School newsletter - Term 3 - Newsletter 1
Principal's Report
Dear Families,
Welcome to the start of Term 3.
Whilst the weather during the two-week holiday was chilly and damp it was lovely to have warmer weather for our first week back at school before the return of the Winter chill.
Last week we saw another wonderful example of Bothwell being ‘A Connected Community’ with our highly successful Schools Tree Day event. We hosted Sustainable Timber Tasmania, Forest Education Foundation, and the Honourable Eric Abetz (Minister for Business, Industry, and Resources), to celebrate our Schools Tree Day.
Our students teamed up with foresters to plant seedlings under the sunshine, getting their hands dirty and learning about the importance of Tasmanian forests first-hand. We planted a number of shrubs around our new swale.
Thank you to Darcy Vickers, Suzette Weeding and their teams, together with all of the staff and students for the preparation for, and participation in, the tree and shrub planting. A special mention to Tamika Burrill, Chris Turner, John Webb for their preparation for the day and to our Year 9/10 students. The senior students worked as mentors on the day supporting all students within the school to participate. A wonderful School Community Event! The photos included in this newsletter, were taken by Richie from Minch Media.
Earlier in the week, we hosted visits from Rebecca White, MP and Craig Farrell, MLC who were touring across the Derwent Valley. From all of our guests this week, we have received such warm and positive feedback about how welcoming our staff and students in the school are. It was another way to highlight all of the wonderful learning occurring at our beautiful school and to celebrate our student success.
At the end of Term 2 we held our Discussions of Learning. I hope everyone found the conversations very valuable. The week starting 16 September will be the next formal opportunity for a Family - Teacher conversation. We encourage our families to participate in this experience.
Our families will receive student NAPLAN reports this week and our teachers will also be sending out their Term 3 Learning Overviews. It is important to acknowledge that NAPLAN provides a ‘snapshot in time’ assessment of student progress. There are many ways that our teachers are tracking student progress and student NAPLAN results are just one assessment example. This term, teachers will also share further evidence of learning examples as well as regular Seesaw snapshots of learning. Between now and our next Discussion of Learning opportunity, teachers are always available to discuss teaching and learning and your child’s wellbeing. They can be contacted regularly by phone, email or via Seesaw.
I am excited to announce that we are planning for a 2025 Canberra Trip for our 2025 Year 6, 7 and 8 students. The intention is to organise such a trip for every two years moving forward for our Year 6 and 7 students. With support from funds received from the annual Sheep Station Cup (in addition an annual donation already received), with government PACER grants and through further fundraising opportunities and school support, the aim is to keep the costs of this trip at a minimal for families. This is guaranteed to be a powerful learning opportunity for our students. More information will be provided in the coming months.
Kind regards,
Erika Boas
Principal
Our Reading Focus
During the School Holidays, Ms Boas presented at the National English and literacy conference held in Adelaide. As part of the handover to the next conference, which will be held in Hobart, the following video was played. This was to an audience of 500 English teachers and literacy educators from across the country. You will notice some of our Bothwell students featured in the video. It was another lovely opportunity to showcase our learners and the wonderful teaching and learning spaces at our school. A big thank you to the students and families for supporting this promotion project.
Reading Groups
We are continuing with Reading Groups this term across all of the grades. Here is a little snapshot video that was created showcase how our younger students are building their word knowledge in creative and engaging ways.
To see a short video, please check on Bothwell District High School Facebook page.
Fullers Bookshop Excursions
K-6 students visited Fullers Bookshop this week. Fullers kindly let each of us choose a book to take home as part of their supporting communities literacy project. It was interesting to browse the different kinds of books in the bookshop.
Our Wellbeing Focus
As a staff we have been working on developing a common language and process for responding to student behaviour within the school. We are adopting a Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) process across the school. PBS is all about recognising and rewarding positive behaviours first and foremost. We are doing this at Bothwell through our 4 Bs (Be Responsible, Be Courageous, Be Respectful, Be a Learner). It’s also about having supportive plans and processes in place for the individual needs of our learners and in readiness should our learners require a reminder, a reset, or a relocation to another space to help them to self-regulate. As a team, we are developing our knowledge of the tools and strategies to restore and repair relationships and for helping our students to understand key expectations. Over the next two terms, we will work with our students to unpack this new framework for our school. We are working towards having a Student, Family and Community Handbook created for the start of the 2025 School Year which will detail our Positive Behaviour Framework.
Derwent Collective Engagement Survey
Students in Year 5-12 will be completing a survey which allows our staff the opportunity to improve the their engagement. Students will be asked a variety of questions, which teaching staff will then analyse and implement strategies to best support our learners. It’s extremely important that our students are fair and honest in the feedback they provide so that we can utilise the data to improve the engagement of our students.
Kinder and Prep Learning Showcase
Our prep students enjoyed a cooking session as a follow up to our health segment on healthy meals. We made a Frittata using the eggs from our chickens.
