1 December 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Address

Principal’s Message

As we near the end of the year it seems that time passes at double-quick pace, especially when retailers start hanging Christmas decorations!

Last week, we conducted the Aboriginal Education presentation event. It was a wonderful afternoon and we had the great pleasure in congratulating the Aboriginal students who completed Year 12. As usual we had a large number of parents, guardians, aunts, uncles and grandparents in attendance. A special thank you to all of the Aboriginal Education team who helped coordinate this very special event.

We have completed most of the selection processes for additional teachers and Heads of Learning Areas required for 2017 and beyond. What has been really nice when being on the panel is the enthusiasm demonstrated by the many applicants. Each of the Panel Chairs for these positions has been incredibly impressed with the eventual appointees, clearly indicating that we should be even richer next year in the skill set of our most vital resource – our staff. We have also appointed an Acting Deputy to cover leadership positions while staff are on Long Service Leave throughout 2017.

During the next few weeks, our Year 7 students will all be participating in a special pilot Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program. All Year 7s will be working on exciting projects that they will complete during their Mathematics and Science classes. Teachers running the program are very excited and it looks like lots of fun and engaging learning for our Year 7s.

So, to return full circle to my opening paragraph, the year seems to be flashing by. Although the Year 11s and 12s have left us, there still remains a lot of school time left for students in all the other year groups to complete assigned tasks, study effectively for tests and exams and to continue to value their learning. Right until the end of the year, we expect all members of our school community to adhere to our core school values of inclusivity, global awareness, happiness, teamwork and success.

Susan Kerr M.Ed.Admin, B.Ed,Dip.Teach
PRINCIPAL
Newton Moore SHS

From the Finance Team

The school environment has again been a focus for us in 2016. Money has been allocated and spent on upgrading our two car parks. Also, adding additional bins and seating. We have new IT equipment, laptop trolleys, projectors and interactive white boards. We have also replaced a number of classroom desks and are gradually putting new blinds in all classes across the school. This focus on improving our workplace will continue again next year.

Your child’s 2017 subject Contributions and Charges, student resource lists and other information have been posted out in the last few weeks. Please ensure you order early with Campion to meet the deadline for delivery prior to the commencement of Term 1 2017. Early orders also will avoid a delivery fee.

Early payment of 2017 C&C will put you into the draw to win one of two $500 vouchers. Pay your 2017 C&C in full by 31 March 2017 and go into the draw. These prizes have been donated by the Newton Moore SHS P&C Committee.

Up and Coming Dates

Deputy Principals’ Update

This week, at year meetings, we have been reinforcing with our students our school-wide expectations; Be Prepared, Be Courteous, Respect Others' Rights and Property and Let Others Learn. It is important that students maintain these high standards right up until the last day of school; attending school each day, being on time, wearing the uniform and maintaining work efforts and positive behaviour. If you can support the school by reinforcing these expectations this would be greatly appreciated. Remember, every day counts.

It is a very busy and exciting time of the year. Over the next few weeks teachers will be writing student reports which will be e-mailed to parents on December 15. In the last two weeks we have Shining Knights, Golden Knights and final day activities to acknowledge students who have consistently demonstrated our school-wide expectations. We also have our final assembly in Week 10, to celebrate the successes of our students with many awards and presentations.

For our Year 11 students who have now finished school for the year I wish you a safe and happy holiday, and look forward to seeing you back in 2017.

Admin Report

Please be advised that due to a server upgrade all electronic communication from and to the school will be inaccessible from Wednesday 7th December through to Friday 9th December.

All communication (including absences) will need to be conducted face to face or by phone. If you have changed any of your contact details recently, please contact the school to update our records.

NMSHS contact details

Administration - 9722 2400
Student Services - 9722 2429

Student Services Update

Psychologist

Flying Start Program

Newton Moore Senior High School offers a support program called the Flying Start which gives Year 6 students from our feeder schools the opportunity to get a head start with and a little extra support in making the adjustment to high school.

