Principals Report

This term has been busy with a variety of activities! While our curricular activities and sports day events have provided some highlights, our extracurricular activities have also added some variety to our term. From our IMS lessons, to our SRC activities which have involved the community, our students have been able to take up opportunities to participate outside the classroom. None of this would have been possible without the dedication and enthusiasm of our staff, who have have been committed in their support of these activities.

Last Friday I reported in Schoolzine that our SRC under the direction of their Teacher Leader Sharon Lam had finished Runner Up in the South Australian Area School Leaders Association Best Practice Awards, sponsored by Credit Union SA. This significant achievement was further reinforced by the fact that the award was recognised and presented by the CEO for the Department for Education, Martin Westwell. The Best Practice Awards are a statewide competition open to all member schools with SAASLA, entries are quite often numerous and varied, with small schools such as Hawker competing against larger schools such as Ceduna Area School with enrolments up to 400 students, so our achievement is made all the more significant by this fact.

The SRC have had a positive year and also continued with an interesting variety of events that tap into general wellbeing as well as making connections with the community on important issues. On the 4^th of September the SRC held it’s Sporty Colours Day, which had a little twist on previous years, with a stronger focus on sports in general. Students were encouraged to play sports during recess and lunchtime, and through this gain the opportunity to be in the special prize draw at the end of lunchtime. On the 12^th of September we had our Pink Day, complete with the best variety of delicious cupcakes, many thanks to Stef Teague and Jessica Morgan for their help with this cause supporting wellbeing with the theme ‘All Kinds of Kindness’. Students were involved in face painting, got the chance to purchase and eat the cupcakes, and had pink waffles for breakfast at the Breakfast Club.

At the end of this term we have some departing staff. Ailsa Green and Steve Green will be leaving after six years of service to the school. Ailsa as Community Librarian has established strong community connections and taught mainly in the Digital Technology area, producing some big time winners in statewide competitions in this area. Her service to the community through the library has been appreciated by many. Steve Green also will be departing, having played an important role in our ICT area in consistently changing times. Apart from this Steve also worked in grounds. Ben Gent is also returning to Adelaide, having worked for around a year in SSO roles in the SWAN rooms, the Front Office and classroom roles. Replacing Ailsa will be Polly Smart for next term.

Book Week

We had our Sports Day on Friday September 6^th, with students from Marree attending. Our athletes also attended the Quorn Area School Sports Day this term and acquitted themselves well with a variety of positive performances. The day was once again very successful with healthy sales on the Parents and Friends Barbecue, and some good spirit shown by students in all events. The Marree students were fantastic in their demeanour and spirit also, providing much needed contact and competition for our secondary students in particular. Events were evenly fought out and in the end the final scores reflected this with Arkaba taking out the shield in a close contest. In the schools contest, Marree took this out for the second year in a row. Many thanks to all who contributed on the day, with our Parents and Friends running an excellent barbecue, community volunteers for helping out with some of our events, the efforts of our teaching and SSO staff and especially a big thankyou to Hayley Brown for her efforts in coordinating the day.

Quorn Sports Day

Leigh Creek this year is focusing on it’s own sports day which is on the second last day of term. Given that this is the last week, we are sending interested students from the Year 3-6 and Secondary classes to the Sports Day. With a long trip and the likelihood of wet conditions we need to have a manageable day. Leigh Creek will be updating us on Monday morning as to the status of the day due to the expected wet weather.  Staff attending will include at least one of our Secondary teachers and myself, along possible with Hayley Brown, our HPE teacher.

Last Friday I took Eli Johnson and Archie Morgan, both Year 6 students to the Table Tennis event at Stirling North Primary School. This is an annual event, with the sport being very popular in Stirling North and Port Augusta. Archie and Eli formed a team with two local students, one also an Eli and RJ. Our team was competitive with Archie and Eli well and truly holding their own against experienced players, and showing a lot sporting etiquette in the way they handled themselves, they were an absolute pleasure to take on the day. In the conclusion the Hawker Hurricanes finished just a point out of playing the finals, a great effort. Following this up for the second part of the day we had the singles and doubles events, with both players once again doing well, and then Eli and Archie teamed up to compete in the challenging doubles format.

