22 April 2016

Newsletter Articles

Assistant Principal’s Report

Dear Parents/Carers

Hello to all, Term 2 is off to a flying start, all EAP’s and TEAP’s have now been finalised and sent home to parents/carers. If parents/carers have not seen their child’s T/EAP please contact the school and another will be forwarded to you.

Staff have been involved in various forms of Professional Development over the last few week including:

Modified NTCET Clarifying session

Teachers teaching senior students modified NTCET subjects – English, Mathematics, PLP, ART and Cross Disciplinary, met up with other Top End teachers at Palmerston Senior College, last Thursday afternoon, to review and clarify their Learning and Assessment Plans (LAPS). The purpose for these, enables teachers to view other LAPs and ask questions of NTCET consultants about subjects being taught and clarifying student personal goals and how these can best be met in the subject being taught.

Anti-Discrimination Training

All staff were involved in Anti-Discrimination training last Monday at Henbury School. Christine Johnson from the Anti-Discrimination commission delivered a 2 hour training session to staff on a number of areas surrounding aspects of discrimination and how they might occur in a work place, as well as other forms of discrimination that could be evident in society in general and how these might best be addressed.

Total Recreation

Total Recreation activities have resumed this week on Wednesdays, with a fantastic program available to our students once again. Students will be able to participate in a great range of activities throughout the next two terms. The activities this term include soccer and indoor soccer, Rugby League and Bocce, Athletics and Bocce, as well as an Adventure race. Next term will include AFL and seated volleyball, an AFL Gala day, Cricket and Table Cricket, as well as a Table cricket day. Below are some photos of Wednesday’s session which the students really enjoyed.

Portfolios

Students will once again receive their portfolios at the end of the term, this year as part of our ongoing school improvement plan these will have a completely different appearance to previous versions as they will be now be constructed using our new Accelerus template.

New School Developments

See below for more photos of our new school.

outside area between Workshop and Enterprise ED

Rod Opie
Assistant Principal

Schoolzine Phone App

Henbury School currently uses Schoolzine to publish newsletters throughout the year. The school newsletter is an important communication tool to inform our school community of student learning, important notices and upcoming events.

In an attempt to increase accessibility to this service we would like to introduce the Schoolzine app.

This is a free app that can be easily downloaded onto any iPhone or android device which allows school newsletters to be viewed conveniently on any smartphone or tablet device.

To download this app please see information attached.

Any questions please direct to myself on the contact details below. I am available to assist with downloading the app any time, please ask at the front office for assistance if required.

Paul Drewitt
Senior Teacher 1
Curriculum, Assessment & Reporting

Henbury School Staff Profile

Leizl Mowbray

My name is Leizl Mowbray. I am the Enterprise Education teacher. In this role I work across the school (mainly on campus) in a variety of classes. We work on projects that develop our resourcefulness, prepare us for future work and life choices. We are currently working on a big project to place as a mural in the new school. I love my role as it allows me to work with a large number of our students and staff.

A bit of my background, I was born and lived in South Africa for the first 21 years of my life. I then relocated with my family to New Zealand. This is where I studied and qualified as a Teacher in Special Education. I worked in a private school teaching Year 2 & 3 students for 4 years before moving to Darwin in 2007. Working at Henbury has been my introduction to specialised education outside of Mainstream schools. It has been a challenging and rewarding career choice; the staff and families at Henbury have been wonderfully supportive over the years.

F2

Term two already and like everyone else we’ve been busy. F2 consists of eight caring and respectful teenagers, three of which are in year 12; Caitlin, Carrie and Jonathan, two in year 9; Nathan and Julio and three in year 8; Jeffrey, Manoli and Lorenzo. Our year 12 students are focussed on their transition from school and are progressing nicely. Jonathan is working at Woolworths and HPA AusDesigns and Caitlin and Carrie are working at RDH Laundry and Henbury Op Shop. Our middle-years students; Nathan, Manoli and Julio are working at the Henbury Op Shop, Julio has also started training for the Café Crew, while Lorenzo begins Garden Crew this Term.

A major focus in F2 is communication. We regularly have conversations discussing our likes, dislikes and life experiences focussing on effectiveness. Students are questioned if their message is understood and how else they can communicate their message. In English, students are learning about key elements in a sentence through a unit of work on landscapes. By investigating the geographical world around them, students are observing and studying a range of information including narrative texts and personal photos.

Mathematics is another major focus for F2, each week students learn about money in relation to their weekly grocery shopping. Recognising the right notes and coins to use in a transaction is our top priority this term. The rest of our week is filled with lessons on current affairs in news media, sensory exploration and play, fitness and strength with a personal trainer, work skills, enterprise education, life skills such as shopping, menu planning, cooking and food preparation. Students also take part in weekly excursions which helps develop appropriate social skills and awareness of recreation and leisure activities within our community.

E Block

Hello from E Block! We are a high support classroom and have four wonderful students – Hamish, Hayley, Indah and Tessa. Janine is our teacher with Gina and Meena as our SESO’s. We were kept very busy in Term 1 with some fun community access visits. We also took on the job of grocery shopping for the Coffee Crew every week which we find very enjoyable. We have made lots of friends at Coles and enjoy socialising on our weekly visits. We have been doing art and craft, practicing threading and painting to make paper chains. Leizl has also done stamping and marble painting with us. One of our favourite sessions is our sensory lesson with Sue, we love being on the wedges and mats to stretch out and challenge our senses. We have also been working hard on our physiotherapy, bike riding and hydrotherapy. We love working on our Tobii computers using our Eye Gaze to communicate and do our literacy and numeracy. Every Thursday we hold a Tobii Café where students from G2 come to our classroom so that we can engage and socialise with each other. We have some pretty funny conversations! Wednesday afternoons are fun as we go to G2 with C3 and B1 to have our music jam session – it’s noisy and very entertaining! We like the parachute at the end when it is our calm down time.

Goanna Park Camp

Goanna Park Adventure Camp 2016 applications have opened.

Applications are being received online this year through Smartygrants. You can access the carer/volunteer application form at:

The camper application is available at:

Camp dates for 2016:

Camp 1: Saturday, 2nd July – Sat, 9 July 2016
Camp 2: Saturday, 9 July - Saturday, 16th July 2016

Attached is a background document that you might find useful.

Applications close end of April.

Upcoming Events

Happy Birthday

April

Michael M - 4th
Kimberley Rose - 12th
Alexander – 16th
Abigail – 17th
Bryce – 22nd
Fu Seng – 27th

Community Notices