13 September 2018

Newsletter Articles

Key Dates

Principal’s Report

I'm sure we all share in wishing Mr Daly well for his period of leave and the exciting holiday he has planned but it will be business as usual here at Sheffield School! I feel privileged to step into the role of Acting Principal and look forward to working with our school community, where there is always something exciting happening. The past fortnight has been no exception with much focused learning taking place in our classrooms, as well as a range of extra-curricular activities that truly enrich the whole school experience for students.

Learning is our number one priority and teachers are constantly reviewing and refining their practices to ensure students have the best opportunity to succeed. Our School Improvement Plan identifies Literacy, Numeracy and Wellbeing as key goals for our school. Professional Learning for teachers through in-school programs continues to focus on these areas, with the aim to develop consistency and quality in our teaching practices. On Tuesday afternoon teachers attended a Cluster Numeracy Professional Learning session at Latrobe High School to continue our work focused on developing teacher awareness of the ‘Big Ideas’ in Number and collectively working together with the new numeracy progressions in the Australian Curriculum.

NAPLAN Online is being introduced across Australia over three years from 2018. Tasmanian schools will be administering NAPLAN online from 2019. NAPLAN Online will provide better assessment, more precise results and faster turnaround of information. During September 2018, students in Years 2, 4, 6 and 8 will participate in a trial of the assessment platform, by undertaking two online tests that include examples of the new NAPLAN Online questions. The School Readiness Test is not a test of student achievement and results will not form part of a student’s overall assessment.

Beacon Foundation

Thanks to the generous support and sponsorship from our Sheffield and Railton Community Bank, the Beacon Foundation ran their High Impact Program for our Year 9-10 students over three days last week. Each student attended a one day seminar where they were given valuable information for their transition from school. A number of local business owners, corporate professionals, members of government and entrepreneurs were involved as mentors throughout the program (full report included in this newsletter).

Post Year 10 education

Transition programs for our Year 10 students are well underway with a wide range of work exposure and education pathway opportunities being shared with our students. Don College held their Taster Day for Year 10 students on Tuesday 4 September with most of our students attending this event. Don College staff will continue to work with our students who identify this pathway as their preferred choice for 2019. Information about alternatives pathways to Don College including our own Year 11 program will be shared with students and families in the near future.

Sports and Chess

Last Friday our secondary Football, Netball and Chess teams travelled to Queenstown on the West Coast to compete against Mountain Heights School. This was a successful day with our teams representing the school enthusiastically and competing in good spirits with the Mountain Heights students. Thank you to our staff and parents who accompanied, coached and supported this event. I'm sure our students will agree it’s a long bus trip to Queenstown! (full report included in this newsletter).

Good luck to our Chess Team who will represent the school at the State Chess Championships at Scotch Oakburn College this coming Tuesday. This team of dedicated students; Denver Puccetti, Nathan Smith, Damon Sing, Triston Richardson, Ethan Duff and Joshua Greenhill, with the support of Mr Voorwinde have been practising most lunchtimes in preparation for the event.

During term 2 the Year 5-6 North West Primary Schools Sports Day had to be cancelled due to the weather. Our Sport and Recreation class organised a smaller in-school event for our 5-6 students here on Wednesday and I am sure the students thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to further develop their sporting skills. Thank you to Mr Penney and our Sport and Recreation students for organising this event.

Outreach program Year 5-8 students

This week the school has been hosting The House of Assembly Outreach Program for students in Years 5-8. The program is aimed at developing students’ understanding of our state government system. Representatives from Parliament House have set the drama room up like the Chamber at Parliament House and students have role played and debated some scenarios. MPs Leonie Hiscutt and Rene Hidding will be attending during the week and Wilmot Primary joined us on Wednesday to participate in the program and visit our School Farm.

Dance Festival

The Primary Dance Festival will be held at the Ulverstone Sport and Recreation Centre on Monday 17 September. Students from Prep to Year 4 have been learning the different dances during HPE lessons this term in preparation for this event. Parents are welcome to attend the event, Prep-2 students will be dancing at 10:45am and Year 3/4s will dance at 12:10pm.

