Principals Report
Principals Report
It certainly has been a busy start to Term Four. On the 29th of October Lisa O’Neill and I took our IMS students to Booleroo for their concert experience with students from multiple schools including Booleroo, Orroroo, Peterborough and Quorn amongst others. We left just after the start of the day and returned after school finished but the day was well and truly worth it. Kate Mawson, their teacher led and taught the large group of students, around 100 of them through a range of pieces that students had been working on throughout the year. Kate had seven members of the Adelaide Youth Orchestra, who provided valuable support, providing students with a vision of where their musical experience could lead to. The positives for our students were apparent as they went through entertaining games to keep themselves energised as well as the practice and preparation where they got their tempo and timing together in preparation for their big event. After lunch they performed for the Booleroo staff, students and visitors where everything came out with the desired results. Sammy, Pjay, Callum, Emily, Alice, Eli, Archie and Markesha all benefitted from a day where learning and fun were on the agenda. The IMS program is a great experience for our students and I recommend it to our students at Hawker as an extra opportunity to extend their learning here. Thanks once again to Kate for all her efforts and imagination with our students here at Hawker and around the region and to Lisa O’Neill from Hawker who has accompanied and organised our students weekly, and provided musical accompaniment on the piano.
Our COLA project is starting to move forward now with approval being provided to progress the project to a competitive tender. Approval for this via the Schools Upgrade Fund was made available earlier this year with $330000 committed for the project. There will be a three week tender period followed by a one week evaluation period this term for this project. The need for site visits will be minimal as this project has already gone through one process in 2022. This should take some costs off the final figure. The area around our sports court which includes our Basketball / Netball and Tennis courts will be fenced off during the construction period, which will take place early in 2025. Once finished however students at school and any community users will benefit from a sports area with a roof, providing protection from UV and heat over the year and also wet weather in winter.
I have sent out nomination forms for the school community award via Schoolzine for this award sponsored by Rowan Ramsey. The award will be presented at our Presentation night on Tuesday December 10th 2024. Parents and community members can click on the link in the Schoolzine communication or come into the front office to make a nomination. Nomination forms emailed need to be sent to Julieanne Ashenden via the Front Office at Hawker Area School or by email to dl.0175.info@schools.sa.edu.au . Please make the email subject titled ‘Rowan Ramsey School Community Award Nomination’.
At our Pupil Free day on November 4th our staff looked at the new SA Curriculum for Public Education which has been launched for schools this year for trial, with an introduction of each learning area planned out over the next year or so. The curriculum is the culmination of planning by the Department for Education via meetings on line and face to face with educators, as well as large student forums in 2023. The curriculum will strongly take into account our local context in SA and provides more flexibility for our curriculum to be delivered in the South Australian setting which often is quite different from school settings in the eastern states. After the SA Curriculum learning session all our staff had a look at our work within the Strategy for Pubic Education, with our area of impact focus on Wellbeing. This included a special look at personalised learning for our students and individual learning plans. Our Pupil Free Day coming up next week on Monday November 18th will include a continuation of this work, and some time spent on a look at self regulation, which will continue on next year with professional learning being provided for our staff by the Self Regulation Service.
Our Presentation night will be on Tuesday December 10th at the institute. Hayley Brown is our event coordinator for this night. Theme for the presentation night performances is Alice in Wonderland. Priya Moyle, who is very skilled in the area of performing arts, is involved with staff and students in the coordination of the performance for the night.
Our planning for staffing in 2025 is well underway. Recent panels have made appointments for a B1 Leader at Hawker Area School who will have leadership in the area of Wellbeing and Inclusion, a fulltime Special Education teacher and a teaching position in the primary and physical education area. Once appointments have been confirmed announcements on these will be made on Schoolzine and in the final newsletter article for the year.
Have a look at the articles presented by staff in this Newsletter, the second last one for the year. Preparations for the magazine are also well underway at the moment. I look forward to catching up with parents and community members over this term.