6 July 2017

Newsletter Articles

Key Dates

Monday 3 July – Thursday 6 July ‘Celebrations of Student Learning’ sessions
Friday 7 July – Last day of Term
Monday 10 July – Friday 21 July – School Holidays
Monday 24 July – Term 3 commences (staff only)
Monday 24 July – Staff Professional Learning – (students do not attend)
Tuesday 25 July – Term 3 commences (students)

Principal’s Report

Dear Parents,

As we reach the end of term 2, it is hard to believe we are half way through the school year. Thank you to all of the parents/carers that have taken the opportunity over the past week to strengthen the partnership between the school and home and participate in the ‘celebration of student learning’ sessions. A reminder to parents that term 3 commences on Tuesday 25 July. (Monday 24 July is a staff Professional Learning Day)

Staffing

There are a number of changes to staffing for term 3; Mrs Angenita Oosthuizen-De Lange will be relocating to Victoria and Miss Jessie Howe will be taking up a position at St Brendan Shaw College; we would like to thank both Ange and Jessie for the contributions they have made to the HPE area during their time at Sheffield and wish them both well in their future endeavours. Mrs Casey van Tienen (previously Scattergood) will be returning from maternity leave teaching HPE three days a week, with Miss Amy-Rose Langmaid also joining the HPE team.

Ms Mariya Bell will commence maternity leave at the end of term, with Mrs Sarah Kisseleva replacing her on the 5/6 class.

Mrs Emma Dobson will continue in her role as My Education Northern Manager for term 3 so the staffing changes made across the secondary classes early this term will remain in place.

Mrs Sharon Allen will be taking leave for the remainder of the year, at this point in time I am unable to advise our school community of the replacement teacher, Mrs Megan Vos will increase her teaching load on this class to two days per week.

LIFT Paper Plane Challenge

What an amazing turnout to the LIFT (Learning in Families Together) paper planes challenge; over 70 people at our Railton Campus event and 120 at our Sheffield event! It is terrific to see this level of connectedness and collaboration between adults and children around a common focus. Congratulations to our successful paper plane engineers who produced planes that travelled through the air for the greatest distances. Thank you to our wondreful LIFT team of Mrs Sullivan, Mrs Van der Velde and Mrs Wallace for their organisation of this event.

NextGen Team Business Challenge

I would like to mention the achievements of a contigent of year 10 students who participated in the NextGen Team Business Challenge held in Burnie last week. This was the second time the Sheffield School has participated in this event, with two teams representing our school in 2017. This year the teams experienced considerable success placing first in 3 of the 8 categories resulting in the team consisting of Abbey Boutcher, Balin Puccetti, Bree Jago, Jordan Jones, Ebony Sims and Amber Haberle being crowned the overall winner. A tremendous achievement! I would particularly like to thank Mr Ashby who coordinated our student’s participation in the event as well as all of the parents for their support of their child’s involvement. A more extensive article on the experience is featured within this newsletter.

Finally, well done to all students for the commitment demonstrated towards their learning over the first half of the year. Please take heed of the feedback provided in your reports and come back term 3 refreshed and ready to work hard towards achieving your learning goals for the remainder of the year!

RON DALY
PRINCIPAL

ASSEMBLY – 29 June 2017

K-4 Assembly (Railton Campus) Class Awards

Aussies of the Month (Railton Campus)

Aussies of the Month (Sheffield Campus)

Breakfast Club

Japanese News

Year seven students have been learning about sports in Japan as well as learning how to talk about sports and activities they like and do in their spare time. While we have been doing quite a lot of talking work, we hope you enjoy looking at their posters. See the Primary corridor display for more!

Yoroshiku. Jackson Sensei.

Launching Into Learning (LiL)

Learning in Families Together (LiFT)

Premier’s Reading Challenge

The 2017 Premier’s Reading Challenge is proudly affiliated with the Hawks Football Club and is running now through to 18 August.

WE HAVE A SPECIAL INCENTIVE PRIZE UP FOR GRABS!

Just return your reading log after you’ve read 10 books for a teacher to sign to go into the draw to win a family ticket to watch the Hawks V Kangaroos at UTAS stadium on Sunday 13 August! This ticket will allow the winning student, an under 15 sibling and a parent free entry into the game. It’s that easy! Your log will then be returned for you to add to it for the remainder of the challenge. This competition expires on 28 July.

The Premiers Reading Challenge runs from 13 June to 18 August.

