KEITH AREA SCHOOL

KEITH AREA SCHOOL

Tolmer Tce Keith SA 5267 P: 08 8755 1177 ACHIEVE - COURAGE - COOPERATE - RESPECT

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Welcome back from what I hope was a lovely and relaxing Easter long weekend. This is our last newsletter for the term and hasn’t the term gone quickly! I hope everyone has an enjoyable few weeks’ holidays and comes back rested and ready for a great Term 2. Recently our school took part in the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence. Students were given an opportunity to make a pledge to stamp out bullying and to signal bullying in our school is ‘NOT OK’. Have a look at the pledges in our front office. The event has promoted lots of conversations and thinking about this important issue. I’m sure you will agree the thought and consideration shown by our students in the pledges will make a difference. Together we can take a stand against bullying and violence.

No. 3 of Term 1 6th April 2018

Diary dates Term 1 2018 April  9th—13th April Year 7/8 Canberra Camp  9th—11th April Year 9 Aquatics Camp  11th April Year 11/12 Art Excursion  12th April Year 6 excursion to Latitude  13th April Last day of School - 2:15pm Early Dismissal Term 2 2018 May  2nd May Primary cross country try outs  3rd May SAPSASSA Football  3rd May Netball Trials  9th May USE Cross Country  9th My USE Football Trails years 8—12  11th May SAPSASSA Athletics trails  15th—25th May NAPLAN online  18th May Primary Cross Country  22nd May year 8—12 assembly @ 1:35pm  25th May year F—7 assembly @ 9:15am

This week we welcomed parents to our F-10 Parent/Teacher conferences. Conferences are a good opportunity to touch base with teachers and hear about how your child is going, strengths and things to work on. Have you got a plan about how to follow up after the conference? Perhaps sit with your child and share with them the things you heard. Discuss with your child and write down the things going well, things to work on, things mum or dad can do to help etc. Scheduling some time with your child and setting or reviewing learning goals is important. This helps your child know you are interested in their school life and are willing to support them with any wobbles or struggles they might be experiencing whilst also celebrating their growth. Whilst conferences provide an opportunity to meet or chat with a teacher, remember appointments can be made anytime throughout the school year. Please don’t wait for small issues to become big issues before getting in contact with us. Staff are only too happy to meet with parents anytime of the year. The term isn’t over yet! Next week we have a number of students out of the school. The biennial Year 7/8 Canberra Camp is next week, our Year 9 students have a 3 day aquatics camp, Year 11/12 Art students are visiting the Art Gallery in Adelaide on Wednesday and on Thursday our Year 6s are doing a day trip to Latitude in Adelaide to explore their active side. Staffing Update At the end of this Term Mrs Vickery will commence long service leave for the remainder of the year with the intention to retire. Mrs Vickery has worked at Keith Area School for over 20 years in a range of roles including teaching Year 7, Secondary English and Home Economics (to name a few) as well as being a Middle School Coordinator over a number of years, Acting Deputy Principal and more recently as our Teacher Librarian. We wish to acknowledge the lasting contribution Mrs Vickery has made to our school and the positive impact she has had over many years. We wish her the very best in the next chapter of her life.

June  4th June Parent UNI information session  5th June Uni information session  7th June Oakbank cross country  8th June PUPIL FREE DAY  11th June QUEENS BIRTHDAY PUBLIC HOLIDAY  19th June F—12 assembly @ 1:35pm  19th June year 11—12 follow up injections  20th June Smiles all round parent workshop @ 7pm  22nd June USE Ultimate Frisbee  27th June Volunteer Induction 7—9pm July  2nd—6th July Year 10 work experience  2nd—6th July Year 11/12 exams  6th July LAST DAY OF TERM. EARLY DISMISSAL @ 2:15pm.

Check out the back page to see photos of what our students have been up to! FEEDBACK At Keith Area School we value the input that we receive from parents and community members. If you would like to provide the school with some feedback there are many ways that you can get in touch with us. In person, speaking to a teacher, leader or another staff member. You can also provide us feedback in writing via a letter or email to [email protected].

