10 March 2020

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal Newsletter Date: 10th March 2020

It is with great excitement and pride that I am finally able to share with the school community the plans for our new performing arts centre.

The performing arts centre will be bringing together drama and dance and place them near the music area. Our new centre will be located between the administration building and the Para Hills West primary school next door, with a great new frontage.

The brand new, flexible and multi-use facilities will boast seating for an audience of 200, two separate teaching areas with sprung floors, as well as a space that other learning areas could potentially use for performances and talks.

The entire site will benefit from a bit of renewal, with some of the old transportable buildings and sheds being demolished and some landscaping to improve street frontage.

As part of the works the school gym will also get an upgrade, with the current court being extended and resurfaced and a new weights room being created.

It is an exciting time for the school as the building works are currently anticipated to be completed by August 2021. We hope to be able to move into our new facilities before the start of January 2022, just in time for the year 7’s joining us in high school.

I’ll keep you up to date as the project progresses.

If you have children potentially coming to the school, pop in on March 17th for our Open Night to have a more detailed look at the plans.

Alina Page
Principal

Artist Impression of Future Performing Arts Centre

Diary

SCHOOL INFORMATION

Daymap is the portal students and parents can use to access student timetables and attendance records, as well as mid-term (Snapshot) and end of term school reports.

Daymap also supports teaching and learning by providing information about lessons, linking students to resources and communicating assessment tasks and requirements.

As a parent you can now log into Daymap and see content relating to your child(ren). If you have not already done so, please follow the link below to activate your account. Many parents keep a link to DayMap on their phone’s internet browser, giving easy access wherever you are.

Parent Access to DayMap (pdf 461 KB)

Please contact the school on 8258 5466 if you have issues with this process or need support.

Schoolzine is a "one stop shop" app for families for all our communication needs including Newsletters, calendar, online bookings, notifications and canteen menu.

To access any of the above information links simply click on the link below

Below is a link with a simple instruction guide on how to download the Schoolzine app through the App Store and Play Store.

How to install app (pdf 532 KB)

Please contact the school on 8258 5466 if you have issues with this process or need support.

MIDDLE SCHOOL NEWS

I would like welcome our new year 8’s to Para Hills High School for 2020. Our mantra for the year 8’s is ‘Strong Beginnings’ as we work to achieve a positive start to their high school experience. Our Pastoral Care focus for term 1 is structured to achieve this with ‘Study Skills’ and ‘Resolving Conflict’ being two major focuses to start the year. I would also encourage all of our Year 8 students to attend camp in week 7 as it is a great opportunity to get to know other students and their Pastoral Care teachers.

I am also pleased to report a productive start to the year for our year 9 students and their Pastoral Care focuses are in line with the year 8 students. Parents / Caregivers should have received a note home recently asking for students to express interest in their camp which is scheduled for term 2. If you have not received this, please contact the school.

Our Year Level Manager’s for 2020 are Tina Beer for the year 8 students and Sasha Pudney for the year 9 students. They can be contacted, along with myself, with any questions or enquiries you have about your child’s progress, or for further details on the respective camps for each year level.

Our first round of snapshot reporting went live on Daymap on Wednesday the 4th of March. If you have not been able to log into Daymap through our Parent Portal on our website, please get in contact with the school.

I hope you all have a good week… Go the Power!

Aaron Struck
Head of Middle School (Acting)

Year 8 Parent Acquaintance and Information Sessions

On Tuesday February 18th, staff held an acquaintance evening for our parents of year 8 students. The evening was designed to be practical and to give parents skills and confidence to access Daymap. Parents met with Pastoral Care teachers and other key staff members.

We had a range of information stations on a range of topics and parents could ask for more information about each of those.

We trialled a new format this year, which meant we also held a morning session for families on Thursday February 20th. We would like to thank families for taking the time to attend these meetings. We value your feedback and hope to run more parent workshops in the future.

If you would like help with Daymap, please contact the school and we will gladly make time to work with you.

Mrs Adla Mattiske
Literacy/EALD/Transition Coordinator

Miss Tina Beer
Year 8 Manager

Year 8 Acquaintance Evening and Morning

Open Day

SENIOR SCHOOL NEWS

Igniting Student Passions

Para Hills High School is one of a 5 schools involved in an exciting initiative led by the South Australian Secondary Principal’s Association (SASPA) in consultation with Professor Zhao Yong; Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas.

Collectively the schools involved have called this network 'Change Makers’. Each site has identified an opportunity to make a positive change within their schools. Problems being addressed include improving school culture, increasing student engagement in learning, passion projects and co-designing learning tasks.

Since mid-2019 a small group of then Year 10 students have been working on this project. Our schools focus was on how do we increase student engagement in learning? The student team initially came up with the idea of introducing passion projects, which evolved into Ignite. These learning opportunities are linked to individual students interests or passions.

On Friday 21st February 2020, the schools met again to discuss progress. Aurora Bailey and Marachiel Colliver presented the work achieved so far to Professor Zhao and the other network schools. While the direction of our project has shifted, the work continues so watch this space!

Sally Stewart
Head of Senior School

WELLBEING AND ENGAGEMENT COLLECTION

Students in our school have been invited to take part in a survey being conducted during Pastoral Care towards the end of Term 1 2020.

Purpose of the collection

Young people’s sense of wellbeing is an important part of how they learn at school. The purpose of the survey is to seek students’ views about their wellbeing and their engagement with school. Students in year levels 4 to 12 across the State will be invited to participate in the Wellbeing and Engagement Collection. The information collected will help the education system and broader community to support young people’s health and wellbeing.

What is the survey about?

The survey asks students about their social and emotional wellbeing; school relationships and engagement and learning in school; and physical health and wellbeing and after school activities. Students’ answers will be kept confidential – no one (including school staff) will use the results to identify individual students.