Follow this link to find some great reading ideas for K-2 children.

Story Time @ the LIBRARY will resume in Term 3. Come along on Tuesday 25 July at 3pm.

We had a fantastic turn out for our first ever Family Paper Plane Challenges held on 20 and 22 June at our Railton and Sheffield Campuses.

We had almost 200 people in attendance across the campuses. Well done to all of our participants, supporters, and of course our talented prize winners.

Look out for our next exciting LIFT event in August….

Board Game Library

Our LIFT Board Game Library is proving to be a great success. We have had some great feedback from students and their parents. Some of our families are using the opportunity to have a board game night on the weekend which is a fantastic idea. Remember to return your permission form to your teacher if you haven’t already and you will receive a Board Game Library Card. Our games are returned every Tuesday at Sheffield and Thursday at Railton ready for students to borrow a new one!

Ten reasons to play board games with your kids:

1. Taking Turns
2. Maths Skills
3. Mental Agility
4. Thinking Ahead
5. Actions and Consequences
6. Making Tough Choices
7. Teamwork
8. Being a Good Sport
9. Cutting the Cord (a change from screen time)
10. Building a Bond.

Bonus reason: Fun!

‘Allowing your kids to play a board game helps them practice essential cognitive skills, like problem solving. The hippocampus and prefrontal cortex especially benefit from playing board games. These areas of the brain are responsible for complex thought and memory formation.’ – 'www.healthfitnessrevolution.com’

Snap a photo of your family using a board game and send it in for your chance to feature in the newsletter. Email photos to carly.sullivan@education.tas.gov.au

Sheffield Pre-Kinder – Begins Friday 28 July at 1.30pm in Kinder.

If you have a child that was born in 2013, they are eligible to begin Pre-Kinder in Term3. This will be an informal, one hour session where children stay with their parents in the Kindergarten room. This is a great opportunity to play and learn; get familiar with the environment; get to know friends who will be in Kindergarten with them in 2018; and share some songs and a story together.

There is no cost for this program. We will provide all the information you need for the enrolment process: uniforms, lunch boxes and the routines of Kindergarten. Please spread the word.

*Railton Pre-Kinder will run during LiL each Thursday 11.30am – 12.30pm in Terms 3 and 4.

For further information, please contact Carly Sullivan 64918222 or carly.sullivan@education.tas.gov.au

Nexgen Challenge

This year’s Nextgen Challenge required students to develop a cultural festival for Tasmania. This was an exciting opportunity for participants, who learned about event management and promotion, insurance and permitting issues, human resources management, logistics and safety concerns, marketing and market research. They were guided by prominent governmental officials and local business people who are involved in festivals as diverse as Wynyard’s Tulip Festival to the recent concerts produced by Skyfields in Sheffield and Devonport.

Our two teams developed entirely different festivals, both of which were warmly received by judges. The Tasmania Organic Produce Festival team, consisting of Hanna Bryan, Artyom Keddie, Jared Patterson and Bree Jago, developed a three-day celebration of Tasmania’s growing organic produce industry, designed to run alongside Steamfest.

Above, Beyond and Below, consisting of Abbey Boutcher, Ebony Sims, Balin Puccetti, Jordan Jones, Erika Pagel and Amber Haberle, organised a three-day festival centred at Mole Creek. Their program involved participants sampling a range of outdoor activities available in the region. These included exploring wild caves on tours conducted by the local caving club, white water rafting on the Mersey River, a guided walk to the Walls of Jerusalem National Park, and an interpretative trail explaining the significance of ochre mines at Alum Cliffs State Reserve to Tasmania’s Aboriginal peoples.

The feedback on our students' participation, from both the people running the competition and judges, has been nothing short of stellar. One judge was so impressed with our students that he will be visiting the school on Thursday 6 July to discuss possible involvement of our students in his next festival.

Receiving the top prize

Persuasive Writing - 5/6 Richards

This term, in 5/6 Richards, we have been focussing on writing a persuasive text. Over the 10 weeks of this term we have looked explicitly at the language required for this text type, how to write strong introductions and conclusions and how to effectively structure an argument within a paragraph. Our aim was for every student to write a persuasive text that included an introduction, three arguments with elaborations, and a strong conclusion.

Our Persuasive Wall

Question and answer…

What did we do?

Miss Richards: “We worked collaboratively to develop our understanding of persuasive writing and create well structured, convincing texts. Students used teacher and student version rubrics to self-assess their writing and provide self and peer feedback to improve their writing.”

