Dear Parents/Carers

As Term 3 comes to an end, I am pleased to report that we have had a very positive, busy and productive ten weeks in our school. I am constantly amazed by the insights and achievements of our wonderful students and the commitment and dedication of all our staff. Thank you to everyone who has embraced the opportunities and accepted their responsibilities this term.

We have a very strong Arts program in our school, with a great team of experienced and dedicated teachers. Recently, we had three acoustic acts participate in The Rock Challenge held at The Ark and three bands participate in the Battle Of The Bands at the Launceston Convention Centre. All students did an amazing job and received great comments from the judges and a positive reception from the crowd. Well done to all students involved and a big thank you to music teacher, Jade Howard for the fantastic work she does with these amazing students. I would particularly like to acknowledge Alex who was voted Barratts Music Crowd Best Individual Performer. Well done!

Last week, we also had some of our Drama students performing at the Little Theatre in Deloraine as part of the Deloraine Drama Festival. Our school has been a consistent performer at the Festival for many years and have always done very well. While I am not aware of the outcomes at the time of writing this report, I have no doubt our students would have done a wonderful job. Thank you to our Drama teachers, Kate Blaubaum and Joh Breen for supporting our students with this after-hours opportunity.

I am thrilled to be able to advise that over the holiday break we are planning for an electronic scoreboard to be installed adjacent to our oval. Other than schools that are co-located at local council grounds or with a sporting club, I am not aware of any public school that has this level of facility. It could be a first for a public school in Tasmania! We have been quite strategic over the last few years by endeavouring to connect with various sporting and community groups to improve access and use of our facilities after hours. As part of this strategic approach, we are committed to working on ways to continually invest and develop our sporting facilities for our students and for the broader school community to utilise. I am very proud of our progress to date and we will continue to work on this moving forward with the aim of expanding opportunities for our community. This scoreboard has been possible through a Telstra Footy Country Grant Program of approximately $15 K in partnership with the South Launceston Junior Football Club, an AFL Tasmania grant of just under $20 K, and a contribution from our school through the student leader’s legacy gift. This is a great example of a successful partnership that will benefit the school and the community. In addition, through the AFL’s Breaking New Ground Program we were also provided with a substantial grant which has been used to engage Otium Planning Group to develop a Partnership Opportunity Plan. Hopefully, that will lead to some exciting possibilities into the future but will require further support beyond the school level. I look forward to our new scoreboard being installed and what the future might hold as we continually look for opportunities to engage and improve for everyone’s benefit.

We will also be top dressing parts of our oval over the holiday break to get it prepared for athletics and cricket and for football in 2026. I would like to acknowledge the great work of our Education Facility Attendant for grounds, Adam Smith who has brought some great skills and commitment to our school in the significant work required to maintain and develop our extensive grounds.

We have been successful in securing a number of grants this year through Sporting Schools which has supported a number of opportunities for students in the sport and recreation realm. Additionally, we were recently advised that we were successful in receiving a $3000 grant as part of Kinetic Moving Communities Fund Grants. I would like to acknowledge the motivation and efforts of acting Assistant Principal, Brendan Poke in helping to secure these funds for our school community. Bus expenses are a significant cost to our school, so it is wonderful that a company such as Kinetic is ‘giving back’ through these generous grants.

The Moving Communities Fund is Kinetic’s community grant program dedicated to supporting grassroots organisations across Australia and New Zealand. With grants of up to $10,000 and in-kind support, the fund backs initiatives that address pressing local needs, promote equity and inclusion and champion youth and disadvantaged groups. Since its launch in 2024, the fund has supported projects such as food relief, youth mentoring and inclusive sport, helping organisations scale their impact during a time of rising costs and demand. By showing up for those who show up for others, the Moving Communities Fund is building stronger, more connected communities.

On 12 September, we had a group of girls attend the Girls Engineering in the Skies at the Launceston Airport. Students had the opportunity to hear from people working at Launceston Airport and in the aviation industry. They also participated in a Sharp Airlines hangar tour and the Cool Aeronautics Aerial Design Challenge. This was a great opportunity for our enthusiastic STEM students, to see all aspects of STEM in action in the workplace. Thank you to teacher Sherron Casey for accompanying students on this excursion.

