Dear Parents and Caregivers,
It has been a very busy 2 weeks since our last newsletter with a number of things happening!
NATIONAL SUPPORT STAFF WEEK
At HCEPS we are very lucky to have a wonderful staff team and our Support Staff are a very important part of that team. This week is National Support Staff Week and this has provided us with an opportunity to acknowledge the work of our support staff. At school, teachers provided a special combined Morning Tea and Lunch on Tuesday. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all our support staff members for their work in our school. Without them our programs would not be able to operate at the high quality level that they do.
Thank you to:
Jenny McFadyen – Finance, Facilities, Administration
Henny Smith – Finance, Administration
Irene Bywaters – Resource Centre, Student Support
Nola Chalakas-Stopp – Administration
Joanne Berry – Student Support, Administration, Finance
Cherie Bishop-Kinlyside – Student Support
Narelle Muller – Student Support
Scott Panton – IT Support
Lisbeth Oppert – Student Support
Carina Dias-Cocks – Student Support
Tony Shepherd – Grounds and Maintenance
Adam Hackett – IT Support
CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations and well done to our Wakakirri team which represented our school in an exemplary manner at the state competition last week. Our item was based on an old Chinese folktale. On the night our school won the award for Best Costumes. This is a special thank you to parents, Simone, for making all the costumes and Bev, who helped decorate the hats. Thank you to the students for their hard work and to Evie Donoghue, Soma Govender, Aisha Venner and Kath Milne for their tireless work training the team.
At the end of each Wakakirri performance, 3 students from each school are interviewed for the audience regarding their school’s presentation. The 3 students representing our school were Tyler, Evie and Cora. The following are their responses to the questions asked by the interviewer.
Why did you choose your story?
We chose this story because it shows that it matters to be honest and truthful. In the story Ling learnt that it didn’t matter if people had better things because it mattered to be honest and truthful instead of bringing beautiful looking plants that shouldn’t have been grown and then not being loyal, honest and truthful to the emperor. (Tyler)
How did you consider sustainability for your performance?
For our Wakakirri Performance we have tried to be 100% sustainable because we used scrap materials for the emperor’s hat, the flats and some of the poles will be reused for other school activities and the leggings we bought can be reused for uniform. The hats and some of the flats were donated by our Japanese teacher and parents. We used every piece of our costume material for spare costumes and extra props. (Evie)
Is there anyone you would like to thank?
We would like to give a big thank you to Mrs Green for all the time and effort she put into our amazing costumes. Another big thank you is to Ms D for organising our Wakakirri experience and also for choreographing our dance. This is another big thank you to Mrs Govender, Mrs Milne and Mrs Venner for giving up their break times for helping us get better and improve. We would also like to give a big thank you to all the staff and crew at the Entertainment Centre and to all the parents who supported us in our Wakakirri journey. (Cora)
Since the Wakakirri performance, we have even more exciting news to share. HCEPS has been nominated along with 5 others out of all the South Australian school entrants for Story of the Year. We also won the Division 2 schools Best Cultural Celebration Award. Truly outstanding achievements.
BOOK WEEK
Last week it was officially Book Week, but because of many different activities, we celebrated Book Week this week. Students have participated in a range of interesting and exciting activities including decorating a whole school phoenix with feathers, participating in a buddy shared reading session, getting involved with the Charity Champions in the Big Book Swap to raise money for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, dressing up as “my secret power” or as a favourite book character, watching the Splash Theatre production, having fun with "Chalk boy Tuesday", participating in cracking daily secret codes and a variety of lunchtime activities in the Resource Centre. Everyone also read some of the shortlisted children’s books of the year. What a busy week!! This extensive program was developed by a dedicated Book Week team and we thank Nicole Gully, Sarah Clews, Karina Galloway, Aisha Venner, Kerry Patterson, Karen Evans, Jonathon Warren-White and Irene Sulcs for their work, and a special mention to Carina Dias-Cocks for the fabulous art work in the Resource Centre. Thank you too to Jenny McFadyen for a lot of behind the scenes work.
WRITER'S NOTEBOOK BROCHURE FOR PARENTS
In an earlier newsletter this term I had an article about the T&D staff did with Lisa Burman on Writer's Workshop. In that newsletter I provided a link for her parent brochure on Bookmaking. She has now also completed a brochure on Writer's Notebook, which is the level after Bookmaking. Please click on this link to read her brochure.
IMPORTANT COMING EVENTS
SPORTS DAY – FRIDAY 20th SEPTEMBER
Anne Rathjen
Principal