Earlier this term I also travelled to Port Augusta for the Hotshots Tennis day, run by Tennis SA. We took most of our Year 3-6 students along for the day, competing against Year 5 and 6 students from schools in the Port Augusta and Stirling North Area. The day was a great challenge for our students who participated well and set a good example for students from Hawker Area School. Basically the event was divided up into two sections with some school teams competing for greater representation in Adelaide and other schools providing players who were still learning the game.

Preparations for the PBL launch in week one next term are progressing, with our focus on the recent Pupil Free Day looking at final preparations. Jan Love was here for the day, and stayed for the week. In the meantime staff have been working on the how the framework works, responsibilities for recording points and managing our shop, recording of purchases and points associated with this. Students have been spoken to about what they would like to see go in the shop, which has a $5 limit on the items that we purchase so far. Jan has prepared an article which is included in this weeks newsletter to inform parents and families further.

The timeline for getting things going with the Covered Outdoor Learning Area (the roof on our basketball court) is in motion. We have two project officers allocated, from the different departments involved in this. The good thing about our project here is the fact that one of our officers was in charge of our hardcourt and toilets projects over the last few years. At this stage a scope of works document is being generated, and some design work leading to finalising specs, and requirements, followed by tender release. This is expected to take about four weeks. Once again we are just waiting for the final steps before construction work will happen again.

Our Parent Student Teacher Conferences were held last week with lower numbers than our event in term one. Some of this may be due to the time of year and the fact that we had a well attended Open Day earlier this term. Both of these events which form part of our Reporting Cycle play significant roles in giving parents feedback on student progress. Parents who did attend received feedback on their child’s progress at the school in the second semester. However given the numbers at this event some possibility of some changes to this and the Open Day may occur.

Have a great holiday, see you all in term four.

Mr Daren O'Neill

Principal 

During term 3 my F-2 class has been focusing heavily on developing our writing skills using the VCOP framework, lots of practice, having a go at spelling, learning new high frequency words and decoding with the sound knowledge we have.

We have also been heavily focused on building our billy-carts with our high school buddies. Each Wednesday of 1 lesson it is sweet chaos in the Tech. Studies room with 8 little teams very busily working away on their carts. Early next term we will finish off the carts and enjoy a traditional bush picnic…racing the carts will definitely be scheduled. I will let the school community know the proposed date as soon as possible.

We have been maintaining our garden with daily visits, watering, pulling out weeds, mulching for the warm weather ahead and feeding our plants periodically. It brings us so much joy, and right now all of the flowers are blooming and the broad beans are almost ready to harvest.

For 3-6 science we have been focusing on planning and running our own experiments around decomposing apples in different environments. We have 1 week to go which will then mean we have been observing and recording changes for a time period of 5 weeks.

Enjoy your holidays and I’ll see you all again in term 4.

Mrs Amanda Hilder

Foundation - Yr 2 Science & Technology / Yr 3-6 Science & HASS Teacher

Getting Messy in the Art Room

This term the F-2 class has been continuing their exploration of colours, producing fun art works with the themes of warm and cool colours, complementary colours and shades and tones.  We have also looked at a few different artists and different art styles such as Pointilism, Mosaics and landscapes.  The F-2 group always come to class happy and eager to create, it is such a fun and enthusiastic environment they help to create.

The 3-6 class has spent the term exploring art created by recycling materials.  We have made our focus material old magazines which have been kindly donated by the school library and kind members of the community.  We started the term studing the work of artist Derek Gores who uses collage techniques to create intricate artworks and created art works in his style.   Our second artist study was Italian artist Naomi Vona who uses paint pens to reimagine magazine pages with an emphasis on colour, line and pattern to create wonderous works of art.  To complete the term we used our collaging skills learnt to create endangered animals posters.

7-8 Art this term has moved its focus from teacher driven to student driven art projects.  Students have been given the chance to create their own art work of choice using journaling skills to develop their ideas and show their path that lead to their final work.  Journaling is important as it assists students to clarify their ideas, explore artists work that they find and take an interest in and it helps them to problem solve when they hit a hurdle so to speak.

Miss Emily

Art Teacher

Book Week at Hawker Area School  -  August 19-23, 2024

Ailsa Green

Teacher Librarian

Student Representative Council (SRC)

We are excited to introduce our new SRC student leader, William du Bois! With Esme Teague's departure, William has enthusiastically stepped up to lead the SRC and contribute to fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment.