As part of our partnership with the Beacon Foundation, interested students attended an excursion to the Australian Maritime College yesterday. This is always a popular excursion where students engage in hands on activities as well as tour and learn about what the College has to offer. One of the most popular activities is a water rescue simulation. Thank you to Belinda Selby for facilitating this experience for our students.

On Tuesday afternoon, we provided the opportunity for progress conferences. Although we are required to provide this opportunity as part of the Department’s Communicating Learning Progress to Families Procedures, it is not aligned to a formal reporting period and is therefore not usually as well attended. Thank you to those parents and carers who were able to attend and thank you to Advanced Skills Teacher (AST), Jake Chamberlain for co-ordinating the afternoon. Nevertheless, if you are ever concerned about anything with your child, including their learning, I encourage you to reach out to teachers and school leaders.

The after-school basketball roster started on September 17and 18 respectively. This year we have eleven teams entered. It is great to see students taking up this opportunity.  However, we cannot provide this great opportunity to our students without teachers and parents stepping up to coach and/or manage our teams. These people do not get paid for their volunteering and give up their personal time. This shows a great commitment to our school and to our students. Thank you to all these wonderful people and best wishes to all our teams involved in the basketball competition.

Looking ahead to the next few days, we have Dance students involved in the Stompin Dance excursion tomorrow. We will conclude the term this Friday with a whole school assembly during Block 3 and 4, and grade assemblies in the afternoon. Our next School Association meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 13 November and that will likely be the final meeting for 2025. Thankfully, we have a very capable and stable staff team, so I am not expecting any changes going into Term 4.

I wish students and staff a relaxing, refreshing and enjoyable holiday. I look forward to welcoming students back to Term 4, commencing on Monday, 13 October.

Regards,

Cary Stocks
Principal

As part of our Positive Behaviour Support Program at Kings Meadows we will be acknowledging students who have been contributing positively to our learning environment.  This means that they have been supporting our school-wide expectations.

Respect for others, self and environment

Organisation

Commitment to learning

Keeping safe

Sensible behaviour

We would like to acknowledge the following students:

Year 9:

Leila, Lisa and Stella 9C -  For having the courage and confidence to compete in monologues, duologues and ensemble performances at the Deloraine Drama Festival.

Term 3 has raced by in Year 8, with a strong focus on learning and encouraging opportunities.

In English, students have had a focus on reading fluency and are currently making podcasts about books they have read. Maths this term has covered algebraic techniques, applying ratios and rates and are now studying measurement skills. Learning in HaSS has been around urbanisation and megacities, with Science concluding a unit on cells and body systems, including the opportunity to dissect a heart, with students moving on to investigating types of energy and energy transformations. HPE has had students moving in a unit on Dance, with classes starting to prepare for next term’s Athletics Carnival.

Earlier in the term saw Science Week, with students competing in a new challenge at KMHS – designing wings for balsa wood gliders, with some students’ designs achieving a glide distance of almost 5 metres!

It was fantastic to see so many of our students and families providing some serious competition at our KMHS Trivia Night. We would particularly like to acknowledge Nella (8C) for her valiant efforts in the night’s Air Guitar contest!

Our Year 8 Class Leaders have been hard at work, not only for planning our end of term Year 8 Assembly, but also organising a ‘Riddle of the Week’ competition for their peers. Congratulations to 8C for winning the Riddle Champions trophy for this term! The Class Leaders should be commended for their ongoing efforts.

Several weeks ago, Mrs Selby came to speak to Year 8s about Beacon Student Ambassadors. This is a leadership role at Kings Meadows High School that has a small number of positions available to Year 9 students. Students interested in this potential opportunity have had to prepare a written application, with the possibility of progressing to interviews in the first week of next term. We have been blown away by amount of applications we have received for these positions, as well as the qualities of our applicants! Students will find out this week if they have progressed to interviews. In many regards it is a shame that only a small number of these fine young people can be successful in attaining these roles, but all applicants should be proud of what they have presented and be encouraged to continue to seek future leadership opportunities regardless the outcome of this process.

As always, we have a focus on strong attendance and working with families to support students to be at school and engaging in learning. We would like to remind families that when students miss time at school, our admin team needs to be notified of the reason. This includes students who miss part days or are arriving late to school. Where there might be some barriers to your child’s attendance, we strongly encourage you to reach out to their Class Teacher.

