25 September 2018

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Andrew Gilsenan-Reed

We are fortunate as a school to have so many staff and volunteers who give their time freely to support diverse opportunities for learning. Extra-curricular learning is reliant on the dedication of staff that plan activities over many months so that our learners can experience learning outside of the confines of the classroom walls. The camps experienced by our Y3-9 learners in week eight provided numerous opportunities for growth and many lasting memories. Equally the enviable co-curricular opportunity offered to our Y10 learners through the Pichi Richi Trade Training Centre is also a great asset to our site and another example of our unique learning environment. On behalf of all of the learners at our school who have benefited greatly from these recent experiences I would like to express my gratitude to all of the volunteers whose actions support our learners.

I am pleased to inform the community that Brad Forkert has been appointed as a permanent teacher at Quorn Area School from 2019. Brad has impressed with his dedication and professionalism since his arrival last year and we believe he will make a significant contribution to the development of the school in the coming years. Sadly we will be farewelling Fiona Black at the end of this term as she will be leaving to take up a long term contract at John Pirie Secondary School. We wish Fiona all the best for her future and thank her for the numerous contributions given to our school over the past two terms.

Reports will be arriving home this week and they will give detailed information on your child’s progress. Please take the time to go through the report with your child and discuss both their progress and future goals. If you have any concerns about the report, please do not hesitate to contact the teacher directly to discuss the issue.

Secondary Report

Our Year 12 students are now counting down the last days of their schooling at Quorn Area School. As I have mentioned in previous newsletters this is the crunch time for our Year 12’s which will cause extra stress and tension on our learners. To minimise this stress, we need our learners to really commit to their education and let their social lives take a back seat for a while.

To increase the chance of success I would advise our Year 12’s to do the following:

• Attend school and lessons for the first 3 weeks as per normal
• Commit to their learning to ensure they hand in all outstanding assessment tasks
• Devote time to study, practise and rehearse exam questions to ensure they prepare themselves for upcoming exams. The recommended amount of time for homework is 1.5 hours per night for year 12’s aiming for an A.
• Stay healthy. Eat nutritious foods and drink plenty that will allow them to remain healthy.
• Utilise teachers at our school. All our teachers are willing and eager to dedicate time and effort to ensure our learners gain the highest mark possible. Make a time to meet with us and we will do our absolute best to help.

SACE INFO NIGHT

On Wednesday 24th October at 5:30pm we will hold a SACE (South Australian Certificate of Education) information night for families wanting to learn more about their child’s education. During this session we will explain:

• What the SACE is
• How to achieve the SACE
• Subject options for your child in 2019
• Book a meeting time to discuss your child’s subject selections for 2019 (in the following week)
• Ask any questions you may have about your child’s study options at Quorn Area School

This information session is aimed at students who are about to start studying the SACE. We recommend that parents with learners studying year 10, 11 and 12 in 2019 attend. I anticipate it will run for approximately 45 minutes. If you would like to be involved in this, please let me know either by phoning the school or sending me an email to matt.griffiths310@schools.sa.edu.au

Middle School Report

Another busy term for students and staff in the middle school. Students have had a number of extra curricula events to participate in. These have included: SAPSASA Athletics, Festival of Music, Middle School Camp, Young Environmental Leaders only to name a few. I would like to thank the parents and staff who support these events, as we would not be able to partake in all of the above without them.

I would like to thank Jed Woolford (Final Year Student Teacher) for his valuable work in the Middle School this term. He was able to provide our learners with rich and engaging material throughout a number of curriculum areas. These included Health and PE, Digital Technologies and Design and Technologies. Thanks to the mentor teachers at QAS who worked with Jed this term. We wish him the best of luck with his future teaching career and have no doubt that he will make a significant impact on the students in which he teaches.

We farewell Fiona Black who has been teaching various curriculum areas within the Middle School and thank her for her contributions towards the learning of our students. We wish Fiona all the very best for her future years and I’m sure she will be sorely missed at QAS.

I hope that you all have a restful break and return to school ready to tackle on the final term for 2018. There are many exciting and engaging learning activities planned for students in the Middle School, which we look forward to undertaking.

Sarah Bury —Middle School Coordinator

YEAR 5-9 CAMP

In week 8 students from Year 5 to Year 9 went to the Adelaide Hills to take in all they have to offer at Woodhouse activity centre. Students participated in a range of activities from geocaching and survival training to taking on Woody’s Challenge Hill. Here is what some of the students thought of their experience:

My favourite part was when Cooper fell in the water and when we played Laser Skirmish. I had the most fun when we went to Challenge Hill. I got on the big slide and the zipline. I didn’t even have to wait for everyone to have their turn since I could run through the whole obstacle course. I have learned something new as well at camp; I learned that you could start a fire with a battery.

Isaac Finlay

Before I went to camp, I didn’t really want to do it, but my brother made me go because he said it was his favourite camp besides going to Sydney. I felt pretty depressed leaving Quorn but the bus ride was kind of fun. During the bus ride I was on my phone but I decided to turn it off so that I could socialise with other people instead. On the bus we watched a couple movies, but I can only remember one which was Zootopia. When we got to the campsite I thought we were going to sleep in the manor which is like a mansion, but we slept in the bunkhouse which was big. The food was great and the activities were alright. My favourite part about camp was when we went to Challenge Hill because it was basically a massive obstacle course. Another activity that was challenging was geocaching. For this activity we walked around with a GPS, found hard questions and answered them. On the bus ride back, we watched Jurassic Park and Seventeen Again.

Reece Freer

I was sad before camp but at the start of camp I became happy. After camp I felt tired. I liked all of the activities we did, but my favourite one would be the hopscotch game. I learned how to survive if you get lost and a new experience for me were the obstacles at Challenge Hill and the Mouse Trap.

