Montrose Bay High School Newsletter - Term 3, Week 5

Message from the Principal

Welcome to Term 3! It’s already shaping up to be a busy and engaging period for our students, filled with a wide range of excursions and learning opportunities that extend beyond the classroom. These experiences are not only engaging but also vital in helping our students connect their learning to the world around them. Events and excursions already completed in Term 3 are Science Week, Reclink Footy and Netball, STEM Extension (Year 6), Catering and work experience opportunities, Maths competition and much more!

A highlight of the term so far was our Parent-Teacher Conversations in Week 2, which were a great success. We had strong attendance from families, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, which included our new booking system. These conversations are crucial in strengthening the partnership between home and school, and we’re grateful to our staff and families for their commitment to student growth.

We continue to see positive trends in reading and engagement across the school evidenced by the documents we will share shortly, with recent data reflecting steady improvement. Our targeted strategies and whole-school focus on reading are making a real impact, and it’s encouraging to see students developing confidence and enthusiasm in their learning.

Thank you for your ongoing support and involvement in our school community. We look forward to sharing more successes as the term progresses

Staffing – I would like to congratulate Kumudu Stewart who has been successful in her application for Principal at Margate Primary beginning Term 4. This is a true reflection of her outstanding work over a number of years and demonstrates the Departments confidence in what we are doing at MBHS. 
 
To support a smooth transition for our students we have recruited Matt Tighe from Clarence High School who will join MBHS as an Assistant Principal. Matt will start with us in week 7 of this term and have 4 weeks working alongside Kumudu and other staff prior to Kumudu departing at the start of Term 4.

Parent/Teacher/Student Learning Conversations – These were a big success this year with increased engagement and participation from families across all year levels. We had close to 300 bookings which was a marked improvement on 2024. Teachers were well prepared for these conversations and feedback was fantastic from families. The new booking system was also a positive, being more user friendly for everyone involved.

2026 Enrolments – As we look ahead to 2026 we are actively supporting recruitment across all year levels. We have made a conscious effort to engage with our feeder schools and continue to strengthen our support of Year 6 students entering MBHS in 2026. 

Teacher Inquiry – Our teachers recently undertook inquiry presentations linked with our recent focus – How effective are explicit instruction and universal engagement strategies in the teaching of reading. Each Year level presented to all staff their inquiry and outcomes linked with data. The presentations certainly highlighted the great work which is happening across all year levels.

School Association – Thank you Zoe for your contribution to our School Association over the past few years! Zoe is stepping away from the Chairperson role due to family commitments, so we are looking to recruit more members to our team and fill the role which is now vacant.

Thank you to our community for your ongoing support and involvement in our school. We look forward to sharing more successes as the term progresses

Tim Nicholas
Principal

School Association

If you are interested in hearing about the teaching and learning at MBHS or having a say on school matters and would like to be involved in the School Association, please contact the school on 6208 2666.

Year 7

As we move through Term 3, Year 7 has embraced the Montrose Mindset of giving everything our best go without giving up and seeking and accepting help and feedback. These values have been at the core of our learning and interactions, helping students build resilience, confidence, and a strong sense of belonging. Throughout Term 3, students have enjoyed engaging excursions to the Bridgewater Gymnastics Centre and the Molesworth Environmental Centre. These experiences have supported physical development, environmental awareness, and teamwork in fun and meaningful ways.

We continue to celebrate student attendance through our ‘5 from 5’ recognition wall, where students who attend all five days each week are acknowledged. Weekly canteen vouchers are awarded in our assemblies to our consistent ‘5 from 5’ students, reinforcing the message that every day at school matters. Thank you to families for supporting regular attendance—it truly makes a difference.

We’re excited to welcome Mr Luke Sullivan as our new Year Assistant Principal while Mrs Hey is on maternity leave. We hope Mrs Hey enjoys the busy time with her family, Mr Sullivan has already made a positive impact, connecting with students and staff, and bringing great energy to our team.

Thank you to all families who participated in our Learning Conversations. These meetings were a valuable opportunity to share progress and strengthen the connection between home and school.

