1 September 2023

Dates to Remember

August

September

From the Principal

We have just passed the halfway point of the term, it’s been an action packed fortnight with many whole school and class activities, events and experiences. We have again welcomed a number of new  student and families, we welcome you to our school community! 

Thank you to our families and friends who joined us for assembly last Friday, a special thanks to our two classes, 1/2 Shephard and 3/4  Parker who shared and congratulations to all students who received awards. I know it is a very difficult task for staff to select award recipients as we have many students across our school making really fantastic choices with their behaviour and giving their personal best effort with learning. We have so many excellent Hilly Kid role models! 

Have you seen our beautiful new murals? Please come and have a look at the bright new addition to our external walls of our hall/gym and Kinder buildings. The theme of the murals were brainstormed by our student voice group and staff, and in discussion with our School Association. We are so excited to have a such a bright and fresh entrance to both spaces. 

Term 3 Communicating Learning Progress to Families. 

As mentioned previously, in response to our Term 2 survey we will be holding Student Led Conferences (SLC), these will be held on Thursday 14 September between 1:30-5pm. Each student will be allocated a conference of 20 minutes. 

Bookings for Student-Led conferences can be made via SchoolZine by the link below. 

Hillcrest Primary School (schoolzineplus.com)

If you are not able to book a conference please contact the office and we can assist. 

It would be fantastic if EVERY student in our school has a ‘special someone’ attend a conference with them! 

Please note that if there is a need for parents/carers to discuss a matter without their child’s presence, they are welcome to make an alternative appointment with the teacher.  

If you have any questions, please make contact with class teachers via SeeSaw or phone our school. 

Some more information about Student Lead Conferences (SLCs): 

The purpose of a SLC are for students to: 

• celebrate their achievements with their families 
• reflect on their learning journey 
• set their goals for the future 
• communicate their learning with families 

What happens at a SLC? 

• Adults come into the classroom with  their child, there will be up to three students participating in their SLC at the same time, the rest of the class will be working/playing in the classroom space
• Adults with their child visit the learning stations set up around the classroom 
• Adults move from station to station at the allocated times 
• Each station has a focus on a learning area.  
• Students share prearranged work/activities to demonstrate their learning 
• Teachers roam between stations proving support/prompting to students if required 
• Instructions and prompts are provided at the stations to support the conversation between student and parent/adult 

What are the roles of the participants during the conference? 

Student 

• Take the lead role during discussions 
• Demonstrate that he/she is the agent of learning by showing what/how/why they learn 
• Share their learning progress and achievement, using a variety of pre-selected pieces of work and activities/games familiar to them 
• Share the way they learned using a variety learning activities 

Parent 

• Encourage and support their children in describing their learning experiences by asking questions about what they learned and how they learned it 
• Provide positive feedback to their child about their learning
• Engage in learning tasks/activities or games lead by their child  

Teacher 

• Helps support the students to take responsibility for the conference by guiding students in planning, organising and practicing for the conference
• Acts as the facilitator  and prompter where necessary during the conferences
• Is involved but not directly with one conference

There will be up to 4 groups/conferences in the classroom at the same time, so the teacher roams between stations and supporting where necessary. 

School Satisfaction Survey

Every year the Department for Education & Young People conducts a School Satisfaction Survey to find out what your child(ren)'s school does well and where it may improve. 

We would be grateful if you completed our online survey about Hillcrest Primary School. Your feedback is very important to help us inform our school-planning and decision-making. 

The survey is open from Monday 28 August 2023 until Friday 22 September 2023 and should take about 5 minutes to complete. 

Take the online survey by clicking this Link or pasting it in your browser: https://ncv.microsoft.com/WZa4gt2B4G

The survey is carried out on a secure website and all responses are anonymous and confidential. All families in this school received the same survey link and no identifying information is collected. A summary of the survey results will be provided to schools. Responses from individuals or small groups will NOT be disclosed to any DECYP staff. 

Please contact us at school if you require any assistance. Thank you for taking the time to fill in this survey. 

North West Primary School Sport Representatives 

Congratulations to the following students who represented both, Hillcrest Primary School and the North West Primary Schools in the Devon representative team on Friday. The Devon (Devonport region) team competed against Darwin (Burnie region). 

