NEW TOWN HIGH SCHOOL

Kelly Stone our Head Prefect told me that at the recent round of school debating an adjudicator

from the Tasmanian Debating Union told him that New Town High, as a debating contingent, has

some of the best manners in the whole competition. Kelly told me he felt this was an impressive

statement, particularly for some of our younger grades.

Last week I attended the prefects meeting to get their input into my ongoing work to identify the

attributes of a New Town High Man/Boy. What follows is their initial thinking, which will be included

as we move closer to getting the level of clarity around this. This work will be used to confirm our

school purpose and in the future design of our learning and extracurricular programs.

Traits we expect from a New Town Boy/Man:

* Technological; * Being well presented

* Acceptance and openness towards diversity; * Kindness;

* Responsibility for lifelong learning, Literate; * Being innovative and academic.

* Treating all people equally, including people of different race and gender;

Traits we hope not to see in New Town Boys/Men

* Addiction to substance or technology, * Closed mindedness;

* Childlike behaviour * Bullying tendencies.

ANZAC Day. Several of our students will represent their families and our school in ANZAC

commemorative activities. I encourage all boys attending such events to wear their formal school

uniform. Our school will be involved in proceedings at the Lenah Valley RSL Dawn Service and the

Hobart City ANZAC Parade. I thank Ms Noonan for coordinating our involvement in these events in

my absence.

Today we farewelled Kerry Hopkins who has been transferred to Cosgrove High School. We thank

Kerry for her service to our school and will miss her good nature and good humour. Ivan Hopkins

has secured a full time position at Montrose Bay High School commencing Term 2. We thank Ivan

for his service to our school and wish him success and fulfilment in the next chapter of his career.

Have a great holiday boys, keep safe, keep learning and be kind to your parents.

Dave Kilpatrick

A/Principal

Key Dates for 2017 TERM 1

Thurs 13 April

Moderation Day (Student Free

Day)

TERM 2

Mon 1 May

First Day of Term 2

Tues 9 - Thurs 11 May

NAPLAN Testing

Fri 12 May

NAPLAN Catch-up

Newsletter

Tues 16 May

G7 In Area Information Evening

Wed 17 May

G7 Out of Area Information

Evening

Tues 30 May

G7 Immunisations

ICAS Science Competition

Thurs 1 June

RIO Tinto Big Science Competi-

tion

Thurs 15 June

EC Parent Information

Wed 21 June

EC Orientation Day

GRADE 7 NEWS It is hard to believe that Grade 7 students have completed

their first term at New Town High School! Overall, the

grade has settled in well and adapted successfully to all

things ‘High School’.

Our Student Representative Council met last week to vote

for their president and deputy. Boys delivered a short

speech to the council before votes were cast. We are very

proud to announce that the president of the Grade 7 Stu-

dent Council is Jacob Thayer, 7-5, and deputy is Jacob

Blum, 7-6. Luke Matcham, 7-2, will be reserve deputy.

Congratulations to all three boys, and well done to all boys

who put their names forward. We look forward to work-

ing with the council in the following terms.

Congratulations to the members of our Inter-high Swim-

ming team: Luke Hitchcock, 7-1, Rory Glenn, 7-2, Riley

Su, 7-2, Oliver Walsham, 7-2, Zackary Alexander, 7-5

and Harry Hollmer-Cross, 7-6. While the team was

placed third overall, all boys represented the school to the

best of their ability – well done, boys!

Round 3 of our soccer roster was a highly skilled and hard

fought game with 7-6 winning in the final seconds of the

game by one goal! Best players were: Jaxson Richardson,

7-6, Luke Nicholson, 7-5, Jacob Thayer, 7-5, and Solan

Rai, 7-6. Once again, we are extremely grateful to our

two Grade 10 House Captains, Zachariah Cavaretta,

10J1 and Jake Powell, 10E2, for giving up their time to

umpire the game.

Unfortunately for us, we will be fare-

welling Mr Hopkins who will be taking a

position at Montrose Bay High – their

gain, our loss! Mr Hopkins has been an

excellent Home Group teacher as well

as an enthusiastic and talented member

of our staff. We wish him the very best

and hope he may return to New Town

High in the future!