Liam Rice
Year 7 AST

Year 7 Subject Updates 

Science
In Year 7, students have been exploring the concept of forces as part of the Physical Sciences strand of the Australian Curriculum. They investigate how forces affect motion, including contact forces (like friction and resistance) and non-contact forces (such as gravity and magnetism). Through hands-on experiments and discussions students have been developing an understanding of forces in action!

English
In year 7 English we have been learning about persuasion and persuasive techniques. We have had a spotlight look at persuasive techniques such as simile, alliteration, metaphor, hyperbole, emotive language, repetition, rule of three, expert opinion and rhetorical questions in advertisements. We have also been using our morphology skills to gain a deeper understanding of new vocabulary we encounter. In the next few weeks, we will be putting our learning to the test by creating our own persuasive arguments. 

HPE - Volleyball and Decision Making
This term our Year 7 students have been looking at making healthy and smart decisions about their overall wellbeing. We have been learning about the importance of sleep, physical activity and harm minimisation when making choices about smoking, vaping and alcohol use. 

Our physical activity focus has been volleyball. We are continuing to develop our serve, dig, set and spike, whilst also looking at the importance of teamwork and strategy when playing. We are starting to see students develop their confidence when playing and the rallies are beginning to get longer. 

Digital Music
Students have been learning to compose music using professional digital production software, Ableton Live. Some students are creating instrumental tracks in a range of genres including dance, trap, drill and EDM, while other students are branching into vocal performance which involves writing lyrics and learning to operate recording equipment towards creating rap and RnB songs.

Maths
Year 7s are halfway into our Measurement Unit for Term 3. In this unit we are learning the magic of triangles and demonstrating why internal angles of ANY triangle adds to 180 degrees and why quadrilaterals add up to 360 degrees! We also had a look at other polygons too.
 
From here, we began learning to find the area of triangles by connecting it to the area of a rectangle. 

Parallelograms and circles are our next topics in the unit. Here is some of our work so far.

Year 8

Our focus this term in Year 8 is the value of Growth from the Montrose Mindset. We are particularly focusing on attendance and encouraging all students to make the most of every school day—because every lesson counts!

Also, this is term three! That means that the specialist subjects that we have been learning in Year 8 have swapped over with 8A, 8B, and 8C, changing over to MDT and Music, and 8D, 8E, and 8F moving into Media Arts and Drama classes. 

In other exciting news, Year 8 teachers have been hosting the ‘Battle Brains’ quiz in the Year 8 area each Wednesday lunchtime. All students are welcome to come and compete and earn some Dojo points.

Year 8 have started this term really well, in HASS we are focusing on the Housing Crisis, while in Maths, we are learning about statistics and data, including the mean, median, mode and range. The Science unit is also based around recording data from our experiments in tables and graphs, while in English, each class is reading the novel ‘A Monster Calls’ and getting to know the characters while learning how to use quotes to support their writing. In Health and PE Student have been learning about Indigenous games, while they have also completed their unit on sexual health, before looking at impacts of drugs an alcohol in the second half of term. 

Next Friday, we are looking forward to taking a keen group of Science students to Molesworth as part of our science week celebrations. Students will be looking at plant lifecycles and biodiversity as overarching themes before heading to the bush with magnifiers tree charts to classify native plants, their seeds and method of distribution. They will also enjoy some damper cooked over fire for lunch. 

Jamie Barton-Johnson
Year 8 student

Environmental Class - Paper Recycling Bins

Our environmental class is hard at work making paper bins for each homegroup and will be dropping them off to homegroups over the next few weeks. These small bins are for students or teachers to toss waste paper into instead of using the regular garbage bin.  Once full, the paper will be transferred from the homegroup to the school's main paper bin for recycling.

School Canteen

Canteen staff would like to remind families that students can pre-order their meals and snacks before 12pm daily.

We have a variety of wraps and burgers available, as well as hot dishes from Tuesday-Friday.

Come and have a look at our new items. We are also open to any suggestions.

Student Early Departures

If your child ever needs to leave school early, please send a note with your child, email us at montrose.bay.high@decyp.tas.gov.au or call the school on 6208 2666 in the morning to advise time of pickup/departure and reason. We will then provide a school leave pass to your child so they can easily leave class at the required time.

School Nurse News

Community Notices

Dates to Remember