Wow! Another busy term, with our 50th Birthday Celebration on Saturday 3rd June taking front and centre stage!

It was a wonderful day with many past and present staff, students and families attending, who enjoyed our Opening Ceremony, a “Gallery Walk” of old photos and many children enjoyed doing a “Back in Time Trail” collecting fun trinkets along the way!

Celebrations like this take a ‘village’ to come together with ideas, organisation and many hours of time volunteering before, during and after the day. I personally feel very fortunate and privileged to be a part our school’s history and to be the current leader of such an amazing school with a rich history and culture of community!

A HUGE thank you to our Governing Council, staff and students who gave up their time before and during the day to make this a celebration of our wonderful school!

50th Birthday Celebration and fun facts

HEPS has had only 5 Permanent and ongoing Principals in our 50 years:

Mr Ken Cox 1973 Founding Principal - RIP

Mr Graham Tilbrook who came and gave an inspiring speech and a history highlighting how much the school had changed since his time

Mr Les Graham also attended and spoke fondly of his time as Principal and gave some funny anecdotes of his time

Bob Thiele who also gave an inspiring speech and was a part of the school community for 23 years, and

Ms Sally Current Principal since 2019.

We were also fortunate to have our original cleaners Mrs Rene Stillwell and her daughter June Liston in attendance at our 50th Birthday

Our school had an enrolment of over 550 students back in the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s!
Our school was 2 different schools back in the day – there was a Primary and Junior Primary with a Principal for each and then amalgamated in 2013 to officially become a Primary School with 1 Principal and 1 Deputy Principal
We had a ‘zoo’ on the oval with many common animals such as sheep, goats, a calf etc in the 80’s- many past students that are now parents talk very fondly about the ‘zoo!’
Before the school was built and opened in 1973 the school was a huge sand hill that was mined to make glass and surrounded by vineyards and farms
Our school buildings and units are named after some of the original settlers who had farms or vineyards in the area – the Stillwell, Castle, Holly and Penney families.
Many parents are previous students who choose to have their children attend and even parents of children who are now grandparents

Staffing Update Term 3

We farewell Ms Woods whom is taking leave for the rest of this year and will be capably replaced by Mrs Rachel Esposito in Term 3 and 4. Welcome Mrs Esposito!

Mrs Jolley is taking personal leave to take time with her family for the majority of Term 3, the class will continue to be taught by Madame Mawson on a Friday and Miss Demi Ross who is well known to the class will be teaching Monday to Thursday.

I am also taking some personal leave for the last 4 weeks of Term and Mr Scott Megson will be taking over as Principal in my absence. I will keep you posted as his position is backfilled by one of our staff.

We know that families will welcome and support our new teachers in their positions!

Family Communications

We use a range of forums to communicate with families including; social media – Our school Facebook page and our fortnightly Newsletter. Some classes have Facebook pages and some classes use SeeSaw as their communication method. Many of our staff will also respond as appropriate and within reasonable timelines via message or text.

We also have Audiri (formerly know as SkoolBag ) as a means of communicating wider to the school community as well as emails.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your child or their learning, please use the above communication channels to contact your classroom teacher in the first instance and if you need to contact Leadership to discuss other matters please do so via email - dl.1066.info@schools.sa.edu.au or calling Lee in the front office to pass on your request for follow up.

It is important that you let us and your child’s classroom teacher know if your contact details change eg. Phone or email so we have the most up to date way of contacting you if needed.

Thank you as always for your ongoing support for our wonderful community and I wish all of our families and students a happy, and safe holiday break and we look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 24 July!

Kind regards,

Ms Sally

Principal

DRAWING US TOGETHER

T2 2023