4 June 2024

Principal’s Report

Celebrating Our Dedicated Staff: Excursions that Enrich Learning

At Quorn Area School, learning extends far beyond the classroom. Our educational excursions provide invaluable experiences that enrich our learners' understanding of the world. We are incredibly proud of our dedicated staff, who go above and beyond to organise and lead these excursions. Their commitment and hard work make these enriching opportunities possible.

Highlights of Recent Excursions

This term has been filled with exciting trips that have brought learning to life:

• Port Pirie Visit: Our foundation learners attended a Grug performance at the Northern Festival Centre before exploring the Visitor Centre and an art exhibition. The live performance was genuinely enthralling, as was the opportunity to explore the history and creative talents of the region.
• Rock climbing - Warren's Gorge: Year 7-10 learners stepped out of their comfort zone and into a harness for four days to explore the challenges of rock climbing. The group benefitted from the expert coaching of Fraser Darcy, and they seized every opportunity to demonstrate our learner dispositions.
• Brachina Gorge: Our Year 7/8 geography class spent time with Adnyamathanha Rangers, experiencing the rich and diverse landscape of the region. They explored the ancient rock formations and learnt about the connections with Indigenous culture, current conservation efforts and the importance of protecting our natural environment.

Acknowledging Our Exceptional Staff

These excursions are only possible due to the passion and dedication of our staff. Their meticulous planning, attention to detail, and genuine care for our learners' experiences are truly commendable. Here are just a few of the outstanding contributions from our staff:

• Victoria Alexander & Kate Neu, Foundation Teachers: Kate and Victoria share a drive to improve outcomes for our youngest learners across the broadest spectrum of learning. Their enthusiasm and organisational skills were key to the success of the Port Pirie visit. They ensured every detail was perfect, from coordinating with museum staff to preparing engaging activities for learners. We also need to acknowledge the support of Sylvia Jadrych, who not only volunteered on the day but also brought the performance to our attention.
• Monique Griffiths, HPE Teacher: Monique's passion for enhancing learning at Quorn Area School has been a feature of the last decade. She constantly seeks new ways to engage and inspire learners to take risks and challenge themselves and those around them. She has supported learners in reflecting upon their experiences, assessing their achievements, and creating future goals for engaging in new pursuits in our community.
• Bryan Crosby, Geography/Science Teacher: Bryan's commitment to bringing learning alive shone during the Brachina Gorge trip. His enthusiasm and dedication to sharing knowledge are plain to see in the video contained in our newsletter.

The Impact of Excursions

Educational excursions are more than just trips; they are opportunities for experiential learning, personal growth, and building lifelong memories. These experiences help learners:

• Develop Practical Skills: Learners apply classroom knowledge in real-world settings, enhancing their understanding and retention of information.
• Build Social Connections: Excursions foster teamwork, communication, and collaboration among learners, strengthening their social skills and relationships.
• Cultivate Curiosity: Exposure to new environments and ideas ignites curiosity and a love of learning, motivating learners to explore further.

A Heartfelt Thank You

We extend our heartfelt thanks to all the staff members who have invested their time, energy, and passion into making these excursions possible. Your efforts have a lasting impact on our learners' education and personal development. We also thank those staff who have remained at school and willingly covered classes and changed timetables to make these excursions possible.

Let's continue to support and celebrate the incredible work our staff does to provide these enriching experiences. Together, we are creating a vibrant, engaging, and inspiring learning environment for all our learners.

Andrew Gilsenan-Reed

Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea

Quorn Area School recently hosted a successful Biggest Morning Tea, and we are thrilled to announce that, as a community, we raised $1022.00 for a great cause.

We extend our thanks to the local businesses, community members, and everyone who generously donated their time and delicious food to make this event possible.

A special thank you goes to our Governing Council Chair, who spent the morning in the kitchen, keeping us all on track to distribute on time. Also, to Tricia Lehmann for her time in the lead-up to and on the day. Our learners enjoyed baking wonderful treats, contributing significantly to the event's success.

Check out some of the action in the video below.

Video: 

Primary Report

News from the Foundation Class

Literacy

In our Literacy classroom, we have gone on an exciting journey of literacy learning, laying the essential building blocks for a lifetime of reading and writing. We use every moment to explore and discover through captivating stories, fine-motor skill activities, letter formation, daily new sounds, and talking to share our thinking and ideas.

With each new day, the learners continue to grow as they blossom into confident readers. After a term and a half, the learners have developed essential phonemic awareness skills, learning to distinguish sounds and recognise letter shapes. With a focus on sounds, they have begun to decode and read simple words and explore the spelling of words by identifying known sounds.

Literacy learning goes beyond just letters and sounds, and our learners have also been curious as they explore different text types and discover new words to express thoughts, feelings and ideas. As the learners explore genres, they make predictions, draw connections, ask questions and develop critical thinking skills for comprehension.

Art

In Art this term, the learners have been creative artists as they explore both visual and media arts. They have been investigating printing devices and producing their puppet shows. Learners have experimented with texture, colour and pattern to transform blank canvases into incredible works of art. The below pictures were captured when the Foundation tested different print tools. After it dried, we returned with textas to create pictures from our initial painting.