Alisha Medlam

I did not want to go because I was far from home and I didn’t want to go with no one to talk to for the 8 hours driving. On the way to camp, I talked to Jeremy the whole time and reasonably had fun, which was made even better when we watched Zootopia. At camp, a lot of the boys were in a big room. I was in that room with both of my best friends and it was a perfect room size for camp. My favourite part about camp was when we went to Challenge Hill and when we played Spotlight. The next day we did Laser Skirmish which was fun, then we did more things like hiking which I found painful and I also learned some new things at camp like how to make fire and shelter. It was good that we watched Jurassic Park at night, we played rock, paper, and scissors, and hopscotch. Overall, in my opinion the camp was fun; 8/10 would go on it again!

Amaru Omonte-Kramer

Primary Report

Year 1-2 Class – Rubber Band Powered Cars

WHAT A BLAST WE HAVE HAD THIS TERM!!!

In Literacy we have been working hard on our reading and putting our words into sentences. We are learning heaps of sight words which is helping us improve our reading. One of the strategies we use to decode an unfamiliar word is to break down words into sounds. We have also been exploring punctuation through the VCOP game Kung Fu Punctuation. This helps us to form full sentences using correct punctuation such as full stops, capital letters and question marks. You can see us showing off our word skills in the video below.

In Maths we have been working really hard to explore counting, addition and subtraction. We have been using counting materials such as marbles, buttons and numicon shapes. Here are some of us using numicon shapes to add and subtract numbers together.

One of our favourite lessons is Dance and Drama. We have been exploring different dances from around the world and classic dances such as The Nutbush and Chicken dance. We have also enjoyed following dance on Just Dance YouTube as you can see in the video below we are dancing to One direction! BUT our favourite thing is the dress ups and becoming different characters in drama.

This week those who were interested, along with the Year 7 Arts class had a visit from Miss Beth. She has choreographed lyrical and jazz dance routines to some of the best songs from The Greatest Showman playlist. This year our QAS Showcase theme will be based on the Greatest Showman. You will be sure to see the students dancing to some of the favourites.

Miscellaneous Reports

Scholastic Book Fair

ADVANCE NOTICE – Scholastic Book Fair is being held in the Library during Week 2 of Term 4 (23rd to 27th October). Reasonably priced books from the Scholastic range will be available for purchase. They make for great Christmas presents for children or grandchildren. Cash sales only

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE

Congratulations to the following students who have completed the PRC for 2018 – your certificates and medals will arrive during Term 4:

Certificate (first year of participation) – Faith Brooks, Savannah Brown, Logan Buckingham, Ella Butler, Maddison Foster, Hugo Gleeson, Levi Hatch, Hayley McCarthy, Nevaeh Pool and Flynn Saxton

Bronze Medal (second year of participation) – Lucas Bury, Kylah Donald, Brayden Shearer, Shelby Finlay and Ebonie Werth

Silver Medal (third year of participation) – Lily-Mae Butler, Codey Daly, Samuel Finlay, Noah Kruger, Georgia Shannon, Elias Ibrahim, Ashalon McKenzie and Tallara Stuart-Colson

Gold Medal (fourth year of participation) – Bailey Buckingham, Cameron Butler, Riley Crisp, Ethan Filsell, Ray Lander, Axel Rowney and Nathan Smith

Champion Medal (fifth year of participation) – Matilda Brooks and Jaiy Hately

Reader for Life Legend (thirteenth year of participation) – Jaquarra Chapman – Jaquarra is the first student at QAS to complete the PRC in every year of her schooling –Reception to Year 12 – and as the next highest student to have completed it (every year) is in Year 4, it will be at least eight years before her record is broken!

CROP SCIENCE INVESTIGATION Field Day

Eight of QAS Yr 10 students travelled to Booleroo to attend a Mini Field Day hosted by CSI on Friday 21st September. This initiative opened many facets within the Australian grains Industry.

There were seven workshops exploring machinery innovation and agricultural engineering, drones, plant breeding and genetics, precision agriculture, soil health and weather monitoring.

The sheer volume of information was fascinating. Practical tasks involved identifying the stigma and stamen of two varieties of wheat, cross pollinating them, to gain the environmental strengths from both varieties. The highlight for me would have to have been separating the DNA from wheat germ by simply using household ingredients and then viewing DNA under a microscope.

The students will then conduct an in school investigation to understand and then develop a solution to address an issue that involves problem solving within the Industry. They might focus on controlling pests within silos as well as on the land, or contribute on ways to increase crop yield within the available farming space to feed an ever growing population. This will be supported by a visit from one of the CSI team to our school.

Festival of Music Choir Concert

Monday evening 17th September was a tribute to the many hours of learning and practise by choir students from the Mid North region. The concert highlighted the varied facets of song including genre, rhythm, language, culture and tone. The night was an outstanding success with all students “singing their part” to form a wonderful Symphony. Our soloists, Madison Hately, Cheyanne Mayer , Alisha Medlam and Emily Taylor were wonderful ambassadors representing our school.

Epipen – Information for Parents & Guardians

End Of Term 3 Assembly

The end of Term 3 Assembly will be held on Friday 28th September at 9:15am. Sub School Awards and Attendance Certificates will be presented. School Dismissal time will be at 2:10pm.

Rowan Ramsey Award 2018

Each year, the Member for Grey, Mr Rowan Ramsay MP, presents a School Community Award.

Accordingly, we are currently seeking nominations of individuals (students/staff/community members) who have provided outstanding support to our school. If there is a person in your mind who fits this criteria, please forward their name and a supporting paragraph (8-10 lines) to Matt Griffiths by Friday 19th October.