SBIS Newsletter - 24 September 2025
Emily's Message
A Magical End to Term: Musical Week at SBIS
What a magical way to end the term! Musical Week has been an absolute joy, and it’s been wonderful to watch our production come to life over the past six weeks. Congratulations to our talented students for their outstanding performance. Your energy, creativity, and confidence lit up the stage!
It was heartwarming to hear such positive feedback and see the beaming smiles of our audiences as they left each show. At Sandy Bay Infant School, we are deeply committed to fostering a love of learning through engaging and authentic experiences. Our musical is a perfect example of this, offering students the chance to grow as critical and creative thinkers.
We hope you enjoyed joining Daisy, Mr Bull, and their friends on Grassy Hill as they explored botany and biodiversity. A production like this takes an incredible amount of time and energy, and I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to our dedicated team who brought their creative genius to every aspect of the show.
Progress on 2025 Improvement Priorities
At our recent School Association Meeting, I shared updates on our 2025 Improvement Priorities. Here’s a summary for our wider school community:
Priority 1 – Improved Literacy Outcomes
Our next strategic focus is ensuring staff are rigorously engaging with student data to inform targeted teaching. This ensures every child receives the right balance of stretch and support based on their individual needs.
All students continue to receive daily systematic phonics instruction through the UFLI Foundations program. Staff are working collaboratively in Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) to analyse weekly assessment data and plan differentiated small group instruction. This cycle of assessment, analysis, and responsive planning is central to our goal of equitable and effective literacy instruction while nurturing confident, capable readers across all year levels.
Priority 2 – Wellbeing for Learning
Our staff Professional Learning Community (PLC) has developed a draft of the Way at the Bay Positive Behaviour Support framework. This outlines the shared language we’ll use to promote and reinforce positive behaviours, aligned with our social and emotional learning curriculum.
Importantly, student voice has been central to this process, ensuring the language is meaningful and relevant to all members of our community. We’re currently seeking feedback from the School Association before finalising and sharing the framework.
Priority 3 – All Learners Engaged, Challenged and Learning Successfully
To support engaging learning for all students, staff are aligning planning and assessment practices with our partner school, Waimea Heights. On the upcoming Term 4 student-free day, teachers from both schools will participate in a moderation session to review student work samples and ensure consistency and rigour across curriculum areas.
As a small school, these collaborative opportunities are vital for building staff capacity, strengthening professional networks, and sharing expertise across our local school community.
Staffing Updates
We’re thrilled to announce that Alison Tegg has been permanently appointed as our School Business Manager. Alison’s warm, welcoming presence and strategic leadership truly reflect our vision of a safe, nurturing, and inspiring place for curious minds. Congratulations, Alison!
The permanent Principal position has now been advertised, with the successful applicant to commence in 2026. I will continue as Acting Principal until the end of the year.
Georgia Fountain will begin maternity leave at the end of Term 4. As a result, the Instructional Specialist and Safeguarding Lead positions will be advertised shortly.
We’ll also be farewelling Rubi Healey, our wonderful Teacher Assistant, in Week 2 of Term 4 as she embarks on an exciting move overseas. We thank Rubi for her contributions and wish her all the best in her next chapter.
Wishing you a restful and enjoyable term break with your family. We look forward to welcoming everyone back on Monday 13 October.
Warm regards,
Emily
There's A Sunflower In My Supper
Kindergarten
The Musical by Kinder…
We were singing…
‘Bugs and bees and birds and butterflies!
Lots of wacky wonderful wildlife coming to say hello’.
We were dancing to the music.
We like singing ‘sow the seed, it grew and grew’ and ‘green, green grass, blue, blue sky”!
It was fun singing with the whole school. It was fun but a bit nervous having an audience.
It was about bugs and bees and birds and butterflies. Because they are pollinators. They bring pollen from a flower to another flower and it makes it have babies (baby flowers). The pollen sticks on the bees. And then the bees go to the other flowers and drop it off.
We loved being pollinators!
Prep Kookaburras
This term, the Kookaburras have embraced creativity and curiosity through our inquiry unit: “Our understanding of living things influences how we co-exist sustainably in shared landscapes.” Inspired by our school musical, students have explored the natural world through both an artistic and scientific lens. From music, dance, and shared speaking roles to clay modelling, painting, sewing, sketching, and detailed scientific drawings, every activity has deepened their understanding of animals and plants—their external features, classifications, and interdependence. It’s been an inspiring, hands-on term of learning, filled with fun, discovery, and meaningful connections to the world around us.
