21 March 2017

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Our recent Sports Day highlighted many of the strengths of our school. Whilst there was an impressive number of noteworthy individual achievements combined with outstanding house spirit it was the sense of common purpose, responsibility and respect that will live long in the memory. The support of the community at every stage of proceedings was outstanding and a fantastic endorsement for the school. On behalf of the students and staff of the school I would like to express immense thanks to those who gave both their time and skills freely.

I am pleased to announce that we have made some important changes to our Primary School Curriculum as part of an ongoing process of review. The first change is the introduction of Spanish as a subject in Years 2-6 from Term 2 this year. ¡Hola, Amigos! Has been developed by the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish government’s language and culture arm and has been aligned to the Australian Curriculum. It includes more than 500 engaging multimedia, interactive, sequenced, self-paced language learning tasks. The course can be used independently by students, with Instituto Cervantes tutors remotely monitoring student participation in collaboration with classroom teachers. The second change is the introduction of the ‘Oxford Owl Student Bookshelf’. This online program will complement the traditional levelled reading program we currently operate. The major differences are:

1. Students can log on to their assigned readers both at home and school.
2. Interactive links to related videos to support deeper learning.
3. The students can annotate their assigned book and complete comprehension activities.
4. Students can choose to listen to a book to support language development.

You can view a tour of the program at

Andrew Gilsenan-Reed

Secondary Report

The Secondary School have been very busy with multiple sporting events and learning opportunities taking place. Last Tuesday, Ms Legge and Mrs Fuller took our senior school students to a study skills seminar called ‘Elevate’ at Booleroo Centre. The students found this a very valuable experience, I would like to thank our committed staff who continue to offer our students these fantastic opportunities.

In Week 10 we have the Year 11 & 12 PE students out of school for 3 days completing their sailing practical in Port Augusta from 8am until 4pm. We also have Mr McDonald running his Pichi Richi Trade Training for our Year 10 students where they will gain some valuable ‘on site’ experience as well as their Cert 1 in Furnishing and Cert 1 in Construction. We are very lucky as a school to have someone with Mr McDonald’s knowledge and skills to provide this to our students, thank you Mr Mac.

I would also like to acknowledge the support we have received from various community members and organisations including the SES, Netball Club and Swimming Club for their ongoing support and allowing us to use their shades and equipment. This has helped make our school Swimming Carnival and Sports Day successful and safe for all of our students.

Counsellor Report

Subject Report

Sport

We have still been very busy with sports over the past couple of weeks. A number of students travelled to Adelaide on Tuesday 7th March for the SSSSA Swimming Championships. Congratulations to all the students who made the effort to travel down and take part in this event, well done: Gemma Taylor, Shay Geldard, Abraham Tuckwell, Tom Millington, Tayla Finlay, Jayde Finlay, Aiden Hately-Bell and Chloe Hilder. All of the students mentioned above swam exceptionally, some breaking PB times.

We held our annual Sports Day on March 9th. There were a number of changes made to the format of the carnival again this year; the most notable was the inclusion of 12 students from Hawker Area School participating in the carnival. These students provided some fantastic competition for our athletes. All students who participated on the day produced fantastic performances for their teams and there was a high level of participation which is what we strive for.

From the performances at Sports Day, 30 students were selected to travel to the MNSEC Sports Day on Tuesday 21st March at Jamestown Community School. Thank you to all the parents and caregivers that have offered to transport students. We would not be able to participate in these events without your ongoing support. From the MNSEC Carnival we may have some athletes selected to participate in the SSSSA Athletics carnival at Mile End on Wednesday 12th April.

Sports Day

Sports Day

VIEW GALLERY

Sports Day

Click images to enlarge

SAPSASA Swimming

Congratulations to Sasha Wilton, Joel Finlay and Mackenzie Chapman who represented Quorn Area School at the 2017 SAPSASA Swimming Championships at the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre on March 18th, 2017.

All students achieved personal bests on the day with Joel making two finals - the 50m Freestyle and the 50m Butterfly. He managed to shave almost a second off his Freestyle time and remained consistent with his 50m Butterfly and Backstroke times.

Mackenzie also swam well, taking nearly half a second off her 50m Freestyle, and also swam well in her 50m Backstroke.

Sasha followed by knocking half a second off both her 50m Freestyle and her 50m Breaststroke time.

Fantastic effort by all three students. Well Done Sasha, Mackenzie and Joel!

SAASTA

Kara, Kosmo and Jaymisha attended the Aboriginal Power Cup Workshop run by players and community support staff from Port Adelaide FC at Port Augusta Secondary School. The workshop is a compulsory part of their SACE unit ‘Integrated Learning’ and is preparation for the Power Cup, which will be held at Alberton Oval and Adelaide Oval during Week 5 Term 2. The day involved a cultural workshop and football training with their fellow SAASTA students from Port Augusta, Whyalla, Port Pirie and Gladstone.

Library

Thank you for your support of last week’s Scholastic Book Fair. There will be another Book Fair in Week 2 of Term 4 (just in time for Christmas!)

Parents and Friends

Miscellaneous Reports