A warm welcome To The 2025 School Year
Welcome to 2025
Dear Bothwell family members,
A productive year ahead of us
Last week we welcomed our students back to Bothwell District High School and we thank families for ensuring that our students were in their ‘Bothwell blue’ school uniforms with the majority of students also bringing a hat to school for outdoor learning and play. We encourage all families to please encourage the wearing of hats. For our primary students. Students without hats are directed to shade areas. Even though it is strongly encouraged for secondary students to wear a hat and not ‘compulsory’ as such, we value all of our students being sun safe and will continue to speak with our older students about being positive role models. This is especially important when we are all sharing the one playground. We ask that our families support us with sharing these important sun safe messages.
Allergy Awareness
An important reminder, and message to our new families, that we have a student in the school with specific food allergies. The allergies are towards peanuts/ cashews, coconut, kiwi and mustard. Consumption of these food allergies has the potential to cause anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis is a potentially life-threatening, severe allergic reaction and is a medical emergency.
Our young person will be in the Kinder/ Prep and Prep,1/2 classes this year. We strongly encourage families in these classes to please not pack food containing the above-mentioned items in student lunch boxes. As a school, we will not be cooking with any of these ingredients in any of our classes. It is important to note that we do have a hazelnut grove at the school and unprocessed hazelnuts are not an allergy for our young person.
School staff will be regularly reminding our students, especially in the younger years, not to share food. We thank you for your support and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Heating of food at school
We are asking our families this year to support us by not sending food items to school that require heating up. For student safety, devices to heat food and drinks require supervision, and this can draw the attention of staff away from their playground duties and other teaching and learning responsibilities. We ask that no noodle cups and packets be brought to school please. If a child has forgotten their lunch, we do have food items we can provide them with. We will also be providing all classrooms with bowls of fruit each week this year as part of our student wellbeing initiative. We are continuing to look at ways to have a hot lunch program at Bothwell DHS and will once again apply for the schools opportunity this year.
Important forms to be returned
Thank you to families who have returned Validation Forms and ICT Agreements. It is important to receive all of these back as soon as possible. We are keeping a log of minor permissions received, media permissions and so forth.
For our secondary students we are planning on a Week 3 (21st February) start for the Friday lunchtime shop visits. Minor excursion permission is required for students to be permitted to visit the shop. A further message will be shared with our secondary families this week regarding Friday shop visits.
Strong starts and the importance of attendance
Our school day starts at 9:00 am, with an 8.55am reminder bell to move to class and our teaching staff are on supervision duty from 8:30am. Our students can access their classrooms from 8.30am when classrooms doors will be open. We encourage all families to have students be at school, on time, ready for a 9am start. Every day of school attendance matters, and late minutes can add up to hours, to days etc…
As part of our attendance focus for 2025, we are setting the target and challenge for students to be at school for at least 90% of the time. Research tells us that missing 10% or more of school has a direct impact on a child’s academic achievement. We understand that there are multiple factors behind non-attendance, and we have a supportive team at Bothwell DHS should families have any concerns or encounter difficulties in getting their child to school. Please contact us and we can discuss supportive ways to work with you to engage your child with education.
High School Specialised Electives
Your child will bring home a Course Selection form to sign. Thank you to those families who have signed these forms already. Students will be assigned either their first or second choice. The electives will begin this Thursday and this year all students will receive a subject rating on their mid-year and end of year reports for these electives.
Breakfast Club Volunteers
Breakfast Club run from 8.00am till 9.00am every Wednesday. The program isn’t possible without the ongoing support of our School Association. We need volunteers to help with breakfast each week, so if you have a spare hour on a Wednesday morning, we would love to see you. Please contact the school office if you can help out.
Communicating with us
This week the classroom teachers will be sending home Learning Overviews for the term. These will include contact details for staff and a list of key events coming up in the term. Within the first three weeks of school, teachers will aim to have a phone or in person connection with all families. Families are warmly invited to our Welcome Families BBQ and Open Classrooms on Tuesday 18th February.
Welcome Families BBQ and Open Classrooms – Tuesday 18th Feb from 3.00pm
Our Welcome Families event this year will be followed by our first School Association Meeting for the year. We invite families to come along and meet classroom teachers, grab a tea/ coffee or hot chocolate and eat some BBQ food together.
There will be raffle tickets on sale raising money for the 2025 Canberra Trip.
A reminder that the Bothwell Pool is open after school for a swim.
All families are invited to the School Association meeting.
You don’t have to be on the Association Board to attend a meeting. All parents and staff members are welcome to attend meetings. This year there are a number of positions up for re-election, School Association Chair, Secretary, Staff Member Representatives and Parent Representatives.
Student, Family and Community Handbook
At the start of the year, all families received a copy of our Student, Family and Community Handbook. We encourage all families to read through the information together. The Handbook can also be accessed on our School Website: https://bothwelldistricthigh.education.tas.edu.au/student-and-family-community-handbook
Please don’t hesitate to contact our office if you have any questions or concerns.
Our 2025 Leadership Team
Mrs Jessie Byers – Wellbeing and Support Lead (Mon-Wed)
Mrs Laura Smith – Literacy Lead, Instructional Specialist (Mon-Wed)
Mrs Helen Doyle – Years 11/12 and Careers Lead
Mrs Christine Turner – School Business Manager
christine.turner@decyp.tas.gov.au
Ms Erika Boas - Principal
I look forward to continuing to work closely with our Bothwell Community this year as your principal,
Kind Regards,
Erika Boas
Principal