3 May 2017

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Parents/Carers

Term 2 has had a busy start with the three public holidays. Hope everyone got a chance to enjoy some of the long weekends.

Staffing

Sarah Corry for Term 2 will be Acting Assistant Principal at Humpty Doo Primary. Whilst she is away Lauren Hofmeyer will be acting Senior Teacher 1 Transition and Pathways. Backfilling for Lauren at CSC will be Marion Ardana. Paul Drewitt was successful in winning a position for 6 months as Acting Director at the Early Learning Intervention Hub, which is located at the old Henbury School site. At the moment his position is not being backfilled.

Northern Territory Architecture Awards

The school has been into two categories of these awards:

a) Educational Architecture: Projects in this category may be any preschool, primary, secondary or tertiary educational facility and/or joint research facilities in which an educational institution is a significant partner.
b) Urban Design: Projects in this category may be single buildings, groups of buildings or non-building projects, studies or masterplans, which are of public, civic or urban design in nature. Awarded projects must have enhanced the quality of the built environment or public domain or contribute to the wellbeing of the broader community.

Rising Starts Basketball

There are 4 games to go for the Rising Stars Tournament. Students continue to love participating and it is great to see their skills and confidence grow. Parents and carers welcome to attend! Thanks again to Buslink for volunteering to transporting our students each week!

Total Recreation

Total Recreation sessions have commenced and will be run on Henbury Campus every Wednesday morning. One group will be run in the hall and run by TOTAL REC, another group will be in front grassed area and run by TOTAL REC. The final group will run on campus at the back of the school with students from CSC 1 and teachers leading this group.

Australian Association of Special Education Conference

The conference was held 7 and 8 April. On Friday the 7th of April, two of our Senior Outreach teachers, Deborah Hall and Lauren Hofmeyer, presented a breakout session at the national Australian Association of Special Education (AASE) conference, held in Darwin. The session entitled “Rich tasks, confident young people and curriculum success” explored Henbury School’s planning and delivery of modified and mainstream Northern Territory Certificate of Education and Training (NTCET) subjects with Senior Outreach students. Participants left with a greater understanding of how students with special needs can fulfil a Modified NTCET pattern, the scope for creating rich tasks that access multiple learning capabilities and how functional academic programs can be linked with Work Experience and Vocational Education programs that form such a vital part of our work at Henbury School.

The school hosted a visit by 20 delegates on Thursday 6 April. The delegates had morning tea provided by the Coffee Crew and then viewed students undertaking work/enterprise lessons.

PossAbilities Expo

On Friday the 6th April Henbury hosted the PossAbilities expo. This was a community event promoting services, organizations and opportunities for people with a disAbility. There was over 30 interactive stalls and the school choir performed on stage.

Visitors were able to try a Skill in our Enterprise Education work spaces and classrooms were open.

A big thank you to Lauren Moss: Member for Casuarina for helping out with the Rising Stars Basketball BBQ dinner.

Thank you also to all the agencies/organisations, parents, carers, volunteers, and staff for coming down to the PossABILITIES Expo. We had a great turn out. We hope you all got something out of it.

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program (SAKGP)

May 16 and 17, will see Henbury School hosting the Regional Skills Networking Event for Northern Territory Schools registered with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program (SAKGP). School leaders from different schools around the NT will be visiting Henbury together with specialists from the National SAKG Foundation Team. Our school farm, horticulture building and the café will be used as training facilities by around 60 educators from around the region.

School Uniforms

New stock has arrived. They are available to purchase from the front office. Cost is $35 each.

Carolyn Edwards
Principal

NEW TERM BREAKS

From 2018, term and semester breaks will be in a 1,3,2,6 model compared to the current 1,4,1,6 model.

This means a three week break in June/July and a longer two week break before Term 4, with the Christmas break the same at six weeks.

Term 1 will run for 11 weeks, Terms 2 and 3 for 10 weeks and Term 4 for nine weeks.

The decision to change the school term dates is a direct result from feedback provided through the three rounds of consultation conducted throughout 2015 and 2016.

A comprehensive consultation process was undertaken to ensure that final decision was well informed by the community and is intended to provide the best possible educational outcomes for Northern Territory students.

