Richmond Primary School Newsletter 28th June 2023

Principal's Address

Dear Families,

We have just over a week to go before we commence our term holidays on Friday, 7^th July.

Many of you have scheduled a meeting with your child/children's teachers this week. We certainly appreciate your commitment to your child's education. Parents and teachers can have a tremendous impact on the lives of children. When parents and teachers work together, the chances of their child doing well in school are more robust and can help build better social relationships. Working together, we can give our children the best educational outcomes possible.

Lantern Walk

Thank you to everyone who worked to make this community event a tremendous success. As a school, we have received some delightful feedback.

Many individuals assist in making this event such a fabulous success, and so as a school community, we wish to thank:

Alina Neuberger, for the beautiful poster design.

Brendon Scott (from Scott Electrical), Daniel Phillips for all the electrical setup, and Mel Wagner and Katy Pryor for ably assisting them.

Our hardworking lantern walk planning team is Andrea Easton, Jess Phillips, Rebecca Jones, and Billie Cusick.

Russell Crook (Tasmanian Kitchen Pantry) and Josh Phillips (Eat the Wild), and Rodney Dann (Wattlebanks) for preparing the hot food.

Mark and Christine Duggan from Huon Valley Juice Company and Mark Robertson from Lost Pippin for donating juice and cider.

Russell and Anita Crook at Tasmanian Kitchen Pantry for the hot chocolate.

Alex Wilson for building the fire pot, Deirdre Jones for starting the fire, and Ben Johnston for manning the fire.

Kate Lewis and Lisa Brooks in the office for their administrative help.

Mrs Mason for organising the performance and the staff for pulling the performance together in Jaqui's absence.

Josette Scott and Jan Ross for displaying the children's artwork and to our teachers for nurturing a love of art in our students.

David Coleman, for all you do.

Richmond Volunteer Fire Brigade and Tasmania Police for escorting the Lantern walk.

Andrea and Simon Easton for all the hay bales.

To the kitchen crew: Russell Crook, Mark Robertson, Rebecca Jones, Jess Phillips, Jane Burleigh, Chris Giffard, Brad Milic, Jonna Vennola, Sarah Alexander, Andrea Easton, Molly Jean Easton and Carrina Clark.

Molly Jean Easton for designing the lovely enamel mugs.

Our wonderfully dedicated staff.

Lastly, thanks to our students for their stunning performance, plugged and unplugged, their artwork and lanterns and for helping to prepare the hall.

Thank you all, for this community event would not happen without your support.

Staff Leave

We have several staff members taking leave over the coming months.

30^th June – 7^th July  - Berna Shelverton will be replaced by Sally Bordin

24^th July – 20^th September - Heidi Woodham replaced by Brenton Nichols

24^th July – 18^th August - Clare McVilly replaced by Jaqui Mason

11^th September- 20^th September - Alysha McCarthy replaced by Amanda Whittle

25^th September – 27^th October - Jo McCreadie replaced by Brenton Nichols

I hope you and your families have a restful holiday break. Stay safe, and we will see you in Term 3, which commences on Tuesday, 25th July. I will be taking a short period of long service leave, and Mrs Jaqui Mason will be acting principal in my absence.

Clare McVilly

Principal

Richmond Primary School

Term 2 Calendar of Events

Term 3 Calendar of Events

SORA

With the holidays nearly upon us, do you have a keen reader at home and struggle with providing reading materials, then please check out SORA.

When the school library is closed over the holidays, Sora steps up to ensure that eager readers are not short of a book.  

The growing collection of eBooks, eAudiobooks, magazines, comics, graphic novels and easy reads is waiting to be discovered by readers of all abilities and interests. Whether you're after the latest issue of Slam magazine or revisiting Harry Potter for the hundredth time, Sora will get you there in no time. 

Students can download the Sora app from Apple or Google Play, find Education Tasmania and sign in with their DECYP login. 

New Online Information Hub for Families

Some exciting news! The Department for Education, Children and Young People has recently launched a new online information hub for families with school-aged children in Tasmania. Our new website has information to help you navigate your child's education, from birth all the way up to 18 years of age.

Visit our new webpage at Welcome to your child's Tasmanian education – The Department for Education, Children and Young People Tasmania (decyp.tas.gov.au)        (https://www.decyp.tas.gov.au/information-for-families-and -students)

Some of the things you'll find include: -

• tips on how to support your child's learning at home 
• information to help you keep your child safe and well 
• a guide to explore courses for the career they want 
• school holiday and term dates

Kinder News

Stranger Danger

In Kinder we have been discussing stranger danger and recognising our safe people.

