Newsletter - Ceduna Area School

11th February, 2015
Principal’s Report
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Friday 20 February
th
Year 6-12 Sports Day
Friday 27 February
th
R-5 Sports Day
Monday 2nd March
R-5 Assembly in Amphitheatre
2.30pm Start
WCIAC – Ceduna Area School
th
Wednesday 4 March
th
Monday 9 March
th
Tuesday 10 &
th
Wednesday 11 March
th
Wednesday 11 &
th
Friday 13 March
th
Monday 16 March
th
Tuesday 17 to
th
Thursday 19 March
Monday 23rd March
th
Wednesday 25 March
rd
Friday 3 April
th
Monday 6 April
th
Friday 10 April
th
Monday 27 April
Last Monday we held our Acquaintance
Breakfast for each section of the
school. It was pleasing to see a number
of parents and caregivers making the
effort to come in to meet their
child/ren’s teacher for 2015. Parents,
caregivers and friends were invited into
their child/ren’s classrooms and to share breakfast.
Adelaide Cup Holiday
Parent\Teacher Interviews
Year 5 Errappa Class Camp
WASSAC - Ceduna Area School
Year 4 class camps to Pt Augusta
R-5 Assembly in Amphitheatre
2.30pm Start
Student Free Day
Good Friday
Easter Monday
Last Day of Term 1
Term 2 Begins
Reminder CAS is a ‘NUT AWARE’ site. We ask
that no Nut Products be brought on site. We
have students who are highly allergic to nuts
and can suffer an anaphylactic reaction.
A strong partnership between the home and the school
where we all work together is the best way to support your
child’s learning. Parents who speak or act positively towards
school in the presence of their children, attend school
events, often instil in them the importance of education and
ensure the best learning outcomes occur.
6-12 Swimming Carnival – Sinclair Triumphs
Congratulations to all involved in this year’s Swimming
Carnival held during perfect weather, despite the prediction
of extreme temperatures last Friday in our school pool.
Thank you to so many parents and friends who attended to
support the students on the day. Well done to those
students who fully participated on the day, and for their
great level of teamwork and good sportsmanship.
Thank you to Mr Green and Mr King who were the chief
organisers of the day, and all staff and parents that assisted
with the preparation and organisation to make it such a
successful Swimming Carnival.
Well done to Sinclair who won the trophy this year, by the
narrowest of margins. It just goes to show how every
contribution and participation by an individual counts.
FOR SALE
Smoked Perch Fillets $30.00 kg & Smoked Barra
$35.00kg (READY NOW PICK UP FROM OFFICE-TODAY)
Available in approx. 100-150gm packs
Contact Ceduna Area School on 86252030 to place an
order today. Can also be purchased at Ceduna Meat
Service.
Term 2
Term 3
Term 4
2015 Term Dates
27th April – 3rd July
20th July – 25th September
12th October – 11th December
Final Scores:
•
•
•
Sinclair – 676 points
Davenport – 656 points
Murat – 653 points
Well done to victorious Sinclair House captains, Chloe Sleep
and Dale Shipard and all of the other House Captains for
their hard work organising competitors throughout the day.
to university studies. Well done to both Emily and Maddie.
Some Key dates for 2015
th
Our First Student Free Day will be held on Wednesday 25
March Week 9. This will be a Partnership day where all staff
from other Partnership schools and sites will be here for
training.
Well done to all Under Age Winners and Runners Up as
well as the fabulous efforts by those that set new
records.
Congratulations to Reyner Clarke, Adele Lynch, Demi
Lynch and Tyson Lynch for being selected in the SSSSA
Far West Swimming Team to compete at the SA Aquatic
rd
and Leisure Centre in Adelaide on Tuesday 3 March
Week 6. Good luck to these students!
Premier’s Reading Challenge - is your son or daughter
up to the Challenge in 2015?
The Premier's Reading Challenge is a literacy
engagement program that was introduced by the
Premier in 2004 to:
•
•
Encourage students to read more books and
enjoy reading
Improve literacy levels.
