Hello everyone,

This term has been wonderful!

We have seen so much growth and achievement in our school, not only from a learning sense but also in a social and community capacity. It is with heart felt excitement for what lies ahead that we head into the holiday period.

This week teachers celebrated their PLC inquiries into reading. On Tuesday night it was amazing to see the growth our students have achieved over such a short period of time. We saw an average relative growth in student outcomes of nearly 20% accross the school which is just fantastic. Mr D also gave out numerous certificates for home reading at our recent assembly with the highlight being a little fist pump by a student when he got up to receive 50 nights of home reading. This continues to show how much motivation our students have in their learning and love of reading.

This sort of progress shows we are ready for the Progressive Achievement Testing that is coming up in weeks 2-4 in Term Four. PAT testing is an integral tool for monitoring how students are travelling and celebrating the successes of their learning. Teachers use this data instantly in their collaborative teams to unpack their pedagogy and also ensure that no student gets left behind. They also look at who might need extending and how they best differentiate their programs. It is with such passion that they know every student, their strengths and their weaknesses.

During the holiday break we have some changes occurring to our front administration area and with fingers crossed our garden areas. We are providing new spaces for the community, staff and students to meet and work so keep an eye out on the developments. We have also ordered some new dovetail wooden garden beds for our community garden program which will be placed in the kinder and back garden area. I know Ms Wood is really looking forward to planting these out in term 4.

Unfortunately for me I may not be here to see it all unfold as I am taking LSL from now until October 30^th. Whilst I am away Mr de Tarczynski is stepping in to lead the school with support from our wonderful executive team Mr Holmstrom and Miss Ella Heather. Ms Holly Upston will also be coming in to support staff on Thursday and Fridays until I get back. Leaving, albeit for a short period of time, is extremely hard for me, because Franklin Primary is a wonderful place with a wonderful community, but I know that with these people in charge the school will continue to be driven and motivated to ensure all students are known, safe, well and learning. If you need anything or want to talk about your child, then as always, I encourage you to reach out to those people mentioned or your child’s teacher.

I look forward to seeing you all when I get back,

James Milne

Principal

Hello Franklin Primary School Community,

As Mr. Milne has mentioned, I will be acting in the role of Principal until Week 3 of Term 4. I feel very privileged to be given this opportunity, and I will ensure that the school operates “as normal” whilst James is away with his family for a well-earned break. If there is anything that you would like to discuss with me, please contact the front office.

Early next term, there are several notable events happening:

• Week 2 Tuesday 24^th October: Athletics Carnival
• Week 2 Thursday 26^th October: Show Day (Public Holiday)
• Week 2 Friday 27^th October: Student Free Day (Staff Professional Learning Day)
• Week 3 Monday 30^th October – Wednesday 1^st November: Year 5/6 Camp at Blue Lagoon, Dodges Ferry.

Further to this, the Progressive Achievement Test (PAT) will take place across Weeks 2, 3 & 4 for all students from Prep – Year 6. Students will be assessed for Reading, Maths and Writing (Year 4 – 6 only). With this data, teachers will identify gaps in student learning and create learning opportunities for all students to improve their outcomes in these critical areas. Further information will be sent to families at the end of this week. If you would like to discuss PAT, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I hope everyone has a wonderful school holiday and I look forward to seeing you in Term 4.

Nick de Tarczynski

Advanced Skills Teacher

Improvement in Reading Outcomes                                                                                                                                                                                    

In Term 3, teachers at Franklin Primary worked in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to improve student outcomes in specific areas of Reading. They analysed assessment data to identify the needs of students and worked collaboratively to plan lesson sequences using effective pedagogical practices. Teachers then put their plan into action, regularly assessing students and reflecting on their own practice to modify their teaching as required. Students were then assessed on their learning at the end of the inquiry cycle, with staff using this data to identify their overall impact on students and to measure growth. Importantly, teachers were also able to use post-test data to inform future teaching and inquiry cycles for next term.

Student Results: Whole School

The average pre-test score for Reading for students across the school was 74.33%. The average post-test score for students was 88.49%.

This is an average relative growth of 19.05%!

Student Results: PLC

Kinder & Prep: Avg. relative growth of +45.22%

1/2 & 2/3: Avg. relative growth of +8.77%

3/4 & 5/6: Avg. relative growth of +13.33%

These are fantastic results and are a dramatic improvement in such a brief period of time. This is testament to the dedicated work of teachers and a robust PLC inquiry process, as well as the effort and commitment of our wonderfully curious learners here at Franklin Primary School!

Dear Families,

From October 23^rd until November 10^th  2023, all Tasmanian students in Prep – Year 6 will undertake Progressive Achievement Testing (PAT).

