Principals Report
It has been a very busy start to the term and we have still six weeks to go before the end of the year. Preparations are going ahead for next year with our two Pupil Free days and weekly activities by staff to prepare our School Improvement Plan.
Our staffing plans have been set in place and in 2022 we will have a Foundation to Year 2 class, a Year 3 to Year 6 class (Maths and English will be taught separately to Year 3-4 and to Year 5-6 student groups) and a Year 7 to Year 12 class. Around this structure of our main classes the following staffing decisions can be reported back to the community:
- Penny McCulloch will still be teaching our Foundation to Year 2 class, and also taking on the teaching responsibility in the Learning Area of the Arts across all our classes.
- Sharon Bates will teach mainly Year 7-11 across English, HASS and Home Ec, but will also teach Year 5-6 English and Year 5-6 HASS.
- We are advertising currently for a Maths / Science / PE teacher. This position will involve the teaching of Maths and Science across Years 7-11, Maths to the Year 5-6 students and PE across all three classes.
- We have appointed Victoria Barratt to our Year 3 – 6 Primary Teacher position. She comes with a very good background in primary teaching. She will teach English, Maths and HASS to our Year 3 – 4s and have other teaching responsibilities to our Year 3 – 6 students.
- Amanda Hilder will continue in her role in Special Ed and we are also advertising for a Special Ed teacher, teaching three days a week.
As further decisions are made in this area they will be reported to the community.
Walking Trail
I am pleased to announce that we have applied for a Council grant of $5000 for the development of the walking trail which runs adjacent to the school. This will be a project where we collaborate with students, staff, parents and our wider community, with the aim of reinvigorating the trail and opening the area up to bike riding as a recreation activity for our students. We plan to complete the following:
- Irrigation of plants on the walking trail.
- Redevelopment of the jumps area by the gym.
- Planting of indigenous plants along the trail.
- Topping up the trail with gravel.
- Designing new signposts detailing plants on the trail.
Expertise from Quorn where there is a similar development in the form of their nature trail will be tapped into and we will be working closely with the Flinders Ranges Council on this development.
Bikes Palya
The school is in the process of getting a week long bikes education program called Bikes Palya to Hawker Area School in Term Two next year. This is a program which focuses on healthy lifestyles and has been facilitated by non-profit Bicycle South Australia (Bike SA) since 2013.
The program is an active diversion and engagement course that promotes riding and fixing bikes as an important vehicle for developing healthy and empowering behaviours in our youth. By using creative and engaging hands-on activities and projects, the program aims to engage students about life and education in general.
This will be a five day program with activities for all year levels on each day. The session will focus on bike riding skills, road safety and general bike maintenance skills. Our students will learn throughs hands-on sessions how bikes work. At the end of the course, the students will have have the chance to successfully gain the skills to assemble their own bike. More on this program will be reported to the community in term one next year.
School Improvement
Over this term our staff will be working on the development of our School Improvement Plan for 2022 – 2024. This process will involve extensively looking over our student learning data, learning program while also utilising the improvement tools currently available by the department to help generate our new learning plan. In line with this we are also having two Pupil Free days this term:
- November 1st – Australian Curriculum day.
- November 22nd – Whole School Planning day for 2022.
These days will help to greatly assist us in our preparations for 2022 and beyond.
Cybersafety
The school is currently using the resources from the Australian Government Website ‘eSafetyCommissioner’ which can be found here -
The site contains a lot of well constructed lesson resources for all year levels, including Junior Primary and Early Years classes. It also contains links for a variety of groups including Kids and Parents, as well as young people that can all be accessed by going to the home page link above.
One of the activities for Students in Foundation to Year 2 involved viewing an episode of Play School called ‘Kiya’s excellent eBirthday’. Part of the ABCs evidence for presenting the program was that 81% of parents with pre-schoolers stated that their children use the internet, it is important to build understandings of online safety right from the start when this statistic is considered.
SRC
The SRC at the end of last term purchased the following:
- A mobile basketball backboard.
- Two mobile netball poles.
In doing this our students recognised the needs of our Junior Primary students to have basketball and netball facilities that engage students in younger age brackets in particular. Our basketball backboard has been adjusted to a height suitable for Junior Primary students in the Under 10 bracket, as has one of our netball poles, the other being set up to allow the big kids to shoot as well! Recently in Junior Primary HPE the students got the chance to give the backboard a test shoot!
End of Term
Don’t forget our Presentation Night will be on Tuesday December 7th and our Final Day of school will be Thursday December 9th.
As usual if anyone has any questions I can be contacted through the front office on 86484003 or through my email at daren.oneill253@schools.sa.edu.au