Embracing Community, Growing Together

Welcome back to Term 2 at Franklin Primary! As we dive into this new term, I am thrilled to share how our school vision, "Embracing Community, Growing Together," continues to shape and inspire all our endeavours.

Our vision is more than just a statement; it is the heartbeat of our school. It guides our actions, decisions, and interactions, ensuring that we foster a nurturing environment where every member of our community feels valued and supported. This term, we have already seen this vision come to life in numerous ways.

Celebrating Our Recent Trip to SDK Islam Mutiara Kreatif Sholeh

One of the highlights of our journey together has been our recent trip to SDK Islam Kreatif Mutiara Sholeh. This visit was a testament to our commitment to embracing community and growing together. Mr Milne, Miss Ella and Miss Bec had the opportunity to engage with their colleagues from a different cultural background, fostering mutual respect and understanding. The trip was filled with enriching experiences, from collaborative projects to cultural exchanges, all of which contributed to the personal growth of our staff and therefore our community.

A Wonderful Start to Term 2

Returning from such an experience I was delighted to see our classrooms buzzing with such focused learning. Our teachers and support staff have created engaging and dynamic learning environments where students are encouraged to take ownership of their education. This approach not only enhances academic achievement but also instils a sense of responsibility and self-discipline in our students. I continue to implore you to be active in your child’s learning not only at school but at home.

Promoting Positive Behaviours

We believe that positive behaviours are the foundation of a thriving school community. This term, we are emphasizing the importance of students being responsible for their own positive behaviours. Our Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) framework continues to guide our efforts, ensuring that students understand the impact of their actions and are motivated to make positive choices. This is something as a community should continue to be celebrated.

Attendance and Readiness to Learn

A gentle reminder to all our families: regular attendance is crucial for your child's success. Every day counts, and being present at school ensures that students do not miss out on valuable learning opportunities. Additionally, please ensure that your child comes to school ready to learn, equipped with the necessary materials and a positive mindset. Together, we can create an environment where every student thrives.

Looking Ahead

As we move forward, let us continue to embrace our community and grow together. I am confident that with your support, we will achieve great things this term. Thank you for being an integral part of our Franklin Primary family.

Warm regards,

James Milne
Principal, Franklin Primary School

Dear Parents/Guardians,

 On Monday Franklin is starting a trial of a new timetable to support our teaching and learning. This will see more time engaged in teaching and learning in the morning, when we know students are more focused. As parents/guardians this won't change anything for you in terms of pick up, drop off, and preparation for the day. If you have any questions or would like more information, as always, reach out for a conversation. The new times in the day are as listed below:

Mother’s Day Breakfast at Franklin Primary

Wednesday morning, our school community came together to celebrate the incredible mums, grandmothers, and special carers who support our students every day.

A huge thank you to Ben Rainer, James, Neil, and Nick for cooking up a delicious hot breakfast, and to Heidi and Sharna for their beautiful muffins.

We are also deeply grateful to our School Association, who generously covered the cost of the breakfast, ensuring the event was accessible to all families.

Events like this remind us of the power of connection — sharing food, laughter, and appreciation for the people who help shape the hearts and minds of our learners.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the incredible women in our community.

Ella

Continued Support for Our Breakfast Club – Thank You, Variety Tasmania!

We are delighted to share some exciting news with our school community – Franklin Primary School has once again been successful in securing funding from Variety – the Children’s Charity Tasmania to support our Breakfast Club Program for another year!

Thanks to the generosity of Variety Tasmania, we are able to continue offering a nutritious and welcoming start to the day for our students. Our Breakfast Club provides a safe and social environment where children can enjoy healthy food and connect with their peers and staff before the school day begins. From fresh fruit and toast to cereal and warm drinks, our morning offerings help ensure our students are ready to learn and thrive.

This funding allows us to expand our menu, include seasonal and fresh options, and keep the Breakfast Club running smoothly. We're incredibly grateful for Variety Tasmania’s ongoing support and belief in the importance of student wellbeing.

We also want to acknowledge the efforts of our dedicated staff and volunteers who make the Breakfast Club a positive experience every morning. Your time, care, and enthusiasm do not go unnoticed.

Thank you again to Variety Tasmania for helping us continue this important program for our school community.

This fortnight in kinder we have been focusing on fairytales. Our first fairytale was the Three little pigs and the big bad Wolf. The children enjoyed retelling the fairytale in their own words as well as drawing their own favourite parts of the story. The next fairytale we read was Jack and the Beanstalk to go along with our learning around this we Planted our very own bean stalks with castles and listen to the fairytale in lots of different ways

In numeracy we have been focusing on number related nursery rhymes. The first nursery rhyme we looked at was 12345, Once I caught a fish alive where the children focused on matching digits to number amounts the children also enjoyed the nursery rhyme five little ducks and Made their own five little ducks in a duck pond. 

We also had a special visit from Sharon who read the book we loved country with the children. She also showed them some animal furs and the children got to use Australian animal puppets as well as learn a Acknowledgement of Country.

We have also been very busy creating lots of craft for our wonderful mothers and special people. I hope that they all have wonderful weekends and happy Mother's Days.

Term 2 has begun in Prep/1 without me even being there! Thankyou Mrs Miffy for greeting us back in Term 2 while I was travelling back and recovering from Indonesia.