The tests will focus on identifying student achievement in the critical areas of Reading, Maths and Writing (Year 4 – 6).

PAT is an extremely valuable assessment tool for teachers, and the data gathered from the tests is used by teachers in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at Franklin Primary School to identify student learning needs and to inform future teaching to improve learning outcomes.

If you would like to discuss PAT or if you have any concerns about the process, please contact me via the school’s front office.

Kind Regards,

Nick de Tarczynski

Advanced Skills Teacher

The Franklin Primary School Athletics Carnival is coming up on Tuesday, October 24 at the Huonville Little Athletics Ground.

Keep an eye out for more details and program, which will be coming home with students soon.

We look forward to seeing you at the event!

Josh

What a wonderful term the children have had. We are so proud of their growth.

To finish the term off, we celebrated by making our very own city!

The children loved making the buildings and signs, laying the roads and forming their city. They then got to play in it.

They were so respectful and cooperative – it was beautiful to see.

Wow has the year flown by! It is hard to believe that we only have one term left, yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are all ready to move on to Grade 1 in 2024.

This week has been a really big week for us with our Lemonade Stall coming to fruition. Last week we had discussed the things we would need. We had already had many generous donations of lemons and sugar, so all we needed were signs, cups, soda water and ice. After looking at some other advertisements for lemonade we discussed what we liked about some, what they had in common and what we didn’t like. We noticed that we liked the ones that had pictures of what they were selling, bright colours and clear information that was big and easy to read. Then we made our posters and put them around the school.

On Monday we juiced our lemons (thankyou Katie G for loaning us your juicer!) and learned about food hygiene and the need to wear gloves when handling food. We also learned about just how dangerous a juicer can be, and that we need to be sensible and aware at all times when using kitchen equipment. Lachy did some important maths for us around how we could share things and how much we would need to spend on cups.

On Tuesday Ms Bec bought in her Thermomix and we weighed in our ingredients and set it to cook for us. We needed to do two batches. We all had a turn at putting ingredients in, and watching the scales change as we added things. We noticed it was really important that we don’t touch the thing we are weighing into as that changes the weight.

Wednesday was the big day. Armed with soda water, ice, cups and eskies (thankyou staff for your generous loans!) we set ourselves up. We made a large sign, set up a table, organised our ice, our syrup to soda water ratio and how our system was going to work. Everyone got a turn at putting ice in cups and pouring lemonade.

We were super busy with lots of customers and had a great time! Many thanks for everyone for supporting our stall, especially to the SRC, Kylie and Issy for your help.

Money raised will be donated to the Salvation Army the next time the SRC visit.

Over the past few weeks, we have investigated adjectives, verbs and synonyms.  This has really helped make our sentences so much more interesting. After brainstorming various verbs, we used the internet to find synonyms of these verbs and increased our word bank by nearly double. You can see our verbs in the photos.

You will also see a few photos of our ‘Fluency Pairs’ we do each day. We grab our Home Reading folder from our bag, pair up with someone new and sit knee to knee and read aloud as we focus on our fluency.  It is really helping with our confidence. 

More recently in Maths, we have been looking at Data and Graphing. One of our morning questions was whether we liked hot or cold weather.  We used this information to graph our answers.

What a huge term of learning! We have already started our new Inquiry after wrapping up our Science Inquiry exploring how matter changes. First, we observed images that sparked our curiosity, and, in pairs, we wrote down what we saw, we thought and wondered about the images. We collaborated in small groups to produce questions that we thought best suited to how we thought the images were connected. We formed our main HASS Inquiry question from this thinking. It is… ‘How are living things connected to places?”

In English, we have been learning how to visualise text when we read or listen to a story to help us improve our ability to interpret explicit information. We have also been working on how to build interesting sentences by knowing and understanding how to use noun and verb groups. We worked together to learn how to expand our vocabulary by finding synonyms for words in a Thesaurus or on the internet. We also have been having fun learning how to use syllable patterns in words to draft poems such as Limericks and Cinquains.

We look forward to Term 4 and we wish all students and families a happy and safe holiday.

This term Franklin Primary School took its first steps into the world of basketball by entering its very first teams into the Huonville PCYC league. This initiative has been met with great enthusiasm, as witnessed by the students' increased engagement, enjoyment, and boosted confidence while participating in the league. Remarkably, Monday has now become the pinnacle of the week for the 5/6 class!

The roster will continue Term 4 and games are scheduled for Monday evenings at the PCYC, providing an opportunity for students to continue their basketball journey. To participate, there is a registration fee of $50, and game times are set at either 4:20 pm, 5:00 pm, or 5:40 pm. The league is open to students from grades 4-6, and we encourage anyone interested to reach out.

For those seeking additional information, registration forms, or if you have any inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs. Upston, who will be more than happy to assist you.