From The Principal

The third term has seen new staff commence with us. This includes:

• Alicia Dean teaching Health & PE
• Dillon Taylor teaching Health & PE
• Gemma Sanchez teaching Spanish
• Stephen Cassell teaching Mathematics

In addition to our new teaching staff we have three pre-service teachers (PST’s) who are working in our school for five weeks. The three PST’s are Rizza Mae Canino, Damian Ruiz and Makayla Ritchie all from Flinders University.

I would like to congratulate our Year 12 students and their partners for their exemplary behaviour at the Year 12 Formal on 30 June. It is always a delight to see them interact respectfully with each other whilst making sure they enjoy the event. There was lots of dancing, the photobooth was well used and awards given out.

Term 3 signals an important time for the 2023 Class of Year 12’s as it is the opportunity to stay focussed on completion of 12 years of schooling. It is important they get the right balance between school demands, part-time work, sport and time for family, friends and themselves. Maintaining a good sleep pattern and fuelling their bodies with nourishing food is vital. 

For our Year 7 to 11 students, this term provides an opportunity to build on previous learning and make decisions to continue to work with teachers and peers to achieve in their academic studies. There will be continuing opportunities for students to apply strategies for social-emotional learning that underpins the whole school Wellbeing for Learning program. Ongoing curriculum excursions and camps will continue throughout the term in addition to co-curricular opportunities in sport, debating and leadership.

This term we have some new staff joining our wellbeing for learning:

• Alan Peat will commence on 21 August. He has extensive experience in supporting student wellbeing.
• Corrine McKee and Katerina Schmitt will be joining us as social workers. Both of them have experience in social work and will bring knowledge and skills to further our capacity to respond to student, family and staff needs. Corrine starts on 7 August and works Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and Katrina on 8 August and works Tuesday and Friday.

Further in the newsletter is the opportunity for students to access the services of Dental for Schools. Registration close 11 September.

Our third student free day was the fourth day of the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM). The focus was on the domain of character. Staff explored the interrelationship of values, character strengths and community strengths. Some of the key questions posed included:

• Who do you want to be – your values
• How do you want to act – your strategies

We identified the source of our students’ values come from a myriad of places including sporting teams, TikTok, their peers and family. Sometimes, the values from different groups and influences collide and so young people have to work out how they can navigate this situation.

We also looked at the 24 character strengths. The strengths related to:

• Head
• Heart
• Action
• Community
• Self-Control
• Meaning

It was pointed out that all children/young people need adults to SEE them:

• spot their strengths
• explain their use
• express appreciation

Anyone interested in finding out their character strengths can access viacharacter.org. Go to the free character strength report. However the results of your character strengths can change over time. Lower ranked strengths does not mean you do not have them rather it means they are not your preferred strengths.

We spent considerable time on Hope. Having hope is being realistic about what we can achieve and having a plan. People with high levels of hope have:

• Greater academic success
• Stronger friendships
• Lower levels of depression and anxiety

Having hope requires us to plan and having contingencies when we encounter barriers. It also requires us to be able to break a plan into smaller parts in order to work towards what we want to achieve.

The day finished with us drawing together the key aspects of the four days BSEM professional learning. We finished off identifying:

• One thing we are going to do more of
• One thing we are going to do less of

Our next student free day is on 1 September where we will be exploring strategies to support our students’ reading skills and abilities.