Staffing – Welcome

DECYP has developed a response to address the critical shortage of teachers we currently have in Tasmania.   Part of this response includes deploying non-teaching staff across the department into school-based roles, with the aim of providing continuity of learning for our children and young people.  The AST vacancy we have at Forest has been recognised as part of this process and Mrs Jenny Brooks will be joining our school in week 8 of this term.  Jenny has been the Principal Education Officer K-2 for the Department and we look forward to having her join our Forest Primary team.

CONGRATULATIONS – ARI KORPERSHOEK

Ari ran 3^rd in the 800m at the Primary State Athletic Carnival on May 5^th. We are so proud of you Ari and the effort you have put in.  WELL DONE ARI!

Cross Country

What a great day we had on Tuesday – the rain held off! It was fantastic to see our students having fun and enjoying the Forest track.  There was plenty of red mud in the paddocks, tyres to be running through and crossing the wetlands!

A huge thankyou to our parents who came along to support their children and volunteer their time to take on duties at checkpoints to ensure the safety for all of our students. The sausage sizzle afterwards is always a HIT – so thankyou to Muzza (yet again) for cooking the BBQ. It was lovely to have Jenna from Sugar. Flour. Cake. offer our parents a nice warm drink and some special treats.

Next Friday we will be sending our top 4 place getters from grades 3 - 6 to Stanley to compete at the CHSSSA carnival. Goodluck to each and everyone of you.  I can’t wait to go and cheer you all on.

Behaviour

Staff and students are focussing on being respectful in our school and what each of our roles are to ensure that we have a common language.  We have begun our structured lunchtime activities to support students with the options to engage in ‘interest’ activities.  Staff have offered their own time to provide these opportunities – so thankyou to each and everyone of you.  I have included our structured lunchtime activities for you all to see what we have on offer.

Bullying

What is it? How can we raise the profile? How can we ensure that our students understand what this is and how can we communicate this effectively?

We will be focussing on raising the profile of bullying in our school as we begin our plan for action at School Association.

Here is a link that can help you have discussions with your children at home. www.bullyingnoway.com.au

Bus

Please remind your children about the importance of being ‘safe’ when travelling on the school bus.  It is important that students are always safe to ensure that the driver can remain focused at all times.  We have included Wells Wagons behaviour plan for you to discuss with your children at home.  If you have any bus concerns, please call Wells Wagons and speak with Kimbra and/or myself to ensure that there are no ‘carried on’ behaviours at school.

Communicating Learning with families

I have attached the information that was sent home for you to have another look at.  If you have any questions please come and speak with me or my staff.

P&F Cake Stall, BBQ and Raffle

Thankyou to the P&F for providing our community with the opportunity to purchase from the cake stall and BBQ during the recent election day.  There was some yummy food that was shared by many.  Thankyou to those of you who volunteered your time – It was greatly appreciated.

Men’s Shed – Picnic Tables

Thanks so much to the Men’s shed for ‘refurbishing’ our tables and chairs in our courtyard.  We have one full set returned and they will continue to bring the ‘others’ back to life with our students!

PRE-KINDER

On Monday 29^th of May Kellie Bransden (current Kindergarten teacher) and myself will be attending the LiL session alongside Fran to provide an opportunity for our Pre-Kinder families to engage in discussions around Kindergarten at Forest for 2024.  We would love for you to attend.

In Grade 5/6 we have been focusing on narrative writing in class. As part of our learning, we designed our own dragons. We then used these dragons to think about how good authors describe the setting in a story. We used our dragons to draw the place where we think they live. Creating some sensational homes. We used these homes to inspire our writing and to begin writing the beginning of our story.

Hi Forest Primary School ,

Thanks for an awesome day of workshops yesterday! The kids were fantastic and I really appreciated all of the staff making me feel so welcome in your great little town.

