9 August 2018

Newsletter Articles

Principals Report

Welcome to Term 3, I hope everyone has had a good holiday and has returned back to school refreshed and ready for school. This is the term where things start to warm up a little and our school activities will reflect this with outdoor themes reflecting this. This term there will be at least two sports events for our students, the Hawker Area School Sports Day and the Leigh Creek Area School Sports Day, where Hawker and Marree Aboriginal School are also invited. There will be at least one camp and a variety of excursions. In addition to this in the final week of the term, the School of the Air is planning in a visit to the school and engage in some activities with Hawker students, more on that one later in the term.

NAIDOC day events were held on Thursday July 26th on the school oval, being open to the community and held with the aim of celebrating Aboriginal Culture in our region. All students were involved in a rotation of activities around our school oval, which included Rock Carving, Target throwing, Aboriginal Arts and Crafts including painting and the creation of a NAIDOC hand mural. Students from Leigh Creek Area School also attended, adding a real sense of community to the day. Cultural songs were sung around the campfire area and at the end of the day Aboriginal women who attended told some of their stories to the audience, which addressed the theme, ‘Because of her we can’, recognition of the role of mothers in their children’s lives. Many thanks to Sasha Andersson, Pauline Coulthard and Kerri McKenzie for their roles in getting the day organised and to members of the community who donated their services. It was a great day and seeing the knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal culture in our region being displayed, understood and appreciated by our students was very impressive.

On Tuesday July 31st I attended the Far North Partnership Review in Port Augusta, with the other school leaders from our region. Our partnership is a diverse one, with a large range of schools in terms of size and enrolments, located in isolated points on the map. Leaders travel hundreds of kilometres for meetings, as all our community would know from their own personal experiences when they have to travel. The meeting was attended and led by Rob Harkin, our partnership Education Director, along with Anne Millard from Partnerships Schools and Preschools and Susan Cameron, the head of the Learning Improvement Division for the Department for Education in Adelaide. It was described as a two way learning dialogue at the start, where open discussion was had on a variety of topics to explore the stories behind our data. Discussion related to a variety of experiences from our region, but especially focussing on Literacy Development from Pre School through to Secondary Years, SACE and the victories and issues that leaders face. It was a very positive experience as a leader, the discussion was open and honest and I feel that a lot of benefit and direction was gained from this. From the meeting Susan Cameron proposed a set of key directions for our Partnership to follow in the future.

I am pleased to announce that our iPads will be in the hands of our students by the time this article is read. Hopefully students in the primary years will be able to pass on some positive stories about their first use of these devices, or the fact that yes they have handled them. In the process of getting the project completed the school has also been able to set some further goals for improving the efficiency of our wireless network. Our students in the secondary area already have new laptops which were handed out at the start of the year.

During the holidays work on our F-2 classroom commenced and parents of our JP students should be receiving some stories about this happening. Mrs Hilder's class has been placed in the Multi-Purpose room in the meantime which is just across from their soon to be revamped classroom. At the end of the construction students will have a room which will be opened up to allow more space for students to work in. The construction phase also brought on a bit of nostalgia as items from the past were discovered under the floorboards, including the final bits of chalkwork on our old blackboard which was once again exposed to the outside world. This brought on some discussion and reminiscing from members of the community. Some of the pictures taken can be seen on our school Facebook page.

In this newsletter you will find articles from teachers overviewing their programs for this term. Please read them as our staff have put some time into informing parents and students here. Some may even talk about the planned integrated units on STEM that will happen in the second half of the term.

Have a look as well for information on our Homework Centre which commenced last term and has been having a regular audience. On Tuesday Penny the Story Dog made her first appearance and was a huge success with our students as they lined up to read to her! The centre has been a big hit so far, and runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3.30 – 4pm.

Hope you all have a great term at Hawker. If you need to send me a message please make contact through the front office on 86484003 or through my email address at daren.oneill253@schools.sa.edu.au.

Mr Daren O’Neill
Principal Hawker Area School

Foundation – Year 2

An update from the strange and mysterious land of the little people…

Welcome back to all my F-2 students and parents. Term three has started well right out of the gate. Our class welcomes Samira Burgoyne and we hope she enjoys her time with us. With Samira our class numbers come in at 16 which is still the biggest and most complex compensate class I have ever taught.