From the Leadership team FROM THE PRINCIPAL (cont)

Attendance A big well done to all our students with perfect attendance so far this term. The DECD target is 95% attendance and in 2017 we achieved 93.6% which is a great effort, even if just a little short of the target. There is room for improvement and I ask families to please consider that EVERY DAY COUNTS! Missing 1 day per fortnight is equal to missing 4 weeks a year or close to 1.5 years over a child's school life. This is a significant amount of learning missed. When our Student Support Team met recently we reviewed our attendance data for the term (up to the end of week 7), and at that point, 610 days of school were missed, 224 due to illness, 247 for family reasons. If your child has missed more than 3 days this term, they are already below the 95% target set by DECD. One of the best ways to encourage your child to go to school every day is to talk about school in a positive way. Tell your child it is important that they go to school, even on special days like their birthday or the last day of term. Occasionally, your child may need to stay home from school—they might be sick, or there might be serious family matters you have to attend to (such as a funeral). While these kinds of events are unavoidable, other events such as shopping trips, holidays, visiting family and friends, or appointments such as haircuts and driving lessons can be scheduled out of school hours. Bus Reviews With many of our bus contracts coming up for renewal this year, I met recently with the DECD Manager of Transport Services to discuss the current arrangements for Keith Area School. Transport Services will review each bus route and look at the path it takes, location of stops, the number of eligible students and how frequently eligible students actually use the bus. We are aware of a couple of instances where services are currently operating out of scope. I am expecting communication from Transport Services soon about some proposed changes. This will be presented to our Governing Council who will be given an opportunity to review and respond to any proposals made. After consulting with Governing Council and Stones Bus Services, Transport Services will review all information in line with the current DECD bus policy before making any recommendations to the Ministers Delegate for approval. Take Care,

Tobias O’Connor Principal

From the Deputy Principal—Mrs Alicia Keatley As we near the end of term, there are a lot of things happening. Year 7 and 8 students will head to Canberra in week 11, while Year 9 students well spend Monday to Wednesday of week 11 at the Murraylands Aquatics Centre. These students now have most of their information and should be getting organised as these camps are coming up quickly. By the time you receive your newsletter, Parent Student Teacher conferences will be finished. If you have not been able to attend or need to follow up further with a teacher regarding your child, please ring the school and seek an appointment with teachers. We encourage this to happen any time you are concerned about your child's progress or require additional information from a teacher, so please contact teachers any time of the term. Secondary reports will be sent home by the end of the term. This report identifies how your student is progressing through the term and should support information that you discussed with subject teachers at conferences in week 10. Term 2 Pupil Free Day – early calendar date You will note on the next calendar a pupil free day has been scheduled for Friday 8th of June. Please mark this date in your calendar, as the school will be closed to students .

From the Leadership team

From the Secondary Assistant Principal—Mr Ben Lamont House Cup Secondary staff have been meeting regularly this term to discuss ways in which to improve the school for our secondary students. One initiative that was developed through this process was the emergence of a house cup. This is a program where student will be involved in a variety of events and gain points towards their house in the hope of eventually winning the house cup at the end of the year. A letter with more information will be coming home to all secondary parents before the end of the term.

From the Business Manager—Mrs Gae Sandford FINANCE NEWS!