I have had so much to share with the class, and they have been wonderfully receptive and curious about my experiences. We have begun learning some Indonesian phrases and we have been playing a new game called “Cublek cublek suweng” which is really fun!

Part of this experience has been sharing key learnings. One thing I really took away from the trip was that learning skills for the future such as coding, using technology, being analytical and being able to problem solve are skills we need to be focussing on. We don’t know what the future holds for our children, and the world will likely be a very different place for them to live and work in. Of course, in the early years of school we are laying the foundational English and math skills that are essential for success in any aspect of life. And we always value curiosity and inquiry. The information is out there and accessible, we just need to teach the children how to find it and how to analyse it to get the correct information.

We have begun looking at coding, and talking about it in terms of algorithms being sets of instructions that must be in the correct order for it to work. Stay tuned for more work on this topic!

Sharyn Brett came and saw us on Wednesday and shared the story “On Country” with us, along with her beautiful Australian animal puppets from Wayraparattee. Sharyn bought some clap sticks for us to use while we learn her Aknowledgement of Country song. We will replace our Good Morning song with this Aknowledgement of Country song. Thankyou Sharyn for sharing this with us and allowing us to acknowledge our traditional custodians of the Country we live, work and play on.

Ms Bec

It’s been a busy start to the Term for Grade 2/3! 

We have started our work on verb groups and been finding, generating and experimenting with verbs in our writing. In the images below you can see us creating our verb word wall and thinking about active verbs using headband games. 

We will be working on geography in Term 2, and we have begun investigating Australian states by analysing maps and reading the story ‘Under the Southern Cross’.  

A special highlight was welcoming our Mums, Grandmas and other special people for the Mother’s Day breakfast on Wednesday the 6th of May!

How have we already made it to the end of Week 2? Time flies when you’re deep in learning! We've had a fantastic start to the term, packed with energy and excitement. One of the highlights was our surprise delivery—our Year 6 students received their leavers’ jumpers in a mystery box, and it certainly set the tone for the term ahead!

In English, we’re about to delve into Tom Appleby: Convict Boy by Jackie French. This powerful historical novel will be the springboard for both our reading and writing units. The text is rich in vocabulary and offers opportunities to explore big ideas, figurative language, and character development, while building comprehension through discussion and reflection.

This ties beautifully into our HASS focus this term, where we’re exploring Australia’s colonial past. We’ll be unpacking what life was like in 18th-century England and why convicts were sent to Australia, before looking at the experience of arrival and early settlement from a range of perspectives. For our Year 6 students, we’ll be extending this to consider the impact of colonisation on First Nations Australians, using historical texts, class discussions, and our novel to support reflection and empathy. We’ll also continue flicking back to our Term 1 Geography unit, maintaining our ties with our sister school in Indonesia as we consider Australia’s engagement with Asia and what we can learn through cultural exchange and connection.

In maths, we’ve hit the ground running with fractions, percentages, factors, multiples, and prime and composite numbers. These areas all interconnect beautifully, giving students a strong understanding of how numbers relate to one another. For example, understanding how to simplify fractions relies on knowing your factors and multiples, while converting between fractions and percentages helps reinforce proportional reasoning. These concepts will be explored through real-world tasks and hands-on learning, encouraging flexible thinking and application. I’ve already discovered 5/6’s competence in this area, which is a wonderful reflection of the teachers they’ve had before me—it certainly makes my job easier!

Each morning before the 9:00 am bell, I’ve been setting up optional maths challenges to create a calm, curious start to the day. These short tasks allow students to engage in mathematical thinking in a low-pressure way—exploring number patterns, discussing strategies, and developing metacognitive awareness of how they approach problems. It’s been fantastic to hear their mathematical vocabulary grow as they collaborate and share reasoning with one another. These rich moments of math talk in authentic contexts not only build confidence but also deepen understanding.

Lastly, you might notice some students bringing home two Mother’s Day gifts, while others only bring one. Mrs. Cherry got a little too creative this year with a brand-new art idea… let’s just say it looked great in theory, but in practice, it crumbled—literally! So, with a quick pivot and a trusty backup plan, we managed to pull together something heartfelt just in time.

Wishing you a joyful weekend celebrating the important people in our lives.

Warmly,
Mel Cherry

Kitchen Garden News

I knew that inheriting the school’s garden beds may be a challenge. Not knowing what they have been topped up with over the years has proved to be a trial. We have had the odd success, but the failures have certainly outweighed them.

So, last week the children and I got to work and conducted some soil investigation work. The classes were giving 3 soil samples to look closely at – we looked at structure, texture and what we could see in the soil. Our samples came from the kitchen garden, the kindergarten beds and from my own vegetable garden. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly our kitchen garden soil was the poorest, with the children deciding that it was very sandy and contained a lot of small woodchips. They also discovered that it doesn’t hold together when damp. All red flags that our soil needs some TLC.

Although this is annoying, it’s a great learning opportunity for the children. On the bright side we have all of winter to get things shipshape and ready for Spring planting.

Lucky for us we have some thriving silverbeet and swiss chard that the kindergarten children planted which we can use in the kitchen. Some of the students from 2/3 made delicious silverbeet and ricotta rolls for their class for morning tea. I couldn’t believe how fast they ate them. I am constantly amazed and proud of the children for giving all the things we cook a go. It's truly heartwarming.