The Challenge requires students to read 12 books
between the beginning of the school year and early
September:
•
•
•
Reception to Year 7: 8 of these books are to be
from the Challenge Booklists, available on the
Premier’s Reading Challenge website and 4 of
their own choice. These can include novels and
research texts.
Year 8 and 9: Students read 4 books from the
Challenge lists and 8 of their own choice. These
can include prescribed texts, research texts and
any other texts from their studies.
Year 10 to 12: Students read 12 books of their
own choice. These can include prescribed texts,
research texts and any other texts from their
studies.
Ms Stevens and Ms Kloeden will be managing this
programme through the Library and will be informing
students of how to enter.
WASSAC will also be run here this year which will involve
representative Athletics teams from Port Lincoln, Whyalla,
Port Augusta and as far away as Roxby Downs. For this day
to be run efficiently our Years 6 to 12 sub school will need to
close for the day and have all staff on deck to run the
programme.
Regards
Jim Michalanney
Principal
Middle School’s Report
A belated welcome to the 2015 school
year from Middle School staff and
students.
We are really pleased with the start
that has been made across the section.
Students have returned from holidays
ready to learn, and the preparatory work of teachers has
paid off; with classes running smoothly and getting straight
into their learning. With the upcoming ANZAC Centenary,
the Year 9s are beginning the year with their WW1 depth
study. The Year 8s are tackling the cheery, but fascinating
topic of The Black Death. In Year 7, students are studying
the much loved Paul Jennings text Nails, and the Year 6
classes are settling well into the Middle School routines.
Well done to everyone involved in the smooth running of
the 6-12 Swimming Carnival, which was held on Friday. The
weather was kind to us, and we were able to complete the
day’s program. Behaviour at the carnival was exemplary,
with competitors demonstrating great skill, and more
importantly, great sportsmanship and participation. Those
not swimming were vocal and positive supporters, which is
also fantastic to see. Congratulations to Sinclair on their
victory, and also to Davenport and Murat, as it was the
closest score in many years; with only 20 points separating
first and third. It’s a great thing to have the Carnival so early
in the year, as it is a fantastic way for students and staff to
develop relationships outside the classroom.
University of Adelaide Principal’s Scholarship
Congratulations to Emily Kavanagh and Maddie Smart
who were nominated by the school for a University of
Adelaide Scholarship. These girls met all the criteria that
were set by the University and we recently received a
letter advising of their success. The scholarship is
designed to assist country students make the transition
Other important relationships, of course, are with parents
and our Acquaintance breakfast is a great way to catch up
with new and ‘old’ parents, and we thank those parents,
grandparents, aunties and uncles who were able to pop in
on Monday morning for brekky and a chat. Coming into
school can become more difficult as students get older and
more independent, but strong relationships between
kids and their parents, and teachers and parents are
critical all the way through schooling. We understand
that not everyone can make the morning, but please,
always feel free to call the school to make a time to talk
to your child’s teacher, use the diaries or email to
communicate or pop in when you can.
Term 1 is always busy – aren’t they all? – and we still
have a whole lot of athletic events in the coming weeks,
and the Middle School Aquatics program to look forward
to at the end of the term. Not to mention a full
curriculum inside the classroom! We were lucky to have
our Curriculum Implementation Officers here last week,
and were able to make the most of the opportunity to
continue our staff learning in the area of literacy, with a
focus on writing, and looking for ways that we can
strengthen our students’ writing from Reception to Year
12. Our Whole School focus on Reading, and more
recently Numeracy, has shown improvements in a range
of data – including NAPLAN - and so we can see that the
hard work of teachers and students is paying off. Thanks
to our dedicated staff for continuing to strive for the best
results for our students.
This year Shelly and I have taken on the role as Davenport’s
captains. Together our aim is to get as many people as we
can to be involved and to work together as a team.
We encourage everyone to have a go and to remember
that it is not about being the best it’s about giving it your
all. Hope to see you all out there wearing blue and with fire
in your bellies.
GO DAVENPORT!!
