Principals Report
It has been a busy term where staff, students and the community have had the opportunity to get back to basics, with restrictions from COVID-19 getting a little lighter, enabling more contact for the community within the school. In this newsletter parents and students will find articles on the activities in each learning area in the school, informing of the highlights in learning that have occurred.
In week 3 of the term we had our mid-year interviews where parents and students had the opportunity to come into school and receive feedback on progress so far for this year. Goals have been set at the start of the year and have changed as student targets have been met. These goals address a variety of areas from basic organisation to work routines, but for many of our students they link back to Reading, Writing and Numeracy, our three main targets on our School Improvement Plan. At the younger year levels from Foundation to Year 2 the target especially addresses the synthetic phonics associated with our Read Write Inc program and from here they progress through different aspects of Reading and Writing, all connected to the Australian Curriculum. Similarly, in Numeracy targets set have been linked to the Australian Curriculum and with this aspects of Numeracy such as fluency, automaticity, number sequences and the problem solving approaches that are built more and more into numeracy as students advance through school. At the end of this term reports will go home and they will continue to link up to goals such as these. Secondary reports will be written for each subject and will be formative in nature, while primary reports will be progress checks, reflecting on student effort and progress in each subject.
Throughout the term there have been some great highlights. Earlier this term we held our Sporting Colours day, organised by our SRC to support Kids with Cancer. Students and staff really got behind the cause with a colourful day punctuated by a great variety of sporting strips, representing many different codes, from the football codes, through to motorsports and rodeo. We had a game of ‘Capture the flag’ at lunchtime and finished the day with a testing quiz, where students showed their sporting and colour knowledge quite well, two students in particularly topping the effort with 100% scores. At the end of the day the school community had raised $80.05 for the cause.
On the curricular side our science classes recently engaged in the watermelon challenge, a great team based and hands on learning activity. Watermelons sacrificed themselves in explosive style as students experimented to find out how much energy needed to be expended to blow them up. Rubber bands were used in the hundreds as the melons were wrapped and succumbed to the pressure. Each rubber band had an equal strength in Newtons which was then used in the calculations to figure out the amount of energy required to complete the explosive act.
Recently we had a close stretch of community activities starting with our Open Night on Thursday September 3rd. We had a good crowd of visitors to the night this year. Presentations by teachers and students occurred in the Foundation to Year 2 room, the Year 3 – 5 room, the Secondary Classroom and the Science Lab. In addition to this displays occurred in the Library, Design and Technology, LOTE / Performing Arts and the Kitchen Garden. The night went well with visitors able to see examples of student learning and the processes involved as well as the products of their work.
On September 8th the school held it's Autism Awareness Day, which was attended by members of our community and also a representative from NDIS. The day started with a welcome to country by Pauline McKenzie and a big 'reveal' of our Autism Awareness shirts by our staff. From there students went around to a variety of activities all aimed at giving them an awareness of what life is like from an autistic point of view. The day finished with the unveiling of a sign that will be going up next to our playground area to educate and encourage all our kids to understand the communication needs of other kids. The sign is a picture sign, similar to the visual schedules and other visual tools that are used with Autistic students, and will give our students and adults a chance to understand how to communicate in different ways. I was also shared a link to a great Youtube video which provides a good explanation of Autism, what it is and the experience of autism, the video can be found at
The video provides an animated and interesting explanation of autism and is worth sharing with your kids. The day was testimony to the efforts of all the staff involved, especially Amanda Hilder and Deb Youle. A range of photos from the day can be seen on our Website at
Sports Day this year was a huge success, as around 80 students from Hawker, Leigh Creek, Marree and SOTA attended and competed with each other in a positive atmosphere. The noise level was great, and I received reports from people away from the school who were able to listen to students and adults cheering competitors on, a really positive aspect of the experience for our students. The interschool competition was won by Marree and the House competition by Heysen, in an incredibly close contest over Arkaba. A great feature of this years event was the opportunity to recognise different athletes with age level medallions, and also the new Team Spirit award which was won by Jack Allen. A good variety of pictures from the Sports Day are available to view on our website.
Over the term our students have benefitted from the opportunity to be coached in different sports. Earlier in the term Volleyball SA visited and provided coaching in the basic skills of a game which is quite different to other sports our students have participated in before. Dig Set and Spike are new terms and skills that our students have learnt as a result of this. On Monday September 14th, our students also received coaching from Tennis SA, utilising the new Hot Shots Tennis kit that our local club has received. Both visits gave our students opportunities to further develop skills in these sports.
In week 9 our Year 3 – 7 students visited Monarto Safari Park and gained unique opportunities to observe up close a large range of fauna from the African Plains and other locations. A special focus however of the camp was the opportunity to observe and learn about the endangered Rhino. We didn’t just find out about the species itself but also about the complex challenges surrounding the attempts to save this creature.
This term across our state and nation the issue of Cybersafety has arisen increasingly, in light of the fact that more Australians have been at home and in contact with each other over the internet. This has created issues for students in particular as they have been increasingly exposed to a variety of Social Media and their destructive impacts. In week 9, Headspace, who have been once again visiting our school on a more regular basis came in and spoke with our older students about Social Media and the issues associated with it. A prime learning experience in particular was gained as students found out how intrusive the internet can be, even on the lives of innocent individuals.
In one staffing change for term four, Amanda Hilder will away on a well earned break for the final part of the year. In her place we will be welcoming Harald Walther, who has worked with our students before and is a familiar face for our JP students. We wish all our students a great holiday and look forward to catching up for the start of term four.