We are now accepting Kinder enrolments for 2023.

If your child is turning 5 in 2023, we'd love to hear from you.  Please contact the school office for more information about getting them enrolled.

The Learning Pit

Over the past few weeks, the staff have begun an inquiry into a whole school approach to Growth. Together, we learnt about the 'Learning Pit' and what can happen when we are faced with a challenge. Currently, the biggest challenge for us at SPS is developing clarity in our response to poor behaviour choices and creating and embedding a positive school culture.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m feeling empowered after a full day of professional learning led by educational coach and ex principal Kathy Davis, who taught us about the power of connecting our values and vision to our response when dealing with both positive and negative behaviour.  I am particularly proud of the way we unpacked the DoE values and how staff worked together to create draft vision and mission statements.  They include succinct powerful words promote, nurture, develop and show - clever as they alone, they provide direction, action and clarification. They further specify what’s important, the work we have to do, and what outcomes we’re seeking. Through professional conversations and working on the ‘right’ work, which has been a huge part of the PLC process introduced this year, we have helped to forge the pathway of the future success of SPS.  

We would love your feedback and contribution to this work.  Here is our draft 1: 

Swansea Primary School

Vision (who we are/want to be) –
Working together to grow through quality teaching and learning.

Mission/Commitment (how will we achieve our vision?) - related to our values.

At SPS we will:
 
Promote aspiration by setting high expectations and encouraging life- long learning. (ASPIRATION)

Nurture growth by reflecting on the progress of our learning and planning for improvement. (GROWTH)

Develop courage by building resilience and embracing a growth mindset. (COURAGE)

Show respect by fostering positive relationships and valuing differences. (RESPECT)

This work could serve the school for the next 50 years, so I hope you feel valued and know how important you have been in shaping history and developing a shared language.  Our future work has been prioritised and elevated ideas/foci and, who we are and what we value at SPS through the pillas of “working together” to grow through “quality teaching and learning”.

Being Principal For The Day!

On the 8^th of September, I was principal for the day! I started the day meeting the students that were arriving to school. After that I went and got ready for Launch into Learning! I loved meeting all the little kids and joining in on playing around on all the activities that were set up in the gym.

A food truck came and the whole school came and had a healthy snack. It was delicious! It was very fun being principal! I wrote a letter to Liz, Morgan and Emma who served us the food. At lunch I got to join in on a staff meeting! I joined in dong dance for P.E in the gym with Miss Murray because it was too fun to miss!

The day was so fun and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.

Kind Regards,

Ava Melling

Principal For The Day

Swansea Primary School

The SRC would like to thank all businesses, community members and families for donating fabulous prizes for our online fundraising auction.  We are thrilled that our school community contributed though donations and bidding. We raised a grand total of $15,811.00 and items can be collected from the school office. We can't wait for the pump track, it's going to be so much fun for all the students and our community!

Eva, Naoimh and Lincoln

Swansea Primary School

SRC 

*If you haven't done so already, please complete the community/parent school satisfaction survey.  Individual/anonymous logins are required but they can be accessed from the school office.  The data will be very useful in our forward planning and your opinions and ideas are very much appreciated.

A copy was sent home to each family via school bags last week.

Move Well Eat Well

On the 8^th of September the ‘Well Fed Tasmania’ food truck came to Swansea Primary. They brought along some fantastic activities! They served cucumber, celery and carrot sticks in a little cup with beetroot dip, pumpkin soup, savoury pikelets and chocolate bliss balls. All the food was really good! Everyone loved it! We hope they come again.

Some delightful children, their parents and Lady Gowrie came to visit to do Launching into Learning and join in with having some snacks from the food truck with the rest of the school.

We’d like to thank Emma, Liz and Morgan for travelling to Swansea to give us some delicious foods and recipes to make them!

Kind Regards,

Miss Ava Melling

Principal for the Day

Swansea Primary School

Kim Lardner – storyteller performance – Thursday 10^th September.

Kim Lardner had the whole school in stitches with his comedic storytelling and wonderful cartoons.

The first story involved Riley swimming in the ocean. She was then attacked by a sharked and saved by a dolphin.

Another story included Tia and Arnab. The story and characters were hilarious with the moral of the story being that you only need a smile to make friends.

Lincoln was the main character in tale about going to space because his ‘big blister’ had stolen his rocket. Who knew that NASA really stands for No Aquatic Species Allowed!

Kim performed a conversation between himself as a 3 year old and his father. It was a story that many parents would identify with; all of the students certainly did. It was about a young boy stalling for as long as possible at bedtime.  

