19 May 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Address

Principal’s Message

We are fast approaching the busy time of the semester with our senior students starting their Semester One examinations in the coming weeks. Year Ten students will complete one hour or two hour examinations during the normal school timetable beginning Week Five whilst Year Eleven and Twelve students will complete two and a half hour or three hour examinations beginning Week Six. This year will be the first time that Year Twelve students studying a general or foundation course will complete the Externally Set Task (EST). The EST is a 50 minute assessment produced by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority. All students in Western Australia who are studying a Year Twelve general or foundation course will sit the assessment. NMSHS will begin these assessments in Week Four.

Examinations and the Externally Set Task assess work that has been covered so far this year. I recommend that students refer to their course outlines and prepare study notes on each topic they have covered. This is best achieved in chunks rather than cramming their study into one session. Assisting your child to break down the task ahead and create a study timetable is one of the best ways for parents to support.

It is timely to remind all students of the homework classes that are run every Monday and Thursday from 3pm-4pm in the Information Resource Centre. A number of NMSHS staff are in attendance and can provide guidance with their study.

Our Business Manager has been very busy this year coordinating a number of improvements in the school grounds. Previously we received air-conditioning in all classrooms and offices and installed new sheltered seating in the bus area. The painters have been busy this term providing a fresh new look to key areas around the school. The main car park has had the grassed parking area bituminised creating additional and desperately needed car parking bays. Later this year another six classrooms will receive new furniture including blinds and student chairs and desks.

As the cool weather is approaching it is time to ensure all students have access to warm pants and tops that meet the school dress code. The school uniform items were reviewed in 2015 gaining input from students, staff and parent groups. The consultation process resulted in the introduction of more cost effective winter items. You will find these items on display at the uniform shop during their opening hours.

Opening Hours

Tuesday 11am – 2pm
Thursday 2:30pm to 3:45pm

Kylie Cattaway
PRINCIPAL
Newton Moore SHS

From the Finance Team

SMS payment reminders were sent to parents/guardians this month. This is a new service and will continue throughout the year as a reminder of outstanding balances.

Thank you those families that have already paid their school fees in full. Your prompt payment is greatly appreciated.

Please note that payment plans can be easily set up by contacting our accounts office on 9722 2419

Up and Coming Dates

Deputy Principals Report

Senior School Information Evening

On Tuesday 5th May we had a large number of our Year 10 students and their parents/guardians attend an information evening about the counselling process, pathways available at NMSHS in 2017 and the requirements to achieve WACE (Western Australian Certificate of Education) at the end of Year 12. It was wonderful to see so many parents and students attend this very informative evening. For further information about the Pathways available at NMSHS please refer to the Senior School Subject Selection Handbook on the school’s website (www.newtonmooreshs.wa.edu.au).

In the last two weeks of this term all Year 10 students and their parents/guardians will be involved in very important interviews with a course counsellor for their Year 11 and 12 course selections. Parents will be sent information soon explaining the process to access a counselling interview.

Positive Behaviour Points

The Relationships and Partnerships Professional Learning Community and Student Services have developed a school-wide system for reinforcing and acknowledging expected behaviours, aligned to our Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) approach:

The aims are to:

Acknowledge expected behaviour using tangible rewards and acknowledgements, intrinsic rewards and social recognition.

Use verbal positive reinforcement of the behaviour.

Promote a more positive and nurturing environment where all students feel valued and recognised.

From the beginning of Week 3 we will be introducing a Positive Rewards program. The Program will initially focus on lower school (Years 7 – 9) and its aim is to reward students for positive actions which are directly linked to Newton Moore SHS’s Behaviour Expectations.

• Be Prepared
• Be Courteous
• Respect Others Rights and Property
• Let Others Learn

When a student receives a positive behaviour point they take their slip to Student Services and place it in the applicable box for their year group. The student retains the tear off slip for their records.

