Dear families, 

Thanks to everyone for a fabulous start to the year. I am pleased to inform you that I will continue as Acting Principal of our wonderful school throughout Term 2. We have lots of fun experiences planned throughout Term 2 including RACT road safety, bike safety, Tool Skool, winter sport, chess club and library club commencing and much more! As requested by some parents a Parent Term 2 Planner page will be sent home with the eldest child. I’d like to wish everyone a safe happy break and look forward to seeing you all back on Monday 29th April. 

Our School Improvement Plan (SIP) Reading Priority:

We are well on the way with our SIP actions for improving the way that we teach reading and literacy in line with new research. Our Evandale Primary staff including teachers and TAs have begun the 2024 professional learning modules and we will be embedding and building on the quality practices that we already implement at EPS. We are thrilled to give Mrs Stephens and Blake Chick the opportunity to work with TA’s from around the North next term to continue to learn about this work and network with other TA’s. In 2024, we are phasing out reading benchmarking systems using levelled texts as they are not aligned with the current evidence or a structured approach to teaching literacy because it is based on a ‘whole language’ approach. Levelled texts are still a valuable resource that we will repurpose when we are focussing on vocabulary building, topic knowledge, comprehension and fluency practise. Implementation of effective and sustainable change takes time and careful consideration, and we will continue to make steps towards practices and interventions that are high leverage for improving students' outcomes in reading. All Tasmanian educators will be undergoing the same training in how to teach reading, so by 2026, no matter where your child goes to school, they will be taught to become confident readers in the same way. We will continue to keep you updated on progress and please read more on the DECYP website: Literacy - Department for Education, Children and Young People (decyp.tas.gov.au) 

Celebration:

To mark the end of a successful term we will be holding an options block on Friday 11:30-12:50. Students will opt in to their choice of activity prior to the day, led by one of our amazing staff members. Some of the options include biscuit decorating, movie, painting, Lego and games, outdoor games, orchard, just dance. If there are any parents/ carers that would like to help on Friday, please sign in at the office at 11:30am with your RWVP card and volunteer safeguarding certificate. We hope that everyone has a fun experience at their chosen activity.  

Values:

I am thrilled to announce our success in receiving a $2,500 grant for promoting the new DECYP values of Connection, Respect, Responsibility, Courage, Growth. Our application outlined an area of our school that would benefit from a freshen up, alongside the promotion of the values. We are currently seeking quotes for a mural and we will be working on a collaborative project with students to create a beautiful bright positive area. 

We have had a focus on the DECYP values of respect and connection this term. We will continue to focus on respect throughout the year with explicit teaching around what respect looks like, sounds like and feels like. In Term 2 alongside respect- caring for ourselves, each other and our environment, we will be focussing on responsibility – stepping up and doing what is right. Our merit certificates given out in assembly will be awarded to students from each class for respect and responsibility. Students are also rewarded with PURR tickets and PURR points.  

I have been having conversations with students in our upper grades and they can recall the names of our values but are yet to really embed their understanding of what each value means. The Year 456 have been focussing on respect and are developing their understanding of what it means for them at school. You can find some of their work in the corridor outside their classroom. This will remain a focus; to embed students understanding of all the DECYP and school PURR values. 

Tassie Tuck Shop Canteen:

I am excited to announce the opportunity for us to trial a canteen. We will be offering lunch orders for all classes weekly on Wednesday’s. The menu will be finalised soon and sent out via Schoolzine along with other ordering information. Parents/ carers will be required to use the Spriggy Canteens App and each order incurs a transaction fee of 0.28c. When transferring money to the app for ordering it requires a minimum of $10 from your nominated bank account. Please note: Although you are able to install the app now, you may not be able to add your child's name and class until the class lists have been setup. This will be done before the start of term 2. Lunches will be delivered to the school office using all safe food handling procedures, ready for eating time at 12:50pm. Class reps will collect and distribute their class orders from the office. Lunch orders will be prepared in a registered kitchen of Ms Kristy Rodhe’s holding. All staff require a RWVP and food handling training certificates. We thank Kristy for providing us with this opportunity and we hope that it is a success for all. 

Fundraising Committee update: 

The SA sub-committee met on Tuesday afternoon. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful and passionate bunch of parents and carers at the ready to support our school. The committee have many ideas for fundraising, improving the school and students' wellbeing and learning outcomes. They will inform you of upcoming fundraising opportunities that you can be involved in. There is a Facebook group that you can join to keep up to date with actions too- all are welcome, search for it or ask Cass to add you. The following roles on the fundraising committee have been assigned to the following parents: 

Chair: Cassandra Spurway-Smith 

Vice Chair: Edwina Caswell 

Treasurer: Amanda Smith  

Secretary and School Association (SA) elected member for correspondence between fundraising committee and SA: Cherie Smith  

Thank you in advance for your time in supporting our school. 

Brixhibition:

We wish Charlotte all the best with her overall winning entry for Brixhibition and hope that you can go along to support this great event in the holidays. 

Thanks to one of our parents, Ursula Miller, who contacted Brixhibition organiser Ken to request support for our new 3-4 Lego Therapy group. Ken has initially offered to purchase six Lego sets to support the program, with the intention to donate more later in the year. Since speaking with Ken, I have learned that the Brixhibition committee support many great causes, and it was heartening to hear about their local community minded work. 

SORA in SCHOOLS:

Just a reminder that the Sora in Schools app is available for students to use, allowing them to borrow books to read on their phone or tablet or through a web browser on their laptop or PC. Click on the link below to learn how to access and start reading!

Sora in schools - Libraries Tasmania 

https://libraries.tas.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/Sora-by-OverDrive-in-schools-Getting-started.pdf

Attendance: 

If your child continues to have regular, ongoing or prolonged absences, please expect us to be in contact with you in the form of a letter or phone call. We wish to work with families to ensure that students are safe, known, well and learning. If your child misses a school day, they are missing out on quality teaching instruction, and they may fall behind academically and socially. If you require support in this area please reach out to your child’s teacher, our Learning support teacher- Mrs Andrea Harlow; there may be a reason behind your child’s disengagement that needs investigating, and we would love to offer support where we can.  

Choir:  

Two Evandale locals, Valerie and Chris, are kindly volunteering to lead a choir with our students at Evandale Primary on Fridays at 2:00-2:45. Mrs Anita Stephens will be supporting the choir during these sessions. The choir will be performing in our Week 6 assembly next term! 

Happy Holidays:

Please enjoy the two week break! We look forward to seeing everyone refreshed and back at school on Monday 29th April. Stay safe and enjoy!

Kind regards,

Bella Mitchell

ACTING PRINCIPAL

Prep-1 read the story Anzac Ted and discussed how and why people commemorate Anzac Day on the 25th of April.

We drew Anzac Ted and made wire and paper poppies for our Anzac Ted's to hold.

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Anzac Artwork from Kinder