I’m writing to you this week on behalf of Mr Murray who has taken two well-deserved weeks of long service leave. I’m sure he and his family have had a great time on the Sunshine Coast, I’ve only crossed my fingers for rain on him a few times…

This term is flying by, being well past the halfway mark already. We’ve packed a lot into this term so far as you’ll read in this newsletter and are hopefully hearing from your children at home. With four weeks to go, there’s also plenty still ahead of us.

NAPLAN

This week has seen the start of the two-week testing period for NAPLAN. NAPLAN is a nationwide measure that supports parents/carers, teachers, schools, education authorities, governments, and the broader community to further develop an understanding of the progress in literacy and numeracy skills that provide the critical foundation for other learning and for their productive and rewarding participation in the community. Our students in years 7 and 9 will participate in four tests across the two weeks. Our biggest focus over this time is for our students to give their best effort during the tests to ensure they get a clear understanding of their learning progress in this space. Along with other regular formative and summative assessments, NAPLAN helps our teachers understand what our students need now, and what they need next.

BLACK SHOES

As has been communicated during the latter part of 2023 and into this year, black shoes are now a requirement as part of our school uniform. As of the beginning of term 2, all students are expected to be in black shoes, those that do not will follow current out-of-uniform practices. If you require support, please contact your child’s grade leader.

SURF CARNIVAL

Week three saw our whole school Surf Carnival. This is a culmination of our “Beach Week and Water Safety” program in HPE. It was great to see so many students giving their best effort, stepping outside their comfort zones, being inclusive of others, and just having fun. A big thank you to our HPE department for all their work on both carnival day and its preparation and also for the fantastic learning opportunities they provide throughout the entire program. We live on an island state, with water safety knowledge such an important part of our lives.

WHOLE SCHOOL BBQ MEET AND GREET

It was great to have so many families attend our meet and greet afternoon in week four and take the opportunity to connect with the school and your children’s teaching team. We hope to continue to see families engage with school in a range of ways. Whilst we didn’t keep a tally of exact numbers in attendance, 300 sausages being eaten is either an indication of great numbers or hungry families!

BEST EFFORT TERM FOCUS

We continue to promote this term's focus value BEST EFFORT. Over the last week, classes have completed a best effort and growth mindset-themed lesson which asks them to think reflectively about both of these ideas and how it relates to them in their day-to-day lives and future. This lesson was connected to last Friday’s International Women’s Day where there was the opportunity to look more deeply into some women who have been great examples of best effort and growth mindset.

CAMPS

School camp season is well and truly upon us. Things kicked off last week with year 10 Outdoor Education taking an overnight trip to Narwantapu National Park. The group trekked over 20km from Greens Beach to make their campsite. Talking with some of the students on return, they were clearly very tired but had such a sense of achievement in what they had accomplished. As I write this, final preparations for the year 8 camp at Port Sorell are taking place and we look forward to all the great things that they have in store. Week 8 will see the year 7s head to Paton Park for their camp, where the Prefect Board will also support them. Finally, in week 9, year 9 Outdoor Education will have their first camp of the year at Kelsey Teir.

Camps provide so many amazing opportunities for learning, connection, fun, and new experiences. I am extremely grateful to our teaching staff for all the time and effort they put into organising and running these camps for our students.

HEAD PREFECTS

As many of you would be aware, our Head Prefects have recently been elected and announced. Congratulations to Bryce Chilcott and Charlotte Grey on being elected to the position for 2024. I couldn’t have more confidence in their ability to lead the board and be representative of the student body throughout the year. Through their time at Reece, Bryce and Charlotte have been wonderful advocates for our school and great examples of what it means to be a Reece High School student. I wish them the best of luck in their role.

A message from Bryce and Charlotte

“We are really looking forward to being your Head Prefects in 2024. As Head Prefects, we will work with the Prefect Board to combine our strengths to unite the school community in being an inclusive environment. We believe that being a leader is an action, not a position. We will ensure that we take student voice into all decision making.”

Daniel Franks

Acting Principal

Rehearsals are well under way for our 2024 show; Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical Jr. Our Year 8s, 9s and 10s have shown so much enthusiasm and excitement during our Production rehearsal times.

Students have been working hard learning lines, lyrics and choreography. Production staff are very excited with the progress so far and look forward to bringing this production to the stage in the early part of Term 3.

Show dates include Thursday August 1^st, Friday August 2^nd and Saturday August 3^rd. Watch out for an announcement regarding ticket sales which will go on sale in Term 2.

The Production Team; Mrs Lutwyche, Mrs Mihal and Mrs Gossage.  

Year 7 have been working hard in all areas of learning and have now commenced NAPLAN testing. So far, all students have been giving their best effort.

In English, we have been continuing with our persuasive writing techniques and how to write a P.E.E. paragraph on the topic ‘Paper is better than plastic’. Students have been working to improve the persuasiveness of their paragraphs to include literary devices of facts and statistics, emotive language, rhetorical questions, and modality.

In Maths we have almost finished our unit on number, ending with BIDMAS problems and an assessment covering factors, multiples, and positive and negative numbers.  We will soon be commencing our measurement unit focusing on the perimeter and area of 2D shapes.