At weekly year group meetings there will be a number of slips that are pulled out of the box (lucky dip style). Those students will get to spin a wheel and will receive the prize that their spin lands on. There will also be a major prize at the end of each term for students who gather the most points throughout the term. These prizes will be funded by the Chaplain plus other sponsors or community donations we receive. All tickets will be counted and contribute towards House/Faction points which will be added to sports carnivals and battle of the knights to determine the winning house at the end of the year.

Year Group Information

Celebrating achievement

The following students were recognised at our most recent whole school assembly in the presence of Her Excellency, the Honourable, Kelly Sanderson AO, Governor of Western Australia.

2016 Science Horizons and Engineering award winners.

Thank you to our Sponsors Newton Moore SHS P & C, Ecoedge Environmental Pty Ltd, Doral, Simcoa, Bunbury Leschenault Rotary Club and GHD.

Year 12 ATAR examination Declaration and Permission

Year 12 students, and other students enrolled in an ATAR course exam in 2016 will need to complete an online declaration and permission form by 24th June 2016.

The purpose of this online Student Declaration and Permission is to ensure students are aware of the requirements:

• to achieve the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) and
• for sitting the ATAR course examinations.

It also enables students to give permission for the:

• release of certain personal information should they receive an award
• use of school work for creating support materials and
• use of examination responses (written and practical).

University Open Days

Student Services Update

Healthy Food and Drink

Our school ensures:

• Soft drinks and energy type drinks are not consumed by students while at school or on excursions and camps.
• The consumption of lollies and bubble gum by students is not permitted
• Foods high in fat, salt and sugar are discouraged and not sold on site.
• That nutritious food is sold at the school canteen and that the menu is regularly changed to accommodate seasonal variations
• That we will provide a strong physical education and fitness curriculum for all students
• That we have a school environment that is conducive to active living and encourages physical activity.

Uniform

With the colder weather approaching students are reminded that they must still wear school uniform. Other than school branded uniform items the following guidelines must be followed:

• Plain black tracksuit pants only (no logos)
• School jackets or plain jacket/jumpers must be the same colour as their school t-shirts.
• No denim
• No leg-ins or tights
• No hoodies

Year 7 Diary Tips

Research resources

Throughout the schooling years students will be required to complete projects, assignments and other investigations. Cultivating resourceful learning and thinking habits in students will enable them to confidently define, experiment, imagine, analyse and make predictions from the knowledge they investigate or create. Explicitly teaching a logical step by step process, creative and critical thinking, how to research, present their findings and complete a bibliography, will see them well prepared.

The worry and temptation for 21st century students is that they believe Google will provide all they need to know to complete their learning needs. They Google a topic and often mindlessly copy chunks of information and insert it into their assignments; no defining, no imagination, no experimenting, no discerning, no depth of thought and no developing of lifelong learning and thinking habits.

Following are some of the aspects of researching that we need to teach students and practice in everyday learning and teaching:

• Brainstorming – encouraging students to think hard about and connect with what they already know about the topic.
• Adventure and adaptability – learning in different ways, in different places and from different sources.
• Metacognition – thinking about what type of thinking they need to use in particular situations.
• Gathering and assessing information – being able to find information and be discerning as to its authenticity.
• Reading between the lines – seeing beyond the written word and identifying patterns to investigate.
• Synthesising– putting all their findings together in a coherent and stylish manner.

Learning Support Coordinator

Within our school we have a small group of both girls and boys who have Autism (ASD). These students are very capable of learning to the same capacity as any other student in our school and to support them to reach their full potential they may require some adjustments or adaptations. The strategies below (developed by Sue Larkey and Anna Tullemans) are not exclusive to people with ASD, they are useful to acknowledge and use with any young person. And they are definitely not a one size fits all, as all individuals’ needs and wants are different and sometimes can change over time.