Budget: Our 2018 Budget was passed at the recent Governing Council meeting. Some of the items of interest included in our 2018 budget are: Primary Playground, additional iPads for primary to share, funding for resources and SSO time for our literacy and numeracy intervention programs, funding to build a toilet facility at the new ag shed, funding to upgrade machinery and plant in our practical subject areas as and when required, subsidies for all students for Visiting Performers as well as funding to continue the external painting of the school. Thank you: We would like to thank the Keith and Tintinara District Show Society for their very generous donation of $500.00 to the school. Each year, the society borrow the picnic tables and rubbish bins from the school, to help them with their events, and their donation was in recognition of this contribution. We would also like to thank Leini Feibig, who had successful days with her coffee van at both our school sports day and on voting day. Leini has made a donation to our SRC, and the students will add this funding to their budgets for their work both within the school, and within the broader community. Committee: Haydn Lines has joined the finance committee this year, along with continuing members Peta Kellock, Jen Culley, Alicia Keatley, Tobias O'Connor, Brad Edson and myself. Our next meeting is scheduled for Monday 14 th May at 5pm, in the staff room.

FACILITIES NEWS Thank you: We would like to acknowledge and thank Steve Hines for donating the use of his truck, and his time, to deliver sand to the school for our jump pits for sports day. We also thank Iranda Feedlot for donating the sand! Our current projects are the STEM build and Ag Shed build. Staff are currently sorting areas to get ready for the next phase of the STEM build – in the primary area of the school. The next item to be started will be the primary playground – expected to start in the second week of the holidays. Our next Facilities meeting will be held on Monday 7th May, in the staff room, at 5:00pm

Parents

Everyday Counts It’s Not Okay To Be Away ... nor To Be Late To School. by Parenting Educator, Michael Grose

When kids miss school, not only is their academic progress impeded, forcing them to catch up on missed work (which some never do), they often miss important interactions with their peers which can compound issues of social isolation and low self-esteem. One of the most important things you can do to ensure your child has a bright future is to make sure he or she goes to school every day—and gets there on time.

Of course, most people know this intuitively, yet school absenteeism is a huge problem in Australian schools—and much of it is parent-condoned. It’s hard to get an accurate picture across the country but it would appear that Australian students miss an average of between 12 and 15 days per school year, with parent-condoned absenteeism highest among young primary-aged children.

Conversely, according to a report from the Victorian Auditor General, students who are regularly absent from school are at the greatest risk of dropping out of school early, and of experiencing long-term unemployment. When kids miss school, not only is their academic progress impeded, forcing them to catch up on missed work (which some never do), they often miss important interactions with their peers which can compound issues of social isolation and low self-esteem. Also, many teachers tell me, it’s often the kids who can least afford to take time off school who are most likely to be serial absentees.

Missing a few minutes each day may not seem like a big deal but your child may be missing more than you realise if he or she is continually late. Current research shows that mornings for most children are the most productive time of the day, with 10.00am the peak period for productivity. When children arrive late and take time to settle as they inevitably do, valuable learning time is lost.

That adds up to a year’s lost schooling over the school-life of a child. It takes strong parenting... In today’s highly competitive world, this rate of absenteeism is alarming, putting our kids As a parent myself I know how persuasive at a distinct disadvantage. children of all ages can be when it comes to taking a day off school. It takes a strong will to resist the persistent pressure that kids can bring to bear, particularly if they play the guilt card with comments such as “It’s not fair that I have to go school today because Aunty is coming to visit!” Nice try. But the answer should be “No!”.

It sounds simple, but it’s true. The correlation between school attendance and children’s achievement levels is well-established. The more time kids spend at school, the more likely they are to experience school success.

Being late is not okay either

That’s not a reason to be away! It’s now commonplace for children to stay away from school for reasons that would have been unheard of just twenty years ago. These include …

    

staying away to celebrate their own or a sibling’s birthday being absent because they stayed up too late watching television going shopping for clothes an extended long weekend kids not wanting to take part in a sports day or special school event.

This type of absenteeism sends a strong message to kids that parents don’t really value learning, or their children’s school experiences. Australian kids only spend 15% of their total time at school. They spend more time asleep than they do at school. So we need to maximise every day to get full value. That means turning up to school every day, on time.