Shelly Fricker & Cayley Baldwin
We are the 2015 house captains for Sinclair this year, we
encourage everyone in our team to attend and participate.
As captains we want everyone in our team to be competing
or supporting their peers and just have fun. Thank you.
GO SINCLAIR!!
Regards
Jo Blackham
Middle School
Coordinator
Teaching
&
Learning
TEAM CAPTAINS
FOR 2015
Kade and I will be taking on the role of house captains
for our team Murat this year. Being house captains to
us means showing great leadership and encouragement
to our team, we will cheer everyone to strive for their
best but most importantly make sure everyone is having
fun. We look forward to mentoring the members of our
side and seeing what our team will provide. Thank you.
GO MURAT!!
Brianna Partington & Dale Shipard
AQUAINT
AQUAINTANCE
INTANCE MORNING
9TH FEBRUARY 2015
Kade Halbert & Hollie Watkins
Tania Uzzell, Jo Skinner and teacher Rachael
McEvoy
Irene and Lance McWaters with Aaron, Evie and
Sarah Hoffrichter
Senior School staff Mark Prince, Adam Bennett
and Michael Scheffler
Corbin and Melissa Ballard
Meesha Dunn, Gabbi Xanthopoulos & Zoe Fricker
Welcome back! No doubt families are slowly settling back into
the school routine after the holidays. The earlier mornings
have certainly been a bit of a shock to the system!
I am pleased to say we have had a great start to 2015 in the
Senior School. I was lucky enough to go on the Year 12
Retreat last week to Port Lincoln. This trip gave our students
the opportunity to work together as a cohort, set some
personal goals and identify strategies and support people that
can help them throughout the year. There was great
engagement and participation from all, especially in the very
competitive ‘Bubble Soccer!” There was certainly a lot of
collisions and not a real lot of goal scoring but plenty of
laughter! The Year 12 students are using their Study Room
time very wisely and it is great to see them knuckling down
from day one. The guidance from teachers providing
assistance with the supervision is very much appreciated. I
look forward to a great year supporting your child in the
Senior school and if you have any queries please don’t
hesitate to contact any of the relevant teachers or leadership
from our section.
As a parent with a child doing Year 12, I found Kirrilee Smout’s
article below insightful in regard to studying with music.
Check out her website and facebook page, she has some
excellent articles.
Listening to Music While Studying: Good Motivator or Just
a Distraction?
Most students listen to music while studying. With either
ipod in ears, itunes through the computer or even “old
fashioned” DVD player going, students across Australia
tonight are listening to anything from Beyonce to Good
Charlotte to LMFAO (don’t ask) while they do their
homework. And inevitably parents in these houses walk
past, wondering: “can they really concentrate with that
going on in their ears?”
Charmane Fricker and Frew Halbert
The truth is that there are significant advantages of
listening to music while studying
First, most students say listening to music helps
them study for longer. This makes sense: homework can
be boring. If something can make it slightly less boring,
students are slightly more likely to keep doing it for
longer. Advantage number two: listening to music has
been found to be LESS distracting than listening to
random office/household noise. So if the noise of the
house is high, then having music to block that out can
help students concentrate. Finally: research shows
music usually puts students in a better mood. This is
helpful because the better mood we are in, the longer
we persist on hard tasks and the better we do at
difficult tasks: good news for students.
So with all of that, what’s the problem with listening to
music while studying?
Research shows that compared to being in complete
silence, people are less able to do difficult tasks while
listening to music. Almost every study in this area shows
that if you give people a problem solving task and then
compare people who do it in silence compared to people
doing in while listening to music, those working in
silence do the task better and quicker than those
listening to music. It seems that music interferes with
our attention and cognitive skills. This is especially true
for music with lyrics, music that is unpredictable and
interestingly, it is also especially distracting for introverts
compared to extroverts.
So there are upsides, and downsides. Here are the
recommendations I give students about this issue:
Junior School News
Some of you may have noticed we have a new bench in the
yard.
The purpose of the bench is to develop friendship and
kindness in all.