This is the recipe we used:
Melted 1 oz butter in micro safe dish.
Add the cut-up ham and capsicum, spinach.
Cook in microwave for 1-2 minutes.
Beat eggs (we used 6 eggs), add to microwave dish, and cook for 1-2 mins stir repeat.
Then add grated cheese, mix together.
Then we poured it into a dish and microwaved it for 10 minutes (depending on your microwave). You can also bake it in an oven for 20 – 25 mins @ 180 degrees (160 fan forced).
Grade 1 & 2 Learning Showcase
Grade 1/2 have been focussing on using different strategies to solve addition problems. We have been practising our knowledge of ‘friends of ten’, ‘doubles’ and ‘jump strategy’. We are now learning how to use ‘split strategy’ to solve two-digit addition problems. We are working together and helping each other with our learning.
Grade 3 & 4 Learning Showcase
In our library session this term our class learned about NAIDOC week (7-14 July). We learnt more about the culture, language and history of Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We then coloured and constructed our own snakes.
Grade 7 and 8 Learning Showcase
Our Year 7/8 students have had a wonderful day at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. Students had the opportunity to see a parrot being examined in the hospital as well as a microbat. They also saw a wombat being bottle fed and there were lots of opportunities for pats as well!
Grade 9 and 10 Learning Showcase
ABC Heywire Workshop
At the end of last term, our high school students participated in a writing workshop with ABC Heywire producer Emma Funnel. The students had the opportunity to craft some micro stories with the opportunity to have these edited and curated as multimedia stories. A fantastic opportunity for our young people.
Central Hawks Final Game
In 2024, many of our BDHS students have played football for local sporting clubs. On Sunday 28th July, junior teams had their final roster game for the year. Pictured here are students James E, Joel T, William R, Malcolm G and Aiden E playing for Central Hawks Under 9’s team.
LiL End of Term 2 Excursion
LiL
For an end of term excursion, we went to Bounce and had a wonderful time exploring, climbing and playing.
Specialised subject showcase:
Agricultural Studies
Here is a snapshot of some of the images from our recent Tree Planting Day.
Art
In 7/8 Art we have been focusing on detailed drawing. Using images of Tasmanian animals for inspiration, students have created their own interpretations of these animals. The created images have been included in a collection of Bothwell ‘Thank you’ and ‘Christmas’ cards.
Cooking with Brigette.
Rustic Pizzas.
Smartie Cookies
Thank you
Thank you to the Sheep Station Cup Fundraising Committee
Earlier in the year it was shared that $10, 000 has been donated to the School Association to support the school in enabling learning experiences and the purchasing of learning materials. In addition, the Sheep Station Cup Committee have made a very generous donation to the School towards supporting the 2025 Canberra Trip. This is wonderful news, and as a School community we are very grateful. We will acknowledge these donations in our upcoming Celebration Assembly.
Thank you to our School Association
For supporting the purchase of new AFL goals for the primary playground. These have been used every day this term!
Reminders Term 3 Celebration Assemblies
Attendance Matters
What to do if your child has to be absent from school
If your child needs to be away from school, it is important to tell the school as soon as possible. You can:
- Send a note or email to the school.
- Telephone the school office.
- Inform the school via Schoolzine app.
- Visit the school.
Your child’s Principal may ask for a medical certificate or further evidence to explain absence for illness, after your child has been absent for a total of more than 5 days in a school year.
The principal may also request evidence for other authorised absences, such as evidence of participation in an event or recognised learning experience, or a statutory declaration from a parent.
Absence without an authorised reason
If your child is absent for a reason that isn’t in the authorised list, it will be recorded as an unauthorised absence.
Principals receive notifications about the number of unauthorised absences your child has. Your child’s school may send you a letter notifying you of the number of unauthorised absences your child has.
If the Principal is concerned about your child’s attendance, they will seek to work with you to increase your child’s attendance to maximise their learning.
Celebrating Student Success
Celebrating Student Success – Sophie B
Sophie has been selected to be part of the Hurricanes Rookies Program for 2024/25.
The purpose of the Hurricanes Rookies Program is to Identify and inspire budding cricketers, through providing a foundation skill development program and gameplay opportunities. Congratulations, Sophie.
Celebrating Student Success – Brodie S
Year 10 student Brodie has been a member of the Tassie Devils Talent Pathway this year. This year has been a bit of a challenge for him after tearing an MCL earlier in the year. But he got there in the end and is back to 95%.
Brodie travelled to Qld between the 7th and 11th of July representing Tasmania in the under 16 Australian nationals.
On the Monday they played Brisbane Lions Academy, which Tassie won by 35 points. Brodie took a fantastic mark. On the Thursday they played the Sydney Swans Academy but were defeated by 13 points. Brodie achieved Best on Ground and received a good write up for this game.
