Dear Families and Community,

As we approach the end of Term 2, I’m proud to share some of the wonderful learning experiences and achievements that have taken place across Franklin Primary School.

Our Year 1/2 and 2/3 classes recently visited the Marine Discovery Centre, where students explored Tasmania’s unique marine ecosystems. The hands-on learning deepened their understanding of ocean life, sustainability, and environmental responsibility—bringing science to life in a truly memorable way.

Meanwhile, our Year 4/5 and 5/6 classes stepped back in time with an excursion to the Cascades Female Factory. This powerful experience supported their history curriculum, helping students connect with Tasmania’s colonial past and develop empathy and critical thinking through real-world context.

We also celebrate the outstanding performance of our Inter-primary cross country team, who brought home the HCSSA Shield! Their determination, teamwork, and sportsmanship were a credit to our school and a source of great pride for our whole community.

In the classroom, we continue to see strong growth in reading outcomes across all year levels. This is thanks to our targeted intervention programs and the consistent implementation of explicit Literacy Blocks every morning. Our staff are committed to ensuring every student becomes a confident, capable reader.

Looking ahead, the end of term will focus on moderation of student outcomes, ensuring consistency and accuracy in assessment. We’ll also be communicating with families about student progress and celebrating achievements through reports and end-of-term events.

Thank you for your ongoing support. Together, we’re building a strong, connected learning community where every child can thrive.

Warm regards,
James Milne
Principal, Franklin Primary School

Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)

Overview

• DIBELS screening assessments are designed to measure students at risk in reading.
• Based on the Science of Reading (the body of evidence which identifies the key skills that students need to be able to read fluently).
• 2025 is a trial year for DIBELS. 2026 all DECYP schools must fully implement the program.

This year, each class (P – 6) has focussed on two sub-tests specific to their year level:

• Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) (Prep/1)
• Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF) (Prep/1)
• Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) (1/2 & 2/3)
• Word Reading Fluency (WRF) (1/2 & 2/3)
• Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) (4/5 & 5/6)
• Maze (Comprehension and Vocab) (4/5 & 5/6)

Testing for ALL students (P-6) occurs three times per year (Beginning, Middle & End)

• Students split into 4 categories based on the results of each assessment:
  • Negligible Risk
  • Minimal Risk
  • Some Risk
  • At Risk
• Students identified as “Some Risk” or “At Risk” to receive reading intervention (in class or structured out of class sessions).
• DIBELS progress checks used to monitor progress.

DATA

Beginning of Year

Of the “Some Risk” or “At Risk” students who have received regular intervention, 100% of students have demonstrated growth in at least one of the sub-tests since the beginning of the year.

It has been a busy time in the kitchen garden program, with all classes undertaking different projects. The 5/6 have been working hard on tidying up the garden and rejuvenating our soil with compost and aeration. They plated out our herb garden which they researched and designed at the end of first term.

The 1/2s have spent the last couple of weeks designing a scarecrow for our garden space, to work in addition to the nets to keep birds and possums away! We want to use recycled materials as much as possible, so if anyone has a large old flannelette shirt, a pair of stockings, jeans or work pants, old boots and a hat laying around that they would be willing to donate, the children and I would be very appreciative. We already have our head. A huge thanks to Darcie’s dad for donating a buoy which will be perfect. Thanks Vinnie!

Some classes and students have also had the opportunity to get into the kitchen to cook which has been wonderful. I had one mission for the year, help Indie Ryan like beetroot. I think my beetroot brownies might have just done it! So proud of the children for having a try of new foods.  

The last fortnight in Prep/1 we have enjoyed having Eva in our room. Eva is a Uni student on placement with us. She has been taking on daily routines and taking whole class lessons in maths. We have been finishing off looking at part-part-whole relationships and how we can record these as number sentences. Recording number sentences is something we are really good at!

In English we have been consolidating our UFLI lessons and looking at creating texts in response to a book. Currently in Prep this is looking like drawing in sequence the parts of a story to retell it and adding labels or phrases to support our sharing of information. Some of us are even able to add on sentences to explain each part! In Grade 1 this looks like us answering questions about the elements of the story such as who the characters are, what the problem was and how was it solved. We are doing so by writing complete sentences and working really hard to recheck our own writing to make sure we have all the words we need in the sentence.