I had a teaching colleague come in to do some observations this week and one of the remarks was, “When I think of your class I often wonder how you can manage to teach them. Now I can see it is a well-oiled machine!” Nice to hear.

As you are probably aware the F-2 class is operating out of the multipurpose room for 4-5 weeks while our actual classroom gets an amazing makeover. The internal room space is going to be unrecognisable and incredibly amazing to work in once everything is in place. 21st century here we come!!

This term I have planned under two overarching themes. For the first five weeks we are running with the Book Week theme: Find your Treasure. For the second half of the term the theme will be: Our Bush Camp. As usual I will choose pieces of the curriculum from all of my subject responsibilities and create lessons with the themes in mind.

Some example of our work under the first theme are; Technology-Blu Bots coding and treasure maps, Science-Treasure from our arid land mind map (plants, animals etc…), HASS-Family Treasures Tree, Maths-Money and Time. Now that we have finished our holiday recounts for writing, our English will begin to follow the theme more closely too.

The following gallery shows - HASS- photos of a Family Gem Tree, Technologies- a blu bot successfully programmed to follow the treasure map, English-Pseudo words from the land of Pseudo speaking creatures, Mathematics-Money in a value line from smallest value to largest.

This term also sees us install the new garden play space on the northern side of the library. At times during the term I will put out requests for an hour’s help here or there if you can spare any time. I’d rather do it that way than have a working bee because I am more apt to managing smaller crowds and I want the kids to do the majority of the organising/placement in school time.

Don’t forget our two nights at Alpana Station F-2 Camp is planned for week 9, Wednesday 19th, Thursday 20th. We will leave on Wednesday morning and return Friday afternoon at 2:00.

Book Week is in four weeks and as mentioned above the theme is: Find your Treasure. We have a dress up parade during that week so if you haven’t already, start thinking about what your child(ren) might like to come dressed as.

Cheers for now,

Mrs Amanda Hilder
Foundation – Year 2 Teacher

Year 3-6 class

Welcome back! This term our theme is ‘Going on a journey’, which links in well with the book week theme this year, ‘find your treasure’. We will use this theme in most of the subject areas this term, and we are in the process of decorating our classroom accordingly.

In English we will be reading ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. We will aim to finish this book by mid-term and then we will watch the movie and make comparisons. We will also be focusing a lot more on handwriting this term.

Our science topic this term is Earth and Space sciences which fits our topic well. We will have a strong focus on space, and later in the term students will be designing their own planets! They will get to use some of the knowledge they acquired in term one on biological science to create the inhabitants of their planet.

In math we will focus on measurement and geometry. This fits our theme well as the students will be learning to read and create maps, plot grid references, describe routes and use compass directions.

At the end of term 2, we visited Leigh Creek to view the play ‘The Ghost of John King—A Burke and Wills Grand Adventure’. In HASS this term we will continue to learn about their journey.

In Art this term we will be working from the dance curriculum. Students will learn several different dance styles and come up with their own routines. We will also begin learning some of the routines for the school production of The Aristocats!

We have lots to keep us busy this term and I’m sure it’s going to pass by very fast!

Miss Hayley Brown
Year 3-6 Teacher

Year 7-12 class

Term 3 is going to be partly chilly and partly warm. The 7 – 12 class learners have built enough resilience to withstand any kind of weather and learning challenge and are thus eager to delve into the term’s activities.

The 7 - 9 English class will be focussing on nonfiction and the text types they will specifically explore are the procedure and the information report. The entire spelling they will do for the term will be based on nonfiction subject specific terminology. In their procedural texts the learners will integrate English with their engineering skills and will explain the process of either designing a specific kid’s toy of their choice or designing a portable beach coffee table. In their information report they will focus on Geographical data from primary and secondary sources and write an in depth report/reflection on Australia’s asylum seekers and refugees.

In Geography, the 7-9 class will study the topics Migration and Tourism. Students will use their empathy skills through role play. They will imagine themselves as a newly arrived Australian migrant and they will write a letter back home briefing their friends or family on what’s happening to them in Australia. The class will use field work and the inquiry approach to investigate tourism in Wilpena Pound and Castle Rock and research the plant and animal life in these areas and how humans are influencing the change of the landscape there.

2 students will be studying Stage One Essential English and 1 student will be doing PLP this term and our candidates will hopefully be on track towards successfully completing their SACE in November next term.

