Montrose Bay High School Newsletter - Term 4 Week 6

Message from the Principal

Dear parents and carers

This is my last newsletter as Acting Principal of Montrose Bay High School, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all staff, students and community members of this wonderful school. The past six months have been challenging, inspiring, rewarding and promising. As Tim returns to lead this school from Tuesday 26th, I see a very bright future ahead for the students, their learning and their collective experience at Montrose Bay High. This is due to the excellent systems and structures he and his leadership team has set up which have, very quickly, placed the school in a sustainable position to thrive over the coming years. Montrose Bay High has cultivated a highly motivated, talented and student focused teaching team who collaborate regularly so they can interrogate their practice, then make targeted improvements so that students can make high learning gains. The following achievements provide some evidence of the high-quality educational delivery and progress that is occurring.

Three big congratulations are in order to start with. Let’s begin with the most recent.

Firstly, congratulations to Sam and the HPE team (pictured below).

What a professionally run athletics carnival we experienced on Thursday and Friday last week! It was so great to see the numbers of students competing and bringing a positive attitude to the event. Thank you to all staff who enabled the days to run so smoothly and, of course, congratulations to the winning house: Austin!

Secondly, congratulations to all staff for your collective efforts to improve our student reading data, as evidence by the initial results we have seen from the completion of the PAT testing. With Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) as the vehicle, our collective efforts have significantly improved reading achievement scores in PAT Reading for each year level. An amazing result and a major stepping stone towards sustainable academic achievement and growth across all learning areas.

Lastly, a big congratulations goes to two of our staff for their recognition in the DECYP Bright Futures awards.
Recently, the Department held their Bright Futures recognition program. This program aims to acknowledge and celebrate the exceptional contributions made by our staff who work tirelessly to ensure that children and young people in our community are known, safe, well, and learning.

Congratulations to the below Montrose Bay High staff who were recognised for their contributions:

• Jessica Dwyer was a recipient of the Learning - High School This award was for recognising staff who have shown exemplary performance in supporting children’s learning from Year 7-12
  
• James Phillips was a recipient of the Outstanding Early Career Employee This award was for recognising individuals in their first five years who have shown respect, significant growth, courage or high aspirations.

We have also managed to make considerable improvements to our staff wellbeing data, where significant gains have been made in 8 of the 12 areas measured. I believe that the positive feedback you are providing to our staff is making a big impact here. I know that staff value it highly. If you have the time, please enter a note of gratitude using our Montrose Positive Feedback Form (link below). It is always appreciated.

Thank you, again, for your support and good luck for the remainder of the year.

Warm regards,

Jared

Jared Richardson
Acting Principal

School Association-Montrose Bay High

The Montrose Bay High School Association met this week for our last formal meeting of the year. Contrary to my last newsletter item, Jared Richardson is still at the helm of the good ship SS MBHS, so apologies for the pre-emptive farewell to him! 

At our meeting, we were very impressed with data showing improvements across the school in reading. This is a testament to the effective use of NAPLAN and PAT assessment data and the teachers’ efforts to explicitly address those areas of need. If there was ever a reason to send a message of thanks to a hard-working teacher…😊

We also heard about the many efforts of the Student Leaders to raise money for a range of charities. One upcoming event will support Breast Cancer Awareness Day. By happy coincidence, Breast Screen Tasmania’s ‘Big Pink Bus’ is currently parked behind the Glenorchy Health Centre. Women without any symptoms who are aged 40-74 can ring 13 20 50 to book a FREE mammogram on the bus. A staggering 1 in 7 Australian women will receive a breast cancer diagnosis in their lifetime…trust me when I say it’s better to catch it early! Please share about this amazing free service with every woman over 40 that you know!

Finally, if you’re interested in joining the School Association next year, please contact the school office so you can be added to the mailing list for next year. 

Have a happy summer, everyone!

Zoe Smith
Association Chairperson

Year 7 - Connection Cup Challenge

This term, Grade 7 students have been starting to do the Connect Cup Challenge. This is a competition that SRC and Grade Leaders run where we get volunteers from each Home Group to try to win different party games usually with a time limit. We have done numerous games so far, such as The Straw and M&M Game, where students tried to move all the M&Ms to a plate within a time limit using no hands and just a straw, and the Toilet Paper Rolling game, where students had to use a roll of toilet paper to slide a cup of water from one end of the table to another.

There are many more games to come, and we know they will be great fun and entertaining to watch. Whether you finish 1st – 6th in a game will score you points for your home group class and the class with the most points at the end term will get a surprise reward. This is all connected to the Montrose Mindset and the value of Connection. This challenge connects us all in a fun and exciting way, by forming strong bonds in a competitive spirit. Grade 7 is loving this so far and we are excited to play the next games.

By Marshall Barclay and Violet Dang (Year 7/8 SRC)

Year 8 - Maths

This term, our Year 8 students have been diving into two exciting, consecutively taught units: Probability and Rates, Ratios, and Percentages. These lessons have been packed with engaging simulations, real-life modelling, and fun gamification activities. Students have also explored the practical real-world applications of these topics, such as learning how to calculate the likelihood of events and how to determine the increase and decrease of prices in percentages.

Music Tour 2024

This year’s music tour to Devonport was a great success. The band worked very hard and showed great improvement. Our concerts at Sheffield, Railton and Ridgeway primary schools were a hit, with the audiences singing and dancing to our exciting repertoire of music. We enjoyed playing games and engaging in fun activities throughout the week, finishing with our traditional grade 10 speeches and farewells. Well done concert band!

Jonathan Stone
Music Teacher

Student Health

School Attendance - text messages

If your student is not at school or signs in late, and we have not already been contacted by you about this, you will receive an automated text message from us advising they are absent.  This is because they have missed part or all of their lesson. Please respond to these messages with an explanation for the absence or late arrival so we can update your student's attendance records. 

This is part of our duty of care, to ensure you are aware that your student has not arrived to school or arrived late.  

Dates to Remember