In general the whole class have settled well into our new timetable, the new morning block in particular is useful and we are adjusting our eating patterns to suit the new timetable.

Over the last two weeks, we have finished our narrative writing. Everyone did a fabulous job at editing their writing and using rich adjectives to add detail. Next, we will be practising compound sentences to level up our writing and provide lots of information to the reader.    

In maths, we have been practising our problem-solving skills in place value, using a list to record all the possible solutions to a problem. This took some perseverance and gave our maths brain a workout!

The highlight of our fortnight was visiting the Marine Discovery Centre at Woodbridge on Friday the 30^th of May. First, we spent some time in the Marine Classroom, looking at seawater through microscopes, creating dioramas of sea habitats and discussing food webs. Then it was time for us to complete the sea creature scavenger hunt and feed the animals in the viewing pool. We finished our day in the Touch Tank Room, where we were able to hold starfish, crabs and sea cucumbers. It was an amazing experience and an excellent way to bring our science learning to life.

Miss Ratcliffe & Mrs Newton

On Tuesday we were lucky to join 5/6 Cherry on an excursion to the Female Factory in Hobart.

This was a great way to tie up our early settlement HASS unit.  Or so I thought, with renewed interest we now have more questions, wonderings and stories to investigate.  What happened to these women?  Why were women in general treated so differently to men?  Why is there so little of the buildings remaining?  How could the ground really be 1.5metres higher now than in the factory times?

Students engaged with stories of our early convict women and wondered at their lives, their crimes, their futures.

We stood in the footprint of the smallest solitary cells in all of Australia.  How did the women pass the time in this dark silence?

The Women’s factory ran from 1828 to 1856 and during that time housed over 7000 females with up to 1100 at any time.  2166 babies were born during this time, with a high mortality rate, very few survived through to toddlerhood.  Those who did were then transferred to an orphanage in Hobart.

It was cold and damp, with inadequate food, clothes or hygiene.  Women worked long hard hours and were trained for jobs in the settlement.

We marvelled at how different life in Hobart is now – especially for females.

Mrs Bec Witts

As we reach the halfway point of Term 2, our class has been working hard across all learning areas. We’ve recently completed our English Common Assessment Task, where students wrote persuasive letters from the perspective of a character in What Really Happened to Little Red Riding Hood? They applied the persuasive techniques we’ve been learning—stating clear opinions, giving reasons and facts, and using high modality language, rhetorical devices, and precise vocabulary. Students also focused on editing for punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure.

In Mathematics, we’ve focused on multiplication strategies and the order of operations. With the Common Assessment Tasks now complete, we’re switching our focus back to fractions, percentages, and number concepts such as factors, multiples, and prime and composite numbers. This return to core number work will allow students to consolidate and deepen their understanding across these areas.

To support our learners in feeling confident and prepared, we’ve displayed all upcoming assessments for the term on our classroom wall. These have been clearly communicated to students so they know what’s coming up, how to prepare, and why each assessment matters in their learning journey.

Our Sustainability Project with our sister school is also in full swing. Students are researching what makes a city sustainable and using recyclable materials to plan and build model cities. We’ve been particularly inspired by videos shared by our sister school showing how they used solar power, and we’re now investigating how we might use small solar kits in our own models.

A highlight this fortnight was our excursion to the Cascades Female Factory. It was incredibly moving to see students making real-life connections to our class novel, Tom Appleby: Convict Boy. In the novel, Tom describes in detail what it was like to be a child chimney sweep, including how he managed to climb up narrow, soot-filled chimneys. Seeing actual chimneys in the historic buildings—some barely wide enough for a small child—really brought those scenes to life for the students. Many stood in stunned silence, unable to fathom what it must have been like for a child to work in such harsh conditions.

The excursion also broadened our understanding of the lives of convict women in early colonial Australia. Through the guided tour, students gained insight into the harsh realities faced by these women—many of whom were separated from their families, lived in overcrowded conditions, and endured grueling daily routines. This experience deepened our ongoing discussions in History and helped students grasp the resilience and hardships of those who lived through this period.

Craft at Recess with Michelle and Izzy has been greatly appreciated by staff and students this term.

Some amazing art work has been produced.