Science have been further exploring food webs. Students have been analysing an owl’s pellet in the lab. They will be looking at human impacts such as deforestation, lab grown meat and oil spills.

In HASS, students are looking at the Deep Time History of Australia. They are also practising their note-taking and summarising skills to take notes about significant historical events. 

In English, Year 8 have been looking at how media is constructed to manipulate audiences. In HaSS, we have been learning all about life in Medieval Europe and how to avoid catching the deadly plague.

Science has been generating some excitement as students have planted seeds and endeavour to nurture their plant to maximise growth. Students chose from the following seeds to grow: peas, beans, sweet peas, snow peas, and sunflowers.

Year 8’s are truly demonstrating their Best Effort and Responsibility as they must:

• water at least 3 days per week,
• record height and how much the seeds/plant were watered,
• photograph their plant and keep a diary of their seeds.

Through this learning experience, students will understand the various factors that affect plant growth.

We cannot believe it is Week 6 already! It is over halfway through Term One and we are very much looking forward to heading back out of the classroom this week as we attend our 2-day camp. Miss Garner is crossing her fingers for a decent night’s sleep. Mrs Heazlewood is excited to be attending her first Reece High camp! With so many students opting to sleep in tents rather than cabins this year, we really hope that it does not rain! Keep your fingers crossed.

NAPLAN 

Welcome to the halfway point of the term! This week Year 9’s began their final set of NAPLAN testing. Wednesday saw them get their creative juices flowing with the Writing test, and Thursday they put their brain power to the test with the Reading test. The Year 9 team want to commend the students on how well they approached these tests by applying their best effort. Next week sees them tackle the Language Conventions and Numeracy tests.  

GUESS WHO?  

During Week One, students wrote down three facts about themselves. These have been used for our ‘Guess Who?’ board. Each week, one student from each class has their faces pixelated, with their facts written alongside. Students have been busily trying to get who each student is. This has been a great talking point for the Year 9 students this term. 

It is hard to believe we are now half a term into Year 10, with the second half proving to be just as busy!  

Students travelled to Burnie this week for their first phase of Resilience Training, as well as a visit to the University of Tasmania campus. At Resilience Training, students completed a range of obstacles that required them to work as a team and communicate effectively. At the University, students were given the opportunity to tour the campus and get a glimpse of Uni life. While here, they engaged in sessions involving nursing simulations, drone flying, and virtual reality experiences. Students will undertake Phase Two of Resilience Training next week. 

We strongly encourage students to make the most of the opportunities offered throughout Year 10. One of these opportunities is First Aid training. This has been an excellent opportunity for students to gain this accreditation as potential employers find this a desirable qualification. 

As we move into the second half of the term, students are reminded about the expectations highlighted at the beginning of the year: attending school at 90% or greater, completing all set assessment tasks and consistently showing our four school values. If you feel that your child needs support in any of these areas, please get in contact with their principal teacher. I have attached email addresses below. 

The kitchens have been a buzz with activity and excitement as we get into some cooking for the year. Our year 8 food studies students have just completed a unit on bread making and working with yeast. We now understand that baker’s yeast causes our bread to rise and that it is a microorganism that needs to be activated by warmth and food. That is why we mix yeast in warm water and add sugar then place it in a warm area to activate and rise.

Our year 9 and 10 hospitality students have all completed their food handlers’ certificate which is in line with the new food legislation rules that will be implemented in Tasmania this year. All students passed successfully, and these will be beneficial when applying for part-time work. These classes have also been very busy learning how our canteen operates and cooking to supply our canteen.

Year 7 students have been learning basic cookery skills and hygiene skills. They have started to learn our routines and practices in the kitchen including: how to use a knife safely, how to get trays in and out of the oven safely, how to clean and sanitise workspaces, and how to measure different ingredients correctly.

Our Red apron rewards are back for some classes with students being awarded a red apron to wear the following lesson for showing good skills, working effectively, helping others, and demonstrating best effort.

Just a reminder that our canteen is open Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays. Students can pre-order on these days by going to the kitchens before school and paying cash or can purchase directly from the canteen. Students can only use cash and card as phones and smart watches breach our mobile phone policy.

This year our prefect board consists of 18 students and has a really good mix of people with different interests and strengths which will enable us to connect and represent all students well.

We’ve spent some time as a group looking at how we want to work together and what we want to achieve over the year. This will continue to be an area we discuss as we work on creating our “why” statement. This statement will help guide the work and decisions we make throughout the year.

Our biggest focus for this term is supporting the year 7s in their transition to high school. We have done this by supporting part of their pool day earlier in the year. In addition to this, we have a roster where we each spend two break times aiming to connect with students in the junior school, and in two weeks we will attend the year 7 camp- this will provide us a great opportunity to connect with them and also to put our leadership skills into action with the roles we have on the camp.

We have also continued to run the canteen of a Wednesday lunch selling toasties and chocolates as has been done by Prefects over the last two years. This helps us have a steady flow of funds into the prefect budget, giving us freedom to make decisions about how we can support the school and community.

We are looking forward to representing the school and all students and doing our best to make this year fun and successful for all.

We have a lot of items in the lost property area at the student window. Please come and have a look to see if something belongs to you. What is not claimed will be discarded at the end of this term.