Welcome to our end of Term 3 newsletter, where you will find summaries of the teaching programs for all our learning areas. I hope you enjoy catching up on what our students have been up to. It has been a challenging term where we have had a run with COVID for the first time in larger numbers, with staff members out every week as well as students. This has caused some disruption with the cancellation of our Pupil Free Day and Open Night. In addition to this the creation of the public holiday for the memorial service for the Queen also led to the cancellation of our Yura Muda camp. This unfortunately will not go ahead now this year as conditions up north in Term Four would not be suitable for running this event.

We have had a busy term for school sports events. Earlier this term our SAPSASA footballers and netballers travelled to Port Augusta to compete against schools in the Port Augusta area. On August 19^th we made our annual excursion to Quorn to compete in their Sports Day. Good weather greeted us for a change and our students competed well in their age groups and got the chance to catch up with Quorn students that they competed against last year. There were many highlights for our students, including our involvement in the running events, but for me the moment I remember was the boys U/12 high jump event, where our students competed to get some personal bests. Lachlan Hilder and Jimmy Morgan competed well, and Vai Uran went on to win the age group, finishing off with an attempt at the Quorn Area School record height for the age group, just missing out in his attempts.

This was followed by the Hawker Area School Sports day on September 2^nd, held once again in great weather on the day. Many thanks go to our Parents and Friends for their efforts in running the barbecue on the day, the steak sandwiches and sausages went down well! Marree Aboriginal School and the School of the Air students also visited to compete and did well on the day. The day started with our running events including the 50m and 100m for each age group, but the 400m really tested all competitors and it was good to see that on from last year some of the competitors had reflected well on the art of pacing themselves. I was at the javelin event, and similarly as events went on our athletes worked on the art of the throw to get some good results. After the field events the day finished off with the relays which were well competed, no real disasters on the baton exchanges! The end of the day tug of war was also a highlight with some older house veterans joining in to increase the power and strain on the rope! A big thankyou to Kim Adele for all her efforts in organising the Sports Day, this was the first time she had organised such an event. Thankyou also to Cameron Redden, Travis McDonald and the rest of the grounds staff for setting up the track, it is a complicated exercise on an oval such as ours where 400m just won’t fit. At the end of the day we were able to announce Arkaba as the winners, but some technical hitches did not allow us to go further than this. Final announcements and medal winners will be recognised and awarded on the last day of term.

Golf is one of my great personal interests and is a great game for our younger students to participate in so it was very pleasing to see William DuBois and Angus McInnis qualify to compete in Adelaide recently. Both boys went to the golf day in Port Augusta earlier this term and were successful in qualifying to go to the Adelaide event at the Adelaide Shores golf course. The boys reported back that conditions were challenging on the Par 3 – 4 layout, with some different factors than what we have to consider in Hawker……grass and wet conditions? Both players put in some good scores, Will scored 100 and 99 off the stick, with Angus scoring 102 and 106, no doubt improving their games with the experience they got on a quality layout.

Last week our schools travelled north to Nilpena Ediacara National Park at the invitation from park staff. I would especially like to thank Arthur Coulthard, one of our parents and Senior Ranger with National Parks and Tina Brew, the Senior Policy Officer for Flinders Ranges World Heritage, National Parks and Protected Area Program for organising such a challenging day. This excursion was in the planning since last term when it was first mooted and with the special significance of the location it was very important to get all resources organised for the one day so the excursion could go ahead.

Students on arrival at Nilpena were divided into their groups for the day and found out about the incredibly unique and special nature of the location, which is in the process of being hopefully declared a World Heritage site – a location with evidence of the first life on planet earth, fossils over 500 million years old. The opportunity to see the developing tourist location with it’s state of the art digital representations of life as it looked way back, was significant for our students, Hawker and Leigh Creek, who travelled there at the end of last term are the only students to witness the location at this stage. Our relief teacher, Kevin O’Reilly, who was here last week has written an article which is included in this newsletter, describing the unique experience that our students experienced.

The SRC has had a busy term as well. On August 11^th our student leaders held the Pyjama day and recently staged the Colour Run, event on September 9^th, however freezing conditions on the day caused the cancellation of the run, but students still got to enjoy the hotdogs and jelly frogs!, At this stage the plan is for this to be held on the last day of term after lunch and before dismissal, hopefully the weather will warm up by then!

Hawker Area School NAPLAN results and parent reports have arrived back at the school for distribution home, this should happen soon. It was an interesting year for NAPLAN as over half of the students doing the test were doing it for the first time, after the tests were cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. Students have also been completing their PAT R and M tests at the end of this term, these tests are largely a diagnostic exercise, not a benchmarking one. The results of these and the NAPLAN data from earlier this year will contribute to our planning for 2023.

I hope you enjoy the newsletter and photos that accompany it. As always if parents have any questions they can make contact with the school through the front office or by my email at daren.oneill253@schools.sa.edu.au