Staffing Update 

For the last three weeks of this term (commencing Monday 11 Sept.) I will be taking some planned long service leave that has been planned for over 12 months. During my leave, Mr Adam Lane will be Acting Principal and with the support of our leadership team, they will be leading the school. Please don’t hesitate to make contact with Adam or any member of the leadership team if you have any queries relating to your children.   

In partnership, 
Georgia  

Hilly Kids Are Friendly Kids

Our current Hilly Kids focus topic is Good Winners Good Losers. Our next focus topic for term 3 will be Seeing it through.

Seeing it through

There are few more admired qualities in people than perseverance and that means seeing it through!  So many great people have this quality and it is one we can all aim for.  Seeing it through means sticking at something until it is finished, until the job is done.  It means that when things are difficult you don’t give up and walk away.  It means you might have to try a bit harder; it means you might have to get someone to help you; it means you might have to try things a different way; but mostly it means you stick with what you set out to do until you are happy with the result.  Good luck!

Do:

• Ask someone for help
• Try a little harder for a little longer and see what happens
• Try a different way to do or say something
• Break the task down into smaller chunks

Don’t:

• Don’t give up
• Take on a whole project alone

Our Hilly Kid for the ‘Use Your Voice’ topic was Zoe from 1-2Si Congratulations, Zoe!

Well done to our other class representatives:

Hilly Kids are Aspirational in our Community

We love to showcase our Hilly Kids who have been aspirational in the community with their chosen interest, sport or talent. If you have something special to showcase or share with our school community. Please send a photo with a short description to hillcrest.primary@decyp.tas.gov.au

This week we are celebrating Taj and Alex. The boys recently competed in the Tasmanian Junior 8 ball championships. Taj winning and Alex coming runner up. The boys will now compete in Canberra in the national titles in January. Great work and good luck for 2024!

Grade 6 Transition High School Challenge Day

On Wednesday 30 August our grade 6 students participated in the Reece High School Challenge Day at the Devonport Recreation Centre. All grade 6 students from East Devonport, Spreyton and Miandetta Primary Schools worked in teams on a variety of challenges to get to know students from other schools who will be in their year at Reece High School, in 2024. 

There will be more transition opportunities for our grade 6 students in term 4. Early in term 4 a taster day where students will be able to participate in Realising Potential subject, once the information has been shared with us, we will share the information. On Friday 8^th December, Orientation Day for the whole day at Reece High, for those students attending in 2024. 

If you require any additional information about the transition program, please contact Reece High School on 6420 8100. 

Ann-Maree Mulcaster 

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Glow Run

Thank you to everyone in our school community for participating in the Glow Run at the weekend. We had a wonderful time!

Soccer Tops Return

The 2023 soccer season has come to an end, which means soccer tops and goalie gear needs to be returned to the school. Please return all items by Monday 4 Sept.

Launch into Learning

Please see attached calendar for September

What’s been happening in Prep-1 Bonney

In Prep/One Bonney we have been utilising our outdoor classroom space and environment to support our learning about measurement. We have been finding natural concrete materials such as sticks, rocks, grass to measure and compare lengths. We have been investigating puddles and measuring the length, depth and width of puddles. It has been fun and engaging learning outdoors!

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Tuckerbox Tips

Lunchbox Snack Ideas

Try these swaps for better lunchbox choices:

Lyn Aherne – Canteen Supervisor

Move Well Eat Well

Ideas to Get Your Family Moving More

• Plan to be active together: plan an afternoon each week to have quality time together. It could be kicking the footy at the local oval, walking the dog at the park.
• Explore places to be active: explore a national park, go bushwalking, take a walking tour of the city, bike ride together or go beachcombing
  
• Reduce the amount of screen time in your house: set some family rules about screens. For example, no screens at mealtimes or a limit of two hours of screen time each day, etc
• Fit activity into your family’s routine: instead of driving right to the school gate, park a distance away and enjoy a walk in the morning or afternoon
• Be a good role model to your kids: if an active lifestyle is part of your life, you’re much more likely to pass similar good habits to your children. Kids love it when mum and dad join in their games and it’s fun for adults to remember what it was like being a kid, too!

MWEW Team