The Year 12 Stage 2 English external component has already been successfully completed by our sole candidate. She is currently doing very well and is ahead of schedule which means she can slow down a bit and polish her work so her grades in the remaining assessment tasks are spectacular. I don’t think we will have anyone completing the Research Project this semester. I am confident the students will successfully complete these programs. Thanks to the parents and caregivers for continuing to be supportive to our learners at this very advanced and demanding level.

I wish the 7 - 12 class all the best during the rest of the year. I urge parents to encourage our students to come to school every day. Attendance is currently my priority focus in this class and I desperately need your support to ensure every learner attends at least at 96% per semester. Our students are diligent and focused and I wouldn’t love for them to get mediocre grades because of poor attendance.

Mr Mphilisi Manombe
Year 7-12 Teacher & SACE Coordinator

Physical Education and STEM

I hope everyone has had a fantastic mid-year break and is refreshed for an exciting new term. Hawker Area School will be undertaking the Premiers Be Active Challenge this term.

The challenge is to do at least 60 minutes of physical activity on at least 5 days of the week for at least 4 weeks. Each participant in our school community will be able to record their activity in their log books. We will be starting in Week 2 so be on the lookout and encourage each participant to be active in any way possible (as long as they are moving!).

From a sporting perspective we will be participating in two Sports Days this term - the first is our own and the second is Leigh Creek’s.

Hawker Area School Sports Day is Friday Week 6 August 31st and Leigh Creek's Sports Day is Friday Week 8 September 14th. As always if any parents or family members would like to come along and cheer along their children, they are more than welcome and your help and support is greatly appreciated.

In our 7-10 STEM class our theme for Term 3 is Life in the Flinders Ranges. This term will be split into two different projects with both focusing on Biodiversity and Sustainability. This term students will learn about ecosystems, interactions between organisms and using science and technology to solve real world problems. We will incorporate the 3D printer into our learning, but what the students will create is still unknown so watch this space! This theme will allow students to develop their problem solving, inquiry and creative thinking skills.

Scientific outcomes include: classification, food chains and webs, classification, energy flow through ecosystems, interactions within ecosystems, sustainable resources and renewable energy.

Mathematics concepts covered will include: probability and statistics, geometry and measurement, location and transformation, patterns and algebra.

In our Health class we will be designing lunch time activities for the Premier’s Be Active Challenge and designing programs to improve an aspect of their physical fitness.

Good luck to students, parents and staff for Term 3 and as always if you have any concerns, compliments or anything in between please feel free to chat with me anytime.

Mr Vinny Urbancic
Physical Education Teacher and STEM Coordinator

Music and Languages

Music

The curriculum this term will be a full one, not only are all classes continuing with their ‘regular scheduled programming’ of singing, musical literacy and a Kodaly-based methodology, but we will be starting to practise some of the pieces of music from our end of year production “The Aristocats”, AND working on this year’s Music: Count Us In piece “One Song”

Band

Band times remain the same (B1 – Tuesday L3, B2 – Wednesday L4). Students came well practised this week, and it shows in our lessons. We have started a new, whole-band piece of music. It’s our bands first ‘real’ band chart! I feel like a broken record, but please remind your children that their contract states that they need to be practising for a minimum of 15 minutes a day, 6 days a week. Without practise, we stagnate, and go backwards, and it’s just not fun anymore.

Choir

WEEK NINE IS FESTIVAL TIME! Our choir is performing on the 20th of September (Concert 3) and we will be organising travel and accommodation with the Leigh Creek Choir. A new schedule has been provided to students, and this needs to be adhered to in order for us to successfully learn all our parts and choreography by week 9. Choir time also remains the same, and any changes will be communicated with parents through our new Messenger group. I have found this method of communication very useful, so thank you all for your participation.

Yura Muda

This semesters Yura Muda program began with our whole school and community NAIDOC Fun Day! Thank you all for all your help in organising, running activities, visiting and singing. It was an amazing day and I plan to have the mural up soon!

Language

Foundation – Year 2 students Language classes will now be focussed on the Adnamatna language, and this will be our focus for the rest of the semester. Students in Years 3 – 6 and 7 to 10 will continue with one lesson of each Indonesian and Adnamatna. They must really be commended for their ability to code switch – not once has someone responded to Nunga with Selamat Pagi! In all classes we will be continuing with the TCI and TPR methodologies. Students are starting to do more and more writing in Indonesian as our word wall gets bigger, and over the holidays an Adnamatna word wall appeared, so we will be able to do more with that now too!