With the Prep class we traced our hands and wrote 5 safe people onto our fingers.

We thought about our safe people while at school, at home, and in the community.

Letter of the week

In Kinder we have been focusing on a letter of the week.

Each week we learn a new letter and its sound. We explore a range of experiences around each letter.

Here are our wonderful ice creams to represent the letter ‘i’.

Its looking a lot like Winter!

We have created clay snowmen and dressed them in their winter woolies.

We also made snowmen using each letter of our name to create the bodies.

Excursion to TMAG and Botanical Gardens

The Aboriginal students at Richmond Primary School recently enjoyed a trip to TMAG and the Botanical Gardens. At the museum we learnt about how bark canoes and huts were made. We got to feel some stone tools and animal skins and saw some photos of some of our old family.

We were scared putting our hands in the mutton bird holes.

After the museum we went to the Botanical Gardens. We were told there are over 19 cultural sites within the gardens that show how Aboriginal people had used the area for thousands of years. There was a new Tasmanian plants area and some of the plants had information on how they were used. We found it interesting that some plants were used for making glue, medicine and toys!

Thanks to the families that came with us, we had a fun day and look forward to getting together again.

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Maths News from Mr Johnston

Thank you to all the families that responded to our Parent Survey for Richmond Primary Maths.

We are fortunate to have an engaged parent community with the number of responses we received. The results tell us that over 88% of parents who responded are satisfied or very satisfied with the maths education and support being provided by our teachers. Results also show 90% of respondents are confident to help their child with mathematics appropriate for their age.

One question in our survey asked about further involvement of families with Mathematics at school. The graph below shows parents have replied yes to all! This is positive to see, and we look forward to actioning all these events in the near future.

To keep maths talk happening at home here are a couple of problems you may choose to look at together.

Challenge 1

1. Mrs Black is hanging out her towels. She puts two pegs on each towel. If she has 6 towels, how many pegs will she need?
2. Mrs Black sees that her peg box is running low. She puts one peg on the corner of two towels. This way she only needs 3 pegs for 2 towels. How many pegs will she need for 6 towels now?

Challenge 2

Some octopuses (with 8 ‘arms’ and 2 eyes), some fish and a few mermaids were frolicking in a rock pool. Altogether there were 38 arms, 24 eyes and 8 tails all swimming in the pool. How many mermaids could there be?

Be sure to come share your answers with Mr Johnston back at school!

P.S. For those students in Grades 3-6 don’t forget to get your Australian Mathematics Competition forms in if you wish to participate.

Aussie of the Month for May

Students nominated for Aussie of the Month for May -

Findlay P

Ava M

Paige B

Kyeden F

Daisy T

with Paige B being awarded our Aussie of the Month for her friendly and respectful greetings, she gives to everyone she meets. It truly makes their day!!

What is Aussie of the Month?

Aussie of the Month is delivered by the same network that presents the highly regarded Australian of the Year Awards, with profile leading citizens who are role models for us all, who inspire us through their achievements and community participation, and challenge us to make our own contribution to making Australia better for all.  Aussie of the Month is based on similar principles encouraging and recognising students for their participation and contribution to the school community.  Below are the key values that we look for when nominating students for Aussie of the Month at Richmond Primary School.  All student who are nominated are invited to go on an excursion at the end of the year.  Well done to all the students who have been nominated for 2023.

Assembly Awards Week 9

Winter Appeal

Our SRC Winter Appeal fundraiser has been a great success, with a sizeable amount of clothing, food and hygeine products donated to St Vincent de Paul Society. A big THANK YOU to everyone who contributed. 

Safeguarding

eSafety at Home

As parents it can be a challenge to navigate the ongoing jungle of the internet and social media. We can’t know all the answers in this everchanging world, but there is help out there; and just a little bit of knowledge can go a very long way to helping keep our kids safe.

The eSafety Commissioner has a fabulous website with all the information you need. It contains downloadable resources to support you to support your child to be safe when online. These resources can help start the conversation about online safety and strategies you can use at home.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/resources

On the home page you will find:

Videos
Books
Information sheets
Audio files
Activities
Family tech agreements

I strongly encourage you to jump online and familiarise yourself with the site. This is our best defence to protect our children in a world where it is so easy to connect – a blessing when we know how and a curse if we don’t know how to keep them safe.