We wish all of our Year 8 students and their families an enjoyable and restful break and look forward to seeing everyone ready for Term 4!

YEAR 8 CONTACT DETAILS:

Congratulations to Oscar, Charles, Imani, Garcie, Lexi, Sarah and Ashlyn for competing in Battle of the Bands on Wednesday 10 September.  Both groups of Year 9 students played two songs each expressing their different strengths and styles.  Learning an instrument from scratch demands immense bravery, each note played is a step into the unknown, a quiet defiance of self-doubt. Many of these students had not played instruments before joining KMHS so to see them on stage performing to an audience certainly was the highlight of my night.  I can’t imagine how it must feel to stand on stage with a band for the first time, sharing your vulnerability and hard-earned progress  with everyone watching, listening and celebrating.   Both bands played exceptionally well on the night and congratulations to Lexi and Oscar for their vocals.  Thank you also to Mrs Howard for supervising and supporting our students with their entries and for her encouragement on the night. 

Last Friday 12 September, ten Year 9 students had an engaging and immersive day at the Launceston Airport for ‘Girls Engineering the Skies – Airport Experience”. They learnt about how airports operate, the diversity of jobs at an airport and how the STEM they are learning at school applies to future career opportunities. During the day students participated in the Cool Aeronautics Aerial Design Challenge, Royal Flying Doctors simulator experience and a tour of the Sharp maintenance hangar. It was an amazing opportunity to learn about the scope of work and future job opportunities in aviation for the local community. We would like to thank Cool Aeronautics for organising this informative day.   Thank you also to Ms Casey for her co-ordination of the excursion and her commitment to providing wonderful opportunities for our students to learn more about careers related to STEM.

On Friday last week we also had some Year 9 students competing in the Deloraine Drama Festival as part of their drama experiences here at KMHS.  Thank you to Miss Blaubaum and Mrs Breen for their dedication to the Arts and their commitments to rehearsals allowing our students to perform with confidence on the night.  Leila, Lisa and Stella competed in monologues, duologues and ensemble performances of the night. Overall, the school performed very successfully with Leila receiving an honourable mention on the night.

Finally, as we head into the end of term, I would like to congratulate all the Year 9 students who were selected to receive and interview on Tuesday and Wednesday this week as part of their processes to become a Year 10 Student Leader.  Thank you also to all the parents who supported our progress conferences this week and to all the staff and students who have showed tremendous dedication towards learning and dedication to teaching throughout the term.

YEAR 9 CONTACT DETAILS:

As Term 3 comes to a close, we’d like to congratulate our Year 10 students on successfully completing their exams. Well done! This experience is a valuable opportunity to prepare for the demands of college assessments and to build resilience in managing stressful situations.

Winter sport has now wrapped up and we extend our congratulations to all students who participated. Your commitment and teamwork have been outstanding. With spring upon us, we look forward to the warmer weather and the exciting opportunities that come with it.

Term 4 will move quickly for Year 10, as the end of your high school journey approaches. It’s an exciting time, filled with important milestones and celebrations. Congratulations on another fantastic term and thank you for your continued efforts.

As we head into the final term, it’s important to remember a few key expectations:

• School uniform must be worn every day, with pride and consistency.
• Mobile phones should be off and away during school hours. If parents need to contact their child, they are encouraged to do so via the school office.
• Attendance matters – every day counts. Being present and engaged is crucial for success and participation in end-of-year events.

Upholding our school values is essential to being part of all end-of-year activities, including the picnic, leavers’ dinner and graduation assembly. We all have a role to play in making these events memorable and inclusive.

Wishing you a safe and restful break. Enjoy your time off and come back ready for a fast-paced and exciting Term 4! 

YEAR 10 CONTACT DETAILS:

Student name:   Jayda - Year 10

What can you tell us about this piece of work?
This piece of work was written for a Romeo and Juliet assignment. The task was to make a playlist with songs that resembled the characters emotions and perspectives.

What is your favourite thing about English?
My favourite thing about English is that I get the chance to express myself through writing and I can explore different worlds through characters and stories.

What are you working on at the moment in English?
At the moment, in English we have just concluded our Romeo and Juliet assignment, so we are now moving on to poetry which I am extremely excited to learn about.