As parents we need to make a commitment that our kids make the most of their precious time at school. That means that we send them to school every day, on time and ready to make the most of the school day. Of course, there will be times, such as illness or genuinely extenuating family circumstances, when kids should be away. But these need to be a rarity rather than the norm. It’s reassuring to know that you increase their chances of future success just by making sure they turn up to school every day. And, of course regular school attendance also helps kids prepare for the workforce, where it will be expected that they turn up each day work-ready. The real world is unforgiving of those who stay away with NO EXCUSE.

Students

School Sport SA—Secondary Swimming On Monday 5th March, 13 students from Keith were selected to compete in the Upper South East team at Marion for the School Sport SA Swimming Championships. This competition provides an opportunity for students from all over the state to come together and compete. After some strong results in previous years, we are now up to C grade, which was going to provide a mighty challenge. Our students performed admirably with Jack McAuley achieving 3 rd in his backstroke, Zac Rosenzweig a 3rd in his breaststroke and Macy Richman a 3 rd in her freestyle . In the end the girls finished 7th and the boys 3rd to give the team an overall ranking of 4th. Well done to all those students who competed and represented the school. Mr Ben Lamont

Interschool Athletics On Tuesday 27th March, as a school we went down to Meningie to compete in the annual Upper South East Interschool Athletics competition. This year we saw over 100 students selected to make up the Keith team from their results at Sports Day. The day started well with lots of good results coming in off the track where we often saw Keith shirts out in front. It was great to see the students who weren't competing, cheering hard for their team mates from our house bay all day. As the results kept coming in we heard of a very special result with our very own Judd Cleggett breaking the sub-junior boys discus record! Well done Judd! At the end of the day we gathered together for the presentations. We saw many Keith students receive individual awards with Oskah Standfield, Ethan Rushbrook and Josh Walter all receiving runner up awards. Judd Cleggett, Anna McAuley, Holly Wilson, Bailey Wilde and Paige Jones all winning their age groups. Our strong results continued as we took out the Intermediate Pennant and tied for the Senior Pennant. As a team we then took out the Overall Shield again, before finishing a narrow 2 nd in the Overall Handicap Shield. Well done to all our students who competed on the day and again thank you to all our parents who helped give staff a break throughout the day. Hopefully we see more great results again next year! Mr Ben Lamont

Students

Sports Day On Friday 9th March, we held our annual Sports Day. With the weather forecast to be particularly hot this year, the decision was made to push a few events earlier in the week to ensure the day finished early and student's work load was not too high. As usual the day kicked off with our war cry's before the JPs had their chance to sprint in front of the whole crowd. Students were then off to their respective events and the day was underway. We saw some close races in the 100m, with the open boys coming in particularly fast. The day then progressed smoothly with the high jump in the COLA being a real highlight, particularly Bailey Wilde's attempt at the open boys record, which he just missed. On the other mat though, we saw a determined Oskah Standfield take out the junior boys high jump record, with a jump of 1.48m! Oskah also managed to take out the junior boys discus record to continue his dominance of this event. There was one other record broken for the day and that was by Judd Cleggett who earlier in the week became the first sub-junior boy at Keith to run the 800m in under 3 minutes! Well done boys, a fantastic effort. At the end of the day we moved into the COLA for presentations to get out of the blistering sun. Congratulations to all our individual winners and well done to STIRLING who took out the overall cup for the second year in a row and making it a double with Swimming Carnival. Thank you to all our parent helpers on the day and particularly to Adam Bradley for taking on our starter role. We hope to see you all again next year for another great day! Mr Ben Lamont

Parents

Parents

Term 2 Calendar—Calendar is subject to change

Parents

When Kids’ Heroes Fall The recent ball tampering scandal involving the Australian cricket team has been front and centre in the media in recent days. The condemnation of the actions of Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, the main protagonists in this ongoing drama has been swift, vigorous and harsh.