In Media Arts, the Foundations began by exploring drawing and character through guided drawings. Once they had mastered their designs, they used their imagination to draw their characters before bringing them to life by turning them into puppets. Working in small groups, they explore narrative by creating a short play using puppets.

Health

Across our Health and PE lessons this term, we have been exploring identity, safety, teamwork and growth mindset. The learners have been reflecting on what makes them unique and have begun to design a self-portrait exhibiting their interests and important things. We have also focused on social skills, specifically our ‘safe’ people. Below is a picture of the safety shields the learners created, reflecting the people who they know can keep them safe.

A growth mindset is how we think and, most importantly, how we respond when encountering a problem. A growth mindset hones an attitude that empowers learners to show resilience, avoid negative self-talk and encourage perseverance. This term, the Foundations have worked hard to use this thinking when encountering problems in Health and other subjects. They have shown a growth mindset when facing challenges in PE with a new skill or solving a team problem.

Maths

At the heart of our Mindset Math lessons is the belief that everyone can be a confident and resilient mathematician with a growth mindset. This term, we have shown that attitude when exploring problems with shape, subitising and challenging ourselves to record our outcomes. The Foundations have continued to push themselves during this learning and have a strong understanding of numbers.

They have begun to document their investigations through various recording techniques, which they present when they share their findings at the end of the lesson. We have used shapes to create patterns and design our own patterned pictures.

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Miss Victoria
Class Teacher

Secondary Report

Brachina Gorge Excursion

On the 24th of May, seven students from the 7/8 Geography class travelled with two teachers to Brachina Gorge on the new school bus to meet Uncle Arthur, a Senior National Park Ranger and an Adnyamathanha elder.

Along the way, we saw ancient fossils of Ediacaran animals and worms near Teamsters campground and the clear fault line west of Brachina East campground. There were ancient wormholes in the ancient mud flats. Some scientists think they could have destroyed all the Ediacaran life forms when they exploded onto the Adelaide Geosyncline in the Gawler ranges shallow sea.

When we arrived at the rock scree, we introduced ourselves to Uncle Arthur, and Camron paid respect to the land. The students listened intently as Uncle Arthur shared his knowledge of the conservation of the Andu (Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby) over the last 30 years and a Dreamtime story around the formation of Wilpena Pound before we measured time. We learned of “witjuri” and “vimba”, and Uncle Arthur then brought out his guitar, and he shared a special song about Wilpena Pound and why his mob loves it. Lily-Mae thanked Uncle Arthur for his time, and we kept moving along the Gorge.

Now and then we stopped the bus to look at another international geological marvel and had a relaxing lunch and walk around the creek bed at Brachina Gorge East campsite.

After lunch, we passed another signpost to a colonial grave of two-year-old Emma Smith. We also found our way to Trezona and the Golden Spike. This is an international signpost respected by the world's geologists as a clear demarking point between the Ediacaran Era when evidence of multi-cellular life flourished after the “Snowball Earth” thawed.

At the end of the Gorge, we walked and climbed over terraces of uplifted Stromatolites. These sedimentary rocks were laid down before the Ediacaran period, and the Acraman meteor splattered volcanic rocks around the Flinders Ranges area. They were formed around layers of blue-green algae in that ancient sea before the Ediacarans arrived 580 million years ago.

We had a great time and took lots of photographic evidence to use in our assessment back at school.

Mrs Griffiths and Dr Crosby

MNSEC Netball

The Quorn Area School netball girls’ team competed in the MNSEC carnival last week in a brilliant display of determination and teamwork. The competition took place at Port Pirie, and the team engaged in three spirited matches against St Marks, Gladstone and Booleroo. Whilst victory may have eluded us on the court, the team displayed exemplary resilience and sportsmanship.

From the outset, the girls knew they met a challenge as they competed in the Open League, facing off against teams built of year elevens and twelves. Despite the absence of a win, our team demonstrated unwavering resolve and commitment, with each possession fiercely contested. Our Quorn team exemplified the values of fair play and respect and showed grace in success and defeat.

The unwavering positivity and determination from both Mia and Ella inspired the team to give their best effort until the final whistle. In each game, Ebony and Kylah worked in tandem to defend and reduce the score, successfully intercepting the ball and sending it back towards our attackers. Both Georgia and Lily-Mae worked hard to get in front to create opportunities to score and ensure that all rebounds were chased. Renae and Shelby’s commitment to the centre created passing opportunities, and their agility, work ethic and anticipation allowed for multiple turnovers. The collaboration and support within the team saw continued success as the girls relentlessly built upon their score in each game.

To start our day, the team built a lolly salad, which was a constant source of energy and a way to pick ourselves up (enjoy this video the girls directed). The Quorn MNSEC team showed brilliant sportsmanship and drive (even with only one substitute) and made QAS very proud. Congratulations to our MNSEC Netball team on multiple games well played and here’s to many more memorable moments on the court next year!

Miss Victoria
Team Coach

Miscellaneous Items

Toastie Tuesday – Spriggy Schools

We are excited to introduce a new online lunch-ordering system called Spriggy Schools.

Spriggy Schools will make lunch orders more convenient for families and the canteen volunteers.

Steps to get started:

1. Go to www.spriggyschools.com.au to register and download the app.
2. Add a profile for each of your children, making sure you select SCHOOL NAME and your child’s class.
3. Start placing lunch orders!

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact Michelle Baker at the school.

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