Ya Pulingina, Welcome. 

As we continue to move through term one we have had a committed focus in supporting all young 

people to feel safe and supported, developing a shared understanding of behaviour and learning expectations that are underpinned by our values.

As a school community we must have the internal belief that every adult and young person has the capacity and positive intent to contribute to the environment in a positive way. We must explicitly teach and embed a learning process that ensures every child and young person has fair and reasonable access to help them be the best they can.  We need to empower students to share in making Port Dalrymple School a positive, proactive learning environment where learning is at the core of improvement and growth.

A positive connection plays a crucial role in building stronger relationships underpinned by trust, care and empathy.  It fosters a sense of belonging, enhances educational experiences, promotes collaboration, and strengthens relationships among students, parents, staff, and the broader community. Our staff work hard with students to build an environment that is inviting, safe and supportive. Students who experience a positive sense of belonging at school also have improved overall wellbeing, mental health and long-term academic success.

Our roles as educators is to ensure our practice is relevant and effective with strong positive student relations. We know that:

• A sense of belonging is linked to collective student engagement, wellbeing and teaching practices.
• Students who experience a positive sense of belonging are more likely to experience positive friendships, an absence of bullying at school and co-curricular participation at school. They also tend to value learning, show high levels of effort, interest and motivation, as well as positive community engagement.
• Effective classroom management, teaching relevant content, leading by example in the classroom, positive teacher-student relationships and advocacy (or support) at school can all enhance students’ sense of belonging.
• A positive sense of belonging is important throughout a child’s schooling, particularly during periods of transition.

It is our belief that in leading a school community greater outcomes are achieved when all stakeholders school (parents, staff and students) take a shared responsibility focusing on the positive opportunities. Spiralling up the negatives and learning from them builds a strong culture and positive climate. Accepting every student, focusing on strengths, working with young people to show kindness, acceptance and gratitude. Ask your child at the end of the day:

• What are 3 things that went well for you today?
• What did you improve?
• What will you improve on tomorrow?

These questions will promote a growth mindset and the discussions about school and learning will promote improvement

Over their school time all of our students have contributed in some way and have been chosen by you to be their voice, to listen, discus and action positive ways of working that benefit us all.

As we work towards the whole school communities understanding of what is required to ensure every student feels safe to learn we wish to acknowledge the many parents who have supported us in promoting positive behaviour this term. When you bring hundreds of people in to the one space, it is important for everyone to be aware of being kind, accepting difference and that we are a hands free school. Meaning physical contact is not appropriate in our space, during play or in conflict. We see such learning and changes from those students who take responsibility for their choices and who learn from their mistakes. We have the privilege of you trusting us every day with your child and together we can empower them to have bright lives, positive futures.

ATTENDANCE- EVERY DAY MATTERS

With higher accountabilities and a stronger requirement from our department we are committed to improving student attendance. Our administration staff and teacher will be making regular attempts to follow up unexplained absence and days missed over 5, 10 and 15 days. Not attending school regularly impacts on friendships, builds anxiety, and often isolates young people from social opportunities. Being at school allows supports and programs to be tailored, personalised and purposeful. Please contact the office or respond via text message to explain your child’s absence.

Riding of Electric Scooters on school site

We have a number of electric scooters being ridden to school. If students chose to ride a scooter or bike to school, the school takes no responsibility for these. They are to be kept in the bike rack areas. Electric Scooters are not to be ridden, mounted or turn on within the perimeter of the school. This will be an instant request for them not to be at school at all for that individual. Helmets are required to be worn at all times. 

Providing alternative learning opportunities and environments is a continued goal for staff at Port Dalrymple School. We strive to meet students where they are and provide environments where students can feel confident, learn new skills and challenge norms.

The Hands on Learning groups have been hard at work already this term, working on various projects around the school. Café students have been stocking freezers with sandwiches for student access, planning, cooking and serving staff lunch orders and making meals for other programs around the school. Build students have been planning and building ‘Quiet Cubbies’ for students across the school to use as regulation spaces, for quiet work, reading or calm down time. They are looking forward to rolling these out across various areas in the school.

Student Leadership Report - Term 1 

Leadership Induction Assembly – Junior and Senior Leadership Boards 

On Thursday 7th of March, Port Dalrymple School held our Leadership Induction Assembly where we inducted and celebrated the Junior Leadership Board (JLB) and the Senior Leadership Board (SLB) as our student leaders for 2024. From the JLB we had Richie and Aidan address the audience with an introductory and inspirational speech about their leadership. From the SLB our President, Satayah Moore, and our Vice President, Indianna Walsh, gave enlightening and motivational speeches detailing how privileged they both felt to be selected in their esteemed roles and how they will ensure they uphold and model the values of the school and community.  