This term, our SRC student leaders had the chance to develop essential 21st-century skills, including entrepreneurship, leadership, communication, and inclusivity.

Soap Bar Enterprise

Our SRC's soap bar enterprise has been an excellent learning opportunity for students of all ages. Younger students took on the creative task of designing and packaging the soap bars, while older students handled the manufacturing process. This collaboration has taught them valuable social and teamwork skills. Additionally, our students have been promoting their soap bars at local shops, further honing their communication skills. We are proud to announce that our soap bar enterprise has finished Runner Up for the SASSLA Best Practice Award!

Sport Colour

On September 4th, the SRC organized Sporty Colours Day, with an impressive 75% of students across the school taking part in the fundraiser. Many students showed their support by wearing netball dresses, jerseys, and other sporty attire. The SRC collected 25 donations, raising a total of $47. Thank you to everyone who participated and contributed to the event!

Pink Day – “All Kinds of Kindness”

On September 12th, the SRC hosted a successful Pink Day with the theme "All Kinds of Kindness." We are incredibly grateful to the Parents and Friends community for their support, especially to Jessica Morgan, who helped our students bake cupcakes, and to Steph Teague, who generously donated over 150 cupcakes. Your support was crucial to our event's success.

During Pink Day, SRC student leaders visited the local hospital, bringing cupcakes and appreciation notes to the staff and residents. They also organized a fun face-painting session for the whole school during lunchtime, engaging all students in the day's activities. As a result of these efforts, we raised over $1,000 to support our cause.

Celebrating Growth

I am thrilled to witness the growth of our secondary student leaders this term. They have learned to listen, understand each other’s ideas, and work collaboratively. Our older students are now actively guiding the younger ones, helping shape their suggestions into actionable plans. The successes we see today are a true collective effort. They even took on the responsibility of writing an SRC report for the most recent Governing Council meeting.

As a testament to their achievements, I am honored to have been invited to speak on ABC radio this Wednesday morning to highlight the remarkable work of our SRC students.

Keep up the great work, Hawker Area School student leaders!

Miss Sharon Lam

Mathematics / Science Teacher / SRC 

Term 3 has been a busy time for everyone at HAS. The Children involved with our Pastoral Care get togethers at Lunch time are usually happy to share their time together.
They have been Busy with chill out activities such as modelling clay, sewing and just Hanging out with Sloths ?.
Our breakfast club groups had a wonderful wellness pink day breakfast recently.
Pink Waffles made  Brekky a little more exciting,  topped with Nutella and strawberries as a special treat.
Generally peaches and Vegemite on toast are our usual requests.
Lots of chatting and stories going on before school usually make for a good start to the day.
Thank you to all the supporting parents and caregivers.
We really appreciate your fruit and milk, juice donations. It really makes a big positive difference.

Mrs Robyn McInnis

School Pastoral Care Worker 

I am really excited to be taking the role of Teacher Librarian at Hawker Area School in Term 4. I have worked at the school as a relief teacher for four years, since moving to the area. Prior to that, I have worked in education for all of my working life, including schools in rural and remote SA, TAFE and Charles Darwin University. The role of Teacher Librarian gives me the opportunity to work in two areas that I am passionate about; books and the adventure of learning. Both of these are very rewarding areas to work in, but they are also especially fun with children. Hawker School library has the added bonus of being a community library, so I look forward to seeing many of you coming in for borrowing, and various events and activities. I’m also looking forward to welcoming visitors from far and wide, and having the opportunity to share a little of what we love about the Flinders Ranges.

It’s something I’ve been organising here at Rawnsley Park and it will be awesome. It’s a fantastic experience for kids, adults or family groups.

Ms Polly Smart

Kids go FREE at Nilpena Ediacara National Park these school holidays!

From Saturday 28 September to Sunday 13 October, step back in time to explore the ancient Ediacaran world on a 2-hour guided Ediacara Experience Tour.

Wander through the historic woolshed and be amazed by the immersive audio-visual display in the restored Blacksmith’s Shop. Watch as Ediacara creatures come to life in a stunning 20-minute animation, and touch a real 9-metre fossil bed relocated from the fossil fields!

Bookings essential, find out more in websit.

Nilpena… - National Parks and Wildlife Service South Australia

Video:https://www.instagram.com/reel/DACnXDTt7Jw/?igsh=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==