Principal’s Report

Classroom and Learning Success

I am pleased to report significant strides in classroom and learning success. Our dedicated teachers have continued a focus on the teaching and learning that occurred last year, fostering an engaging and supportive learning environment for all students. We have established our focus on reading, with explicit teaching of phonics fluency and word origins every morning in every classroom. It is super exciting to see the growth occurring.

Academic Assessments

We have successfully conducted several key academic assessments to gauge student progress and identify areas for improvement:

• NAPLAN: National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy
• PAT EY: Progressive Achievement Tests in Early Years
• KDC 1: Kindergarten Development Check
• DIBELS Phonics Screening: Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills

These assessments have provided valuable insights into student learning and help tailor our instructional approaches to meet individual needs.

Athletics Carnivals

Our recent Athletics Carnival was a resounding success, showcasing the talents and sportsmanship of our students. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the School Association for their unwavering support in making this event possible by volunteering their time and energy on the day for the BBQ and different events.

Yesterday students also attended our inter-primary athletics carnival, where they represented our school community extraordinarily well. We are so proud of their achievements and in particular the courage and effort in participating at this level.

Indonesian Bridge Program

We are also excited to share the upcoming Indonesian Bridge Program trip. Miss Ella Heather, Mrs. Bec White, and I will be traveling to Jakarta and East Java next month to explore teaching and leadership practices in a different cultural context. This initiative aims to broaden our educational perspectives and strengthen international collaboration. It also aims to connect our students to our sister school, their teachers and how classrooms can learn from each other.

Community Engagement

One of the big commitments we continue to celebrate is that we are an outward-facing school, actively engaging with the broader community. Through various outreach programs and partnerships, we strive to build strong connections and foster a sense of belonging among all stakeholders. We further strengthened this through initiatives and connections like the Clean Up Franklin Day, visits to Eldercare, the Day of Delight with wayraparattee and our work with the Salvation Army.

As we approach the end of Term 1, I want to continue to reinforce the importance of our priorities in student engagement and reading. I encourage you to make sure your children are attending every day, reading at home and communicating how they are feeling. Together we can make sure they achieve everything they are capable of.

James Milne

Principal

Franklin Primary School

This fortnight in Kinder we have been busy learning about the letter P and the letter I. During our learning around the letter P we got to make some delicious Pizzas with Pepperoni. We also spent time making some igloos and insect homes. 

We continued our discussion around community and finished off our own map of Franklin by discussing people and places in the community. Some of the places we added to the map included, a hairdresser, a post office, the Aqua Grill, the police station, the fire station and the mechanic. To further on this discussion we will be learning about all different types of community helpers. So far we have learnt about police officers and the role they play in our community and we also discussed construction workers and all of the amazing things that they do.  

The Kinders have also been busy exploring their environment and taking on the role of being self led learners, on a Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon the Kinders carefully consider some of the activities they would like to participate in and why. Some of these have included the dress ups, train tracks and doing lots and lots of box work. 

We also thoroughly enjoyed our pyjama day and are loving our Kinder Books For Brekky on a Wednesday.

This week has been an extremely busy one for us. Tuesday was a highly anticipated day for us as we had been patiently waiting for the Cartela rescue to begin. We had noticed a lot of noise coming from there late last week, and we were informed that there were pylons being driven into the ground to make the river edge sturdy. Corrie Latham, who was in charge of the operation let us know that the process was going to be to lift the Cartela to be level again and then pump out the water so it could float again. From this point another bilge pump will be installed and then it will be handed back to the Cartela Trust. Hopefully we are able to keep up to date with any developments! When Tuesday finally arrived, we walked down to the foreshore but unfortunately we missed the actual lifting of the Cartela. By the time we arrived it was lifted and the water was finished being pumped out. We were lucky enough that Corrie had the time to come over and chat to us, and answer some of our questions. We did some sketching of what it looked like now that it was back level in the water again and then walked around for a look at the other end. From this end we could see the pumps still in the windows.

