemone and feeding the stingray – Frankie

My favourite part was when I touched the sea urchin – Aric

My favourite part was when I was feeding the shark and sea animals – Violet

My favourite part was at the touch pool room where I got to hold the sea animals and pat the shark – Kylo

My favourite part was feeding and patting the shark. Holding the animals in the touch room - Ivey

Lunch time cricket started for Prep to Grade 4 students today. We would like to thank the team from Cricket Tas who were with us today, Friday and next week. It was great to see so many students participating - especially our Prep people!

Forms are available at the office if parents would like to register children for the last three sessions.

Some of the older students were more interested in dancing to the music!

Welcome to 2024 with Community Liaison – Sport

Welcome back to another exciting year of sports and physical activities at our schools!

The Community Liaison - Sport team at The Department for Education Children and Young People is thrilled to kick off 2024 with a bang.

We have a range of exciting events, programs, and opportunities to share with students, families, and the community.

This year our goal is to break down the barriers to accessing sports facilities to improve student, family, and community engagement with sport and physical activity.

We are passionate about supporting schools, sporting organisations, and the community to grow participation in sport.

From updates about upcoming events and sports programs to success stories and tips for community funding, will keep you in the loop with everything related to sports and physical activities in our schools and community.

If you have any content you'd like to submit for our newsletter, we encourage you to forward it to CL.Sport@decyp.tas.gov.au.

See below the latest opportunities from our team: