Dear parents, families, students and community members,  

As I write this article this fortnight, one of our school values keeps popping up -  Connection. DECYP's connection value means "building positive relationships and a sense of belonging". This fortnight, we have fostered connection in a number of ways, including through our Cross Country Carnivals, Moderation Day with the East Coast Cluster, hosting a volunteer's breakfast and obtaining a sponsorships for the 4/5/6 Canberra trip through a range of organisations. 

Tomorrow is a Student Free Day known as Moderation Day. While tomorrow might be a day off for students, staff will be busy with Moderation and Professional Learning activities. The purpose of Moderation is to ensure that all Tasmanian students are being assessed against the same standards and that assessment is comparable across Tasmanian schools. Tomorrow, teaching staff will be working onsite at Swansea Primary School with teachers from Orford Primary School and Triabunna District School to moderate student work. While our teachers complete Moderation Day activities, teacher assistants will be undertaking professional learning around best practice to support students with additional needs. This is an important date on our calendar and fosters collaboration and connection amongst staff from the East Coast Cluster. 

Yesterday, we held a volunteer's breakfast at our Breaky and a Book. This was a continuation of Volunteer Week, which was held in May. Celebrating connections with the community is essential for our school. It is important for our students to understand who the volunteers are within our community and how they help us. It was lovely to see volunteers from a range of organisation at the event, including the Tas Fire Service, Volunteer Ambulance, the Community Hub and the SES, just to name a few. A huge thank you to all of our volunteers for the service that they provide to our community and for attending our Breaky and a Book. 

During our volunteer's breakfast, we also received multiple donations from different community groups to go towards our 4/5/6 Canberra trip. We would like to thank the Swansea Car, Bike and Truck Show for their $2,000 donation, the Swansea Community and Men’s Shed inc. for their donation of $2,450 and and the Swansea Community Market for their $300 donation, all that were presented at the volunteer's breakfast. We are also very excited to announce that the Swansea and Bicheno Community Bank will be sponsoring the trip, and have donated $10,000 towards it. Further donations that we have received towards the Canberra trip include $1,500 from Elders Real Estate Swansea, $250 from Swansea Plumbing, $1,000 from TASSAL, and the Pop Up Book Stall has pledged $6,000 to go towards Canberra. While an amazing opportunity, the Canberra trip is expensive, and we anticipate that it will cost between $45,000 - $50,000. The trip will be free of charge for 21 Grade 4/5/6 students, ensuring that all students can be included. We are so lucky to have the support for the trip from a variety of community organisations. Thank you to all of our supporters for their generous donations. 

Last week, we had a successful school Cross Country Carnival. It was a delight to see students running along the beach, and although we were required to make a couple of changes to the course, students were resilient and took the changes in their stride. It was a brilliant day weather-wise, and all students displayed excellent sportsmanship and teamwork. I was also impressed with participation levels of all students and everyone giving the races a go. Thank you to families who attended to support the students. Following on from our school Cross Country, students in Grades 3 - 6 travelled to Bayview Secondary College to participate in the SPSSA Division C Cross Country Carnival on Monday 3rd June. Congratulations to the Grade 6 boys who placed first in the team event, Abbey for placing second individually, Georgie placing fourth individually and to Occy for placing fourth individually. Thank you to Mrs Saskia Sparshott for all of the work that she has put into organising both our school and the SPSSA Cross Country Carnivals. Both events celebrated our school values of connection and courage, well done to all of our participants. 

Learning News & Highlights

What would you like our SPS families to know about your learning this fortnight?

Amelia: I have been practising my writing and drawing and at Maths time, I am proud of how I have been doing my counting in 10s an 100s.  

George:  I like choosing books and reading at Library.

Daisy:  I’m proud of all the writing I did for my Dog story. 

Arlo: I’m proud of myself because I like doing UFLI.  My favourite thing is writing.

Eowyn:  I did running at Cross Country.  Before I started Cross Country, I did 12 laps of the step loop to warm up!

Grace:  I’ve been going really well at Art and I’m feeling good about all my other learning.

Hazel:  I have been enjoying playing outside with Doggy and my friends at Recess and Lunch.

Indiana:  People being nice to me on my Birthday and getting to do special jobs.

Maggie:  I have liked going to big school and little school and HPE. 

Lucy:  I’m proud of how I ran in the Cross Country!

Jaxon:  I have been playing soccer and having fun with my friends. 

Olivia:  Racing in the Cross Country!

Wyatt:  I have been loving playing sports with my friends at Recess and Lunch.

Llewyn: I'm happy about how I’ve been doing all my writing in UFLI and my Doggy story. 

