2018 has been a busy year, and for me personally it has been absolutely wonderful to return to the LPS community. Over the past term I have spent a lot of time meeting with parents, listening to students and collaborating with staff to ensure that our plans for 2019 involve all of our stakeholders. 2019 promises to be an exciting and innovative year where we are looking forward to working with the DoE to introduce the new Refocusing Teaching and Learning initiative. New legislation means that all teachers from Kinder to Grade 2 will begin introducing more play based learning into their teaching and learning programs. For our Kinder students this won’t be out of the ordinary, however for Prep- Grade 2 this will be an exciting opportunity for our students to engage in activities and learning sequences that promote curiosity, questioning and critical thinking skills, as well as encouraging a sense of wonder. Focusing on these skills and processes will have a huge influence over how our staff will plan, teach and assess together as a collaborative group. Our Grade 3-6 team will also move to an inquiry based model where encouraging students to link learning to their interests and focusing on the general capabilities will be paramount. To resource this we will be introducing a back-to-back planning model where all grade teams will meet weekly during specialist subject times to look at relevant data and plan for improvement. Staff meeting times will then become professional learning opportunities for us to ensure our teaching pedagogy is up to date and relevant.

 

Some of these changes will mean our current structures and systems will look different to what they have in the past. All of our staff will be modelling our DoE and School values of growth, resilience, aspiration and courage to our students in their new roles and classes. Next year many of our staff will be teaching new grades in new classrooms. I am also very happy to announce that due to an increase in enrolment numbers we will be introducing three new staff members to our teaching team. Ms Chantel Barnes will also be returning from her My Education role in the DoE and is looking forward to coming back to LPS in her AST capacity. Mrs Jodie Donovan will be our Refocusing Teaching and Learning Co-Ordinator in a 0.2 AST role. Mrs Elizabeth Vince will be joining our school as our newly appointed Assistant Principal. Elizabeth comes to us from Huonville High School where she has been working as an Assistant Principal in a Literacy role. She also has experience as an AST at Albuera Street and Mt Stuart Primary. Miss Sophie Barwick will be joining us as Advance Skills Teacher. Sophie is currently an AST at Lindisfarne North Primary and also has experience as a Support Teacher at New Norfolk Primary School. Mrs Lucy Morgan will be joining us as a third Kinder teacher. Lucy has been teaching Kinder at Bowen Road and has over 9 years of experience on a Kinder and will be joining Mrs Bec on the Kinder Possums class at the beginning of the week. Our Kinder model has changed for next year where we will have a slightly larger group at the beginning of the week which we are fortunate enough to resource with two teachers and two teacher assistants. This will be a wonderful collaborative classroom with lots of opportunities to work both inside and outside the classroom. It will also mean our Kinder Wombats will have a slightly smaller class and we have ensured that both classes will not be in the same space at the same time to address some of the busyness we have experienced this year on a Wednesday.

 

Our Prep model for 2019 has also evolved. Over the Christmas break we are remodelling the current Prep B and the old Literacy room so that it will become two classes with one shared wet area. The prep teaching team are really looking forward to embracing the play basedlearning model and being able to share the spaces, resources and teacher expertise between the two classes. They will operate as two separate classes but will have many opportunities to work and plan together, with at least two teachers and a teacher assistant at all times. We are very excited to furnish this new space with a lot of flexible seating options, up to date technology as well as support from the DoE for professional learning and opportunities to work with experts around best practice in early childhood education.

 

There is a real sense of excitement among staff who are looking forward to stepping outside their comfort zones and heading on a journey full of new learning with their students. The following is a breakdown of teachers and classes moving into 2019. Class placements will go home with reports on Monday but this is a sneak peak of the changes and what class and teacher you can expect…

 

Kinder A: (Possums) Bec Stevenson and Lucy Morgan

Kinder B: (Wombats) Jade O’Neal

Prep A: Jodie Donovan

Prep B: Bernadette Bell (0.6) and Danielle Bath (0.4)

Grade 1A : Wai Chan

Grade 1B: Karen Body

Grade 2A: Neil Denman

Grade 2B: Teresa Lewinski (0.6) and Sophie Barwick (0.4)

Grade 3A: Linda Flude (0.6) and Heather Palmer (0.4)

Grade 3B: Lucia Bini

Grade 4A : Jackie Moore (0.6) and Teresa Street (0.4)

Grade 4 B : Michelle Isaac

Grade 5/6A: Suzanne Oates (0.6) and Tam Bloomfield (0.4)

Grade 5/6B: Vicki Doyle

Grade 5/6C: Chantel Barnes (0.6) and April Tinker (0.4)

Music: Amanda Brown (0.6)

PE: Rob Christie (0.4)

Art: Tam Bloomfield (0.4)

Band: Claire Reade (0.1)

Support: Helen Bentley (0.6)

 

At the end of this year we will also be saying goodbye to some of our existing staff. Mrs Jan French and Mrs Lee Herbert have worked with us this year in various capacities and will not be returning in 2019. We would like to thank them both for their passion and professionalism and wish them well for the future. Of course we will also be farewelling some other, very important members of our school this year. Our grade 6’s have grown into confident, curious individuals who I am very sure have a bright and exciting future ahead of them. I can remember a lot of them on their first day of Kinder and I can honestly say it has been an absolute pleasure getting to know them more recently in their senior capacity and seeing how much they have all grown as individuals. I know they are all looking forward to their assembly and dinner next week and I am sure that they will head into high school with their heads held high, knowing that they have had the best primary education that is available to them.

 

As this is the last newsletterarticle from me, I would like to also personally thank all of the staff here at LPS for making my transition back so easy and for being so supportive of me and my ideas for improvement. It’s never easy starting a new chapter in your professional life but this has been one of the most rewarding (and fun!) terms I have had in a long time and I absolutely can’t wait to see what the next few years will bring. Have a wonderful Christmas and wishing you a safe and healthy new year.

 

Kind regards,

 

Kel Innis

Principal