Thursday 7^th November is our next Outdoor Classroom Day.  We are all busy preparing for a great day of learning outside (and hoping the weather is as brilliant as it has been this week.)

For the morning we are putting our Kinder and Prep students together to get to know one another, our Ones and Twos will work together, our Threes and Fours will work together, our  Fives will work with Mrs Young for the morning and our Grade Six will work on a special end of year leaving project.

It would be lovely to have families come and join in and share the experiences with their children.  The coffee van will be on site as usual.

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2024 MEC Art Competition awards. This year students learned about the unique features and behaviours of wombats, thanks to wombat that was recently donated to the Environment Centre by the School Association.

A huge thank you to this year’s competition judges, local artists Nicole O’Loughlin and Peter Maarsveen. Nicole and Peter were inspired by the storytelling ability and unique art styles of this year’s award winners. In addition to giving their time to come and judge and present awards, Nicole and Peter also donated sketch books to accompany the prizes.

We were thrilled to see so many budding artists enter their creations and can not wait to see what is produced next year! Stay tuned!  

Missing from the photo is Sebastian, highly commended for Grade 1, who was absent during the presentation at the chess tournament.

Good luck to our Grade 5 and 6 boys competing at this weekend's regional basketball tournament.

Please see timetable below, subject to change.

What’s the best kind of bike? A wheely good one!

To start the term off in PE, we had Shane from the Bike Education Program come and visit us. Our students revisited their knowledge of safely checking and fitting a helmet, and how to perform an ABCD check on a bike. We practised adjusting the seat level for our own height, how to start in the power position, safely navigating through cones and will progress to giving way to people on our right and navigating through a roundabout. Our older students have been lucky to have Shane visit them for a few consecutive years now, and this enabled them to try some new activities on the bike, including sharper turns and progressing to giving way to oncoming bikes.

It is really special to see the progress our students make over the bike program and over the consecutive years we have been involved in the bike education program. We would like to say a huge thank you to Shane from the Bike education Program for sharing his bicycle knowledge with us and for sharing his equipment! Shane will be back out to Molesworth next Tuesday and for outdoor classroom day.

I would also like to thank all parents and carers who transported their child/children’s bikes to our school for their child/children’s bike session with Shane.

The Bridge Art Prize is an initiative of the Derwent Valley Arts and McConnell Dowell to illustrate the connection between place and people of the new Bridgewater Bridge.

The prize pool exceeds $36,000 and has a main acquisitive prize of $25,000 and is open to entries across Tasmania.  It encourages Tasmanians to explore their relationship with The Bridge directly or indirectly by using a range of media including photography, painting, printmaking, graffiti, poetry, videography, animation, music, ceramic, textiles, and sculpture.

This is a fantastic opportunity for our students and there are prizes awarded for junior entrants.  Entries close on the 17th of January, 2025 and the exhibition is from the 5th to the 27th of April, 2025.

To learn more about this prize and to submit and entry form visit the link below:

http://www.derwentvalley.art/about-the-bridge-art-prize

To acknowledge the 20^th year of Day for Daniel and to support safe practices for our students we have been invited to participate in the DV Art competition. The art works will be a part of student learning in their classrooms.

On Wednesday December 11^th at 10:30 am-12:30 pm we will be having our final carnival for the year, our Kinder to Grade 6 Carnival. If you are available on this day it would be fantastic if you could come and cheer on our students! As we finalise this year’s program, keep an eye out for the different events you will see your child/children participate in.

All students will be practising each different event in PE in the lead up to the carnival.

We will be sitting in our house colours under our gazebos and students are encourage to wear an item/s of clothing in their house colour. As per our sun smart policy, if they are wearing a coloured top it must be covering their shoulders. If your child is unsure what house colour they are in please see their class teacher. School hats will be required as well, if you have a bucket hat in your house colour you are more than welcome to wear this. A reminder of our 3 house colours: blue gum - blue, river mint - green and Waratah - red.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Miss Gourlay or the School Office.

Below is the description of each colour and their special meaning for our school community:

International Day of People with Disability is a United Nations (UN) day observed internationally. It aims to promote community awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability.

Making activities inclusive and catering to all abilities gives every student the opportunity to be active at school and is something I am passionate about. Adapting and modifying activities for students with a disability can increase engagement and enjoyment. Promoting awareness is also important, and can help start conversations about disability with students.

For further information about International Day of People with Disability here is a link to their website: International Day of People with Disability (idpwd.com.au)

To raise awareness, each class will be participating in an inclusive sport activity during the week of December 2^nd with Miss Gourlay!

On the last day of school, Thursday 19^th December, we will be having our whole school Colour Run on our school oval from 1:30 pm until the end of the day.

Our sport leaders have already started creating draft plans of the colour run obstacle course and have a lot of fun activities in the works.  A white t-shirt is a great item for your child to wear on the day!!

If you would like to come along please do, it is such a great way to end the year. There will also be a parent/community race if you would like to participate.

On Wednesday 16^th October, Danielle our School Health Nurse shared Sun Smart information with each class. It was a timely message as we come into Term 4, with the weather heating up and school bucket hats become compulsory.

Danielle also spoke to us about UV radiation. We explored the My UV website to check what the UV was currently for our area: https://www.myuv.com.au/ On the day of Wednesday 16^th, it was level 6, which surprised many of us as that indicated a high UV level.

If you have any questions about being how to be Sun Smart, please talk with your child/children as they are now experts equipped with sun safe strategies.