Thankyou
I would like to thank our Reece High School families for their unwavering support this term. We have had a very busy term with only 9 teaching weeks – which included 40 teaching days. I couldn’t speak more highly of the way students have still continued to focus on their learning, put in their best effort and be respectful to all.

Jack Jumpers Coach - Scott Roth

We had an exciting opportunity to welcome Jack Jumpers coach, Scott Roth into our school on Tuesday 4 April. Scott ran a session for our leadership teams, and for students who expressed an interest, on leadership and building a positive culture. Students then had an opportunity for a Q&A with some prepared questions around leadership, culture, Scott’s background etc.

We were so inspired with Scott’s messages around self-discipline and integrity.

Staff Farewells

At the end of this term we have a few staff who will be finishing up.

Bernadette Hawkes (Gr 9 Maths/Science) is retiring after 36 years in teaching. She has had a fantastic contribution to education in Tasmania and will be fondly remembered by all she has taught and worked with. We wish her all the best on her retirement.

Abbey Howard (Gr 10 HASS/Intervention) is finishing up to go on maternity leave. We wish her all the best on the impending arrival of her little boy. We are looking forward to meeting her new little man and welcoming her back to Reece after her maternity leave.

Aaron Lyons' (HPE/Support) contract finished at the end of this term, however, we will hopefully still see Aaron around doing relief at Reece.

Annette Durose (School Business Manager) is taking Term 2 off for Long Service Leave and Viv Hicks will be returning. We thank Annette for her tireless work in the SBM seat over the past two terms. Hopefully Annette will still pop in to say hello and fill us in on her incredible trip around Europe.

Stacey Mitchell (Admin) is heading into an admin position with Learning Services for Term 2. We are secretly hoping she misses us too much and returns to Reece in Term 3!

Reports
Your child’s report should have arrived home last week. The most important aspect of a child’s progress is the personal effort they apply to their learning. If you have any questions in relation to your child’s report, please contact their principal teacher.

In Grade 8 English we have shifted our focus to our new unit – Constructing Reality. Throughout this unit we are helping students to understand how to be analytical and critical about what they view and read. The focus of our unit is Reality TV. Students have recently viewed an episode of ‘The Block’ and are writing a PEE paragraph answering the question: ‘How and why did producers use product placement in ‘The Block’? Refer to specific examples throughout. 

In Grade 8 English, each class has also begun reading a class novel. Mr Yeates’ class is reading The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick, Mrs Baxter’s class is reading Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone by J.K Rolling, and Miss Garner’s class is reading Once by Morris Gleitzman. Class novels have been the focus of our intervention lessons.

Grade 9 wrap up

The Grade 9s have had a fantastic term! Beach Day, Surf Carnival, and NAPLAN have kept us busy, along with the work we’ve been doing in our classrooms. We will start term 2 focusing on writing micro-fiction in English, learning about the inventions and advancements of the Industrial Revolution, experimenting in Science with heat, light, sound, and electricity as part of our physics unit and linear relationships and graphing in Maths.

We also say farewell to Mrs Hawkes. Mrs Hawkes has taught across many grades and areas in the school during her time, most recently teaching Maths and Science in Grade 9. Farewell Hawksey!

We hope our Grade 9 students and their families have a wonderful Easter, and fantastic break. See you in term 2!

House Challenge

This term Grade 9 classes have been competing in a house challenge, where they have been trying to earn points for their house. Current standings towards the end of term saw Torquay in the lead, followed very closely by Devon, Mersey and Formby. Students will continue to collect points for the remainder of the term. The winning house will be announced at the start of next term. Let’s see who comes out victorious next term!

Grade 9 Sweet & Savoury

As the name suggests, Sweet and Savoury focuses on cooking both sweet and savoury dishes. This term students made sweet choc-chip muffins and savoury chicken carbonara.

HARMONY DAY in the HUB

The HUB staff and students celebrated Harmony Day on 22 March by wearing orange, learning about the history of this day and about how people celebrate it around Australia. We discussed our heritage and chose to write our own Acknowledgement of Country with Gill, our Aboriginal Education Officer by our side.

We learned some interesting things about an Acknowledgement and can recommend a TED talk about this if you’d like to learn more about it too: Deliver an Acknowledgement of Country that really means something | Shelley Reys | TEDxSydney - YouTube

Some main and important points we learned are:

• If you’re not the traditional owner of the land, you can only provide an Acknowledgement
• A Welcome to Country must only be officially made by an Aboriginal person who is of that land
• Make it your own. Make it Personal. Make it Meaningful.

Here is our HUB Acknowledgement that will be on our wall alongside our beautiful leaf ART that we created last year.

Visual Art

It has been a busy start to the year in Art! Grade 7s have been looking at grey lead pencil drawings exploring value and Grade 8 2 Block Art have been focused on developing their pastel drawing techniques by creating an eye artwork. Grade 9 2 Block Art has been exploring self-identity with signs and symbols as inspiration and Grade 10 2 Block Art have been challenged to create a portrait.

While most art students have been focusing on 2D artworks this term it has also been fantastic to see Grade 8 Wearable Art students produce amazing paper wearable art creations in small groups. Grade 10 students in Mixed Media Art who have been experimenting with photography went down to The Bluff on an excursion for a photo scavenger hunt and took some awesome photos.

Here is a snapshot of some of the awesome artworks that have been created this term - looking forward to Term 2!

Miss Lutwyche

Visual Art Teacher

Wednesday Lunchtime in Week 8 some of the RP Teachers held lunch time activities inspired by their subject area to encourage people to step outside their comfort zone and show our school value “Best Effort”. Mrs Mihal ran karaoke in the music room, Mr Smith did a nail hammering challenging and Miss Lutwyche ran a drawing challenge in the canteen courtyard. It was great to see students putting their best effort in, particularly those who stepped outside their comfort zone!

Miss Lutwyche

RP Team Leader

On Friday 31 March, 26 students from Reece High School took part in an AFL 9’s tournament in Burnie run by Reclink Australia. The day involved a round-robin format in where RHS had two teams compete against two teams from Mountain Heights School and a team from Rosebery District School. It was great to see the students from RHS demonstrating leadership, inclusion and learning new skills. Both teams performed well on the day which resulted in RHS 1 winning the grand final, and RHS 2 finishing third overall. Congratulations to Zane, Jake, and Samuel who all received awards for their performances on the day. A special mention goes to Mrs Jago for coming along and assisting on the day.

Mr Lyons (HPE Teacher)

For our last week of school Reece High Teachers have modelled Best Effort with many teachers stepping outside their comfort zone to create an artwork. These artworks were put on display for the last day of term as a lunch time activity where students were asked to guess who created each of the artworks on display. If they guessed 3 correctly they won a prize! It was great to see the different creations from staff and the fun students had guessing.

Miss Lutwyche
RP Team Leader

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