A reminder to students and parents that NAPLAN is

scheduled for week two of Term 2 – boys have already

started some preparation in their English and Maths classes.

Please contact the school if you have any queries.

A reminder also, to check winter uniforms over the holi-

days as we move toward the cooler weather. Please check

that all items of clothing are clearly named. Currently,

there are many items of clothing unnamed in lost property.

Finally, we wish all students, staff and parents a safe and

happy holiday and look forward to Term 2 commencing on

Monday 1 May 2017.

Ms Leone Lamont & Mr Keith Turnbull

Grade 7 Supervisors

GRADE 8 NEWS

What a term it has been for Grade 8!

From ICT conferences to skateboarding programmes, ex-

tracurricular activities have been a huge focus of our first

term. Many of our students are beginning to develop a pas-

sion for certain areas of their education, and we are de-

lighted to offer many opportunities for our students to par-

ticipate in these subject developing activities. We are de-

lighted to announce the Grade 8 Student Representative

Council have now been selected. We had a record thirty

seven boys nominate, and each student gave a very impres-

sive persuasive speech. The voting was very close as every

single candidate was amazing. We would like to announce

the following successful candidates:

Luca Cartledge Dylan Cooper Ethan Cooper

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Harkirat Grewal Chanel Leatua Jaden Moore

William O’Neile Sam Payne Oscar Puclin

Alex Rolle Levi Rose Keegan Ryan

Andrew Smith William Spongberg Evan Stone

Liam Timms Lindsay Tyson-Mitchell Luke Van Emmerick

Dylan Vertigan Masyn Wilkins Arial Wilson-Harvey

We were privileged

to have Captain Allan

Pullen from the Aus-

tralian Army Cadets

attend our school to

address some of our

Grade 8 MyEducation

students. He will be

visiting our Grade

over the next couple

of months to speak

with our boys about

the Army Cadet Programme and potential career pathways

in the Army. A huge thank you goes to Masyn Wilkins,

8H1 and Corey Bresnehan, 8H1, for organising the event.

We would like to acknowledge the wonderful work of our

Prefect Board who have helped Mr Heidenreich and Ms

Mulholland throughout the term with organising Grade as-

semblies and other activities. We would also like to take

this opportunity to wish all of our students and their fami-

lies a very safe and happy holiday!

Ms Sara Mulholland & Mr Nathan Heidenreich

Grade 8 Supervisors

GRADE 9 NEWS The Grade 9 Student Representative Council has had a

very successful term, organising a wide range of activities

and fundraisers.

This year, the Grade 9 SRC has had great success with our

three subcommittees. The fundraising committee organ-

ised a sausage sizzle on the last day of term, to go along

with the teachers vs students cricket game. To recap on

the subcommittees, the fundraising committee organises

fundraisers, for either the grade or a charity of their choice.

The Grade committee organises events for the grade such

as: sports days, activity afternoons, and possible events with

our sister school Ogilvie. The lunchtime committee organ-

ises sporting events for the grade during lunchtimes, such

as our Futsal competition which has been a lot of fun.

The grade activities afternoon had a wide range of sports,

including: basketball, t-ball, soccer and flags. This afternoon

was a great success, and students had a lot of fun. We look

forward to continuing these afternoons in the future.

On behalf of the Grade 9 SRC, we would all like to wish

you a Happy Easter, and remind you all to stay safe and en-

joy your holiday.

Written by Lachlan Payne & Aden Roberts

GRADE 10 NEWS Congratulations to the following Grade 10 students who

competed in the Southern Inter-high Swimming Carnival

last week: Daniel Searle, 10H2, Samuel Jordan, 10H1,

William Searle, 10H2, James Elliott, 10E2, Zakkary

Long, 10H2 and Joel Cartledge, 10J1. The team took

New Town High School to a hard fought third place. High-

lights from the day include James Elliott’s 2nd place in the

50m freestyle and Zak-

kary long’s 2nd place in

the 50m fly. Thank you

to Mr Dudgeon and Miss

Fitzgerald for managing

the school team.

Grade 10 students from

Mr Harris’ Small Engines

class went to Symmons

Plains Raceway last Fri-

day for the Super Cars

qualifying day. Students

enjoyed watching quali-

fying, Aussie Cars races and visiting the pits. Thanks to Mr

Harris for organising the event.

