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These are certainly challenging and uncertain times. I began writing my newsletter piece last night, and within the next 12 hours much of what I was going to write about has changed. What we can celebrate is the commitment of our teaching, admin and cleaning staff who are diligently going about their work in a professional manner whilst coping with the uncertainty around them. Our staff are parents, grandparents, sons, daughters and friends, and are experiencing the same emotional adversity of everyone else in the community. Our students too are turning up and still being learners, operating in a very different landscape. Our Lego competition has certainly been a great distraction and a big thankyou to Mr Baty for organising and promoting the great engineering and literacy opportunities it has provided.
As you may be now aware, the last week of term has been designated a student free week. This is so teachers can be ready to deliver online and offline packages for students learning at home. The department already has learning opportunities that can be accessed on the DoE website- both online and offline - https://www.education.tas.gov.au/parents-carers/learning-at-home/
Library lessons for students have now ceased, but students will be able to borrow a bulk number of books in preparation for the holiday period. In the week leading up to Easter, we will be working on book packs for parents to collect for their children, including those who are not currently attending school.
Many of our students also have access to online platforms such as Prodigy and if your child does not already know the log on information please contact the school and we will provide it. Up until this week our attendance has been outstanding, and as such our teachers have been preparing as normal for their classes and not for providing work at home. This will change over the next week, and certainly in the week before the Easter holiday we will be working to provide packages for our learners who are not at school. Our current information is that school’s will continue to remain open. Obviously this may change, as decisions are being made at a government level on a daily basis that affect us all.
Please keep following our Facebook page for regular updates, and keep you and your families safe.
Yours in partnership,
Brett Hay
Do you know someone with a child born in 2016? Children born in that year are eligible for pre-Kindergarten! Mrs Spicer would love to hear from any potential enrolments and can be contacted by calling the school on 6382 1564 or texting 0418 479 961.
POSTPONED
Do you want to help your child read?
Do you want to know more about phonics?
Come to our parent info session!!
When: Wednesday 1st April
Time: 2.15 - 3.00pm
Where: Reading Room
Kim Walsh and Ali Owens (Reading Teachers)
At South George Town Primary School we have used the annual Lego Competition as an opportunity to further build on students’ oral language and writing skills.
We use the LEGO Competition as an authentic context for students to talk openly and descriptively about their creations. Teachers listen carefully to students and make a point of consciously modelling correct language while looking for opportunities to introduce new vocabulary into the conversations. With all of the brightly coloured and imaginative Lego designs that students create it is a relatively easy task to expose students to rich vocabulary in their talk and also writing.
For those of our students who are not necessarily able to write independently teachers will scribe for students, modelling exemplary writing skills and helping to get student ideas down on paper. It is not unusual to see teachers and students working together, transferring their knowledge of phonics to assist with the spelling and writing, or discussing spelling rules for certain words. It is a great opportunity to link what’s happening in the classroom to an authentic task outside of the classroom, with a clear purpose and audience. As far as student engagement goes, students never complain about having to write and talk about their Lego creations. Usually the challenge lies in getting them to stop, and that’s a good thing.
Student entries are currently being judged and winners will hopefully be announced at the end of this week. Stay tuned next week when we aim to bring to you the winners of each age group, along with the overall winner.
We hope you enjoy these examples of students and their writing for the LEGO Competition.
Unfortunately Heritage Isle will not be able to support school banking collections for the foreseeable future. This will take effect immediately.
Accounts can still be managed digitally. Please reach out to your nearest branch should you require assistance with access.