Thanks! Jobe

In Maths 2/3W have been ordering, representing and partitioning numbers into the thousands. We have made a human number line and can explain our reasoning. We started by writing our own number without anyone else knowing it. Then we had to go and stand in the place that we thought our number would go; from there we showed each other our numbers and corrected our positions. Overall, we did pretty good in our initial placement.

On Thursday the 5/6's went to Agfest. It took two to three hours to get there. When we arrived, we got into groups of four or five and went to explore. We looked at lots of things and we had some spending money. I didn’t have a favourite thing because it was all pretty exciting. Some of us bought some stuff and when we were finished, we got back on the bus and headed back to school.

By Isabelle Heald

Hi, I am Willow,

I am going to tell you some of the fun things we did at Agfest. First, we had to sit on a bus for 3 hours to go to Carrick. Then we broke up into our groups and we started our adventure. My group went to the animal nursery, there were baby goats and they were fighting. Next, we went and looked at all the shops and free stuff. We also had to wait to get food. Trinity and I went to Bunnings to get free plants, then it was time to go home.

Firstly we would like to thank our families and community members for your outstanding support whether it was your donations, volunteering of time or making purchases at our election day cake stall, raffle and BBQ. Over $1500 was made for the morning. Congratulations to our raffle winner Malcom Noack. Our major fundraiser for 2023 is fast approaching, please spread the word wide and far and book and invite along your families and friends to our Trivia and Auction Night on June 24th. Once again thank you for your ongoing support of our "pop-up" lunches and thank you kindly to those who volunteer their time to organise and cook these special lunch days. Our next pop-up lunch will be chicken nuggets on Monday 26th June. Once again please come along and join us at our monthly meeting, our next meeting will be held on Wednesday 7th June at 7pm at the school, all welcome.

The Commissioner for Children and Young People is excited to announce that our YEP! program was officially launched on 9 May 2023. Your Engagement Place (YEP!) is a place where children and young people under the age of 18 can find ways to engage with CCYP and other organisations around Tasmania to have a voice on things that matter to them. Any child and young person aged under 18 who registers before 9 June enters the membership draw for a chance to win an iPad. Children and young people can register here. T&Cs apply.

You can check out our YEP! hub now by visiting our new CCYP website. If you are an adult and would like to keep up to date with current engagement opportunities available to children and young people in Tasmania, fill out our adult subscription form.

Should you have any questions at all about the new program or wish to promote an ethical engagement opportunity open to young Tasmanians, please do not hesitate to email us at childcomm@childcomm.tas.gov.au or call us on (03) 6166 1366

There are lots of things you can do to set your child up for success:
- Make sure your child goes to school, every day
- Going to school every day gives your child every chance to learn and grow, and connect with their mates and teachers. It’s where bright futures start and where they’ll benefit the most.
- Get them excited for school
- If you show a positive attitude and excitement towards school, your child will pick up on that.
The most common thing we hear from students, of all ages, is that school is where they can:
» spend time with their friends and teachers
» create new and fun experiences
» find their interests
» learn new things
» open up their options – for whatever future they want (whether that’s their dream job or to travel around the world).
Share these positives with your child. Talk to your child about school. Open up a conversation with your child about what’s happening at school. It will help you to better support their interests and confidence in learning. If you show an interest in school, they’ll know that getting an education is important and valued. Celebrate the milestones big and small! Celebrate milestones such as making it through the first day or week of school. And remember: all milestones look different. If it’s a big achievement for your child, it’s important to recognise it. Set up a time to talk to your child’s teacher or principal. If you’re struggling to get your child to school, help is available. Please talk to us at school about your situation. We’ll support you, in whatever way we can. Know when to seek help. There is no weakness in admitting you need help. If your child has completely disengaged with school, and not attending at all, there is support to help you. In the first instance, talk to us at school.
For more helpful tips, please check out the Anything can happen website. Anything can happen - Department of Education, Tasmania.

Congratulations to Dustin Brown, Eleanor Johns, Nate West and Willow Bransden on being awarded our most recent Students of the Week!!