Samuel Major, 10D2, Billy Cutler, 10H2, Henry Fox,

10D2, Declan Murray, 10D1, Declan Bridge, 10D1,

Liam Toselli, 10D2 and Riley Best, 9E2, represented

New Town High School in the recent Term 1 Basketball

College roster. The team played with pluck and spirit and

learned a lot from pitting themselves against older and big-

ger competition. Thank you Coach Howard for giving the

boys this opportunity.

Fun run season has begun! Ms Brooks is currently organis-

ing the school City to Casino team. Entry forms can be

picked-up and dropped-off at the front office (with pay-

ment). See Mr Newbold for more information and details.

Also, if you are interested in working on your fitness in the

lead-up to the City to Casino, Mr Newbold’s Running Club

sets out for a 3k run on Monday and Wednesday lunches at

1:25pm. For new participants, permission slips need to be

collected from Mr Newbold before a student’s first run.

The Grade 10 team wishes the school community a happy

Easter and an enjoyable holiday.

Mr Shaun Newbold & Ms Hayley Noonan

Grade 10 Supervisors

CONFUSED ABOUT ATAR, TCE &

ASSESSMENT for Year 11/12? Join our forum:

When: Thursday 18 May

Where: EC Theatre

Time: 5.45pm – 7pm

Presentation followed by questions.

All welcome. Refreshment available.

LITERACY AT NEW TOWN HIGH SCHOOL A Whole School Approach to Spelling

At our recent staff meeting Misty Adoniou (from the Uni-

versity of Canberra) facilitated a professional learning ses-

sion for all staff about spelling as vocabulary development.

Some key points from the presentation:

English is not a phonetic language – there are 26 letters

and they can make between 44-48 sounds. 20 vowel

sounds have over 218 ways to spell them

English is a morpho-phonemic language meaning words

are formed by their meanings as well as their sounds

Spelling is a learnt skill- good spellers rely on:

phonological knowledge (sounds)

orthographic knowledge (understanding what is possible

in letter order)

etymological knowledge (knowing where words come

from)

semantic knowledge (knowing what the words mean)

morphological knowledge (knowing the meaningful parts

of the word)

visual knowledge (recognising the correct look of a

word)

So what this mean for our teaching and learning?

We know by high school that students will come across

many more subject specific and technical words. They will

be expected to know, understand and use these words in

their reading and writing.

We also know that the strategy of ‘sounding out’ in many

cases will not support a student to correctly spell a word.

Our teaching will focus on understanding the meaningful

parts of words, knowing the meaning of words and the his-

tory of the word. In learning areas across the school our

goal will be to encourage students to be

curious about words, build vocabulary and

develop a spelling conscience.

Do you know where the word Bluetooth

comes from?

Can you explain the spelling of

Sarcophilus Harrisii – morphol-

ogy and etymology will help you!

Ms Jill Burrill

Assistant Principal/Literacy

NATIONAL ASSESSMENT PROGRAM –

LITERACY AND NUMERACY (NAPLAN)

2017 NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and

Numeracy) commenced in Australian schools in 2008. Each

year, all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 participate in com-

mon national tests which assess:

Reading

Writing

Language Conventions (spelling, grammar and punctua-

tion)

Numeracy.

The scheduled dates for the tests in 2017 are Tuesday 9

May, Wednesday 10 May and Thursday 11 May. Fri-

day 15 May allows for students who were absent for any

days of testing to undertake ‘catch-up’ testing.

The benefits of participating in NAPLAN testing:

NAPLAN tests the skills that are essential for every stu-

dent to progress through school and life such as reading,

writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy.

NAPLAN results provide valuable information on how

your son is progressing against national minimum stand-

ards of literacy and numeracy skills expected for each

year level.

The NAPLAN tests provide you as parents with an indi-

vidual report that shows your son’s results and a com-

parison of your son’s performance against all other Aus-

tralian students in their year level.

Teachers use the NAPLAN results to determine your

son’s areas of strength and where future focus is re-

quired and how best to provide support or extension

activities.

The school uses NAPLAN results to inform school plan-

ning and to allocate resources and support including

making decisions around targeted programs and initia-

tives for individuals and groups.

