8 July 2022

Newsletter Articles

A Word from the Principal…

The holidays are almost here, and it’s been a rather busy term yet again. Sickness and Covid have raged through our school over the last few weeks and despite the challenges around staff absences and timetable adjustments we still have plenty of good news stories to share with you.

We are extremely proud of Jacob Furphy who is currently representing Australia at the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup in Spain. The Crocs won the Asian Cup in the lead up to Spain. Jacob has been playing well and the team defeated Poland 85-68 and Egypt 91-46 in their first two matches. Their next game is against Argentina, and you can watch the game live via the link below.

Keep up the great work on the court, Jacob! Great work Crocs. Go Australia!

You would have seen regular posts on our Facebook page about the lunch program. Butter chicken, shepherd’s pie, vegetable curry, fresh salad (no iceberg lettuce though), chicken drumsticks and roast veggies have been dished up to nearly 120 students who signed up to be part of the lunch pilot. We are lucky to have healthy, hearty meals being prepared for students each week and we are very grateful to be involved in the lunch pilot program.

NAIDOC Week is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth. Get up! Stand Up! Show Up! is the NAIDOC Week theme which showcases the proud history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people getting up, standing up, and showing up.

How can we Get up! Stand Up! Show Up?

Why not learn more about how you can support environmental, cultural and heritage protections, Constitutional change, comprehensive truth-telling processes, working towards treaties, and calling out racism. Supporting our Aboriginal learners (and all First Nations people) should be a practice we all do every day. To show support our students will be involved in the NAIDOC celebrations at Trawmanna over the week. Have a great NAIDOC week!

Last week in the Chronicle our Life Lab Works Crew was featured in an article which showcased the community work they have been involved in over the term. It’s a great opportunity to help others in our community and develop critical skills in a range of areas that will play an important role in future pathways for our students. Well done to everybody involved in the program, particularly Dudley Billing who is the coordinator of the Works Crew.

Finally, I hope you all stay healthy during the holidays, with some time set aside to recharge and relax before we resume school for Term 3. Years 7-10 students start school on Tuesday the 26th of July. Year 11/12 students start on Monday the 25th of July.

Nikki Clark
Principal

An update on face masks

Public Health has advised that from Monday 27 June 2022, face masks are no longer mandatory in schools and Child and Family Learning Centres. This is because of reduced COVID-19 cases in our community.

It’s important to continue to:

• stay at home if unwell, and get tested
• practise COVID-safe behaviours such as frequent handwashing and sanitising
• be up to date with your COVID-19 vaccinations.

Students, staff and visitors are supported to continue to wear face masks if they choose to. Face masks are still available at our office if you need them.

When face masks are required

If you’re a close contact, you are still required to wear a face mask indoors as per current Public Health advice.

From time-to-time our school might identify activities or situations where masks are required to be worn. We ask for your support when this happens and know that it is in the best interests of our students, staff and our school

Our staff will continue to wear masks when working closely with students who are vulnerable to COVID-19.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us directly to discuss.

For more information about COVID-19, please visit the Tasmanian Government Coronavirus website or contact the Tasmanian Public Health Hotline on 1800 671 738, or Department of Education COVID-19 Support Hotline at  COVID19support@education.tas.gov.au  or on 1800 816 057.

Mid-year reports

A reminder to families that mid-year reports have been distributed.

The new look report will show your child’s learning achievement differently. A new 9-point visual scale replaces A-E ratings for students in Years 1 to 10.

The 9-point scale will show more specifically where your child’s learning achievement is against the expected standard for their year level.

There will be no teacher comments on the report. Parent/teacher interviews will be offered in Term 3. These are a great opportunity to discuss how your child is progressing with their learning. More information on interview dates and times will be available at the beginning of Term 3.

A 9-point scale

The scale ranges from below the expected standard to well above the expected standard. The middle three gradations show range within the expected standard.

With the 9-point scale you will also see one of the descriptors below:

• [Student name] is below the expected standard for the year level
• [Student name] is approaching the expected standard for the year level
• [Student name] is at the expected standard for the year level
• [Student name] is above the expected standard for the year level
• [Student name] is well above the expected standard for the year level.

This assessment is against the learning area achievement standard of the Australian Curriculum for your child’s year level, based on the evidence of their learning.

No comments

Written comments will no longer be included in school reports.

Instead, you will have more opportunities to be updated on your child’s learning progress throughout the year. This may be through face-to-face conversations, phone calls or online communication.

The sharing of feedback on evidence of learning with families will be phased in during 2023 and will further contribute to knowing how your child is progressing.

By having more regular communication about your child’s learning progress you will know how your child is doing across the entire school year (not just twice a year).

Cross Country

Smithton High School recently held its Cross Country event. With weeks of training runs, the following students were named Champions and Runners Up in their respective year groups. Congratulations to all students who participated to the best of their ability. The winning House will be announced at the next whole school assembly.