While much has been written about the toxic culture of the Australian team itself, it’s the sudden fall from grace by sporting heroes that’s perhaps hardest to comprehend. In particular, deposed captain Steve Smith has gone from hero to villain, icon to demon, idol to devil in the matter of a few days. In a country that routinely holds up sporting heroes as figures for the next generation to aspire to there’s now a need to help young people makes sense of what’s going on.

pressure made poor choices. Good people make bad decisions every day that don’t make front page news. Doing the right things can be hard sometimes. Label the deed, not the dude. These are important messages to impress upon children and young people.

There’s no shame in losing We all love a winner. No one wants to be a These events provide rich fodder for family loser. In fact, being labelled a loser is conversations about many issues that are very pertinent to children and young people. perhaps the biggest ignominy of all for a young person these days. When did losing Here are some possible starting points: become shameful? There is a tremendous need to impress upon kids that there is no shame in losing and that a win at all costs When heroes reveal their feet of clay attitude generally has its own price. Fair play is something that is drummed into kids from an early age so when your hero freely admits to breaking the rules to get an advantage it’s hard to feel anything else but Cheats, fair play and bending the rules It’s been noted that Cricket Australia’s CEO shock and disappointment. These are James Sutherland has avoided using the legitimate emotions yet they don’t justify word cheat at all costs while fronting the further vilification that is seems to be media on South Africa. Most likely he avoids occurring in the media at the moment. the word for legal reasons but it’s also Conversations that focus on the pressure that these young men can experience; a win evident that it’s a value-laden, emotive word. Labelling someone a cheat is perhaps at all costs attitude that can lead to such actions and the impact that group pressure one of the biggest slurs of all. Yet, we condone bending rules; going close to the can have on individuals. line of fair play and getting a mental edge over an opponent. This is great time for family conversations about fair play, spirit of When good people make bad decisions sport and bending rules which can be Much of the current commentary is commonplace in everything from backyard polarising and unforgiving. Smith, Warner cricket to a simple game of cards. and Bancroft have been roundly pilloried for their actions. They’ve been labelled many things including ‘cheats’, ‘idiots’ and ‘arrogant’. The language used has been black not white, rarely have there been any We live in a society that’s quick to judge shades of grey used. It’s easy to forget that others. Reality TV relies on viewers passing judgement on contestants, in voyeuristic these are young men who under intense

“Doing the right things can be hard sometimes. Label the deed, not the dude. These are important messages to impress upon children and young people”.

ways. We risk raising a generation with an empathy deficit that is quick to judge other’s harshly and slow to forgive. At present a little empathy wouldn’t go astray. A comment such as “I wonder how these guys are feeling right now?” can help kids see things from other perspectives. It’s easy to be judgemental, hard to be empathetic; harder still to be forgiving and allow them to come back into the fold. It’s also useful to discuss the fact that we are all be capable of acting outside our values and beliefs at times. Yep, we’re all human.

The ball tampering incident is highly emotive as it’s hit at the core of many values that we hold sacred. But it’s also useful to remember that front and centre are young men who are fallible like the rest of us, and while they deserve to experience the consequences of their choices, they don’t deserve to be personally vilified for doing something that we encourage them to do that is, to win. It’s sport, not war. Kids need to understand that too!

Michael Grose Parenting Educator

Parents

Community news! NetSetGo

Friday Night Netball

NetSetGo is for girls and boys aged between 5 and 10 years. It is a fun way of introducing kids to netball and teaches them the basic skills of the sport.

The Friday Night netball competition is for girls born in 2008 and 2009.

It runs during term 2 on a Thursday night from 3.30pm – 4.15pm starting Thursday 3rd May.

It involves training on a Thursday after school from 3.30pm-4.30pm and then a game on Friday starting at 5pm. Hoping to start in week 1, Thursday 3rd May.

Cost $50 per child – Due at first session Sporting vouchers are available online at www.sportsvouchers.sa.gov.au You will need to register your child online at netsetgo.asn.au and click find a centre.

Cost $50 per child Sporting vouchers are available online at www.sportsvouchers.sa.gov.au

For more information contact Tracy Rehn 0438 299 061

For more information contact Sarah Makin 0419 838 253

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