Newsletter - 16 October

Principal Report

Over the holiday break I was reflecting on the importance of resilient practices at the heart of building an inclusive and kind school community. Especially with the upcoming Lisa Ford seminar on resilience and empowering our students.

We believe strongly in developing a school culture based on resilient practices.

So what are Resilient Practices at MNPS? 

At Mount Nelson Primary, we know that resilience is not just about bouncing back—it's about growing through challenge, learning from mistakes, and leaning on each other when things get tough. It’s a skill we nurture every day, in every classroom and playground moment.

Resilience is deeply connected to empowerment. When children feel confident to make choices, take risks, and express themselves, they begin to see challenges as opportunities. We empower our learners by encouraging independence, celebrating effort, and helping them set meaningful goals.

We also believe that resilience fuels our commitment to striving for excellence. Striving for excellence isn’t about being perfect—it’s about being persistent, curious, and courageous. It’s about trying again, asking for help, and growing stronger with each step forward.

And none of this happens without nurturing. Resilience blossoms in safe, caring environments where children feel seen, supported, and valued. Our staff work hard to build trusting relationships, foster emotional wellbeing, and create spaces where every child can thrive.

Together, we’re building a community where resilience is not just taught—it’s lived. Thank you for partnering with us to nurture empowered, resilient learners who strive for excellence every day.

Please come along to the Lisa Ford seminar on resilience and empowering our students - which will be held on Thursday 6 November at 6pm. You can RSVP by e-mail to mount.nelson.primary@decyp.tas.gov.au

Lisa’s previous talks have resonated deeply with our community, and her insights continue to shape our collective approach to raising resilient, confident children.

Class Placements for 2026

Early in Term 4, we begin considering class placements. Students will get an opportunity to have a voice around the friends they would like to be with for 2026, and teachers will use their knowledge to determine the best placement based on academic, wellbeing and social needs.

Decisions are made by our staff with a child centred approach, ensuring students are placed in the most appropriate class based on their individual needs as well as taking into consideration the students' voice. Once the classes have been established and staff confirmed for our school for 2026, teachers will be allocated to classes. 

If you have any information, specific to your child’s learning outcomes, that you feel needs taking into consideration for 2026 please complete the form below by Monday, 28 October 2025. After this date, we won’t be able to take further requests due to the complexity of the process. Due to the class numbers in some year groups, there will be a mixture of straight and composite classes. Please do not request specific teachers as the makeup of our teaching staff is still unknown.

Catherine Grace - Principal - We Nurture, We Empower, We Strive for excellence

Positive Progress and Success

This year, our older students had an opportunity to work with Virginia Fleming on a project for the Science Teachers Association of Tasmania’s, Tasmanian Science Talent Search.  This year their theme was Decoding the Universe: Exploring the unknown with nature’s hidden language. Well done to all our students who took the opportunity to extend their understanding of science and worked hard to complete their projects with Mrs Fleming.

A big congratulations to Leah, Bobby and Archer who received a commendable award for their research investigation tilted Recycle our Water (ROW).

We would also like to congratulate Prep Fox for receiving second prize in the picture book category for their book titled Buzzy’s Journey Home.  Well done Prep Fox on a fantastic, informative story.

Attendance - The sunshine is peeking through, and we’re hoping all those sniffles and sneezes from Term 2 and 3 are finally behind us! With the weather warming up, it’s the perfect time to bounce back into learning and fun with friends.

 Every Day Counts! Coming to school every day helps you:

• Learn new things
• Grow your brain power
• Spend time with friends
• Connect with adults

But if you're feeling unwell, it's still super important to rest at home and get better.

Let’s Reach Our Goal! We’re aiming to keep our school attendance above 90% this year. Currently, our year-to-date attendance is sitting at 90.4%! That means lots of smiling faces in class every day!

Keep showing up, keep shining, and let’s make this term the best one yet!

Rachel Viney - Assistant Principal

Reading as Inquiry

This term our school is continuing to focus on inquiry learning, literacy, numeracy and student wellbeing.  Our staff are implementing inquiry approaches which incorporate questioning, the use of the learning assets (being researchers, collaborators, thinkers, communicators and self-managers) and personalised learning across all areas of the curriculum. 

This term our teachers are focusing on the teaching of reading through Reading as Inquiry. This guided and explicit approach to the teaching of reading supports our students to access challenging texts with teacher support and use new skills to comprehend texts. Families can support children through being interested in their reading and showing excitement about reading and books!