Assemblies

Just a reminder that our School Assemblies are on next week. For the Sheffield Campus the assemblies are Tuesday 18 September, 12pm for Year 7-10 students and 1:30pm for K-6 students. Our Railton Campus Assembly will be the following day, 2pm Wednesday 19 September. Parents are most welcome to attend.

Jamie Skirving
Acting Principal

Autism Australia

Information Sessions for Parents and Family Carers

Beacon Program

On 3-5 September, the Beacon Foundation ran one-day programs with the Year 9 and Year 10 students.

The High Impact Program provided an opportunity for students to prepare for a successful transition from school through the development of competencies in a range of ‘21st Century Skills’.

Students learnt many valuable things, including the expectations on a young person as they progress from school into the workforce and the attributes they require to be successful in this transition, including:

• Communication
• Networking
• Personal presentation
• Interview skills
• Personal advocacy
• First impressions
• Teamwork
• General etiquette
• Meaningful goal setting

Sheffield School would like to extend a special thanks to the Sheffield and Railton Community Banks for funding three programs. In addition, many members of the local business community attended and participated in a panel session, networking lunch and mock-interviews. Their contributions were invaluable and students were excited to extend their networks.

Through programs such as this, we are working to ensure that each and every one of our students leave the school gates to a positive pathway in further education, employment or training in years to come.

It is only when whole communities work together that we can ensure the future is bright for our students.

Caitlin Midson
My Education Co-ordinator 7-10

Cooking with Kids

Drysdale/TasTafe Visit

On 17 August, five Year 10 students from Sheffield School, along with around 60 other students from various NW Coast schools, had the opportunity to attend the Tourism and Hospitality Showcase at Drysdale, Devonport. The 5 students from Sheffield who attended the event were Breona Roetz, Kasey Woods, Catie Loane, Chloe Currie and Andy Enright.

The students had the opportunity to learn about the huge range of career possibilities in the Hospitality industry; from working in Tasmania’s rugged outdoor environment, to experiencing the incredible fresh produce and passionate people who want to share with the world what Tasmania has to offer, everyone was catered for. Participants were split into four groups with other schools, and attended four short introductory courses that ran for 25 minutes each. They had the opportunity to learn the art of being a Barista, they got hands on with Tasmania’s produce in the kitchen, were introduced to guiding in the Tasmanian Wilderness and had a glimpse of what it takes to manage major events.

This was a fun and informative event, we would like to thank the Beacon Foundation who gave us this opportunity to look at more possibilities for our students’ future.

Breona Roetz

LiFT

School Canteen

School Nurse

RU Ok Day – 14 September

Meningococcal Update

The Department of Health is offering free vaccine to everyone living in Tasmania born after 1 August 1997, and at least 6 weeks old. This is around 100 000 people.

This is a large immunisation program that needs careful planning and preparation.

Their first priority is to quickly protect those in the target age group who live, work or go to school in the New Town, Moonah and Glenorchy areas. This is where three of the four recent Meningococcal W cases were from.

They are also extending this response to offer the Meningococcal ACWY vaccine to young Tasmanians throughout the state, and are planning to achieve this over the next three months.

These actions will provide a high level of protection against Meningococcal A, C, W and Y strains for the next four or more years.

From mid-August 2018, 10 to 21 year-olds eligible for a free vaccine will be able to get it from many local pharmacists. They expect pharmacists to be important partners in this response. They are available from Sheffield Pharmacy.

Young children and older teenagers are at higher risk of catching meningococcal disease. Teenagers are more likely to carry meningococcal bacteria in their throat or nose and spread the bacteria to others in the community. Immunising this wide group of Tasmanians will protect them and help reduce the spread of the disease in the wider population.

Children from 6 weeks old to 21 years of age can receive this vaccine from the Sheffield Medical Centre but bookings are necessary as there is limited stock of the vaccine.

It is uncertain whether the Kentish Council will run a school based immunisation clinic for meningococcal vaccination at this stage. We will update you as Public Health give us news.