Some strategies for maintaining a positive relationship with students at home and at school are:

1. Help children to build up their competence
   - Develop and nurture their talents and strengths.
   - Praise their efforts not just their ability.
   - Avoid demands beyond their capabilities.
2. Avoid learned hopelessness
   - Explain failure as a way of learning.
   - Start with work they can achieve.
3. Avoid power struggles
   - Power struggles create stress and slowly erode relationships.
   - Acknowledge the child’s feelings.
   - Teach the child coping strategies.
4. Choose your battles
   - At a level of heightened frustration it is best to “let go” for now and broach the subject at a later date.
5. Control your own frustration
   - We should expect challenging behaviours from our child as part of normal development.
   - Don’t take their behaviour personally. It is more a reflection of their inability to cope with frustration.
   - Realise that challenging behaviour is temporary. It is evident until we can help a child find a better way to manage and prevent the situation.

School Nurse

Caffeine and Energy Drinks

Caffeine and energy drinks are growing in popularity and are often popular amongst children. But parents and children need to be careful – caffeine can cause side effects, especially in children.

How much caffeine are children allowed?

Currently, Australia has not determined a safe level of caffeine consumption for children. Food Standards Australia New Zealand reports that at doses of 95mg of caffeine, children aged 5-12 experienced disrupted sleep.

Other side effects of caffeine include:

• Difficulty concentrating
• Difficulty sleeping
• Insomnia
• Nervousness
• Headache
• Rapid heart rate
• Anxiety
• Dehydrating effect

Due to their smaller body weight, children are at greater risk than adults of developing these adverse symptoms if they continue to have regular intake of even small amounts of caffeinated drinks.

Energy drinks not only have high amounts of caffeine but most are high in sugar. They also may contain additives such as guarana, taurine, ephedrine and ginseng which act as stimulants. The high amounts of kilojoules (energy) can increase the risk of weight gain.

Did you know a 250ml energy drink contains

• Around 160mg of caffeine
• 27.5g of sugar (equal to 5 ½ teaspoons of sugar)

The best drink to hydrate the body is WATER.

Literacy Corner

Grammar Matters!

Welcome to the fifth instalment of Grammar Matters! At Newton Moore SHS we explicitly teach grammar and spelling rules to empower our students to be more confident, stronger writers.

How can parents help? Literacy Corner is a regular feature in which we roll out some of the basics we are covering in our Year 7 classes. You can talk to your child, help them understand and do simple exercises with them to ensure they understand. Contact your child’s English teacher or the English HOLA Lesley Stace at Lesley.Stace@education.wa.edu.au if you would like additional exercises for them to do at home.

Every word in our language is a “part of speech”.

Having a common language in our classrooms is important. We teach that there are NINE parts of speech. Now we’re really getting serious and active…

5. VERBS:

VERBS are an essential ingredient in ALL sentences. Even one word sentences (commands and exclamations) use verbs. A verb gives a sentence a reason for ‘being’. It gives information about what is happening to the people, places and things in a sentence. A verb needs a noun or a pronoun in front of it for it to make sense. For example: John waves. The load slipped. There are lots of different types of verbs:

Action verbs, such as fly, swim, dance, sleep, cry, wrap, break.
Being verbs, such as am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been.
Having verbs, such as has, have, having, had.

Many people think that verbs are ‘doing words’ and only include actions. In fact, the verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ are possibly the most important in our language. We will learn more about these verbs in a later edition.

Parents of Years 8-12 students may find it interesting to ask their teens about their understanding of these concepts! Often, when we’ve taught them in recent years, students have claimed “But I learnt this in primary school.” Of course they did. But if they were applying these understandings to their writing, we wouldn’t be re-teaching grammar and students’ sentences (and their marks in English) would be perfect!?

So far we’ve looked at: nouns, pronouns, articles, adjectives and verbs. In the next issue we’ll continue to look at VERBS.

Learning Areas

LANGUAGES

Hosting Japanese students

Thank you to all those parents that have kindly offered to accept a Japanese student into their homes. We are still seeking 6 families to host a student in July 2016. All host families will receive monetary support in hosting a student. If you are interested, please contact Amy King via phone or email (amy.king2@education.wa.edu.au).

