From The Principal

Marion Coady

We have welcome students from Kandai Hokuyo High School in Japan. This is our second study tour for 2024. To those families that have hosted the Japanese students, we appreciate your support. Having international students in school provides the students with the opportunity to develop cultural understanding of other people which contributes to their capacity to act as global citizens.

Our third student free day on the 22 July focused on Wellbeing for Learning. As a staff we revisited the professional learning we have undertaken on the Berry Street Education model. We explored the expectations that would support a predictable learning environment for students. In teams we looked at some of the typical behaviour students demonstrate and the way we can respond to them.

Our fourth student free day is on the 30 August. This focus will be on South Australian Curriculum which all schools need to implement by 2026.

Thank you to the parents and caregivers who have taken the opportunity to connect with the school. The year 12 Parent-Teacher interviews held on 30 July was another opportunity to strengthen the relationship between parents and caregivers with teachers as our students are on the rapidly advancing end of their schooling. Also, the SACE, VET and IBDP evening held on 1 August where we were able to share information about some things to think about for the final two years of schooling. Information has been sent home about the course selection process. If you are unsure about the available choices for your child, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

As students' progress through semester 2 they have the opportunity to look at strategies to improve their learning. Seeking help from peers, teachers or family is one of the useful ways to approach their learning when they get stuck.

When we get stuck, we become frustrated. Recently I was using my phone to get to an address in Belair. I felt it was going around in circles. The person I was with suggested that we go down a side street and see if the directions I was trying to follow worked. It did.

Trying an alternative approach is another way we can use when we get stuck. Sometimes taking time and space away from something we are struggling with can help. Think about a problem you may be faced with. If it's not urgent to solve, sleeping on it often results in a way to tackle it once we have bought some time and space.

As adults we can talk to our children about the way we deal with things when we get stuck so they can develop a repertoire of ways to tackle their frustrations and move from a position of being stuck to positively tackling what they need to do.

Parent survey

You’re invited to complete the 2024 annual Public Education Parent Survey.

The 2024 parent survey opens mid to late July and closes midnight Sunday 8 September.

During the survey window you will receive an email or SMS from the Parent Survey Team with a unique link to participate in the survey.

If you have not received an email or SMS with your unique survey link by Friday 9 August 2024, please check your spam or junk folders. Otherwise, please contact education.ParentSurvey@sa.gov.au and include our school’s name in your email. A new survey will be sent to you.

The survey takes less than 10 minutes and will help us understand:

what we’re doing well
where we can improve
what’s important to you.

It has been coordinated by the Department for Education so that added administration workload isn't placed on the school. Your answers won't identify you or your child. Only collated feedback will be provided to our school for us to analyse.

Information collected will inform school improvement planning and activities at the school. The survey closes midnight Sunday 8 September.

For more information visit https://www.education.sa.gov.au/parents-and-families/parent-engagement/survey-parent-engagement-schools

Generation Next Publications

Being a parent/caregiver is not easy and no one gives us a guidebook to how we can parent well. There is a publication that I get called Generation Next which provides articles on how we interact with the young people we work with. There are a number of articles I feel some parents/caregivers may be interested in and have provided the links below.

As children move through their stages of development from child to adolescent to young adult, they all face new challenges. These articles may be of assistance to you to keep things in perspective and look at some strategies to meet the new challenges our children and we face.