SEC Biggest Morning Tea

The Smithton High Student Executive Council recently participated in the Biggest Morning Tea fundraiser for the Cancer Council. We made over 300 morning tea boxes, which individually contained:

• 4 mixed sandwiches
• 3 assorted truffles
• 2 assorted slices
• 2 slices of savoury toast
• 1 egg and bacon quiche

These were either made by our SEC or generously donated by our amazing staff or volunteers.

The SEC spent multiple days over the week organising and preparing for the day. This process included going around to different businesses and giving out the forms for the ordering. They then proceeded to go back to those businesses a week later and then calculated how many morning teas they would need to make, which came to a total of 286 but we rounded it up to 300. We organised who would then make the food and ordered the boxes. A week later 27th the SEC delivered the boxes to the businesses who loved the food we provided.

Year 9 SRC Fundraiser

Our Year 9 SRC group organized a free dress day, encouraging people to wear shorts to show their support for Speak up Stay ChatTY’s annual shorts day. So many students came to school on a cold winter’s morning, sporting their favourite shorts. We hosted a barbecue and sold ‘frogs in the pond’ which were a hit. We received a great amount of support and collected around $400 overall. Speak up Stay ChatTY is a Tasmanian organization that strives to support those struggling with their mental health and helps start important conversations around the topic. The day was overall a huge success and we hope it created some more awareness throughout our school.

The Year 9 SRC are thankful for the support by local businesses for our Speak Up Stay ChatTY Shorts Day Fundraiser. Without their support the day wouldn’t have been as successful, and we are extremely grateful.

Thank you to:

Cottage Kitchen Bakehouse – for the bread.

Smithton IGA – for ingredients.

Perry’s Quality Meats – for the sausages and burgers.

Year 7 SRC Report

The Year 7 SRC has been hard at work brainstorming ways to give back to their peers, the school and the greater community. This term they have focussed on strengthening relationships within their own cohort and have organised some fun activities for the entire Year 7 cohort to do together. The goal for these activities was to build new relationships between students from different classes, strengthen already existing relationships, and of course to have fun! Looking ahead, they are currently in the process of organising their first fundraising event for Term 3.

Student Engagement Group

Early this term the Student Engagement Group put together an online survey which gathered information on what students thought of their year so far. We will use this data to improve the school environment and the learning ability of students in all classes and at break times.

The survey consisted of questions on the school values:

• LARF - Learn, Achieve, Respect and Fairness
• The wellbeing check in that students complete each week
• How the school year is going on a scale of 1-5
• How they feel at school
• What can we do about the school environment

We took the information we collected from the survey to a whole staff meeting and came up with a few focus points to help improve the school environment. The focus points are:

• Fairness – equity-equality,
• Teaching styles and relationships,
• What can be done at break times

All this information was extremely helpful and was greatly appreciated. We are currently working on tasks around our focus points and will keep you up to date with the information on our progress and our future endeavours.

Some of our Student Engagement Group

Saputo World Milk Day Cook Off

To celebrate World Milk Day (1st June 2022) Smithton High School were invited to participate in a ‘Cook Off’ using milk and other Saputo products. The cook off was held in the kitchen at Smithton High School with UHT milk, cheese and butter supplied by Saputo Smithton. The ‘best’ milk creation was judged by Dale Poke (Site Manager Saputo) with the winners being Paige and Raygan with their Moo Licious milk cake, closely followed by runner’s up Chelsea and Nara. Other participants were Nick, Sahara, Keeley, Bella, Marlea, Zoe and Kelsie. Prizes ranged from a fitness watch, vouchers to AG Warehouse, cinema tickets and Stephanie Alexander Kitchen garden foundation packs.

9/10 Woodwork - Trivets

Trivets are used in kitchens and dining rooms to protect surfaces. Hot pots or dishes are placed on the trivets.

We have used the following Tasmanian native specialty timbers in the construction of theses trivets:

Myrtle, Tasmanian Oak, Sassafras and Celery Top Pine.

The constructions were required to include one or more of the following jointing techniques:

Mitre joint, rebate joint, housing joint or corner housing joint.

This was a challenging task which enabled students to develop their joining skills which are applied in their current coffee table project and future personal design project. Students have designed and produced some very technical and aesthetically pleasing trivets. They have displayed patience and perseverance in completing this task.

Paul White – MDT Teacher

Community News

Dates to Remember…

Term Dates & Student Free Days for 2022

Terms

Student Free Days

Year 7-10

Thursday 14th April
Monday 25th July
Friday 4th November

Year 11/12

Tuesday 15th March
Friday 2nd September
Friday 4th November

Office Hours

8.30am – 3.30pm daily
School Starts: 8.50am
School Finishes: 3.00pm

School Office Ph: 6452 9222
Trade Training Centre Ph: 6452 9288

SMS: 0418 220 201
Email: smithton.high@education.tas.gov.au
Web: http://education.tas.edu.au/smithtonhigh/Pages/Home.aspx
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Smithton-High-School/219062138251149