7 March 2023

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

This month we have arranged two information evenings to introduce caregivers to our learning programs, new staff and our array of online learning resources. The first of the evening focused on primary learners and the reading journey. Thanks to the primary team for contributing their time to ensure caregivers receive all the information necessary to support their child's learning at our school. If you could not attend the event but would still like to discuss ways to support your child's learning, please don't hesitate to message your child's teacher through Daymap or call the school to arrange a suitable meeting time. You may also follow the link below for more information regarding phonics and reading.

The senior school information evening is scheduled for this Thursday. The secondary teachers look forward to meeting you and discussing the various ways you can connect with and support your child's learning.

Our Governing Council AGM will be held on Thursday, 16 March, at 5:30 pm in the staffroom. I will present the Annual Report at this event, which details the successes of 2022, the journey travelled, and the priorities for 2023. We will upload the annual report onto our website following the meeting, and it will be located alongside our 2022 External School Review on the homepage. In advance of the meeting, I would like to thank those members of our community who served on the Governing Council in 2022. Thanks also go to those caregivers who have already expressed an interest in nominating for positions in 2023. Nominations will close on 15 March. Feel free to contact the school directly to confirm your nomination or request further information regarding the importance and role of the Governing Council.

Andrew Gilsenan-Reed

Student Free and School Closure Days 2023

Swimming Carnival

Kanyaka 921 defeated Yarrah 862

Team Spirit Awards

KANYAKA Jackson Byrne (HAS) & Ella Butler; YARRAH Saskia Baxter & Clyden Kelly-Weetra

The annual QAS swimming carnival was an overall success. Thank you to all the volunteers who timed, marshalled, and assisted with the sausage sizzle, despite the unfortunate day change due to the heat.

A huge thank you to Sue and her team in the canteen, who ensured that the lunch orders were prepared on time. These events rely heavily upon parent/community volunteers, and we are thankful for the support each year.

Well done to the House Captains who spent their time organising swimmers in events and hosting lunchtime activities, including decoration making and raft building. Seeing the Hawker students participate and join in on the day was nice.

If you have any feedback regarding the swimming carnival. Please contact Sarah Bury at the school.

MNSEC Swimming

Congratulations to the following swimmers selected and represented QAS at the MNSEC Swimming Carnival held in Booleroo on Tuesday the 21st of February.

George Peart, Renae Churchill, Tyra Lander, Ella Holtham, Ebonie Werth, Lily-Mae Butler, Lachlan Hilder (Hawker), Sam Finlay, Noah Kruger, and Camron Snelgrove. They all swam their hearts out during the evening and some personal bests were recorded. I want to congratulate the students on their enthusiasm and positive attitudes on the night. You should all be very proud of yourselves.

Handicap Shield

School Points
1st Jamestown 560
2nd Gladstone 489
3rd Booleroo Centre 480
4th Peterborough 428
5th Orroroo 422
6th Quorn 164

Overall Shield

School Points
1st Booleroo Centre 425
2nd Gladstone 399
3rd Orroroo 378
4th Jamestown 306
5th Quorn 78
6th Peterborough 35

MNSEC Athletics

MNSEC Athletics is scheduled for Thursday the 23rd of March at Jamestown Community School. The team is currently being selected and permission notes will be sent home by the end of the day today. I plan to run some practise sessions for the team over the next three Wednesdays after school. These will be situated on the oval from 3:10pm-4:10pm.

• Wednesday the 8th of March
• Wednesday the 15th of March
• Wednesday the 22nd of March

Secondary Report

Senior Information Evening

I look forward to seeing families this Thursday evening in GC4 from 5:30-6:15 pm. Information covered will include DAYMAP, The Literacy Journey, Online Learning and Meet the Teachers.

Vocational Education Training

Congratulations to Stage One learners Lachlan Holtham and George Peart. They have both begun working towards a VET qualification. Lachie is undertaking a Certificate II in Automotive Servicing Technology in Port Augusta in conjunction with his Stage One subjects at QAS.

George has begun a Certificate III in Agriculture, along with his Stage One subjects. It is great to see our learners continue to complete their SACE and work towards a VET certificate, which will stand them in good stead for their futures. On behalf of the secondary team, we wish them all the best with their respective courses.

Sarah Bury
Secondary Coordinator

English & HASS (Year 7-12)

What an incredible start to the year it has been. Across our English and HASS classes, we have been emphasising collaboration in most aspects of our learning activities. Whether this is seen during discussion time, a practical activity, practice tests, or an inquiry project, our learners have been actively showing our learning dispositions, i.e. Collaborative Cam and Ownership Ora.

The following topics below are our focus in English this term…

Year 7/8 – Persuasive: We are preparing to run our simulated Court Room Trial for Maleficent. Where learners have been assigned roles as The Prosecution, The Defence, The Jury, the Bailiff, and Maleficent, I, of course, have taken the role of Judge. Over the last couple of weeks learners have been learning about Maleficent’s case, persuasive techniques i.e. C.A.R.F.R.O.G.S, writing their persuasive speech, preparing a trial script, agreeing upon expectations and setting up for the day.