The best way you can assist your son is by helping them to

feel comfortable about the nature and purpose of the tests,

and assure them that the tests will give them an opportuni-

ty to show what they have learned so far.

For more information about the national tests, please con-

tact Mr Umesh Pratap, our Naplan Coordinator, Mr Shan-

non Bavage, Assistant Principal. Alternatively, visit the na-

tional NAPLAN website at: http://www.nap.edu.au.

For specific information about testing, please contact Mr

Paul Tabart (Numeracy) and either Ms Jill Burrill, Ms Kathe-

rine Jones, Mrs Grace Guerzoni, Mrs Carol Kingshott, Mrs

Jacqui Frew (Literacy).

Mr Umesh Pratap

NAPLAN Co-ordinator

GRADE 7 MATHEMATICS CLASSES –

CHANGES Recently the Grade 7 Mathematics classes were reorgan-

ised to better reflect the different abilities of the boys in

this grade. All classes have undertaken a review of Number

– examining place value and operations with whole num-

bers and decimals. They have also studied the geometry of

plane figures with an emphasis of triangles, quadrilaterals

and parallel lines. The assessments undertaken during

these units have been used to identify those boys who need

the most support and a pace to better suit them for their

mathematical learning and those who would cope with a

faster pace and more challenging work.

Consequently, the boys in Grade 7 have been moved out of

their Home Groups for Mathematics and placed in one of

the above paced classes. Each individual’s progress is regu-

larly monitored and boys have the opportunity to move

between classes as necessary. All students are working on

the Grade 7 content of the Australian Curriculum

(accessed at http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/

mathematics/curriculum/f-10?layout=1), it is just that the

pace at which they progress through this changes from

group to group.

All boys will continue to have access to Mathletics. Their

unique username and password plus their results and pro-

gress in this software package will be carried over to the

new class.

Mr Paul Tabart

AST Mathematics/Numeracy

METRO NEWS

Effective from the start of Term 2, Monday 1 May 2017,

route 243AM will depart Blackmans Bay ten minutes

earlier than currently scheduled at 7.30am. The new

timetable will be as follows.

BLACKMANS BAY (Illawarra Rd) depart.. 7.30am

Kingston Beach 7.39am (approx.)

KINGSTON CENTRAL NORTH depart.. 7.43am

Brown Road 7.46am (approx.)

Hobart College 7.57am (approx.)

St Mary’s College (Harrington St) 8.13am (approx.)

Friends (Argyle St) 8.21am(approx.)

OGILVIE HIGH (New Town Rd) Arrive 8.26am

Metro believe these changes will alleviate the concerns re-

garding the timely arrival of students before the start of the

school day. Metro Tasmania will continue to monitor the

performance and patronage on the route and may make fur-

ther alterations in the future as required.

REMINDER:

MODERATION DAY

(STUDENT FREE DAY)

Thursday 13 April 2017

Happy Easter

Students return to school

Monday 1 May 2017 ABSENCE LINE

6278 0499 or 0417 984 981

Call or text any time (24/7)

NEW TOWN HIGH SCHOOL

6 Midwood Street, NEW TOWN 7008

Phone: 6278 0400

Postal Address

PO Box 248, NEW TOWN 7008

Absence Line: 6278 0499

Email: new.town.high@education.tas.gov.au

Web: http://newtownhighschooltas.org

https://www.facebook.com/NTHSTasmania

UNIFORM SHOP

Please note the reduced price

of the rugby top is $35.00.

We have reduced the price of

the rugby top for the coming

cooler months.

SCHOOL APP

New Town High School has signed an agreement with

MGM, a company which manages our absence SMS

system, to deploy an APP to use for communications

with parents, staff and students. This will result in

more frequent news items to parents. Such as im-

portant messages including videos and photos deliv-

ered in real time to parent’s mobile devices allowing

Parents to be able to filter information of interest to

them and filter the rest.

We plan to launch the APP during Week 2 of Term 2

at which time the newsletter in its current form will

be gradually phased out.

To allow the app link to be delivered to your mobile

devices via sms or email, could parents please ensure

they have updated their email addresses and mobile

phone contacts, by contacting the Office on 6278

0400 or emailing

new.town.high@education.tas.gov.au.