The Flying Start program consists of two half-day visits to Newton Moore Senior High School over two consecutive weeks. The program aims to have the students become familiar with the high school setting and the staff they will be supported by next year. The group enjoy a guided tour of the school, participate in personal development exercises and get to experience the wetlands and a number of classes such as cooking, art, design and technology, sport and computing. This is done while meeting and getting to know peers from other schools and our Year 10 leadership group.

The outcomes of the program have been very positive over the years. Students, their parents and staff have noted that the program has supported in developing confidence, improving coping skills, enabling students to establish networks and helping them make friends.

We look forward to this group of young people joining and contributing to our school next year.

Miranda Gerson
School Psychologist

Learning Support Coordinator

One of my roles as the Learning Support Coordinator is to manage Education Assistants and our Student Support Officer (SSO) (Curriculum). You will see Hayley Monaghan (SSO) below working side by side with our students, empowering them to achieve success through education.

Hayley joined the Newton Moore team in 2014. In her role she works closely with our staff and students, providing classroom based curriculum support for all students. She is the Online Learning Supervisor for students who study courses through external schools such as SIDE (Schools of Isolated and Distance Education) and Tuart College. She also offers support to the Clontarf Boys Academy and Role Model Girls Academy in the classroom setting and in the form of cooking breakfast for them on training mornings. It is obvious Hayley is very passionate about her job and she is real asset to our school.

Kirsty Jacobs
Learning Support Coordinator

School Nurse

Summer is finally on the way
Most of us say HOORAY!!
So slip slop and slap
Drink loads of water, way more than a sip
Protect yourselves from the hot sun
Dehydration and burning is not fun!!
Have heaps of good times, don’t be a fool!!!
Enjoy the summer, by keeping cool.

Luan the Chaplain and Sam the School Nurse.

Literacy Corner

Grammar Matters!

Welcome to the fifteenth 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.

In the last instalment we discussed common errors in sentence structure. As parents you could easily help students to edit their assignment work.

Problem # 3 – When in doubt, shove in a comma and keep on going!

There are a number of ways in which commas are used in sentences. We’ve taught these ways to our students as part of their program. But…

Back to basics. Students need to trust the sentence structures we have taught them as we’ve discussed in previous instalments of Literacy Corner. All of these are in previous Schoolzines so that parents can access them. Concepts such as:

• The simple sentence
• The compound sentence
• The complex sentence
• Dependent clauses
• Independent clauses.

By implementing these skills, students will strengthen their writing. They need to know explicitly what kind of sentence they are writing and why. It will help them write more confidently and with fewer errors.

For example “When in doubt, shove in a comma and keep going!”

Jessica wanted to go to the supermarket, she needed to buy some milk.

Is this a simple sentence? No. Is it a compound sentence. No. Is it a complex sentence? No.

It is actually two simple sentences incorrectly punctuated.

Correct = Jessica wanted to go to the supermarket. She needed to buy some milk.

Or it can become a compound sentence (remember: two simple sentences/independent clauses joined by a conjunction).

Correct = Jessica wanted to go to the supermarket because she needed to buy some milk.

Independent clause
Conjunction
Independent clause

And just a reminder as you do your Christmas shopping:

Books make great Christmas presents for your children. Cater for their tastes and interests. If uncertain, let them have the freedom of choosing their own. Santa gives book vouchers too!

And for a holiday activity:

If you haven’t already: Encourage your children to join your local library. If you are already members: Make sure you visit your local library over the summer. Books can’t be read if they aren’t at your child’s fingertips!

Learning Areas

Science

Engaging science in action

Year 7 Science students were treated to an outdoor chemistry lesson this week. Our lab technician, Jasmine demonstrated the making of “elephant toothpaste”. This is an exothermic reaction (releasing heat) which produces a foam.

English

Books hit Newton Moore!

What a wonderful time was had by all when G5 magically transformed into a mobile book shop for the day recently. Thanks to the P&C’s generous donation of funds for reading awards, the English Department was able to organise a visit from Beth Herbert’s Dymocks Busselton.

G5 came alive with lots of wonderful children’s and young adult fiction. Winners of the rewarding awards, from Year Seven and Eight, were invited to choose their own books from the selection. Each winner will be formally acknowledged at the last school assembly in Week Ten. During Recess and Lunch, students from across the school were able to peruse and purchase books to their heart’s content.