International Women’s Day – Soroptimist International George Town and Bell Bay Aluminium 

On Tuesday 5th March, the SLB were invited to the International Women’s Day Breakfast event hosted by Bell Bay Aluminium and Soroptimist International George Town. We are very thankful for the invite and support from Bell Bay in donating our tickets, and we had a wonderful time supporting a great cause alongside many others in our community. The morning of, we arrived at the George Town Memorial Hall and found our seats excitedly, before running to grab delicious drinks and hot and cold breakfast food prepared by wonderful volunteers. We had the privilege of hearing from three very inspirational woman talking about the theme of the event ‘belonging’. One of the special speakers was Port Dalrymple Schools very own Youth Networker, Jayne Watts. She spoke about being a young person herself in the George Town community growing up and about how she felt a sense of belonging from her teachers and people in the community. Jayne shared her journey in life, telling us how she travelled and met many beautiful people to get to where she is today. The longer Jayne spoke the more respect fell upon the room. We were all very grateful to hear Jayne’s story and her sense of belonging in our community – we are so lucky to have her here, working with us. After the event finished, we all left feeling inspired and proud to have been invited. A special thank you to Rob Burnett for the professional photo.  

Youth Leadership Conference – SLB Melbourne Trip 

Port Dalrymple School and the SLB would firstly like to say a huge THANK YOU to the Bell Bay Advanced Manufacturing Zone and for the individual industry donations that supported us to be able to take this trip to Melbourne, to take part in a National Leadership Conference and grow our capacity as young leaders. Without the support of: 

• Kymera International 
• Cromarty 
• Carringvale Construction Management 
• Kempe Engineering  
• Timberlink  

This dream would not have been possible! We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and can’t wait to thank you in person.  

Add in dot points for YLC  

Day 1 

We all arrived at the Launceston Airport early, including Mr Beeston, and waited patiently for Mrs Faulkner to arrive – with an excited but nervous buzz. When Mrs Faulkner arrived (right on time!), we all said goodbye to our families and friends, and headed inside to check in. When we went through security and got to the scanners, 4 students and 1 teacher got buzzed – turns out any kind of metal buzzes, like school dress and shorts zips!! Good travelling tip for next time.  

We headed downstairs and nearly went the wrong way but Launceston Airport is pretty easy to navigate so we found our plane and boarded all together. The group rushed to find their seats, sit down and prepare for take-off – we were all getting very excited for Melbourne! When landing we happily headed off the plane and lined up at the SkyBus before leaving to go to the city, once we arrived in Melbourne City, we grabbed our luggage and off we went to have our lunch. 

After lunch we walked to the Melbourne SeaLife Aquarium. The aquarium was full of beautiful and lots of fish and lots of weird things we had never seen before! The highlights were definitely the big overhead clear tunnel where you could see the huge female turtle, massive stingrays, and schools of fish. The jellyfish through UV light was also really cool and the penguins! We visited the gift shop which was fun and some of us had a 3D cinema experience watching a short clip from Happy Feet! 

We then settled down at the hotel before heading to dinner and the arcade. We waited for some of the rooms to be sorted... very patiently, and once we were in, we enjoyed the amazing views from our room windows and got ready to go to the Crown Food Plaza where we ate pretty yummy food. We then headed to the Playtime Arcade and played all the games and versed one another till it was time to go back to the hotel to get ready for bed and go to sleep for a big day tomorrow! We could have stayed at the arcade for hours longer! 

Day 2 

We got up early so we could all meet in the lobby and then take the elevator up to Level 6 to get a nice hot meal and drinks for a big breakfast. The breakfast was delicious and fuelled us ready for the big day ahead! After we finished our breakfast, we went back to our rooms to pack up and get our stuff so we could start walking to the conference about leadership. 

We all walked together to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, where the conference was held, and left our luggage with the front door staff. We headed to the conference room and sat with all the other student leaders from Melbourne – there were 100’s of other students attending the event too. The conference ran for 6 hours but the time went so fast it only felt like 2 hours, it was very empowering and we all left the room feeling good with new ideas to bring back to the SLB that we could try and also work with the JLB to share our new knowledge! 

