21 March 2016

Newsletter Articles

Senior Teacher’s Report

Dear Parents/Carers

Greetings to all who comprise our wonderful school community. It’s week 8 and Henbury School is going strong with vibrant programs occurring in all classes. This is my first school newsletter and I am proud to highlight our school’s achievements for the past fortnight.

TEAP and EAP Meetings

The TEAP/EAP planning meeting process is almost complete. Thank you to all parents/carers who contributed to setting goals to plan for their child’s future lifestyles. Teachers are now writing plans which will go home on the last day of term one. This year, we are using a new Accelerus database system which will generate a new style of plan and aid in data collation to better inform future planning at Henbury School.

Crazy Hair Day - Shave for a Cure

Annemarie Davis (SESO in F2) shaved her head on 10/03 to support individuals suffering from Leukaemia. Donations can still be made until 30 June by clicking on the link below:

Henbury School Staff Profile: Wanderson Siqueira

My name is Wanderson Albuquerque de Siqueira and I was born in Brasil. In 2005 I left my country to study English in London where I met my partner and we moved to Australia in 2011. Since 2012 I have worked at Henbury School; in E block, C2, F2 and now B1.  It’s a great place to work and I’m really proud to be a member of the staff team.

Outside of school I enjoy bike riding and going to the gym, and I try to get to the beach each evening to see the sunset and walk with my two little dogs.

This year I’m working with new students and a new teacher and I’m looking forward to all of the exciting things that we have planned for our class.

Henbury’s Got Talent

A vibrant new talent contest has begun at Henbury School; students of various ability levels meet in the hall at lunch time to showcase their talents in song, dance and acting – a fantastic way to keep our wonderful students engaged through the Arts.

Parents as Career Transition Support (PACTS)

Henbury School is running the PACTS workshops again in 2016. The PACTS program is a series of information and education workshops for parents of secondary school students in their final year of schooling. The next workshop will take place at Henbury School on Thursday 31st March from 5.00 – 6.30pm. A light dinner, tea and coffee, with child minding will be provided. Bookings for this can be made with Sarah Corry 89275088.

New School Developments

The construction of our new school is progressing well with joinery established in GLA1, classrooms and administration painted and tiling of the toilets almost complete. The new 20m pool is looking outstanding with the roof trusses now complete.

Paul Drewitt
Senior Teacher

Greetings from C2 class

It’s Week 8 already!

We’ve had a busy start to this year and being involved in lots of learning experiences and activities has made the term fly-by quickly.

Our activities have included a weekly gym program at Margy’s Fun Fitness, interesting community access visits and our weekly shopping and cooking program. This Term we welcomed a new student, David also known as DJ, who has settled so well into C2 with his classmates.

Some of our favourite activities this Term:

Have a great Easter break everyone – only 2 weeks to go.

C2 class chillin’ on the rocks at the Botanical Gardens

C3

We are having a great start to 2016 and learning how to communicate better with AAC (Proloquo2go) and using verbal skills.

We had fun cooking lots of delicious meal

A visit to the shopping centre and finding out lots about how to window shop.

C3 read lots of stories in Literacy in term one

From our Counsellor

How to have a good night sleep

Sleep can be a troublesome issue for some parents: the amount of time spent trying to get kids to sleep, worrying about kids not sleeping, being woken up by kids who should be sleeping…it goes on and on!

It’s an important issue for parents of teens too. The sleep-wake cycle for teenagers is delayed by up to two hours. That is, they are sleepy later and awake later than when they were children. Many teenagers today are sleep deprived because they don’t get enough sleep. They need between 9 and 10 hours sleep each night, yet most get about seven or eight hours sleep.

Here are 5 tips for good sleep habits, and 5 extra tips for teens to help manage their changing sleep cycle.

Good sleep habits include:

1. Regular bed-times Kids may fight this, but be regular during the week and let kids stay up a little later on weekends.
2. Have a wind-down time of up to 45 minutes prior to bed. This includes, removing TV and other stimuli such as mobile phones, iPads and tablets, calming children down, and limiting food intake (including sugary food and caffeine for teens).
3. An established bedtime routine that makes the brain associate behaviour such as cleaning your teeth and reading in bed with sleep.
4. Keeping bedrooms for sleep and not for TV. Bedrooms that resemble caves seem to be recommended.
5. Maximising the three sleep cues of: darkness (cave-like bedroom), lowering body temperature (baths can be good for this) and melatonin (work within their cycle).

Sleep tips for teens:

1. Allow them to catch up on lost sleep during the weekends.
2. Help your young person schedule their after school activities to free up more time for rest.
3. Discuss ways of limiting stimulating activities such as television and computer around bedtime. Encourage restful activities such as reading.
4. Afternoon naps are good ways to recharge their batteries.
5. Make sure they go to bed early each Sunday night to prepare for the coming week.

Natalie Althouse
School Counsellor

Entertainment Book Fundraiser

We're very excited to be fundraising with Entertainment™ this year. Order your NEW 2016 | 2017 Entertainment™ Books and Entertainment™ Digital Memberships from us today, and 20% of the proceeds contribute towards our School!

Order your new Entertainment™ Book or Entertainment™ Digital Membership before 13 April 2016 and you will receive over $190 worth of additional offers that you can use right away!

Contact Henbury School if you would like more information on 89275088.

Lions Club Movies

The Lions Club together with the Darwin Business Community are presenting the ‘2016 Free event for special needs and disadvantaged kids’ on Saturday 2nd, 9th and 16th April. Free movie tickets are available on these dates. Notes have been sent home to be completed and returned to school.

Upcoming Events

Happy Birthday

March

Byron M – 2nd
Samantha M – 6th
Marina K – 7th
Jeremy DM – 7th
Peter J – 8th
Bradin B – 22nd
Omri – 23rd
Desbina – 23rd
Amanda T – 26th

Community Notices