Principals Report
Welcome to our 2022 school year! After a staggered start managing COVID situations at Hawker and across the state I feel we are now hopefully starting to return to normal operations. The first three weeks have been extremely busy as staff have combined face to face teaching with remote learning to students at home and at school. I would like to thank staff, students and parents for their cooperation in this area, where the health of everyone in our community is our top priority. In the fourth week of term we have returned to near full attendance and the benefits for staff and students in the classroom can be seen from this.
I would like to formally welcome the following staff to our school and community and wish them all the best for the coming year:
Kim Adele – teaching in the Special Needs area.
Victoria Barratt – teaching our Year 3 – 6 class.
Sharon Lam – teaching Maths and Science.
Howard Yam – working in the Front Office.
Anna Oakey – SSO in particular in our Special Needs area.
Academic Progress
2021 was a great year for our students and it will be an exciting year to come. Success could be seen at all year levels, from Foundation to Year 12. It was great to see that our two year 12s finished off well with Rebekah O’Neill gaining three A- grades and Tiki Bunzeck finishing off her SACE with a B, with the majority of subject results coming from local delivery at Hawker. Our NAPLAN results in 2021 were also pleasing after a two year wait. Across all the year levels we had instances of students who performed at personally high levels, showing improvement on previous NAPLAN results or achievement to the Higher Band level indicating performance well above the Standard of Educational Achievement or SEA for that year level.
Our Junior Primary students, just beginning their educational journey also excelled, improving greatly with their reading. Our Year 1s underwent the Phonics Screening check with all students performing really well, demonstrating a really good understanding of Pseudo and Real words and the sounds associated with them. The Junior Primary students also performed well with their Phonological Awareness Skill Mapping, which is conducted once a term and tests students on their basic identification of sounds associated with syllables, rhymes and the ability to identify sound segments in words.
School Sport Events
Hawker Area School has affiliated this year with our SAPSASA region and School Sport SA. Through these organisations and other individual sports the school may have the opportunity to send students to different sports events or join other schools as a part of combined teams.
Through SAPSASA we can enter students in Year 4-6 competitions, and also through School Sport SA there are opportunities at the 7-8 and 9-10 levels. Some sports are team based and others give opportunities to students at the more small team or individual levels, such as Golf, Cross Country and various bike events. This year the school will have a policy of giving students the opportunity to participate in sports events in three different ways:
- On the individual level where permitted. This would require support from parents.
- Small teams – some sports events required teams of two to four competitors eg Golf, Bowls, and if it suits the background and interest of local students participation can occur.
- Combined teams with other schools in our region, once again dependent on numbers and needs of different schools.
Most events only require a small fee for participation, along with adult supervision, at times this may be a volunteer parent in cases of individual competitors, or teachers, this may be a relief teacher to enable the continuation of our teaching and learning at the school. To assist interested parents with identifying sports and events that may be of interest information on the different sports can be found on the School Sports event page.
Click here to View - Edu SCHOOL SPORTS EVENT PAGE
Not all sporting organisations and events register on this page, so other opportunities this year will come for instance with our Hotshots Tennis event which the school attended in Port Augusta in 2020.
COVID Safe
As the term progresses restrictions will progressively start to ease, but for the moment Secondary students are still required to wear facemasks in class and Year 3-6 students are encouraged to do so as well. Staff are still also restricted from meeting in confined situations or larger groups, with online meetings still our only option for meeting and professional learning. However from the start of week 5 (28 February 2022) here are some of the activities that can resume:
- Day excursions (indoors and outdoors) and incursions (held outdoors where possible).
- Interschool sporting competitions.
- Instrumental music.
- Work experience and work placements.
- Assemblies that are held outdoors.
There will also be a greater list of people who can now visit the school including instrumental music teachers and volunteers required by the school.
As a result of these restrictions a number of events have been delayed but we are hopeful of resuming these in the next few weeks including:
- Governing Council and Parents and Friends AGM.
- Student – Parent – Teacher interviews and goal setting.
As always I can be contacted at the school through our Front Office on 86484003 or via my email address daren.oneill253@schools.sa.edu.au for any questions.