Principal’s Newsletter – Celebrating Together

Dear Families,

As we move through a vibrant and rewarding term, I want to take a moment to celebrate some of the fantastic achievements happening across our school community. It’s been a term, so far, full of effort, growth, and pride – and it’s all thanks to the positive energy and commitment of our students, staff, and families.

Cross Country Carnival – A Day to Remember
Our recent Cross Country Carnival was nothing short of amazing! The spirit on display was the best we’ve ever seen – students supporting one another, giving their best effort, and showing outstanding attitudes all day long. A huge thank you to Mr Mitchell and the other staff like Rob and Leanne for putting together such a memorable and well-run event. It truly showcased the best of what our school stands for. Well done, Mountain Team.

Interprimary Champions – Well Done!
Congratulations to our Huon and Channel inter-primary cross-country team who recently competed and won their division! We’re incredibly proud of each team member’s dedication and performance. Even more exciting, many of our students have now been invited to the State Cross Country Event at Symmons Plains – a huge achievement and a reflection of their hard work. Best of luck to all involved!

Everyday Matters – Attendance is on the Rise
We’re thrilled to see a steady improvement in student attendance across the school. Consistent attendance plays a vital role in every child’s learning journey. Thank you for your continued efforts in getting your children to school – it really does matter.

Reading Growth – Thank You for Reading at Home
We’re also seeing wonderful growth in reading results, with more and more students engaging in home reading. This is a crucial part of literacy development, and we couldn’t do it without you. Parents and guardians – your support makes a huge difference. Please continue to commit to reading at home. If you need any help or ideas, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to support you.

Let’s continue this positive momentum. Together, we are building a strong, supportive, and successful learning environment for every student.

Warm regards,
James Milne
Principal

Dear Franklin Primary School Community,

It’s been a fantastic start to Term 2 in the Teaching & Learning Space, and it’s been wonderful to get around to classes each day to see such focussed learning. Our explicit reading programs (UFLI for P – 3 and Word Origins for 4 – 6) are going from strength to strength; with students focussed on developing their letter sound awareness as well as key concepts around spelling and morphemes.  A big thank you to all teachers and TAs for their hard work, and I’d also like to recognise the commitment of our students to improving each day.

Reading intervention is also well under way again using MiniLit and Macqlit. We’ll continue to check the progress of students throughout the term to track improvement and ensure that all students are getting the support that they need.

All students in P-6 will be screened at the end of this term for reading against the Dynamic Indicator of Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessments. This will be the second time this year that students have undertaken these assessments, and we will again use the data to inform our tiered intervention practices throughout the school to improve reading results. I look forward to seeing some excellent growth!

If you’d like to know more about DIBELS, UFLI, Word Origins, Minilit and/or Macqlit, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly. For parents/guardians looking to know more, our most recent DIBELs data is displayed in the foyer of the front office, with a flyer also provided that explains more about this critical aspect of our focus on developing the reading skills of our wonderful student cohort.

Warm Regards,

Nick de Tarczynski (Instructional Specialist/Advanced Skills Teacher)

This fortnight in kinder we have had lots of exciting new experiences. 

We were so proud of all the Kinders efforts in the cross country. They showed such bravery and determination as they made their way around the track. Thank you to Mr Mitchell for organising this wonderful event. 

We have also been fortunate enough to have our very own set of leaders visiting us through our daily PE lessons in the afternoon. We have enjoyed games like duck, duck goose, What's the time Mr Wolf, obstacle course and hopscotch. 

In literacy we focused on the letters R and M. We spent time making rainbows, mixing colours, and making musical instruments. We also focused on the fairytales The three Billy Goats Gruff and Goldilocks and the Three Bears and retelling the stories in their own words.

We also enjoyed our very first National Simultaneous Story Time. We enjoyed the story The Truck Cat and made our own Truck Cat inspired artworks. 

In mathematics we have continued to explore numbers through nursery rhymes. We are now confident in digits 1-5 and will continue to explore up to 10 as the term progresses. 

It has been so wonderful to see all of the children learning, playing and growing together.