What is involved in project participation?

Teachers will arrange for students to undertake the survey during pastoral care. Students will be asked if they would like to participate and will be free to withdraw at any time. If you do not want your child to participate, please contact the school as soon as possible after receiving this letter.

Will students’ information be kept confidential?

The department takes measures to ensure students’ personal information and their identities remain anonymous when participating in the survey.

What will happen if a student is distressed during or after the survey?

Whilst the survey questions are not expected to distress students, the survey includes questions that ask about topics such as students’ happiness and experiences of being bullied. Teachers will inform students that:

• if they find the survey uncomfortable or distressing, they should leave the survey screen immediately
• that it is not compulsory to take part in the survey as a whole, and
• students may also skip individual survey questions if they wish.

Students who may want to speak to an adult about concerns or issues will be supported to do so.

Where can I get more information?

Further information on the Wellbeing and Engagement Collection can be found at the link below or can be collected from the school. For questions or concerns, or to view the questions, please email Education.WECSA@sa.gov.au.

Alina Page
Principal

DISABILITY UNIT NEWS

City Based Discovery Program

This year the unit is trialling a new community access program for Year 10s – the City-Based Discovery Program (CBD). The aims of CBD are to become aware of available community services, support learning independent life skills and realise how much people with disabilities can contribute to society. Working from the City East Campus of UNISA, we accomplish this through weekly activites throughout the city.  The course themes are: government services, community service, workplace readiness, and planning and goal setting for success. Successful completion of the program will earn students 20 SACE credits.

The students are enthusiastic about the course and are meticulously demonstrating school values. In the first weeks of term 1 we have visited the Adelaide MFS and gained deeper respect for how much hard work firefighters do, enjoyed free activities of the Fringe Festival such as Yarbarra at Tandanya (I highly recommend seeing this show!) and loved nature on a beach walk. We are looking forward to visits to the Adelaide Magistrates Court, Parliament House to meet the Hon. Michael Brown and Government House later in the term. Activities later in the year will help students build up strong resumes to become work place ready.

Lena Aardenburg
Coordinator – Disability Unit

Year 10 Students on the City-Based Discovery Program

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL SECONDARY TRAINING ACADEMY NEWS

Over the last few weeks our SAASTA students have been busy undertaking a range of activities for Stage 1 Aboriginal Studies and Stage 2 Integrated Learning. The first task requires students to create an art piece exploring their culture and identity whilst responding to this year’s NAIDOC theme, ‘Always was, always will be’. This year’s theme refers to fact that Aboriginal people have inhabited and connected with this Country for 60,000 + years.

In week 4, students were visited by Ngarrindjeri artist Cedric Varcoe who delivered a talk on his experience and practice. He also spent the rest of the day supporting our students in their own practice.

Ngarrindjeri Artist Cedric Varcoe With Students

The following week students visited the Art Gallery of South Australia and spent time exploring the archives in the Aboriginal Heritage Project at the Museum. The class were fascinated at the extent of the archival project and were all engaged in exploring their own family histories. After the museum, students were then given a guided tour of the Art Gallery exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artwork. They were able to break down the common misconception that Aboriginal art is simply dot paintings and explored the variety and depth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.

Having the opportunity to connect with Aboriginal people and other organisations has created a sound platform for our students to continue their research and develop their artwork.

Novi Palmer-Amran
Aboriginal Education/SAASTA Coordinator

Students at the Art Gallery of South Australia

ARTS

Year 11 Art

Students within the year 11 Art class are working on their Visual Study task, studying 3 artists, one of whom is Pablo Picasso. Molina Lohia, Oscar Feddern and Taleesha Curnow have chosen to recreate a Picasso inspired Cubism piece using face paints.

Molina Lohia and inspiration from Pablo Picasso (The Weeping Woman)

STEM

Introducing the 2020 Science team:

If you have any questions or concerns related to your student’s progress in Science or even a Science question, please email us or ring the school. All five Science teachers regularly support students in Homework Club after school on Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays, so encourage your students to stay for extra help if they are having any difficulties with their work.

Our students have been very busy in Science so far this term. All Science teachers use One Note to share resources with their students which allows the students to complete tasks and submit work, without the need to print paper. Ask to see your student’s Science One Note

Our Year 8 students have settled in well and are starting to develop their laboratory skills. After their initial focus on safety, the Year 8 classes are now learning how to design their own experiments, record results and analyse data. This is leading them to their first summative practical where they design, build and test a Parachute. Look out for photos of the testing in the next newsletter.

Year 8 Students Designing Parachutes

The Year 9 classes have started their year studying the Chemical Sciences Strand of the Australian Curriculum. This has involved them learning about atoms and their electrons, by heating samples in Bunsen Burners, and investigating Static Electricity. All Year 9 students are researching an element from the Periodic Table and creating a poster which will be used to create a student Periodic Table in the Science Area.

Year 9 Students Heating Samples and Investigating Static Electricity

MEET THE PARA HILLS HIGH SCHOOL STAFF

My name is Donna Kartinyeri. I have been supporting Aboriginal students in my role for 15 years here at this great school. I am excited for 2020 to have Novi and Nathan in our Aboriginal Education team to support staff, students and our parents to ensure our students receive the best support through their schooling here and with future pathways. I have completed certificates in Front Line Management, Community Development and Indigenous Leadership and plan to continue to develop my skills to support and inspire our Aboriginal students to be the best they can be.

Donna Kartinyeri
ASETO

CANTEEN

Seeking Canteen Volunteers

If you have any spare time we would love you to volunteer in our school canteen.

We will provide lunch for you as a thank you for your time and effort.

If you can help, please call Rosie on 8258 5466.

Thank you

Rosie Lilley
Canteen Manager