Whooping Cough

Sports

Mountain Heights Sports Exchange

Sheffield’s finest sports people boarded the bus last Friday for the long journey to Queenstown to compete in the annual Sheffield School/Mountain Heights School sports exchange. The Year 8, 9 and 10 football team where focused on their battle at the renowned Queenstown gravel oval, whilst the Year 7/8 and 9/10 netball teams along with our chess team competed at the school.

As always, Mountain Heights football team proved to be stiff opposition displaying their west coast hardness and at half time Sheffield lead by 8 points. Sheffield enjoyed the majority of the play in the second half but inaccuracy in front of goals cost us dearly, Sheffield up by 14 points at three quarter time. The Sheffield team continued to run hard in the final quarter yet Mountain Heights with their never say die attitude restricted the Robins to only three scoring shots. The final scores, Sheffield 6 goals 14 behinds 50 points to Mountain Heights 3 goals 5 behinds 23 points. Major goal kickers where Alex Diprose with 4 majors and solid support from Mitchell Burns with 2. Best players included Zane Richardson, James Knight, Joven Gyemore and James Hutton. The game was played in great spirits and with a high level of sportsmanship, ensuring its continued success. The winner on the day was defiantly AFL football.

On Friday 7 September, the Sheffield School Chess team competed in a friendly chess tournament against Mountain Heights School in Queenstown. Members of the team were Denver Puccetti, Nathan Smith, Damon Sing, Triston Richardson, and Joshua Greenhill. Three groups of five students competed over 5 rounds. Sheffield won the tournament convincingly with 17 match wins. We’d like to thank the Mountain Heights School team for being such gracious and friendly hosts and for organising the day’s events.

The Year 7/8 netball team had a slow start and let Mountain Heights get away, but as the game went on they gelled together as a team. They had some fantastic plays, especially through the determination of Amber Dunlop and Lillian Rockliff in the centre court and Jorja Lomagno’s sharp eye in the goals. Even though the scores didn’t show, it was a competitive game, with Mountain Heights winning by 10 goals.

The Year 9/10’s put up a great contest, challenging at every opportunity, in particular Kasey Woods being a valuable player in attack and Breona Roetz having many intercepts under the goals. The end result was Sheffield being outclassed by Mountain Heights by 40 goals.

SRC Report

On Thursday 16 August the SRC held their first cupcake day, in total we raised $981 and either late in this term or early next term the Year 10 SRC will be combining this money with the money from the RSPCA casual clothes day, which we held back in term 1, to take to the RSPCA and dedicate our day to helping them out and have a tour of their facilities.

We also held a Jeans for Genes Day to raise money for the Children’s Medical Research Institute and which we have already sent off to help fund their research.

During August the SRC held their Farmers Day, where everyone cracked out their flannels to support the farmers suffering from drought. This day alone raised a total of $465 and we will be combining this with the funds from the social to form a total of $1396.20 to donate to rural aid. As part of the Year 7’s project, they have been studying the drought and we have decided to allocate the $396.20 to donate through buy a bale.

Beginning Monday 17 September and following through to Friday 21 September we will be running a week full of activities to raise awareness for Children’s Cancer. On the first day of the week we will be hosting a Socks and Sponges day for a gold coin donation and a further, yet to be released event, for a $2 donation to participate. Followed by this on the Tuesday there will be an assembly, on Thursday there is Footy Colours Day and Friday a Walkathon, with the Wednesday event yet to be confirmed. We will also be running a guess the lollies competition all week being drawn on Friday.

Option Courses – Choice for 2019

Year 8 and 9 students will be soon required to select their Option Courses for 2019. The Curriculum outline is attached to this newsletter and will provide a brief description of the courses on offer. During the option course selection process, teachers will provide support for students making choices. I strongly encourage you to discuss the option choices with your child at home. Parents who would like more information about a particular course are welcome to make contact with Mr Skirving through the school office.

MyTime

Community Notices

Australian Junior Motocross Championships

The Australian Junior Motocross Championships are coming to Penguin, Tasmania. Australia's best motocross riders will race over 7 days for the Australian Championship!

Practice and qualifying starts on Sunday 30 September and finals will conclude on Saturday 6 October. This is a free event for spectators, full canteen facilities every day and merchandise will be available. There will be a full day of racing from 8.30am each day.

Netball – Net Set Go