What do you think is the most important skill you ever learned in English, and why?
I believe the most important skill I’ve learned in English is critical thinking. Critical thinking helps me analyse and interpret information aswell as improved my writing and public speaking skills.

What are you reading at the moment?
I am currently reading “A Good Girls Guide To Murder” by Holly Jackson.

What is your favourite book and why?
The book “Wonder” is a moving story about kindness and acceptance through the eyes of a boy with facial differences. This is my favourite book because it has a lot of emotion and I felt connected to the story.

What are some books that you would really like to read?
A book I would really like to read is the series “The Summer I Turned Pretty” by Jenny Han. This is next on my to read list mainly because of the iconic TV show that has been one of my favourites recently.

On Friday evening Kings Meadows High School competed, along with Riverside High School, at the Deloraine Drama Festival. Both Senior Drama classes presented polished and entertaining pieces for adjudication.

As a result our students were extremely successful! Mrs Breen’s class received the Best Ensemble award for ‘Work…But This Time Like You Mean It’ by Honor Webster-Mannison and Abbey received runner up Best Actress for this piece. In the same piece Ash received Best Actress and Gaz received the Comedic Performer award. The adjudicator mentioned that if there was a runner up Comedy Award it would have gone to Nella. Honorable mentions were also given to Madison, Rose and Leila in Ms Blaubaum’s class piece ‘I don’t want to talk about it’. In this piece a very deserving Alex won Best Actor. To top it off Alex and Ash also received Best Male and Female Performers of the Festival!

We are extremely proud of these students and all of the students involved for the way they conducted themselves and committed to this experience. Congratulations!

A further reminder that our Annual Arts Night is on Thursday 6 November.  Tickets will be going on sale at 11:30am this Friday 26 September!

Our annual school Athletics Carnival is being held during Week 3 of Term 4. Like previous years our carnival is being run over two days: Wednesday 29 October at Kings Meadows High School and Thursday 30 October at the Northern Athletics Centre at St Leonards. Our carnival is run as a tabloid event which involves our students moving around the various events and working with their year groups to participate. Please ensure that your child has adequate sun protection for both days as the entire event is outdoors. The program for the two days is below. 

• If possible, please park and spectate from the carpark at the Hobart Rd entrance to the school. 

• Please sit/stand only in designated spectator areas. 

Last year the winning house for the carnival was TAMAR. Can Tamar continue with this strong performance again in 2025, or will Esk, Nevis or Lomond take out the title? 

This season has been a good one for the Kings Meadows High School senior boy's Division 2/3 football team. Sadly, for a few weeks we did not have Mr Brewer with us, but when we did have him, we were undefeated until our grand final.

Our season started with a loss to Brooks High School in Round 1 110 – 8.  Round 2 was another sad loss to Riverside 49-19.  Round 3 was the Bulldogs Cup and we had an amazing win against Queechy 95-19.  Round 4 we had been moved with multiple other teams into Division 3 and played St Mary’s where we finally had Mr Brewer and we won 101-58.  Round 5 and 6 were byes which allowed us to rest for our match in Round 7 against Riverside, though their team being game ready we  lost 56-37. Round 8 was cancelled due to rain but against Port Dalrymple, we lost in Georgetown 63-14. Rounds 9 and 10 were both against Queechy - we won 76-16 and 141-6.

The semi-finals were then upon us, in which we played against Port Dalrymple, which we recorded a win 73-31, to book a spot in the Grand Final.  We played a great brand of team football. Sadly, in the Grand Final we fell behind in the third quarter and lost 85-18, to a very strong Riverside team, when we were only a goal down at half time.  The player’s player for the year was George Darsaklis and our Best and Fairest was Zane Lewis, who are both worthy winners.

Overall, it was a good season for the senior boys Div 2/3, making the Grand Final with a loss in the end but it was all worth it as the season was positive.

This year Kings Meadows High School registered five teams as part of the Northern High School Sport Association winter sport netball roster. This season has been filled with mixed emotions. Although there were many weeks with interruptions of byes or games being rained out, our teams pushed through and played to the best of their abilities with what they had to work with.