This is our friendship, or buddy bench. The way this works is
if you feel lonely in the playground and have nothing to do,
you can go to the bench. Another student can then come to
the bench and ask if you want to play or talk. Or, if two
people are sitting at the bench, they could ask each other if
they want to play. The bench is a great way to help other
kids who might feel lonely or left out from time to time.
It is hoped that students who are playing at recess will go to
the bench and ask the children who are sitting there to playor talk - with them.
The bench will show that you care about others by asking
them to join in games or activities or to just walk and talk …
who knows how many new friendships will be made with the
support of the bench…
Thanks to many students the bench was transformed from
an old, unused bench to a colourful and inviting place to sit.
Welcome back to school!
Mrs Riddle
Before …
Listen to music when you feel like you really “have to” –
when you are bored, in a bad mood or are tempted to
prematurely stop (or can’t start) homework.
Listen to music if your house/study environment is quite
noisy and you can’t shut out this (usually unpredictable)
noise any other way.
BUT recognise that you will not be doing your absolutely
best work when listening to music. Therefore try to do
three things:
1.
2.
3.
Turn the music off when you are doing
something quite hard (eg revising for a test or
trying to understand difficult concepts)
Listen to music without lyrics if you can (eg
classical, electronica), music that has a
predictable beat/tune or music that is very
familiar to you.
Turn the music down a couple of notches
compared to the volume you listen to it
normally.
I hope this helps. Like most issues, it's not black and
white - but these recommendations can help parents and
teens find some constructive middle ground.
http://developingminds.net.au/
Frew-ann Halbert
Senior School Counsellor
After…
Canteen News
The canteen online ordering system is going well. It is
very user friendly and easy to use. We would like to
encourage more parents to join up and use the
system.
Go to http://www.school24.com.au/register. The
school ID is 25105963
Follow prompts, set up your account and your
children. Top up your account either by credit card
(funds available straight away and you can order
straight away) OR by Direct Credit Transfer (funds will
take 2-3 days to clear and you cannot order until funds
are clear).
Then place an order. Orders must be made by 9:00
am in the morning but may be made in advance also.
Recurring orders may also be set up.
We will be phasing out printed bags over time so now
is a good time to start using the online system to get
used to it.
If you need help, the school24 people are able to
answer any questions on 02 89010398 or see Erica at
the canteen.
Community Notices
Ceduna Community Library
News
The library will be running a Book
Club again this year.
The dates are:
nd
th
th
April 2 , June 4 , August 6 , October
st
rd
1 , Dec 3
The Book Club is held in the library on a Thursday
evening from 7pm until 9pm.
Westies Netball Club AGM
Thursday, 26th February 7:00pm
At the Westies Netball/Football Club
All interested coaches, interested players, players
& supporters urged to attend
Private Music Lessons
Piano\Voice\Guitar
Nationally-recognised study, exams and
certificates in music
Optional*Condition Apply
Please Phone Shanna Pedler 0428472000
cedunamusic.com
Do you need to do the full day of
training on Reporting to Abuse &
Neglect?
Are you working or volunteering on a DECD site?
RAN TRAINING AVAILABLE
Friday 27th February 2015
8.45am registration to 4.30pm at the Port
Linbcoln Education Office
Presenters: Pam Roach & Candice Behrndt
Reminder: Participants need to attend for the
entire session to meet the training requirements
Port Lincoln Education Office
3/7, Mortlock Terrace
Gold Coin donation for Tea & Coffee, BYO
Lunch!
REGISTRATION
BY FAX TO: 86825348 OR BY EMAIL TO:
jayne.partlow@sa.gov.au
BY
Tuesday
24th
February 2015
PHONE QUERIES TO 86820700
Tech Collect FREE ee-recycling
Sat 21 Feb, 2015
Ceduna Overnight Freight Depot – 20 Murat Terrace
10.0010.00-2.00
Drop off: TVs, computers, hard drives, keyboards, laptops,
mouse, cords
NO: set top boxes, irons, microwaves