Ellie: I loved doing my first Cross Country in Swansea.  I came fifth.  

Caleb: I’m proud of how I have been playing with my friend, Theo at school!

Theo:  I’m proud of how I have been playing with toys and my friend, Caleb.

Miss Pearce:  I really enjoyed discussing Reconciliation Week with the KP1 class.  Our learning about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags lead to the surprising creation of our own flags!

Mrs. Wells created a video to capture Jaxon's wonderful show and tell surprise.  We hope you enjoy. 

Another busy and rewarding fortnight has been had in the Grade 2/3 classroom!

Writing

As part of our UFLI literacy lessons, we have been practising spelling some irregular words (words that have irregular spelling patterns) and using these in sentences. We have been focusing on attempting to spell difficult words using spelling choices for phonemes (sounds) that we have been looking at in our UFLI sessions each morning. We use whiteboards to perfect out letter shapes and formation.  Mrs Sparshott is very impressed with our writing and we're continuing to grow in confidence and automaticity.

Cross Country

Both our school and SPSSA cross country carnivals have happened this fortnight.  We've been training hard during daily PE and our HPE lessons and gave it our best shot in both carnivals. Congratulations to all of our grade 2/3 runners, with a special mention for Abbey, who placed second at the SPSSA carnival for the grade 3 girls.  That's a great achievement out of runners from 21 schools. Well done, Abbey! We wish all of our runners the best of luck for the upcoming Tasmanian All Schools Cross Country Champioships at Symmonds Plains on the 17th of June.

Woodwork

Our pencil boxes are finished!  We were so thrilled with our results and they're now sitting proudly on our desks at school, filled with our treasured possessions.  Our next project is a collaborative one, using many different woodworking skills to create a new home for our Princess Lilibet!

That's all for now. Happy fortnight to all of our wonderful families!

Smiles, 

Mrs Sparshott

456 have been very sporty these last two weeks! They’ve participated in our Swansea Primary cross country and then in the SPSSA in Hobart. We’ve also been busy with the Growing Up Program, and we thoroughly enjoyed the Camp Quality puppet show.

During Mathematics we’ve been using hands on materials to practise grouping factors and producing multiples. Science has been interesting as we’ve discovered new materials and have taken part in investigating solids, liquids and gases in engaging experiments. Our visits to Jubilee Beach have been awesome too, as experiencing literacy outdoors is such a great way to finish off each school week!

Thank you to everyone that supported our annual Scholastic Book Fair.

Your support allowed us to add many new and exciting books to our school library.  

We received a fabulous $259 worth of new resources.

We truly appreciate your commitment to fostering a love of reading within our school and community.

Thanks again for making the book fair so special.

Lilibet has been very busy at Swansea Primary School and is already 14 weeks old. Although very much a baby with lots to learn and explore! Lilibet is at:

The Juvenile Stage (3 to 4 Months)

At this point in development, a puppy can be compared to a juvenile.

• The first 6 months of a puppy’s life are roughly equivalent to the first 10 years of a human child’s life.
• Between 6 and 12 months old, they will enter adolescence.
• At a year old, they are a mature adolescent.
• Sometime between 2 and 3 years old, they become physically and mentally mature.
• And at 9 years old, they start to become seniors.

Lilibet is attending Puppy School at Eastern Shore Dog Club on Sundays. As you can see, the picture below captures Lilibet loving the reward treats at puppy school, as we know Labradors will do anything for a food treat.  Puppy school is teaching Lilibet the basic commands and obedience that will be needed for her to progress to the next stage of her training. Lilibet just needs to remind her trainer at times her left and right!

When Lilibet isn't socialising with students, she spends most of her time sound asleep or eating. Ensuring she also has enough downtime and run-around time so she doesn't become overstimulated.  Lilibet is also starting to discover her voice and at times lets out a bark, which I think Lilibet at times doesn't realise has left her mouth.

The students are learning and loving watching the growth in Lilibet, and learning how we interact with dogs and how we seek permission from dogs first before approaching for a pat, ensuring we have our fingers tucked away in a soft fist allowing Lilibet to sniff our hand first, not running towards her or trying to pat her on the top of the head as this for a puppy becomes overwhelming.  The kindness that is being shown by every student is truly a wonderful thing to watch.

Lilibet also has a very busy schedule in her role as an admin pawfriend, ensuring she doesn't miss any of her Swansea Primary pawfriends' birthdays. 

https://www.pettown.vic.gov.au/game/

2025 Student free days

Date	School Years	Region
Friday, 6 June	K-12	Statewide
Friday, 24 October	K-10	South only

Statewide public holidays (all of Tasmania)