As a collective they supported each other and helped out where possible. With supplying umpires and scorers many people stepped up to help out and make games work. With a rocky start to the season we picked up and continued to show up and try our bests each week. We wouldn’t have been able to have such a successful season without the other teams we versed such as Prospect, Riverside, Deloraine, Newstead Christian School, Brooks, Cressy and Campbell Town District School.

Although we were unsuccessful in making the grand final we had two teams make it through to the semi finals round, with an unfortunate loss by 1 point to our Division 1 team. The beginning of the season we all chipped in to create a lolly salad that was taken with us each week to give us that half time boost, didn’t last long before it was an empty container again. Without the help of Mrs Selby and Miss Attard this season wouldn’t have been possible.

Written By Lily Boon

Congratulations to our junior students who participated in the High School Netball Championships earlier this week! Last Tuesday and Wednesday saw our 7/8 Girls and 7/8 Boys compete against other northern schools in games at the Silverdome.

Results are below:

Junior Girls:
Loss v St Patrick’s College Green: 4 – 26
Loss v St Patrick’s College White: 5 – 11
Loss v Launceston Church Grammar: 13 – 5
Loss v Deloraine: 14 – 7
Win v Riverside: 21 – 0

Junior Boys:
Loss v Queechy: 13 – 0
Loss v Riverside: 9 – 3
Win v Scottsdale: 10 – 5
Draw v Scottsdale: 3 – 3
Loss v Deloraine: 6 – 9
Win v Cressy: 6 – 2
Draw v St Patrick’s College Gold: 5 – 5
Loss v St Patrick’s College Green: 16 – 3
Loss v Riverside: 9 – 2

Following the fun\ our juniors had at the High School Netball Championships, our senior students represented the school last Thursday and Friday at the Silverdome. A huge shoutout to our umpires and helpers we had across the week, you helped the days run smoothly.

Results are below:

Senior Girls:
Win v Brooks: 17 – 1
Win v Riverside Maroon: 15 – 2
Loss v St Marys: 12 – 7
Win v Riverside Navy: 14 - 1
Win v Scottsdale: 12 – 7
Semi Final: Loss v St Patrick’s College: 10 – 9
Playoff for third: Win v St Marys: 10 – 8

Senior Boys:
Loss v St Patrick’s College: 16 – 3
Loss v Deloraine: 9 – 5
Loss v Scottsdale: 6 – 4
Loss v Riverside: 8 – 6

Thank you also to Riverside and Launceston Christian School for playing extra games with us to fill the afternoon! We had a blast!

The past couple of weeks have been super busy for us over in the music department with three bands and three acoustic acts taking part in The Rock Challenge (acoustic) and Battle of the Bands (bands). Things looked a little different this year with our students taking part in two separate competitions over the course of a week.

Friday 5 September Lexie and Gracie, Sheena and Abbey B performed at The Ark in the acoustic section of The Tasmanian Rock Challenge.  They all performed a cover and an original song gaining them some excellent feedback from the judges.

Wednesday 10 September we had our bands - The Mix (Alex H, Oscar M, Charles M and Imani), Unrequited (Sheena, April, Ava Hildred and Chiara) and Socially Unacceptable (Sarah N, Lexie, Gracie B and Ashlyn Q) perform in Battle of the Bands at the Launceston Convention Centre in a professional setting with a crowd to match.

They all performed an original song and their own version of a cover song and completely rocked. All of their hard work paid off and they had a ball, the audience loved it.  They also had some excellent feed back from the judges. Super proud of them all.  Alex House was awarded Barratts Music Best Individual Performer in Battle of the Bands.

Thank you to parents, family and friends for supporting your children and getting them to and from the venues, and massive kudos to our kids who pushed through their nerves, anxieties and fears to get onto that stage, out of their comfort zone and do something that not many people have the courage to do.

A quote from Alex House "That was the best moment of my life" also Alex House "I've never had that many girls screaming for me ever".

Last Friday, 12 September, the House Captains and Peer Support Leaders came together to run a PINK DAY fundraiser to raise money for the Cancer Council. The day consisted of students dressing up in pink clothing for gold coin donations and a barbecue lunch with a guess the number of lollies competition also running.

Overall around $800 was raised and donated, with many students also participating in the women’s 5k run the following weekend.

Leadership Staff

Support Staff