Mrs Sasha Andersson
Music and Language Teacher

Teacher / Librarian

Penny Story Dog

Research has proven what we probably all instinctively know: that the more a child reads the greater the academic success they will achieve

Many children love reading but they can lose confidence in their ability and feel frustrated at their skill level which can impact their motivation.

So how could a Story Dog help?

Reading to or alongside a dog can have a calming effect on readers as dogs are non-judgemental and welcoming. Most children feel safe and happy in the presence of a dog where they can read in a non-interrupted and independent way.

A Story Dog can make reading enjoyable and rewarding for all readers and has been known to contribute to general wellbeing and positive behaviours in the classroom.

Hawker has decided to trial a Story Dog and we have been very fortunate to access Nick and Bev Garrood’s dog Penny. Penny has been noted for her kind and calm behaviour when she visited patients at the Hawker Memorial Hospital and she seemed a perfect choice for this endeavour. Nick will bring Penny in to the library on a Tuesday where she will listen to interested students read to her between 3.15-3.45 pm.

Students who read to Penny will receive a sticker on a record sheet.

We will advertise further visits throughout the term once they become available.

SPELD visit

The library is keen to organise events that foster literacy understanding and development and we are very pleased to announce a visit from a SPELD educator who will work with the staff on Phonics and present a workshop for parents the on the topic:

Listening to your child read: how to make it more enjoyable and effective

This workshop provides information and ideas about how to make listening to your child read a more rewarding experience for all involved. It explains why some readers are more suitable than others and how to structure short, efficient sessions which foster engagement and success.

SPELD stands for Specific Learning Difficulties. SPELD SA is a non-profit organisation that provides advice and services to children and adults with specific learning difficulties and those who care for, teach, and work with them.

This workshop will be held in the Hawker School Community library Friday August 10 at 9.00 am.

All parents and care givers are welcome. The workshop will be followed by a light morning tea.

BOOK WEEK

Each year across Australia, the Children’s Book Council of Australia brings children and books together celebrating CBCA Book Week. During this time schools, libraries, booksellers, authors, illustrators and children celebrate Australian children's literature. Hawker Area School is planning a children's book character parade and students will be contributing to our Book Week display. Parents and care givers, please make sure all costumes are ready for the parade on Wednesday August 22. This year the theme is Find Your Treasure.

All staff are welcome to dress up and join in the fun too.

Standing Orders Book Club

The 5th edition of the Standing Orders Book Club has gone home and we look forward to your purchase requests by Friday August 10. Thanks again for your contributions to the library collection as each book purchased enables us to buy new resources for our students.

COFFEE in the Library

All parents and care givers at the school are invited to a coffee and get together next Wednesday August 1 in the library between 9-10 am.

Premier’s Reading Challenge

Is your child taking up the Challenge in 2018?

If so, please ensure they fill in their student reading records as they read their books, have them signed off as they go and please make sure your child hands it in to their teacher or the school contact person by: Friday 7 September.

The Challenge is to read 12 books in total.

In:

• Reception to Year 7, 8 of these books are to be from the Challenge booklists, available on our website, and 4 of their own choice.
• Years 8 and 9, students read 4 books from the Challenge lists and 8 of their own choice.
• Years 10 to 12, students read 12 books of their own choice, and these can include prescribed texts and any other texts from their studies.

Student reading records are available from your librarian Janet Spooner-Adey.

The library has marked many Challenge books with coloured stickers to identify them.

Your son/daughter can also Rate a Read, reviewing the books that they are reading and send this in to us on the website. Also, we have a student blog section for posting and sharing thoughts about the Challenge and books that they are reading – encourage your children to have a go!

Enjoy the Challenge!

Goodbye from Janet Spooner-Adey

I am leaving Hawker Area School in the next few weeks to take up a new job in Adelaide. My last day will be August 14. I will no longer be in a school but in the corporate world working with Library software and library products. It is not an easy task to leave as I have met many wonderful staff, students and members of the Hawker community and feel privileged to have worked here but my family would like me closer to them.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me and made me welcome and special thanks to Rosie who has continued to support and assist me in every way possible during my time here. Good bye.

Mrs Janet Spooner-Adey
Teacher Librarian

Reminder