Year 9/10 – Persuasive: We have been learning about ‘finding our own voice’ where learners are studying and applying previous and current knowledge of persuasive techniques, the 3 persuasive rhetorics (ethos, pathos, logos); and analysing motivational speeches so that they are able to successfully write their motivational speech to ‘voice’ out their passion. We have also been using impromptu speaking activities to assist in voicing our speech, such as practising enunciation with tongue twisters.

Year 11/12 – Our senior school learners have been busy applying their knowledge and understanding to successfully complete their Persuasive Advocacy Task, where they advocate for a human rights issue of choice to the general public. They have also examined how language devices are used within TED Talk presentations to engage an audience, then applied this understanding in their most recent task – their TED Talk Script where they create their own TED Talk and incorporate language devices in their oral presentation to engage their audience.

The following topics below are our focus in HASS this term…

This term, I have been teaching History, Economics Business and Geography. There are so many highlights regarding HASS, but as pictured in this article, we have our Year 7/8s engaging in a collaborative activity in our ‘water in the world’ Geography lesson.

During our History lesson, we also pictured our Year 9/10s collaborating on a visual inquiry and discussing the causes of World War I. I had expected our learners to question and challenge each other’s visual input as they were prompted to answer stimulus questions about this topic. (P.S. Don’t worry. We used dry-erase markers on the tables)

Homework Club (Year 7-12)

We have been running Homework Club every Thursday at the Quorn Library which starts straight after school and usually ends at 4 pm. The purpose of these sessions is for our learners to catch up with work or to use this time to study and stay ahead in their subjects.

We require our learners to have attended school for the day to be able to attend Homework Club. Learners sign our attendance sheet upon entering and are expected to bring tasks with them to do.

Well done to our regular learners who have been using this time on Thursdays after school. We hope to see anyone else who is interested in coming by to our next sessions for the remainder of the term.

A special thanks to Mr Crosby for offering his time after school to tutor and further support our learners.

Primary Report

Sound Scouts

Have concerns about your child’s hearing?

Undetected hearing loss can impact your child’s ability to progress at school. Sound Scouts is a free Hearing Screening Program endorsed by the Department of Health to help identify learners with undetected hearing loss.

The program is free to participate in. Please follow the link below to enrol your child.

Alternatively, you can contact Kate Neu via phone at 08 86486101 or email at kate.neu862@schools.sa.edu.au for a paper copy.

For more information, visit https://www.soundscouts.com/au/ or contact Kate Neu.

Premier's Reading Challenge 2023

How to complete the Challenge?

To complete the Premier’s Reading Challenge, students must read 12 books between week 1, term 1 and week 7 term 3.

1. Every student will need a Student Reading Record. This is available from the school’s Premier’s Reading Challenge coordinator or can be downloaded here.
2. Read 12 books. Eligible books include e-books, audiobooks, class/shared reading, prescribed books for school, non-fiction books, and books read as research for assignments or books in another language.
   1. Reception to year 6: Students must read 8 books from the Premier’s Reading Challenge booklist and 4 personal choice books.
   2. Year 7 to year 9: Students must read 4 books from the Premier’s Reading Challenge booklist and 8 personal choice books.
   3. Year 10 to year 12: Students must read 12 personal choice books.
   Complete the Student Reading Record with the title and author of each book. A parent, caregiver, teacher or librarian must sign off on each book to verify it has been read.
3. Pass on the completed Student Reading Record to the school’s Premier’s Reading Challenge coordinator by the designated due date.
4. Receive an award in late November.

2023 is the 20th year of the Premier’s Reading Challenge!

To celebrate, we are offering students the opportunity to read 20 books instead of the usual 12 to receive a 20th Anniversary Certificate. This is an optional, voluntary challenge. Students who complete the 20-book challenge will have also completed the usual 12-book challenge and hence will receive their usual PRC award.

For more information, see Miss Neu or visit the link below.

Scholastic Library

Learners in the Literacy and Language program can access quizzes and online books and view their Lexile levels on the School Library Platform.

Learners will be provided with their individual login details. The platform can be accessed via https://slz04.scholasticlearningzone.com/ltiLaunchIntl/app/24

Book Week 2023

Book Week will be held in Week 5 of Term 3. While it is a while away, I wanted to share this year’s theme Read, Grow, Inspire. Watch the video below for more information about this year’s theme. Can’t wait to see the inspired costumes at the Book Week Parade. More details to come.

Year 4/5/6 with Miss Buchanan

P.E.

In the 4/5/6 class over the last few weeks, we have designed our own P.E. games to showcase and practice fundamental movement skills and teamwork. Now that our games are all named and designed, each group is taking turns teaching the rest of the class how to play their game and gathering feedback to help improve it.

HASS

In our HASS unit this term, we are looking at Civics and Citizenship, particularly our government and elections/voting in Australia. So far we have found out that the origins of democracy date all the way back to Ancient Greece, and we have been consolidating our knowledge about the three levels of government through class discussions and online quizzes.

Numeracy

In Numeracy this term we have looked at a few different concepts. Learners engaged in a topic about Roman Numerals, learning all about the patterns involved in writing these numbers. We have also started learning about equivalent and improper fractions, developing many ways to demonstrate our knowledge.

Ellie Buchanan
Class Teacher

Miscellaneous Items

Colour Run

White Card Training

SANFL/AFL Diversity Talent ID Trials