This week a small group had a turn cooking with Mrs Stagg, using up some of the zucchini’s from the garden. Well done to those that cooked this delicious treat, it definitely got a thumbs up!

On Monday we will continue our exploration of significant places and take a trip to Burtons Reserve in Cygnet. Sharyn Brett our Aboriginal Education Worker will meet us there and lead us in some discussions and experiences to further our understandings about why this place is and was so significant to indigenous Tasmanians. We look forward to sharing some of our learning and experiences with you all!

Lastly, we have been watching Play School’s Science Time of an afternoon and one particular episode piqued our interest, about Geodes. We have since had a few geodes bought in for show and tell so we decided to go ahead and make them. We have been busily making them this afternoon and hope by early next week we have some crystals to show.

This term students have started to look at how we can see and assess our own learning.  They are graphing their quick maths results.

Quick maths is a 2-3 weekly 10min task where we are working towards and practicing fluency and speed in our basic calculations.

Students have been able to interpret their graphs to see their area of growth.  The graph shows and encourages our own personal growth and not classroom competition.  Students aren’t recording where they sit versus their peers; they are recording their own development.

We can see where we’ve gone up a level or when we need to go up a level.

Students are enjoying having ownership over this journey.

One of the standout moments was our spontaneous excursion to witness the lifting of the historic vessel Cartela. Although we narrowly missed seeing the cranes actually pull the vessel out of the water, we were lucky enough to meet Corrie, one of the divers involved in the operation. Corrie kindly gave us a behind-the-scenes rundown of the process, explaining the incredible planning, teamwork, and diving expertise involved. The students were full of thoughtful questions and left with a new appreciation for Tasmania’s maritime history and the impressive engineering required for such an undertaking.

In Mathematics, we’ve been diving into the world of integers, using real-world contexts such as temperature, elevation, and altitude to help us understand the concept of numbers above and below zero. Students began by describing values as above zero or below zero before learning how the subtraction symbol is used to represent negative numbers. A class favourite has been exploring the interactive website neal.fun—especially the Deep Sea page (neal.fun/deep-sea)—which helped visualise different elevations and depths in a fun, meaningful way. This even inspired many students to use their library time to research fascinating deep-sea creatures!

We’ve also been working hard on solving worded problems, focusing on all four operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We’re using mathematical modelling to unpack and solve real-world problems, and students have been developing strategies to choose the most efficient method for each situation. To support this, we’ve been using Newman’s Analysis—a helpful step-by-step process that guides students to read and understand a problem, identify key information, plan their approach, solve it, and check their work. Much like how we break down texts in literacy, this strategy helps students show their thinking clearly and builds their confidence in tackling challenging tasks.

In Geography, our unit has taken an exciting new direction as we begin exploring our connections with Asia. Students have been busy drafting letters to send over with Mr Milne, Miss Bec, and Ella, who are heading to Indonesia during the holidays to visit Vivi and Sifa. This real-world connection has sparked genuine interest and engagement as we learn about life in another part of the world. Our Global Connections Wall is also growing fast! If you haven’t already, we’d love to include your family’s story. You can find the interview questions on 5/6 Seeaw—we can’t wait to learn more about the rich cultural stories that make up our class community.

Kitchen Garden News

A part of our program is to give children a range of opportunities to try and prepare foods in various ways, with the aim of making healthy food choices later in life. Plus, having fun and eating delicious food along the way!

The year 6 students were given a list of possible ingredients to design their very own salad and dressing in small groups. They then used their design, like a recipe, to prepare their salad. I was so proud of the way the embraced this learning experience and ate their salads with gusto.

A group of students also made some delicious raspberry jam – some to take home and some for the breakfast club.

The 4/5s tried their hand at rosemary damper making and the 1/2s made flatbread to have with their freshly made basil pesto.

One child even declaring that the flatbread and basil was better than vanilla ice-cream!

A huge thank you to the P/1s on their efforts to deter the pesky cabbage moths. Have a peep in the garden to see what they have done.