The new pattern reflects evidence-based research that identifies students’ school attendance and participation in learning is generally at a highest point at the start of the school year.

The new school term dates and holiday breaks have been approved for a five-year period, commencing in 2018. Please find attached the school calendars for the next five years for your records.

For more information on the changes to the school term dates, please visit:

Corrigated Iron Drama Sessions

Please find attached information for Corrugated Iron Drama Sessions at Henbury School. We are looking at running this group after school on a Monday from 3-4pm. Before we can commit, I need to know if any students are interested. We need a minimum of 6 and a max of 10 students to run these sessions. Sports vouchers can be used.

If your child is interested please contact Lauren Hofmeyer at Henbury School on 89977077.

Entertainment School Fundraiser

Henbury School is raising funds. Here's how you can help...

Support Henbury School by buying the NEW 2017 | 2018 Entertainment Membership for your Mum, other family members, or even spoil yourself this Mother's Day. Entertainment Memberships are filled with hundreds of valuable offers for everything you love to do, and you'll be helping our fundraising at the same time!

If you are interested in purchasing a book please click on the link below or contact the front office on 89977077. Books are also sold at our Op Shop in Aralia Street, Nightcliff.

Anglicare 2017 Couch Surfing Race

Team Gwalwa Daraniki and the Anglicare 2017 Couch Surfing Race

By Saxon, Gilbery, Aiden, William, Robbie and Kyle.

What is couch surfing?

Couch surfing is a thing when kids don’t have a home to stay at. Then they go to their mate’s house and they sleep on their mate’s couch. They go from couch to couch.

William

What’s the reason for the race?

Raising awareness about youth homelessness is the reason for the race.

Saxon

Who told us about youth homelessness?

Charity, the counsellor at CSC, Natalie, the counsellor at Henbury and Micheal Clark and staff from Anglicare.

Where you can go if you become homeless?

Casi House is a place where you can go to in the middle of the night. Anglicare youth homeless service provides accommodation and food but you must be studying.

Why do people become homeless?

• Not being looked after.
• Drugs and arguments.
• Unsafe at Home.

Robbie

What does Gwalwa Daraniki mean?

Gwalwa Daraniki means ‘Our Land’ in Larrakia. It is from the language Larrakia elders used when they fought for land rights in 1971.

Why did we choose that for the team name?

We chose that name because there were seven Aboriginal boys on the team and a non-Aboriginal boy whose name is Saxon. We painted the Larrakia and Aboriginal flags on the couch.

Gilbery

What did we do to get ready?

1. Find a couch
2. Undercoat the couch with white paint
3. Visit Anglicare to find out about youth homelessness
4. Learn the rules for the race competitors
5. Spray-paint the couch with Dave.

Saxon

What did everyone do on race day?

• Robbie was the jockey
• Kyle, Saxon and Aiden pushed the couch and then Corey joined in.
• The cheer-leaders were Gilbery, William, Dominic, his dad, Deb, Jolina, Cam, Niki and some friends from different schools.
• Rod McKay gave us strategy. The first race was a little bit hard because we didn’t know what we were doing. We got better because we listened to each other and Rod.

Kyle

What happened?

At the start we didn’t know how to do the race. We made mistakes because we didn’t know how to steer the couch. I worked out that the way to go fast was to push and then jump. Some of us had to jump over the cones so we didn’t smash them. We learnt that we needed to communicate and we had it worked out for the second heat. The last heat was against The SHAK and we came second. We won vouchers from Kingpin and Planet Tenpin and KFC.

Aiden

See photo below as well as a short clip from the day.

Visible Learning Monthly Update

Hello from the Visible Learning Coaches! In our last instalment we talked about the “Effective Feedback” strand of Visible Learning and how all of our classes engage in a daily afternoon reflection session. This month’s update is about “The Visible Learner” strand and students using a Growth Mindset.

“The Visible Learner” strand relates to the student and how they see themselves as a learner. At Henbury we support our students to have ownership over their learning and understand their goals and targets, and how to reach them. We tap into how each individual student learns best.