Prep Koalas
Prep students have done much investigating this term into what plants need to grow. Our class song in the whole school musical is called It Can’t Do It On It’s Own and we are excited to present to our school community what we’ve learned about what a seed needs to grow. We put our knowledge to good use in growing our own sunflower seedlings in our classroom from seeds produced by last year’s sunflower. Fun fact… Prep counted the sunflower seeds provided by one sunflower head and there were over 300 seeds! From one little sunflower! Wowee! Once our seedlings had grown, we planted them into the school garden and we’re watering them each day, excitedly watching them grow and recording our observations in our inquiry books. If you are in the playground do feel free to take a look!
Year 1
Our curious Year One students were out and about in Hobart this week researching for our roles as market stall holders in the musical. First stop was Raconteur where Craig showed a range of his candles and mists. The Year Ones asked many great questions and were fascinated by Craig’s description of how the fragrant oils are extracted from the plants.
Next stop was Daci and Daci Bakers where we enjoyed viewing the glass displays of cakes and pastries and brought back a rose flavoured meringue to enjoy back at school.
Our final stop was Salamanca Fresh where we met Soula, part of the family that runs the shop. She explained that a lot of the fruit comes from Tasmania except for the things that don’t grow here which come from other part of the mainland like bananas. The class continued with great questions that Soula was very happy to answer. She then led us around the shop to show the variety of products that they sell and helped us to count the number of different apples on display.
Before walking back to the buses, Soula gave us two bags of apples to share and a sticker. We all had a great time and especially enjoyed the treats!
Year 2
Last week in year 2, our classroom turned into a mini bakery as we explored measurement in maths by making delicious scones!
As part of our learning, students used measuring cups and spoons to carefully measure out ingredients like flour, milk, and butter. The previous day students had designed their own recipe for scones and it was interesting to compare the two recipes to see how close they were with some of the key ingredients.
The best part? Tasting our warm, fluffy scones with jam and cream at the end. Yum!
This hands-on activity helped us see how maths is used in real life—and made our classroom smell amazing too! If you are cooking at home please encourage your children to join in and talk to them about the various implements that we can measure with.
Every School Day Matters
Every school day matters.
We love seeing your children at school, every day. Going to school every day gives your child every chance to learn, grow and connect with their friends and teachers. It gives our staff and students a chance to engage with your child.
We all play a part in helping our kids get to school every day. Please know that if you’re struggling to get your kids to school, help and support is available. Talk to us at school or visit Anything can happen - Department for Education, Children and Young People.
Term 4 at a glance
2026 Class Planning
It's that time of year again when we start looking at class structures for 2026. If you are not planning on returning to SBIS in 2026 please email the office at sandy.bay.infant@decyp.tas.gov.au by Friday 24 October.
Community News
Down Syndrome Tasmania proudly presents 'Spring Fling':
DST are very excited to announce our inaugural Spring Fling - a fundraising event being held onSaturday 25 October 2025 at Moonah Arts Centre to coincide with Down Syndrome Awareness Month.
Our hopes for the evening:
Our goal is to raise vital funds for our organisation in order to continue to support our members and their families including funding for:
- A specialised adult health clinic
- A young adult dance troupe
- Social events for all ages
- Welcome packs for new families
- Education and training specific to Trisomy 21
Our broader intention is to promote our new DST Vision: Limitless possibilities, with a mission to provide and promote connection; advocacy; education and inclusion for our members and the wider community.
Spring Fling tickets:
https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1460062?qr=true&qr=true
Raffle tickets:
https://www.raffletix.com.au/?ref=k7z9p
stem_next
Taroona High School is excited to announce that stem_next is back for its sixth year in 2025!
stem_next is a science fair showcasing STEM Teaching and Learning in public education, from Taroona High’s feeder primary schools right through to its colleges. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) exhibits from UTAS and local industries, are also on display. stem_next aims to develop student awareness and mastery of Science and Technology. stem_next is fun, hands on, educational and inspirational! There will be food vans, prizes and so much more!
Come along on Thursday 20th November 4:00pm - 7:00pm @ Taroona High School and explore the STEM world!
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