Thank you again to all of the wonderful kinder families and all the amazing work we have achieved together so far this term. 

Shannon 

It’s all about data in our class at the moment. We have been collecting different sets of data, looking at different ways we can sort it, present it and interpret it. The final task was to get some data (a shoe!) put it in the circle and from there we sorted them in different ways. It was much easier to read the data when they were lined up next to each other. Then we could easily see which one had the most, the least and the make other inferences about our data.

In other maths we have been continuing to practice our part-part-whole knowledge to strengthen our foundational understanding of number.

We enjoyed National Simultaneous Storytime on Tuesday, sharing the book “The Truck Cat” with everyone in the school, as well as over 2 million other students all over Australia.

For assembly on Tuesday we were surprised to learn that we were sharing, and we proudly shared the “Aknowledgement of Country” song we have been starting our days with. Everyone joined in and it was a really heartwarming, special and respectful moment.

In Week 3 and 4, our Grade 2/3s have been working hard on their narrative stories. Together, we read The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and then started adapting this story. We created our own storyboards to map out our ideas, wrote a draft and then started editing, following the same process as real authors. We can’t wait to share our finished stories with you soon!

In Numeracy, we have been developing our mathematical vocabulary as we use ten frames, hundred charts and number lines to represent and order numbers. We have enjoyed discussing our ideas about numbers and sharing different strategies. We have also been strengthening our knowledge of number bonds by playing card games to build our fluency.

Last week, we had our Cross Country and the 2/3s showed great determination and gave it their all. We were so proud of their efforts!

Mrs Newton & Miss Ratcliffe

This term we are looking at persuasive writing.  We started with the students creating some arguments for sitting wherever they chose for their learning (none convinced me enough to give students that condition!  Perhaps by the end of the unit?).

We are reading a book called Frindle, by Jack Clements.  Jack has decided that ‘pens’ should be called ‘frindles’ and he has convinced his school and town to start calling them that!

We thought about what we might call a pen – coming up with, long colouring thing, writing stick, peggi, ink spreader, not sure any of them are going to catch on!  We’ll see how students’ powers of persuasion work!

This unit is not only opening student up to the power of persuasion, but also looks at synonyms, language features such as metaphors and similes and compares school life in America to that in Australia.

Fortnightly Classroom Wrap-Up

We’ve had a busy and rewarding couple of weeks in Year 5/6, diving into some rich learning across all areas.

Maths – Thinking Flexibly with Multiplication
In Maths, we’ve moved beyond just recalling times tables and focused on understanding different multiplication strategies. It’s not about speed—it’s about working efficiently and choosing the best strategy for the numbers we’re working with. We’ve explored the associative property, distributive property, and using known facts to solve more complex problems. Students are learning to explain their thinking, build on what they already know, and apply strategies in ways that make sense to them.

English – Persuasive Writing with Voice
We’ve been learning how to write persuasively using the book What Really Happened to Little Red Riding Hood: The Wolf’s Story. Students explored persuasive techniques like emotive language, rhetorical questions, repetition, and exaggeration. They then wrote letters from the perspective of another character, responding to the Wolf’s side of the story. Their writing has been thoughtful, creative, and very entertaining.

History – Student-led Inquiry
We’ve launched our new History inquiry unit, and the students are taking the lead. They’ve helped decide what we’ll explore and how we’ll approach it. Now that we’re wrapping up our persuasive writing, we’ll be linking this History unit with our upcoming English novel study, allowing students to explore historical themes through both fiction and nonfiction lenses.

This week we welcomed teachers from Huonville High School to our class. They shared what life at their school looks like and gave students a helpful insight into the opportunities available as they transition to high school. It was a great way for students to ask questions and feel more confident about the journey ahead.

Art with Tom
Our students have also been creating some stunning work in Art with Tom. They’ve been exploring marine life as a theme and learning how to use watercolours to bring these animals to life on paper. From layering washes to using fine detail brushes and learning about colour blending and tone, students have developed some really impressive technical skills. I’m not always privy to what goes on behind the scenes in Tom’s lessons, but the results speak for themselves—I’ve absolutely loved seeing the creativity and care coming through in their work.