Extending on this, staff equip students with the strategies to have a “Growth Mindset”. This is more than just saying to our students “C’mon! Push through, and try your best!” A Growth Mindset also means understanding and practicing strategies for learning, such as:

• Learning from mistakes
• Different ways to learn
• Taking risks and persevering
• Awareness of the next steps in their learning
• Positive self-talk
• Asking for help
• Looking back a successes and challenges
• Using calming and other problem solving strategies
• Learning about personal care and wellbeing – how does this impact on learning?

Each of our Henbury classrooms are very different so different, approaches are used to support students in developing their Growth Mindset. When moving around the school, not only would you hear lots of Growth Mindset language, but you would also see lots of visuals promoting the use of a Growth Mindset. Here are just a few:

Green 4 – using Growth Mindset language prompts

Purple 5 – watching a Class Dojo movie about ‘The Dip’ – which is an analogy for when going through learning challenges.

Yellow 5 – use a Growth Mindset tree and Fixed Mindset stump to help explain different learning strategies.

Green 1 – refer to their The Pit poster, which is similar to The Dip. It illustrates that feeling challenged is normal and there are ways to get out of The Pit.

CSC classes also use their own versions of The Pit. Students identify where they are on their learning journey, and how to move forward to make progress. Having a Growth Mindset will help them move out of The Pit.

Yellow 2

This Semester Yellow 2 welcomed 4 new students, DJ, Daniel, Jeremy and Geoff. The boys have all become good friends in a very short time. We had lots of fun completing the Henbury Skills Taste Tester. Everyone especially enjoyed the hairdressing. Jayden taught a lot of students around the school some basic hairdressing techniques. We are proud of his talents. Other programs enjoyed by the class have included Bakery, Coffee Crew, Rising Stars Basketball, socialising in the community and the Choir. Our class was very lucky to be chosen to attend the workshop, 'Introduction to Cartooning with Artist George Aldridge', for National Youth Week. Last term we celebrated Adrian's 18th and in a few weeks we will celebrate Harry's as well. We said goodbye to Jayden who has transitioned to Darwin High. Well done Jayden.

Greeting from Yellow 3

Staff members Raylee and Regina feel grateful every day for the opportunity to work with the Yellow 3 students! The 8 girls that make up this class are always caring and considerate and know how to have a good laugh. They participate in a variety of different work training programs including the class Lunch Queens business. As well as their regular programs, students have been learning about WW2 and The Bombing of Darwin as their unit of work. A highlight of Semester 1 has been participating in the Rising Stars Basketball Tournament. When asked what their favourite programs are, here’s what they had to say:

Coral-Lee: cooking with the Lunch Queens, starting my Retail Certificate, Enterprise Ed with Leizl and learning new maths skills.
Katie: Reading, going to choir, cooking with the Lunch Queens and in my Bakery course.
Dana: Going to Amanda’s (Blue 4) for maths, Coffee Crew Work Training and Basketball.
Kimberley: Basketball and Hairdressing Work Training.
Molly: Cooking with the Lunch Queens, Bakery and Bombing of Darwin excursions.
Georgiah: Hairdressing VETis Course, Coles and Coffee Crew Work Training.
Kate: Coffee Crew, Basketball and Science.
Emily: Bombing of Darwin unit, Basketball and Hairdressing Work Training.

Photographer of the week

This year students are participating in a photography subject. This course is also part of the student’s senior certificate (NTCET) where they will be completing a range of photography and editing skills whilst also working collaboratively with other students to create photo coasters and products to sell as part of our Enterprise Education component. Students will also be given the opportunity to show their wonderful work in the Darwin Show. Each week, a student will be chosen as photographer of the week and this will then be published in the newsletter each fortnight. We would greatly appreciate it if you are able to vote on the photo that you like the best. Photos are numbered from 1 to 4 and you can only vote once. All photos are of such high quality and I commend all students on their efforts. Please click on link below to be able to vote:

Thank you

Penny Willmett

Upcoming Events

Happy Birthday

APRIL

Michael MD – 4th
Tom D – 8th
Kimberley TT – 12th
Alex A – 16th
Isaiah K – 19th
Fu Seng U – 27th

Community Notices