What an amazing time students had at the University of Tasmania Science Investigation Awards recently, hosted at the UTas Cradle Coast Campus. The Uni Campus was full of high quality learning projects, and the students were able to explain their understanding to a team of 50 independent judges from all facets of professional and businesses life! I would also like to acknowledge all of the Grade 3 to 6 students that participated in their own investigations, many of whom didn’t formally enter the awards, but demonstrated significant understanding in their research. This understanding is also a reflection of the work done previously with teachers in the early years, guiding their inquiry through intentional play based learning, and to the quality teachers we have here at Burnie Primary School who foster creative, inquiring minds through the quality learning they help facilitate with your children.
Another example of Burnie Primary School moving further towards our vision of a collaborative, creative and innovative learning community, is the investment we have made in the Coding, Animation and Robotics (CAR) program. This program has been planned throughout the year to incorporate a whole school approach to coding on a number of different platforms that are compatible and we are able to share via our See-Saw app. We have purchased a dedicated set of 26 iPads, along with Beebot programmable robots, WeDo Robots and Lego Mindstorm EV3 robots. These along with the ‘Scratch’ and ‘Swift playground’ coding platforms will see students creating codes that lead to app development and innovation in digital technology. This strong investment in digital technologies sees Burnie Primary School at the cutting edge and the collaboration between students with a mentoring approach, will certainly support our vision of a collaborative, creative and innovative learning community, with a strong futures focus! Burnie Primary School’s efforts in this STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics) space has been recognised and rewarded recently. We have been invited to showcase our STEAM programs at the Primary level by hosting a state-wide Department of Education STEAM Symposium this Wednesday 18thSept . The Symposium will be streamed simultaneously from Rosny College, and the ‘Big Picture’ High School in Launceston to showcase Prep to Year 12 STEAM for educators throughout the State.
Burnie Primary School was also recognised as national leaders in this space with the National Curriculum developers ACARA producing 6 short films as ‘Illustrations of leading practice’ for educators across Australia. I encourage you to have a look on the following link:
https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/resources/general-capabilities-and-career-education/illustrations-of-practice/career-education-steam-learning-and-creative-problem-solving/
We are a great supporter of the Arts here at Burnie Primary School, and in particular the Performing Arts. Grades 3, 5 & 6 were fortunate last Friday to be entertained by the Burnie High School production of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ that featured a huge number of ex Burnie Primary School students. Grade 4s recently attended the Shake and Stir production of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes & Dirty Beasts, providing students with high quality learning experiences in all aspects of the curriculum.
A short documentary produced by ABC Northern Tasmania journalist Rick Eaves, about the experience our Grade 4 students had learning from the ‘oldest classroom in the world’ on their recent excursion has now been recognised by ABC National and has been shown Australia wide through Facebook and ABC news channels! Check it out on:
https://www.facebook.com/abc/videos/455253798535200/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDUwMTk1NjQxMzozMDA5MTg4NDkyNDQxMTg2/?notif_id=1568513898000390¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic_tagged
Andrew Starick