Dear Families

End of Term

As I reflect back on Term 2, I hope you are as proud as I am, of the way our students at Longford Primary have embraced new challenges and learning opportunities. Students have participated in a range of activities including, our Reading Challenge, Illuminate, Cross Country, PCYC, Garden Program, Readers’ Cup and excursions. We have had school visits from Hydro Tas and Ditto (Bravehearts). We have  welcomed our newest Longford residents with Baby Book Drops and have begun the transition process for our Grade 6s to high school, with visits to both Cressy District  and Kings Meadows High schools.

We have also enjoyed welcoming families into the school through events such as Mother’s Day ‘Muffin with Mum’ and Learning Conversations. We continue to thank our families for their ongoing support and engagement at Longford PS.

I would like to publicly acknowledge the work of all our staff - the teachers, teacher assistants, education facility attendants, office staff and support staff. I thank you for continuing to have our students at the centre of all that you do. Over my years in the public education system, it has been rare to feel such a collective responsibility for the achievement and wellbeing of students.

Coming up

On Thursday our Student Leaders will deliver the good quality jackets that have been donated by our community, to the Longford Rotary shop. We thank you for your generosity and applaud our student leaders for their community spirit and kindness.

On Friday 4th, we have a Comfy Clothes Free Dress Day. Students are free to wear comfy clothes to school and to bring along a gold coin donation. The funds raised will be put towards celebrating our Grade 6 leavers at the end of the year.

Country Gold trials for AFL, Soccer, Netball and Hockey will be held on the last day of term. We wish these selected Grade 5 and 6 students all the best as they try out for the Northern Midlands’ teams. Last week we had 5 of our AFLW girls successfully make that team – well done. We will celebrate all the successful athletes in our first newsletter next term.

NAIDOC Week

This year NAIDOC week is held during the holidays from 6th-13th July. As part of our school NAIDOC program students have been engaging in learning around culture and traditions. This learning will continue into early next term. If you would like more information about the week, you could access the following link.

National NAIDOC Week | NAIDOC

Reading Focus

We are now half-way through the year and have made some excellent progress in our Reading Priority. Staff have been undergoing professional learning on the teaching of reading and we have increased support for students in this area. We encourage all our students to keep reading with their families over the holidays.

Every School Day Matters

We continue to promote the importance of students attending school every day. Our School Improvement target is for our school attendance to sit above 86% by the end of the year. We are currently on track with this, however with the colder months often comes illness, so we need every student, at school every day that they are well enough to do so. Remember that 1 missed day a fortnight equals 5 days a term, which equals 20 days a year and that is 4 weeks of missed learning opportunities.

Watch this video that was created by Linc in Grade 6 (with the help of Mr Talbot) to see why being at school every day matters to these students.

Through next term we will continue to highlight what it is about being at school that matters to more of our students.

Happy Holidays

We wish Mr Talbot and Mrs Tarnawsky well on their Long Service Leave next term, and I hope you and your family enjoy the term break. We look forward to welcoming our students, and Mrs Burnett, back on the 21st of July for Term 3.

Jen Copeland
Acting Principal

Congratulations to students for receiving a
Respect Certificate of Merit

Joey, Evelyn, Phoebe, Rose, Milli, Milla, Isabella, Scarlotte, Max, Elson, and Mia

Bianca, Ruby, Henli, Drake, Andy, Indiana and Jax

Child and Family Learning Centre in Longford

As families of the Longford and Northern Midlands community, you have received information in recent months from the former government regarding their commitment to establish a Child and Family Learning Centre in Longford. 8 million dollars was set aside to establish a welcoming centre that offers advice on health and family matters, education and training as well as wellbeing services from pregnancy to age 5, to be built in 2027.

The project initiation and planning stage was underway with further community engagement about to begin. 

Given the upcoming election, progress regarding this project has been disturbed as we wait to learn the result of the upcoming election on 19th July. 

We are aware how crucial this project is in providing parents and their children with support in their early years and as a result are committed to ensuring momentum is not lost.

The School Association has written to each candidate that has made their contact details available requesting their ongoing commitment and support for this project and various candidates have replied with their response.

Should you desire further information about this project, please talk with Leith or Alison, or visit https://www.decyp.tas.gov.au/project/longford-child-and-family-learning-centre/.

Election BBQ

Our School Association will be holding a BBQ at the upcoming elections on Saturday 19th July. We would appreciate volunteer help on the day. If you can assist, please contact the school office or Leith McEldowney on 0419 117 171.
Leith McEldowney and Margaret Allen
Committee Members

This term, Prep Crawford/Jackson and Prep/1 Berry explored the topic of Chemical Science – Materials and Their Properties. For their final task, students investigated the purpose of shoes, the materials used to make them, and different design features. They then had the opportunity to choose from a range of materials to design and create their own pair of shoes, explaining the reasons behind their material choices.

Theo
I chose cardboard and plastic bags. The plastic bags are waterproof. They were open shoes, so they don’t get sand in them.

Lucas
I used paper plates because they are comfy. I used fabric over the top to keep the shoe on when I stepped.

Aylah
I used cardboard because I thought it would be stronger. I used fabric for the straps. The fabric is strong, and it can bend.

Darcy
I used foil, cardboard, and sticky tape. I put the foil on the bottom because then it would be waterproof. I made the straps from cardboard because it is harder (stiff) to bend than fabric.

Hazel S
I used cardboard and fabric. I used fabric over the top to keep my foot there.

Rhada
I chose materials that would be strong and sift away the water. I used foil at the front for 2 reasons. One it would protect the cardboard and it looks pretty.

Grade 3/4 students have met a platypus called Lareelah this term. She has been on a quest to find where the South Esk and Macquarie Rivers meet (at the Longford boat ramp) meeting friends and discovering trouble along the way.

To celebrate Lareelah's journey, garden classes headed to the riverbanks yesterday. It was a long walk and the students did an incredible job, singing much of the time. They brought Lareelah to life, using puppets to keep telling her story and disseminated their seed balls as an act of connection to, care and regeneration of their river system.

If you have a spare 50 mins with a student at home you could watch this documentary called The Platypus Guardian on ABCiview https://iview.abc.net.au/video/DO2212T001S00

Megs found this documentary after she had written the Lareelah story and the two tales have profound symmetry.  

Animated Drawings

In STEM/DT last fortnight, our Grade 5-6s experimented with the Meta (AI) demo labs. They were able to draw a figure, use laptop camera to capture the image, then have the Meta demo labs software animate their drawing. You can have a go at home through website sketch.metademolab.com

Bird Boxes

As part of our Science Talent Search competition entry, Grades P-2 are working together to build prototype bird boxes. We are using Makedo toolkits to build our boxes, including screwdrivers, safety cardboard saws and scoring tools to help fold our cardboard.

Magnet Cars

Grade 3/4s have been working on creating algorithms using a flowchart, then programming their flowchart into a program within Scratch coding. Gr56s had the opportunity last week to create their own Magnet cars using basic materials. We were able to push or pull our cars using magnets, and race our cars against classmates.

We have more new additions to our library fiction shelves belonging to the Dog Man and Cat Kid Club series.

"Reading gives us some place to go when we have to stay where we are."

StoryBox Library is an educational website, created for children to view stories by local authors and illustrators, being read aloud by fantastic, predominantly Australian storytellers. Our school community can now access stories and resources on StoryBox.

Username: LongfordStoryBox 
Password: 20252026 

Leadership Staff

Support Staff