Reading as Inquiry is an instructional practice where teachers support a small group of students to read a text independently. The practice of guided reading is based on the belief that the optimal learning for a reader occurs when they are assisted by an educator to read and understand a text with clear and strategic guidance. Reading as Inquiry allows students to practise and consolidate effective reading strategies.  It helps students develop greater control over the reading process through the development of reading strategies which assist decoding and help construct meaning. The teacher guides or ‘scaffolds’ their students as they read, talk and think their way through a text.  Ask your children what they have been reading in class – talking about their favourite authors and genre, what reading strategies they are learning about and what new vocabulary they have added, it all helps to build a love of reading!

Marg Crosswell - Literacy Coach

Welcome to term 4!

Welcome back to Term 4! We hope everyone enjoyed a restful break and is feeling refreshed and ready for the final term of the year.

Term 4 is always an exciting and busy time in our school calendar. We look forward to celebrating student learning, participating in end-of-year events, and creating lasting memories together. There’s so much to look forward to as we continue to learn, grow, and finish the year on a positive note.

Pre-Kinder Sessions

Our pre-kinder sessions for term 4 recommence tomorrow.

These sessions will run on Fridays, from 9am-10:30am for students who will begin their learning journey at Mount Nelson Primary in 2026.

Session Dates:

• 17 October
• 31 October
• 7 November
• 14 November
• 21 November
• 28 November
• 5 December
  

Georgie Field - AST

Family Engagement

Welcome to Engaging & Learning Together, Edition 7.

Try these conversation starters around the dinner table or during a car ride to get those little minds thinking!

Term 4 Reading Challenge

With the enthusiasm and success of our term 3 reading challenge, we have decided to keep the momentum going in term 4.

Out of 211 students, 191 students completed the challenge!

Further details and reading logs will be sent home, ready to start in week 3.

Loud Shirt Day Tomorrow

Don't forget - tomorrow is Loud Shirt Day!

Students are encouraged to wear their brightest t-shirt to school and make a gold coin donation to raise funds for The Shepherd Centre. All money raised goes directly towards supporting children with hearing loss.

Student Achievement

We would like to congratulate our year 6 student, Bryn, who will be receiving the Tasmanian Primary Encouragement Award for the National History Challenge. Bryn submitted an outstanding piece of learning around the Franklin Dam debate. It was fantastic to see Bryn using our learning assets of researchers, communicators and collaborators to produce this wonderful piece. 

Bryn has been invited to receive his award at a special ceremony at the Premier's Reception Room.

Well done, Bryn!  What a wonderful achievement!

Fire Education Week

Our students were very fortunate to have Firefighter Drew visit our school this week to teach us all about fire safety. Drew shared important information about how to stay safe in an emergency, what to do if there’s smoke in the house, and the importance of having a family fire plan. Students loved the interactive presentation and had plenty of questions for Drew!
We thank Tas Fire for their continued support and for providing the School Fire Program to us for the last 30 years! 

School Association

Christmas Card Orders

Don't forget that personalised Christmas Card orders must be in by 3pm, Wednesday 22 October (next week). Please ensure your child's name is included, clearly, on the envelope provided.

Qkr! orders will close at 4pm, Friday 24 October.

Class Spotlight - 3/4 McVeigh

In Word Origins (a spelling-based program) 3/4 have been looking at the base morpheme ‘ject’, which means to throw. A morpheme is part of a word that has meaning. This week we have been building words with morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) we know with the base ‘ject’. As a class, we managed to build over 50 words. Some examples of the words we built were projectiles(pro+ject+ile+s), injections (in+ject+ion+s) and subjectively (sub+ject+ive+ly).

Lisa Ford Seminar

Please RSVP to the seminar by clicking the link below.

Launching into Learning - Little Seeds

We look forward to welcoming back our families to Little Seeds for term 4!

Please see the term 4 timetable below.

Little Seeds is a free program open to all families with young children, from birth to 4 years. It is a great way for children to gain new experiences through play and exploration, while providing families with the opportunity to meet and connect with each other in our community.

When? Every Thursday, 9:15am - 10:15am

Where? In the Kindergarten Space

What to bring? A drink bottle, hat and weather appropriate clothing

Reminders

School Calendar

Community Notices