For all upcoming events please see the Penguin District School Calendar

NAPLAN

As a school, there are many ways that we assess and track student learning.  Some of these assessment practices may involve daily or weekly monitoring and allow us to tailer learning for students in the short term.  At the other end of the spectrum, we conduct summative assessments that allow us to track student progress over longer periods of time.  These assessments provide us with an overall health check about whether programs we have in place are being successful.  Assessments such as NAPLAN and PAT fall into this category. 

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a literacy and numeracy assessment that students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 participate in each year. It is the only national assessment that all Australian students can undertake and assesses the essential skills of reading, writing and numeracy.   These assessments are one way that schools, DECYP and government track progress over time.

When we look at our own school progress over time it is important to remember that when we implement new programs or instructional practices, we may not see significant changes in data for up to 3- 5 years.  Over the last 3-5 years you may have heard terms like “reading/number groups” in the primary area or Literacy and Numeracy Growth in the secondary setting.  These programs/structures ensure that literacy and numeracy learning is being targeted based on student need. 

Whilst we won’t share all the NAPLAN data with you today (as there is a lot), we are EXCITED to share a few insights directly related to our school improvement priorities of Reading and Numeracy.  

The aspect of our NAPLAN data we are most excited about is the level of learning growth the results are showing across all grades.  The snippet below highlights some  areas of Growth that are certainly worth celebrating. 

The set of graphs below shows how our Penguin District School students achieved in terms of mean scale scores compared to other “similar schools.” Eg, schools serving students from statistically similar backgrounds.  Please note that all grades performed above similar schools in both reading and numeracy. Our staff will take a deeper dive into our NAPLAN data in coming weeks.

IMPORTANT – Parent early pick-ups

If you are required to pick up your child during school hours, please come to the Admin block first as per the DECYP safeguarding requirements.  I hope you can appreciate that this is to ensure the safety of ALL our students.

Book Week

Book Week is always an exciting time of year for all of us here at Penguin District School.  Whilst we celebrate books on a daily basis in every classroom, Book Week  really does put a spot-light on the power of reading and the impact that great books have on our students.  Reading really is magic!

Reminder - Our annual dress-up day will take place on Wednesday August 21.

Australian Maths Competition

I had the pleasure of supporting our budding young Mathematicians this week as they took on the Australian Maths Competition.  Congratulations to all students involved.  Your persistence and willingness to persevere on some challenging mathematical problems was exceptional.

Yours in partnership

Adrian Beard

Over the past couple of weeks in 1A we have been hosting our very own Potato Olympics! The excitement started by designing, naming and measuring our potato athletes with unifix blocks. After giving them a colourful makeover to look like real Olympians our competition began. Our potato athletes competed in archery, gymnastics, heavy lifting, distance running, diving and shot put. Each event crowned a first, second and third place winner, with medals awarded and photos proudly added to our medal tally board. It has been a fun and creative way to explore measurement in math, create art and most importantly, practice good sportsmanship!

In 1C our latest inquiry has a science lense focusing on the forces of push and pull. Students have been finding push and pull forces in their daily lives, being scientists who test how to push or pull with greater affect, exploring machines that assist to push or pull and playing with things that use push or pull. Our aim is to combine the different elements together for the students to produce a collaborative Rube Goldberg machine to demonstrate their understanding of push and pull. To support this exploration, students have been building their vocabulary to describe and explain the movements and directions, practicing documenting their predictions, understandings, trials and errors and taking on different roles in their learning to allow everyone the chance to try their ideas, write their thinking and record the actions being taken.

Our school value this term is Responsibility.

2A and 2B have been talking about what it means to be responsible. We wrote about our responsibilities at home (green) and at school (blue), on paper bricks.  Then we created our ‘Wall of Responsibility’.

Home responsibilities…
I am responsible for picking up my dog’s poo so Dad can mow the lawn. – Quinn K
I am responsible for putting the dishes away because if I don’t all the dirty dishes will stack up. - Macey 

I am responsible for looking after my puppy because he needs food and water. – Laila

I am responsible for cleaning my bedroom when it is messy because it is my bedroom.

– Tom

School responsibilities…

I am responsible for doing my work so I can learn. – Phoenix

I am responsible to flush the toilet so the cleaners don’t need to do it so much. – Isla

Working is important because you get to learn more things. I am responsible for working. – Josh

I am responsible for cleaning up my crumbs so my table won’t get dirty. – Lawson

Year 7 students are working on grammar and punctuation skills in English and building up to writing narratives early in Term 3.

Year 8 work samples.

In Year 9 English we are making stop motion films. Our topic is “hero” and can span from a superhero to someone saving someone, as long as it’s an original character and storyline. Students have storyboarded their ideas and are working collaboratively to bring them to life! We look forward to sharing them with you very soon.

Year 10 students are currently analysing podcasts as well as scripting and recording their own podcasts. We will be studying Shakespeare next with Romeo and Juliet.

In English Inquiry (the 11-12 English we offer at PDS), students are doing a negotiated study this term. Here you can see a range of topics that students have picked and what they have started in their initial research. This is the final major assessment task for the year. 

On Wednesday August 7th, the year 9/10 Outdoor Ed class went on a trip to Stanley. We climbed “The Nut” and were joined by some members of the Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation (CHAC). They taught us about the land's history, showed us some plants we could eat, and mutton bird holes. After that we were lucky enough to have them teach us how to make baskets out of kelp at Godfrey’s Beach park. 

We really enjoyed the opportunity to learn about, and experience other areas of Tasmania. 

A group of Students from grade 7-9 will be participating in Write a Book in a Day again this year. This is an annual event where students get together to write and illustrate a short story in a 12-hour period. This is a fun and challenging activity, giving students the opportunity to work together towards a common goal. The finished books are given to children with cancer in hospitals across the country. This event also seeks to raise funds for Kids Cancer Project. Donations can be made to support our teams using the following link. Sponsor a Student | Write a Book In a Day

Today, we celebrated Schools Tree Day alongside Sustainable Timber Tasmania. Schools Tree Day is part of National Tree Day and gives Tasmanian students the opportunity to plant trees and learn about the forest in a fun and engaging way. This hands-on experience encourages students to get outside, learn new things and most importantly, have fun!

We are excited about presenting our production ‘Beauty and the Beast – A Bloomin’ Good Tale’ at the Ulverstone theatre in Term 4 2024.

Our next order for production t-shirts and hoodies for staff and students will be placed on Monday August 12. The shirts will be black and hoodies will be black or blue with the production logo on the front and the option of first name, surname or character name on the back. The cost of the t-shirt is $27. The cost of the hoodies is $60 or $65 with name.

T-shirts and hoodies can be worn to rehearsals, casual clothes days and outside of school.

Band members, backstage crew and ushers are encouraged, where possible, to wear the production t-shirt as part of their outfit for shows (plain black clothing is required if this t-shirt is not purchased).

Orders can be made via the Qkr.