After the conference we thanked the speakers for having us there and headed off to the South Wharf DFO, where we spent a few hours shopping and checking out the massive building!! Off we went back to the SkyBus and Melbourne Airport to return home that afternoon. When we arrived at the airport, we went to get food for dinner and all sat together to play Uno after eating, thank you Andy - this made the waiting time go a little bit faster.  Next thing you know we are all walking down lining up to get on the plane. Then we got back into Launceston around 11pm - it was a long day and we were all tired, ready to see our families and friends! We are lucky enough to have memories and stories to last us a lifetime. 

To bring in the end of Term 1, we celebrated Harmony Day on Thursday 21st March with some classroom and lunchtime activities led by the JLB and SLB. On Friday 22nd March we hosted a Free Clothes Day to raise money for our jackets and collect Easter eggs for our annual Easter Raffle – the Easter Raffle will be drawn just before our Easter holiday on Thursday 28th March. Get your tickets quick! 

During Week 9 and 10 we will also be organising an ANZAC tribute from the Port Dalrymple Community and making sure most of the JLB and SLB are able to attend the 11am Ceremony in George Town during the school holidays.  

Thank you for reading and looking forward to more exciting things in Term 2! 

Taylah, Trae and Will 

Sunny skies and majestic scenery gave our Year 7 cohort a magical 4 days and 3 nights on camp at Paton Park near Ulverstone.

Year 7 Camp presented students with a range of opportunities to enact DECYP Values of Growth, Courage, Responsibility, Respect and Connection. From participating in challenges to sharing meals together, the teamwork and relationship building has helped both staff and students foster positive connections which have transitioned well back into their time at school.

Thank you to all staff who gave up their time (and sleep!) to attend camp and support students. A special thank you to Doug Grubert who facilitated the whole camp for us, we are grateful for all of the work Mr Grubert put into the camp to make it successful for all. It has been fantastic to see this cohort of young people continuing to show our values.

Highlights:

Mr Scott rescue mission: The boys worked together with Mr Grubert and Tom our school nurse to trek through the trees with a hand-made stretcher that carried Mr Scott. Through water and mud, over obstacles and around narrow pathways, the crew safely transported him over 1km back to the campsite as a team-building activity. We saw many students step up and become leaders in this situation, working together to ensure Mr Scott arrived safely.

Bush walking – as part of a bush walking activity Miss Osten taught students about mushroom types and native plants. Students encountered a turkey tail mushroom which is traditionally used in Chinese medicine!

Epic chocolate self-saucing pudding – Jayne lovingly prepared some amazing chocolate self-saucing pudding on the last night. Students and staff enjoyed this with ice cream before spending time around the campfire.

Relationship building – Ms Burt noted the fantastic engagement between staff and students which saw those on camp connecting in many ways. Our Year 7’s and staff played cricket into the evening, went on walks, listened to music, sat down and had meaningful conversations across various parts of the camp, which all contribute to building connections and common understandings.

Mr Grubert’s challenges – to help build teamwork, communication and relationships, Mr Grubert ran many challenges across the four days. From Lego building tasks, relays, and communication drawing challenges, to the floor is lava, Mr Grubert tested skill, patience and cooperation in fun and challenging ways so students had to think outside of the box.

Spotlight – a classic camp game, this was enjoyed by both staff and students alike.

It has been an exciting time for 12 students who are part of the Low Head Community Garden project where we work alongside residents from Ainslie House/Southern Cross Care Nursing home, volunteers and staff, every Tuesday afternoon.

We have been learning about the garden by identifying plants and knowing how to use them in a recipe. 

Students worked together to create a posy of dried flowers which were presented to our residents and are now proudly sitting in their rooms at the nursing home.

Listening to music from the 1950’s, getting to know each other and sharing stories of how life has changed since they were born back in the 1930’s has been very rewarding.     

Bringing together our younger and older generations for these activities build on the strengths that different generations have to offer as well as nurturing understanding, respect, and connection to our community.   

Junior Esk Band started on Wednesday. It was great to see everyone displaying the DECYP value of courage and trying something new.

22 students have challenged themselves and joined the Esk Band. They are all displaying the DECYP values of courage, respect and responsibility. Students meet on Wednesday mornings from 9-10:30 where they have learnt how to assemble their instruments, read music and make sounds on their choosen instruments. The first three weeks have seen them work in like instrument groupings with specialist teachers.

The next goal is to play simple songs and rhythms together.