Nicholas: “In 10 lessons we learnt about PEEL, watched some videos and shared our writing.”

Adam: “I wrote a good introduction.”

Taylah: “I used feedback from my partner.”

Imogen: “I wrote a persuasive text and used the PEEL process.”

Phoebe: “We learnt how to use Ethos, Logos and Pathos to make our writing stronger.”

Tiffany: “We learnt how to really sum it up and persuade someone.”

What have you learnt about yourself as a learner?

Brooke: “I can finish on time and can make my text longer and stronger. I learnt to believe in myself.”

Colin: “I am more confident than I thought.”

Damian: “I have confidence that I will be able to finish the writing.”

Elijah: “I like to repeat things over and over (practice).”

Olivia: “I’ve learnt that I can write a paragraph that is strong and powerful.”

Jory: “I got more confident every lesson.”

Makeisha: “That I can now do more writing.”

Writers at work…

Some of our paragraphs…

Joe

Who said that parents know everything that their kids are learning at school? Parents can’t help with their homework and that means they are stuck on that one question and students can’t ask for help from a teacher. Instead, they need to ask a parent and they don’t know anything. Parents and homework don’t mix.

Isabelle

Obviously (I don’t know why you would think otherwise) homework is exceptional for students because it gives them a better education. It is very important for your child, and I powerfully believe that homework is very beneficial for students’ learning. I will prove to you that homework is brilliantly educational.

Brandon

Homework should be banned forever, you must agree. No homework will mean more family time after school. Without homework teachers won’t have to do as much marking after school. The smarter students are doing the work they don’t need to do but the non-smart students need more help. Speaking of non-smart people- you would be brainless to believe that homework is great for learning.

Jarrah

Okay so I bet you’re giving lame excuse like “homework helps children learn though, so why listen to her excellent reasons why we should ban it?” It actually doesn’t even help them learn. There is no logic behind homework. It is pointless. Homework was thought up by a bunch of old gizas who thought it would be fun to make children suffer more. So, back to my main point, as homework goes up, achievement does down. Scientists across the globe have proven this point but schools deny it. If you think you’re safe, if you think for a second you’ll get good grades, homework will diminish that hope, crush it like an insignificant bug.

Bullying Needs To Be Stopped

I know that bullying is the most ridiculous thing that happens and the fact that it still occurs, even after people have been told to stop, makes me sick. I’m not saying that the people who bully should be treated the same way, it’s just that they need to realise that they wouldn’t like being treated that way. It must be stopped.

Schools have been told over and over again that it has to be stopped. The bullies continue to do it just to look good and feel better about themselves. They shouldn’t take it out on other people and make them feel like nothing.

People who get bullied start to believe what’s being said to them. They develop low self-esteem and won’t think anything positive about themselves. There’s always that one person who gets treated badly and people think they’re a bit strange. They are obviously having trouble with their family or something similar and should not get put down and made to feel even worse than they already do.

There are many things that can develop when a person is bullied. Those who are bullied can easily become depressed, get split personalities or become bipolar. Sometimes bullying can lead to something even worse. People don’t know what’s going on in other people’s lives so they shouldn’t just judge them for what they see. They don’t see the good side in them because they’re too focussed on what they think.

Bullies can’t just put a label on someone and make fun of them. They have the potential to hurt someone badly. I’m not saying they can hurt them like with weapons and fists, I mean on the inside; their feelings. That’s why I think bullying should stop immediately. If people want to be happy and cheerful, they need to give happiness. I’m not saying everyone needs to be best friends with everyone, I’m just saying they need to be kind to one another. Stop bullying for good.

Lillie Lacey, Year 6

School Health Nurse

The Department of Education is looking to employ additional school health nurses across district schools

School Levies

School levies are due to be finalised by the end of this week (Friday 7 July 2017).

Payment options include:

By cash, cheque or credit card at the office of either campus between 8.30am and 4.00pm daily (not available during school holidays)

By cheque, payable to Sheffield School and posted to 12 Henry Street, Sheffield 7306

By credit card telephoned to the school office on 6491 8222

Online – BPAY

In person at Service Tasmania

Community Notices

Cradle Coast Junior Rollers

Green Room – Boys Day (Thursday 20 July)

Green Room – Girls Day (Thursday 13 July)

Hippy

Kentish Family Support House – July Timetable

Riverbend Camps

Slipstream Circus Holidays ½ and full day camps