14 September 2018

Newsletter Articles

SENIOR TEACHER’S REPORT

Dear Parents/Carers

A big thankyou to our school community for attending family night and the Father’s Day stall this month. It’s wonderful to see new and old faces mingle with our students and staff and become better acquitted. Family night was a great success with a multitude of curries and smiles to compliment an invigorating disco tech display, kindly arranged by Chloe and James Dixon. The highlight of this month was most certainly the Science Fair and Kids Teaching Kids extravaganzas, organized by our Science guru Joan Ocampo. The understanding of scientific concepts aids our children to better understand the world around them and to influence future decision making.

RU OK Day was celebrated on 13/09 at Henbury with an array of activities available for our students centered on well-being concepts, followed by a disco in the hall. R U OK? Day is a national day of action, dedicated to reminding people to ask family, friends and colleagues the question, "R U OK?". A reminder that the 21/09 is a pupil free day. Staff will be busy learning about cutting-edge behaviour management practices. This will better inform all staff to meet the learning needs of our ever complex student cohort.

Paul Drewitt
Senior Teacher (Curriculum, Assessment & Reporting)

HELLO FROM BLUE 1

Blue 1 staff and students would like to welcome Aminah to our classroom as a new SESO. Aminah has been working hard getting to know everyone and enjoying the new things we have been learning. She will be working alongside Danielle and Charli. This Term we have started cooking. We do this on Tuesdays, we are learning to make shopping lists and identify different ingredients.

As well as cooking we have been getting out and about in the community, this Term we have visited Nightcliff foreshore, the Op-shop and Casuarina beach.

Last Term we were lucky enough to spend the day at Crocodylus as part of the unit of work we are doing based around Australian Animals.

We have even been lucky enough to have a few visits from Harlow the Therapy Dog in our classroom.

Each afternoon we have been using our Chat Books. This is where we each look at a photo from the day, a lesson or activity that we have done and reflect on it. Sometimes we like what we have done other times we think of things that need to be changed or something else we might want to learn about. Our Chat Books help us reflect on our learning and promote our communication skills with others.

We are all very excited about our Week 10 assembly item and look forward to seeing you there!

BLUE 2

Katie and Lacey and the students of Blue 2 would like to officially welcome Blake O’Donnell, Michelle Clements and Claudia Hamlin to our class and thank them for fitting in so well.

Blue two had lots of fun at camp this Term! Most of us attended the day trip and went on a lovely walk through Batchelor with some of the Blue 1 girls.

We’ve been practicing a special item for the upcoming assembly and are really excited to show everyone. There are a few new faces in our class and everyone has had a great time getting to know each other.

SCIENCE FAIR & KIDS TEACHING KIDS

SCIENCE FAIR

Henbury School was one of the national recipients of the National Science Week grant, special thanks to ASTA (Australian Science Teacher Association). It was a highly engaging and fun learning day last 27th of August wherein students created their class shields around the theme, “ Game Changers and Change Makers”. Inclusive learning, creativity and teamwork are all evident when each class shared their ideas on how they can help save the Earth while showcasing their colourful and fascinating shields. Everyone enjoyed the science experiments and hands on activities spread across the school. Experiment stations were visited by classes and everyone enjoyed experiencing interesting chemical reactions that encouraged scientific inquiry. Students also had a fair go trialling virtual reality using virtual reality googles and google boxes. The day ended with a mind blowing science quiz show wherein students showcased their fantastic knowledge about scientists, inventions and latest science innovations.

KIDS TEACHING KIDS

We thank Kids Teaching Kids National Foundation and Qantas Airways for providing us a cluster grant that we used to fund the Kids Teaching Kids Cluster Event on Friday, 7th of September. We had 50 mainstream students and two teachers from Wanguri Primary School and around 40 transitioning students and staff from Nemarluk School who joined us in this event. Henbury School students stepped up being teachers and school leaders on the day and led the conference. Environmental themes which includes recycling, animal care, planting, natural disasters, carbon chemistry and climate change are just some of the topics they taught students from other schools. The Learning Commissioners also led the assembly and activities while the coffee crew made delicious morning tea and lunch for all students who participated. Reverse integration became the most powerful approach during the day that created huge learning impact to both Henbury School students who accepted the challenging leadership role as young environmentalists and their peers, being the learners.

Joan Ocampo
Highly Accomplished Teacher

2018 TERRITORY AUTHORS AWARDS

Toby P and Leeam T attended the 2018 Territory Authors Awards where they both received a certificate for entering their stories, “The Mysterious Tree” by Toby and “The UFO – The Farm” by Leeam. Well done to both students!

VISIBLE LEARNING AT DARWIN HIGH OUTREACH

At Darwin High Outreach students can look to the Visible Learning wall at the back of the room to be reminded of how their learning is going. Students are not identified by name but choose their own avatar. They record their progress in both ability to read and spell Magic Words. They can tell at a glance how many assessment pieces have been finished for their Modified Northern Territory Certificate of Education courses. Students can see the journey to their 200 points for the courses in a plan which is updated regularly from the SACE online information. They can also see other TEAP goals and reminders of the work being done on Growth Mindsets and learning.

UPCOMING EVENTS 2018

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

SEPTEMBER

Honor – 3rd
Anastasios – 3rd
Malakai 3rd
Mihali – 6th
Timmia – 9th
Flynn – 21st
Dominic – 24th
Molly – 27th
Nicole – 29th

COMMUNITY NOTICES

Circa Wolfgang A3