Finally Kim sang his farewells, accompanied by Chelea.

Thank you to Kim for his incredible storytelling. He has encouraged us all to use our storytelling skills!

From Monday, all students will need to be wearing a hat during play times or outside activities.  Overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation in childhood and adolescence is a major risk for developing skin cancer later in life. By teaching sensible sun protection habits from an early age and implementing best-practice sun
protection measures, early childhood services and schools can play a significant role towards reducing the life time risk of skin cancer.

Being SunSmart in Tasmania means using sun protection when UV levels reach 3 and above, this occurs from September to April. From May to August, sun protection is not recommended unless near highly reflective surfaces such as snow or being outdoors for extended periods. Therefore, this means implementing sun
protection measures form the beginning of the school year until the end of April and again from the beginning of September until the end of the school year.

Please help us to ensure we are all being sun smart at SPS.  Hats are available in the school office for $13.00 each.

Do you have a technology plan in your home?

Being safe online! REPOST

Friendship issues are challenging at any age.  Some students at SPS are not coping particularly well with the effects of this unrest and as a result, their ability to focus and learn is being impacted.  From discussions with various students and staff and parents, it has become apparent that social media has played a part in the problems we are dealing with during school time.

In order to best assist our students in putting past hiccups behind them and take positive steps towards a happy future, we as a staff are seeking your support and assistance.  Together, we can help to repair relationships and avoid online altercations so that learning can once again become the focus while at school. 

I would be grateful for your consideration of the following suggestions;

• Review the age restrictions for any social media site your child is signed up to. These guidelines have been put in place by experts to protect children from harm – Children under the age of 13 are not yet equipped with the social and emotional skills to process online interactions appropriately. Please consider the risks you are exposing your child to by allowing them into a teenage / adult social world prematurely.

• Remove or restrict access to these sites by actively supervising or removing access to them.

• Monitor bedtime routines and sleep patterns. Many of these students are tired at school.  They may be emotionally exhausted or tired from using devices until late at night.  Consider an appropriate time to hand in devices and choose to read or do something creative until bedtime.  We all function better with adequate sleep.
  
  
• Listen and talk. Get your child to talk to you about what’s on their mind.  Remember there are always two sides to a story and your child will relay their version and not necessarily give you an accurate account of what else has been going on.  Be open minded in your response to their worries and concerns.  The THINK acronym was actually created to help guide appropriate online behaviour, but all of these elements of THINK can be applied to everyday life, and can prevent unpleasant fall outs as well as build positive relationships.
  

• Seek further assistance if your child is particularly upset or not coping. The school has social workers from Royal Flying Doctors visit fortnightly and the school psychologist visits fortnightly too.  We also have access to DoE social workers, however if you are particularly concerned about a current issue, then Kids Helpline is always on the end of a phone or the click of a keyboard!

• Some useful links include:

  https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/esafety-guide

  https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/skills-advice/are-they-old-enough

  https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age/play-media-technology/media/good-apps-games-movies-school-age

  https://kidshelpline.com.au/schools/primary

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

Kind regards,

Kristy Hay

Principal

Building works are in progress in the LiL cottage.

All Launching into Learning sessions will be held in the Kinder/Prep room until further notice.

Please sign in at the office on arrival

Thank you for your wonderful support in our Father's Day raffle.

The lucky winners were

1st  Michael Hay

2nd  Ange Boxall

3rd  Paula Scherer

We raised a total of $795.30

Thanks again

Naoimh, Lincoln & Eva

SPS Student Representative Council

We are scientists

The big idea our Prep students have been exploring with Mrs. Nunn is forces.  Their science investigations have led them to several new findings about the way certain objects move and why.  Below is an image of our Science Thinking Board.  Can you see what the Prep students might have learnt so far?

Our Kinder students have also enjoyed putting their ‘Science Hats’ on.  Yesterday we took our learning outside to answer our new Pattern Inquiry Question:  Do patterns exist outside of the classroom?

Science Thinking Board

Leaf in hand

Melody “The pattern we found on the window goes rectangle square, rectangle square.”

Georgina “It goes purple brown purple brown…The pattern is apples but I just didn’t get it in the photo.”

Ella “It’s a pattern because it goes yellow red yellow red.”

Lincoln

“The fire hydrant goes red yellow red yellow…the pattern is lines and colours.”

Emmett “The pattern is line dots.”

Riley “It’s purple and green!”