Term 3 - Issue 2
Principals Report
Here we are at the halfway point of term 3, scary, isn’t it? We still have so much more to do this term, not to mention this year. Please keep an eye out for messages and notices on Seesaw, check our online Calendar on our website.
I spend a lot of time going in and out of classrooms as I really wasn’t cut out for sitting at a desk. It has been great to see more and more each day how the culture continues to change for the better in our school. We should all be proud of how our kids interact with each other, demonstrate our School Values and are more focused than ever on their learning.
Learning Walks, Coaching and Observations
One thing that we have become really great at as a school is the ability to reflect on and improve on what we are doing as a staff to ensure our kids are Known, Safe, Well and Learning each day.
Part of this ensuring that our staff are continually refining their teaching practices, implementing school expectations and using agreed upon strategies to get positive outcomes for our kids. A few ways that we do this is through learning walks, coaching and observations.
- Learning Walks occur daily by myself with feedback going out to all staff weekly. This is where observations are made of a particular focus such Learning Intentions, Explicit Teaching, implementing of a new school focus or upholding our expectations of student learning and behaviour.
- Coaching takes place for all of our teaching staff with Miss Creese weekly. Miss Creese works with our teachers to refine their teaching practice, planning and assessment processes.
- Observations are where our teachers go to each other’s classrooms and watch a lesson. They then provide feedback to each other about what work, what needs to be improved or questions they might have about what they saw.
New Play Equipment
You may have noticed some new items in our playground recently. We now have 2 large musical instruments to keep our faithful old cow Bessie company. The new instruments look fantastic and are really getting a lot of use out of them already.
Thank you to the work of our School Association and support of our school community. Through your support we have been able to purchase the 2 outdoor musical instruments and have had them installed for our kids (and staff) to use. These were not cheap, and the money has come from fundraising over the past 12 months.
A big thank you once again to everyone for supporting our school!
Class Placements 2025
We are currently in the very beginning stages of our 2025 class placements. If you have any information, thoughts, or friendship advice that you think we might need in relation to placements please email this to: Bagdad.Primary@decyp.tas.gov.au
The close off date for this information to be sent to us is Wednesday 23rd October 2023 at 3:00pm. Anything after this date will not be considered.
A reminder that teacher requests are not accepted. In addition, we are a small school and the options of which class we put students into is extremely limited.
Enrolments 2025
As mentioned, we are working on classes and other planning for 2025. Part of this is ensuring we know who is at our school next year as it can have a big effect on our staffing. Please contact the office if you think there is information we might need to know including:
- You are moving from our school to another for any reason
- You know if someone who might be due to come to kinder in 2025, who might not have enrolled as yet.
Attendance Reminder - Responding to Text Messages
As mentioned in our last newsletter, earlier this year we switched to a text messaging check in system to follow up on why students are away from school. However, we are finding that we aren’t getting a lot of responses, and this means students are being marked away with no explanation.
If you get a message, you must respond to it letting us know why your child is away. If days are left as unexplained it can have an impact on the next steps that we need to take to follow attendance. Finally, as I have said before it is the responsibility of the parent to let us know why your child is away from school.
More information can be found about our attendance procedures and Department of Education, Children and Young People (DECYP) procedures on our website in under Policies and Procedures.
Seesaw Messages
If you have a concern or a message relating to your child, remember that this needs to be communicated by phone or in person and not through a Seesaw message. Our teachers do not check Seesaw throughout the day for messages, therefore things will not be seen that are urgent, and somethings need to be discussed through a verbal conversation to ensure everyone is clear about the discussion.
Kind Regards,
Phil Novak
Principal
Art with Miss Taylor
The Young Archies, which is based on the famous Archibald Prize, is a portrait competition for students in Tasmanian Government schools and colleges. Awards are presented in year categories and can be in any 2D media, such as drawing, painting. collage. The portrait must be of someone personally known to the student.
Selecting just a few portraits per age group was a very challenging task as there were just so many wonderful artworks! The below students have had their artworks selected to be included in the competition:
Kiarah K, Isabelle M, Olivia M, Lacey D, Willow F, Taysha M, Ruby T, Alyssa E, Malia E, Leah C, Holly S, Mackenzie H and Logan M.
Music with Mr Griggs
Here is Grade 3/4 Shephard enjoying their music lessons, practising their class song.
They have made great strides in the playing the instrument of their choice.
PE with Mr Lewinski
The last 2 Monday's we have had Max from Hockey Tas come and take PE lessons with all classes. The children have enjoyed learning skills, and how to play hockey.
Winter Sports Carnival
Congratulations to our students who participated and represented our school in the winter sports carnival on Tuesday.
Aedin played netball Ethan played soccer
Book Week Celebrations
Book Week Poster Competition
Congratulations to the following students who were our winners in the book poster competition. They won a voucher to use at our book stall.
School Hat
Just a reminder to all students, parents and carers:
All students will be required to wear your school hat, from Monday 2nd September.
NO caps are to be worn. School bucket hats are available for purchase at the office $24.00.
Communities for Children
Communities for Children (CfC) recently conducted an art competition for their new van, which will be used by local community partner organisations to deliver programs across the Brighton, Derwent Valley, Southern Midlands and Central Highlands municipalities.
The van will enable more young people further out of Hobart to participate in activities. At the moment the van contains 4 virtual headsets, 3 laptops and 3D printers, large TV screen, portable projector and sports equipment.
Xavier C from Bagdad Primary School was one of the major winners and had his artwork printed on the sliding door of the van. Xavier is in grade 4 and said it was a self-portrait. Xavier enjoys drawing characters the most.
All together 22 entries were received from Westerway Primary, Bagdad Primary, St Brigids Primary, Dominic College, Brighton Primary, New Norfolk Primary and New Norfolk High School.
Well done Xavier!