9 November 2023

From the Principal – Cathy Bester

At Ulverstone Primary we encourage our students to think about our school values in their daily interactions.  This term our focus value is 'learning for life’.  We encourage our students to take responsibility for their own learning and to make the most of opportunities. ‘Learning for life’ means that we value learning and that we are all learning together.  We encourage our learners to have a growth mindset, where we have a positive ‘can do’ attitude.  As I walk around our amazing school, I witness students engaged in learning both in and out of our classrooms.  Students are eager to share with me the learning they are doing and are able to explain their learning goals and the success criteria they are focussing on to improve.  We have much to celebrate at UPS as our students and staff continually strive to do their best. We continue to remind our students of the importance of demonstrating our values of Getting Along, Creating a Special Place and Reaching for the Stars whilst at school, this enables everyone to feel safe, valued  and able to learn.

PAT testing.

Our annual PAT (progressive achievement tests) testing concludes at the end of this week, with all students from Grade 1 to Grade 6 completing testing in Maths, Reading, and spelling. Our prep students have completed the Early Years PAT tests for both Reading and Maths.  Data from our testing is one source of data that assists teachers to know how students are progressing and areas for further development.  Our PAT data is also one of the data sets we use when looking at our school improvement planning and our annual review processes that we undertake annually.

Swimming

Our annual swimming program concluded last Thursday. Thank you to all families for ensuring that your child was well prepared. It was great to see so many of our students reaching personal milestones during their swimming program.

Safety Concern

I would once again like to remind families about our staff car park.  This is not a drop off or pick up area for students.  I witnessed a very near miss with one of our students nearly being hit by a car last week as they were walking through the carpark. I have noticed several families using our disabled and visitor parking both before and after school to drop off their children and several more families driving into the carpark, stopping to allow their children to hop out, then driving off allowing their children to walk through the carpark into school.  This is a major safety concern.  Please be respectful and park on either Short or Leven Streets before and after school.  We do not want an accident to occur.

Bikes and Scooters

We would like to remind students who ride bikes and/or scooters to school that for safety reasons they must walk their bike/scooter while on school grounds.  We have recently had a couple of near accidents with students riding while on school grounds.

Student Behaviour

It is with a heavy heart that I have, in the past week, received two phone calls from members of the public who have had students from our school behaving badly on their property as they have been walking home from school.  I am hoping that families will help us to reinforce the message that it is never ok to be rude and disrespectful to members of the public, nor is it ok to enter their property without permission.  We wear our UPS uniform with pride and while wearing it we continue to represent our school and expect that we do this in a positive way.

SMART Watches

We appreciate that many of our students now own smart watches.  We do not encourage students to wear smart watches to school.  If students do wear their watch to school this will be treated as per our mobile phone/device policy, which means it will need to be handed to their class teacher or to the main office for safe keeping throughout the day.  Thank you for your support with this.

2024 Class Structures

There will be some changes to our class structures for 2024. After consultation with our School Association the following we will have the following classes next year.

In Partnership
Cathy

Class News – 5/6A

Transition to high school                    

Supporting our Grade 6 students as they transition to Grade 7 is an important part of our school year. Our students who are going to Ulverstone Secondary College have completed some lessons at the College to familiarise them with teachers and the lay-out of the school. We did a school tour and got to see the Grade 7 area.

Grade 6 transition plans

The grade 6’s have been spending time in the first few weeks of Term 4 preparing our transition plans which include important information that is sent to our High Schools. We do transition plans so our new teachers know something about us. After making a plan about what we’re going to do we started to create our presentations. These could be done as a PowerPoint, Word document or poster. Some things that we included are:  our name, birthday, what helps us learn and some of our hobbies. Once we were finished, we go into Canvas and the Transition plan section, we then add details such as our favourite subjects, dreams for the future and our preferred learning styles. This information helps our future teachers to get an idea of the type of learners we are before we get to our new schools. By Jayden

Class News - 1/2A

In HASS, the students in 1 /2 C have been learning to identify how constructed features change and are cared for over time.  They have compared images of the local area from the past with images of the same area from the present day.  The students have recorded the similarities and differences observed in the images in a Venn diagram.  Photographs of heritage buildings and other constructed features have been examined.  The students also sketched Westella, the old Leven River Bridge and the Ulverstone Clocktower.  Here is some of our work.

Gifted Online Workshop

On Tuesday 7 November a group of our extended learning students participated in a celebration workshop at the Devonport Paranaple Centre.  This was an opportunity for students to meet their online teacher and other students in the course.  They were able to learn with their peers while participating in a number of group challenges.  Thank you to Mrs Kylie Gandini for supporting our students on the day. 

Katrina Blair
Gr 5-6 Teacher/ AST
Ulverstone Primary School

Invitation for Family Music Event

UPS are excited to invite parents/carers and their pre-school children to join music therapist Alex Morse for an hour of music making fun.   Come and participate in singing, dancing, instrument playing, music games and musical stories. 

Music is a great way for young children to explore their world, bodies and the most important people in their lives.  Wear comfortable clothes and get ready for musical fun. This is an inclusive session, meaning children and care givers of all abilities are warmly encouraged to attend.

When: 17^th November
Time:  9 am and 10.30 am (each session will run for about an hour)
Where:  Kinder B/Lil Room
**This will be in place of the usual Friday Lil session

Please RSVP as there are limited numbers for each session.:  by phone 03 6425 1726 or email vicki.white@decyp.tas.gov.au. 

We hope to have as many families as possible join in for this Learning in Families Together event.

Vicki White
Quality Teaching Coach
Ulverstone Primary School

School Health Nurse

Our bodies are made up of approximately 70 percent water.

Water has many important functions in the body, including regulating your body’s temperature, digesting food, and excreting waste.  Your body loses water throughout the day when you sweat, breathe, and urinate. It is important to replace the water you have lost to prevent yourself from becoming dehydrated.

So as the weather starts to warm up, remember to drink more to keep your bodies hydrated. Encourage your kids to fill their drink bottles with water.

Water is the best choice to keep kids hydrated throughout the day. Water contains no extra energy or additives, no added sugar, salt, colours, or preservatives.

Recommended daily water drinks

Children need about 4 to 5 cups of fluids a day (1000 – 1250mls)

Teenagers need about 6 to 8 cups of fluids a day (1500 – 2000mls) Adults need about 8 to 10 cups of fluids a day (2000 – 2500mls)

For more information, please visit the website.
Drinking water and your health | healthdirect

If you would like more information or want to discuss ways that we can support you with your child’s health and wellbeing please feel free to email me anytime at kayz.parsons@education.tas.gov.au.

Community Notices

The UPS 150 years Celebration Book is available for $5 at the school office.