Year 12s

Our year 12 students finished their final exams last week and with classwork being sent off to the moderators, their year is over.  Congratulations to the students on completing their final year in difficult circumstances; your resilience and ability to meet challenges have been recognised.  All the very best for your results due out later this year!

Design and Technology teacher

Congratulations to Damian McCarthy who will join our team next year as a Design and Technology and Mathematics teacher.  Damian is currently a year 7 teacher at Wallaroo Primary School and is moving his family to Renmark for the role.  We are excited to have another qualified D&T teacher joining Matt in the workshop for next year and look forward to their work together.  Damian will be here this Wednesday for our student free day.

Remembrance day

Thank you to two of our student leaders, Aidan Prokopec and Rachel Humble, who represented our school at Remembrance Day last week.  Well done also to RHS student Desmond Chester who was in the cadet contingent who provided the catafalque party for the ceremony. 

Remembrance Day is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states. Remembrance Day has been observed since the end of the First World War to remember armed forces members who have died in the line of duty.  In most countries, Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the end of First World War hostilities. Hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month", in accordance with the armistice signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente between 5:12 and 5:20 that morning. The First World War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919. 

Remembrance Day is an opportunity to pay respect and honour those who lost their lives serving their country. It also gives us a chance to remember family and friends who lost their lives fighting in wars and for us to consider the cost of war.  

NAIDOC week - Always Was, Always Will Be

Last week was also NAIDOC Week, an event of national importance for all Australians.  A week borne from a day of protest, NAIDOC Week each year reminds us of the ongoing aspirations of our communities as they continue the movement towards justice and equality.  Importantly, NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to come together to celebrate not only Indigenous achievement but the history, rich culture, and survival of the oldest continuing living culture on the planet.

The theme of this year’s NAIDOC week - Always Was, Always Will Be- - acknowledges that hundreds of Nations and our cultures covered this continent. All were managing the land - the biggest estate on Earth - to sustainably provide for their future.  NAIDOC Week 2020 acknowledges and celebrates that our nation’s story didn’t begin with documented European contact whether in 1770 or 1606 - with the arrival of the Dutch on the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula. The very first footprints on this continent were those belonging to First Nations peoples.

First Nations people have occupied and cared for this continent for over 65,000 years. They are spiritually and culturally connected to this country. This country was criss-crossed by generations of brilliant Nations. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were Australia’s first explorers, first navigators, first engineers, first farmers, first botanists, first scientists, first diplomats, first astronomers and first artists. ​     

Australia has the world’s oldest oral stories. The First Peoples engraved the world’s first maps, made the earliest paintings of ceremony and invented unique technologies. They built and engineered structures - structures on Earth - predating well-known sites such as the Egyptian Pyramids and Stonehenge.  Their adaptation and intimate knowledge of Country enabled them to endure climate change, catastrophic droughts, and rising sea levels.  Through ingenious land management systems like fire stick farming, they transformed the harshest habitable continent into a land of bounty.   

 Student Free Day

On our student free day this week staff are working on the new language and literacy levelling, and then working on curriculum planning for year 7s who will be joining us in 2022.  Thank you to parents and caregivers that have had to make other arrangements for students to enable staff to collaborate on this important work.

Presentation Night and Prom

We recognise that it is important to celebrate the achievement of our students, so we are endeavouring to hold a presentation night and a year 12 Prom, however, with some necessary adjustments due to COVID restrictions and safety.  So far, our plan for presentation night is that two tickets will be available per year 12 student and major award recipients.  As per the letter that was posted home last week, these tickets will need to be pre booked through the Chaffey Theatre.  For Prom, any onlookers must socially distance (e.g. be 1.5m from each other).  For both events you must not attend if unwell.  Please keep alert for any communications from the school for any updates to arrangements, especially with the new community cases in Adelaide announced on the weekend.  We look forward to celebrating our students' success.

 Planning for 2021

Planning for next year is well underway. Please let the school know if you are planning on enrolling your child for the first time at RHS in 2021 (unless you are a year 7 parent who has already informed your primary school as we would already have this information), or if your child is not planning on being at RHS in 2021. This information is very important for the successful planning of classes, subject offerings, staffing and budgets.

Mr. Mat Evans - Principal