In Term 2, student leaders and class captains from Grade 7, 8 & 9 have commenced an initiative to supply breakfast for their Grade level on a particular day of the week (e.g. Grade 9s on Tuesday).

The students leaders and class captains arrive early on those days and, under the supervision of their Grade support leaders, prepare and set out simple foods for breakfast that students can help themselves to whilst they wait for Home Group to begin in the morning. The foods include toasted cheese sandwiches, various fruits, juice, milo, and an assortment of other goods on any given week. This initiative is an extension of the highly successful Friday morning breakfast that the SRC provide for the school. The school are deeply appreciative for the support of Saputo, Woolworths, and IGA X-Press (Redjaf) Somerset for their generous support of this initiative.

On Tuesday May 9, a group of year 9 Burnie High School students participated in the North West heat of the Science and Engineering Challenge sponsored by Rotary, UTAS and TasWater. The event brought together 7 schools from the north west coast to compete in various activities aimed at testing their scientific and engineering skills.

The Burnie High School students performed exceptionally well in the challenge, coming in third place overall. They competed in a range of activities, including building an earthquake-proof tower, communicating with coloured light transmissions, making a prosthetic hand that can move and grasp objects, organising schedules in the job jumble activity and as a finale to the event testing bridge designs.

The results of the competition saw Devonport High School coming in first place, with Ulverstone Secondary College coming in second place, and Burnie High School in third place. Leighland Christian School came in fourth place, followed by Marist Regional College in fifth place, Yolla District School in sixth place, Parklands High School in seventh place, and Rosebery District School in eighth place.

Overall, the event was a success, and the students from Burnie High School should be commended for their hard work and dedication in representing their school and community. The Science and Engineering Challenge is an excellent platform for students to explore their passion for science and engineering, and it is hoped that the event continues to grow even further in the years to come.

A number of students from Burnie High School were selected to represent the North West at the Tasmanian High Schools State Athletics Carnival on May 12, at the St Leonards Athletic track in Launceston. With 24 students attending, BHS made up almost half of the field. Many of our students had podium finishes on the track with Miller Beamish, Amarli Palmer, Jayda Taiaroa, Shukuya Broomhall and Oscar Young all taking out gold in their selected events. A highlight of the field events was Taya Munday winning the Grade 10 girls discus and shotput. In the process, she smashed records for both of these that had stood for over 40 years.

State Athletics Results:

Over the past month, students in Grades 7, 8 and 9 have participated in Word Mania, a word building challenge created by an online platform Literacy Planet. Students are presented with a game board of individual letters that they need to combine to make words over three minutes. Students participated well in all Grades, with our Grade 7s and Grade 9s both achieving top 10 finishes in the nation-wide competition. Our Grade 8s were outstanding, finishing second in the Australia and New Zealand region and earning our school a voucher for our Literacy Planet subscription for next year. Two students in particular deserve special mention. Chelsea Ritch (Grade 7) and Tom Menger (Grade 8) both played many games and achieved very high individual scores which contributed to our school success. Well done to everyone who participated, and keep an eye out for the challenge in May next year.

We have more than 120 students engaged in our farm specific Food and Fibre Production activities at Burnie High School. These include students in Grade 8 who are enrolled in the option – Introduction to Agriculture, Grade 9/10s Agriculture Studies (and Science), 10G Science, the Study Hub hands on/applied Science Classes as well as our Hands on Learning Group.

Above: Hands on Learning boys transfer skills learned at Burnie High School to the Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden. Composting, mulching, building and biochar research are all part of the H.o.L, learning journey in the garden.

Second term is the time when we finish the harvesting, plant seeds in the hothouse, prepare beds and plant all our favourite winter veggies – Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Cabbage and many more! Mending fences, building and repairing other equipment around the farm and garden that all needs to be done in the quieter months.

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The Study Hub students prepare for crops and perform essential maintenance tasks around their learning space.

We pickle, pluck, prepare, preserve and process produce that can be or is ready and ripe enough to eat! We had wheelbarrow loads of apples, potatoes (Dutch creams, red rascals and kipfler), pumpkins and a generous feed of carrots, basil, chillis, zucchinis, cucumbers and tomatoes to share with students, the school kitchen and community kitchens such as Vinnies in Somerset.

Click on the hyperlink below to see a fun clip of our farm and food activities.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vZ3VQSRihWSr2fWJ9

Above: Staff and students have fun and collect resources at Agfest (see Jakobi and Tate waiting for the final weigh-in of the radishes).

10G boys should be proud of their achievement – they produced some beautiful radishes with our heaviest weighing in at 273grams. Believing our strict and very specific fertilising regimen of high potassium and phosphate, lower nitrogen content, regular watering and well planted seeds, meant we grew a superior vegetable to the Agriculture and Study Hub students.

In the world of market perfect veggies our specimens were second to none.  Day 1 of the competition saw us miss out first place to Wynyard’s 343gram specimen (too much exposure to sunlight meant the top part was green not white – inedible, and it had arms and legs – inedible/tough/woody meaning too much nitrogen at some stage) which would not win any radish beauty contests. Alas – the competition was about size not beauty or substance! Many other schools had inferior radishes that weighed in at around 50 grams.

As the students, know I am highly competitive so was disappointed by the quantity not quality approach to the judging, and had to reconcile that at the end of day 1, at least it was a NW school that was punching above its weight in the dog-eat-dog world of vegetable growing. On day 2 St Mary’s School entered a 616gram beast of a vegetable! Well done St Mary’s – you have set the bar for next year! Grade 9 Agriculture students your mission next year is to beat the beast from St Mary’s!

Well done boys! Your thinning, fertilising and watering regime provided us with a terrific crop of daikon radishes.

Finally, we had a visit from our Hands on Learning Statewide Coordinator, Tim Crosswell. He joined in at the Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden and was very impressed with how well our group is going and the progress the boys have made in their section of the garden!

H.o.L boys working at the EVRG as well as the School Farm – we have 2 main projects – the new Duck House and clearing and maintaining “Tibet”.

Steph Prendergast

Agriculture and Science Teacher/H.o.L Artisan Teacher.

Burnie High School has recently appointed Sheree Hodgetts as our first Safeguarding Lead.

Safeguarding Leads have been appointed in all Tasmanian state schools to help ensure all children and young people in Tasmania are known, safe, well and learning.

Sheree will support the wellbeing of all our students and help us all understand that keeping children and young people safe is everyone’s responsibility.

Please support Sheree in this new role! 

For further information on Safeguarding in Schools please click here

Start Term 2 right by making every school day count!

Going to school every day gives your child every chance to learn and grow, and connect with their mates and teachers. It’s where bright futures start and where they’ll benefit the most.

When your child goes to school every day, it helps them to:

• learn better
• find interests
• make friends
• connect with teachers
• be happier
• have a brighter future.

We have lots in store for this term!

If you’re struggling to get your child to school, help is available. Please talk to us at school about your situation. We’ll support you, in whatever way we can.

To find out more, visit the Anything can happen website.