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATIONH

Interschool Athletics Carnival

The Interschool Athletics Carnival was held at the Regional Athletics Track last week involving 13 different high schools from across the South West. The school finished a creditable 3rd place in the Meritorious Shield and 5th place overall. A huge congratulations to Year 9 student Cassara Hill and Year 7 student Brock Kenney who won age champions and to all of the students who competed on the day.

Aboriginal Education

Clontarf

SWA v Albany/Katanning @ Katanning

On Wednesday 11th May a senior team from the South West Clontarf Academy travelled to Katanning to play against a combined side from Albany and Katanning.

The game was played in great spirits, and despite it being quite one sided in favour of the South West boys it was an enjoyable experience for all involved.

Standout performers for the South West Academy where Ryan Bennell, Patrick Farrant and Eli Hill.

Specialist Programs

Science Horizons

Brain Dissection Investigation - Adam Road Year 6 students

April 1st 2016 – Twelve Year Ten Newton Moore Science Horizons students were given the opportunity to pass their knowledge onto younger students, as a way to strengthen their learning, teaching and communication abilities. These intelligent Year Six students of Adam Road Primary School were attentive and eager to learn, promising a bright future for Newton Moore Senior High. The learning experience was enjoyable for both student groups.

Prior to this event, we year 10s had extended our knowledge about the brain and it’s inner working through a hands-on dissection of a sheep’s brain, and covering advanced Year Eleven content. We collectively learned about the differences between human and sheep brains. Adam Road Primary students were interested in the topic and asked plenty of questions. We were all very surprised by how much they had already learned and retained. We reassured these bright minds that a career in science would be beneficial to themselves and the world around them, and encouraged them to continue on with a positive attitude and thirst for knowledge.

STEM

Inaugural Governor’s STEM Award

Her Excellency the Honourable Kerry Sanderson AO Governor of Western Australia attended our Assembly on May 3rd. The purpose was to present Newton Moore Senior High School with a certificate for winning the inaugural Governor’s STEM Awards. An outstanding achievement as NMSHS was competing against all public and private schools across WA! Congratulations to all the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics students and staff who made this award achievable.

Chair of the Newton Moore Senior High School Board, Mr Michael Douglas, the Governor and students displaying the prestigious award.

Choice Programs

Cadets

Adopt-A-Spot Update- Amelia Park

Newton Moore SHS recently adopted the Adopt-A-Spot program, choosing Amelia Park as our area of focus. After a quick survey and clean-up of the area, it became apparent to us that Amelia Park was experiencing a crisis; there were no bins for people to put their rubbish in. Due to Amelia Park’s close proximity to the Parks Centre, a substantial amount of rubbish had built up from a lack of community initiative to alert the mayor that something was amiss. However, our Senior Bushrangers noticed this lack of service, and sent a letter to Mayor Gary Brennan to inquire as to the possibility of this service gap being filled. A few weeks later, we received a reply from a representative of the Mayor, Director of Works and Services Mr Gavin Harris, notifying us that two bins will be installed at the Nuytsia Avenue exit and at the park bench at the centre of the area in the coming weeks, and also thanking our cadets for alerting the council to this area. We received this reply graciously and are now waiting on the bins to be installed before further progress can be made. Mr Gavin Harris also stated “It’s great to see young people take pride in an area such as Amelia Park”. The Bushranger program once again providing a service to the community and continuing the good name Newton Moore has in the field of community engagement.

Events

NMSHS 50th Celebrations

Thanks to everyone out there who was looking for the missing copies of the Knight Magazine, we have found them all now.

The archives have produced some wonderful treasures, some dating back to Sir Newton Moore’s time as Mayor of Bunbury. Other items are a bit more recent, like this lovely woollen blazer, beret and hat. We would love to be able to display the uniform as it changed over the decades so if you have any school uniform items tucked away perhaps you would consider lending them to us for the Anniversary. Perhaps you remember how the uniform changed, or whether some items were only used for certain subjects or special occasions – please share your memories with us.

Newton Moore Senior High School
50th Year Celebration
Friday 21st October 2016
All past and present, students and staff are welcome.
Register here or check us out on Facebook