A great time was had by all and most certainly this will become an annual event.

LOTE

2017 WAPres Languages Scholarships

A reminder to students and parents that scholarship applications are due at the end of Week 8. There is a $250 scholarship for students studying Indonesian or Japanese in Year 11 or 12 in 2017. Please hand applications to Mr Pursell by 3pm Friday.

Positive Behaviour Support (PBS)

The WA PBS Team Training Guide – ‘The 7 Components’

For the implementation of PBS at NMSHS to be successful, a number of stages, called components, need to be completed. The PBS Team attend training sessions to learn how to do these components. NMSHS has completed component 1 and almost completed component 2. The team will be attending a training session in Week 8 that will cover information on components 3, 4 and 7.

The 7 components are:

1. Leadership (Forming a PBS Leadership Team with procedures and a communication system)
2. Defining expected behaviour (Developing a Behaviour Matrix listing desired behaviours)
3. Teaching expected behaviour
4. Encouraging expected behaviour
5. Engagement Strategies
6. Responding to unproductive behaviour
7. Ongoing monitoring

Aboriginal Education

Girls Academy

Year 12 Graduates

Tekani Regan, Shontai Farrant, Caitlin Willetts, Tabatha Tregoning, Tahlia Bennell

Soroptimist Attendance Award to Courtney Smith and Crystal Kearrney.

Clontarf

Clontarf Awards

Year 12 Leavers

Follow the Dream

The Follow the Dream Program provides after school tuition for Aboriginal students in secondary school. 2016 has seen a great bunch of students involved across a number of sites: Australind, Bridgetown, Bunbury, Busselton, Cape Naturaliste, Dalyellup, Eaton, Manjimup, Margaret River, WA College of Agriculture – Harvey and of course Newton Moore.

The after – school tuition not only provides an environment for students to complete their homework, assessments, prepare for test and exams, it also enables students and teachers to develop positive relationships. Teachers have commented to me often of their enjoyment in working with such a committed and motivated group of young people during the Follow the Dream homework sessions.

The Follow the Dream Award recognises those students involved in the program who have displayed the attitude, commitment and preparedness to complete homework, tasks, assignments and prepare for tests and exams. Students are also recognised for their school attendance percentage, regular attendance to homework classes and their performance in school reports.

The award winners on the evening were:

I would like to commend all students involved in the program for their commitment in attending the after school program, and I hope they enjoyed it as much as we the tutors did.

Yours sincerely
Mr James Skoda
Follow the Dream Program Coordinator

Specialist Programs

Engineering

F1 State Championships

The F1 State Championships were held at Newton Moore on the 8th and 9th November. We had six schools attend from Perth, including a private school, which competed with our four teams in the State Finals.

Newton Moore was represented by two Year 9 teams in Development Class, Titanite and Knights of Armour and two Year 10 teams in Professional Class – Senior, Velocitious and Cosmos.

Teams were assessed on the following criteria:

• meeting technical regulations in their car design
• use of computer aided design software in designing their model F1 cars
• team portfolios
• manufacturing of car using CNC router
• engineering design process
• team poster
• team and project management
• branding
• trade display
• team verbal presentation.

The two all girl teams, Knights of Armour and Cosmos were offered Wild Card entries into the National finals being held over east in March 2017. They are busy preparing sponsorship letters and coming up with fundraising ideas so they can attend.

News from Parent Bodies

School Board

The last Board meeting is scheduled for 7th December 2016. We would like to thank, on your behalf the Board members who do a wonderful job and are very supportive and provide much assistance. Presently the Board are guiding us to ensure we are meeting our whole school targets and milestones. At our final Board meeting they will be involved in discussions about the budgeting process and the upcoming school review.

THANK YOU TO:

David Miles
Lyn Farrell
Jodie Schroder
Christopher Mayfield
Mal Neill
Michael Wainwright
Erin Cartledge
Jacqueline Barber
James Oliver
Belinda Heaney
Michelle Waywood
Susan Kerr