SA Public Teaching Awards 

I encourage students, families and colleagues to nominate staff for the Public Education Awards to acknowledge the amazing work happening at Renmark High School.  If you have been inspired by an educator in some way, please help recognise these important role models by nominating them. A nomination is simply a great way to say thanks to your favourite educator in appreciation of their work - so if you know someone who's doing a fantastic job in a school or preschool, be the one to nominate them and encourage them to apply for an award.  Nominations are open until 31^st May.

Daymap and Student Reporting

In our journey of improvement we are continuously reviewing and refining how we do things in our school.  Recently we have reviewed some aspects of our assessment and reporting procedures.  Over the last 12 months we have increased the amount of ongoing written feedback relating to assessment tasks over the term available on Daymap and emphasised the value of parent, teacher, student interviews.  In reviewing our processes we have identified that this isn’t currently meeting the needs of teachers, students or parents in the ways we anticipated. As a result, we have made some slight changes.

Daymap continues to be a rich source of communication from teachers to students and families. During each term, for each class, students  will be provided with a full written comment on at least one summative assessment task. There will continue to be term grades, traffic light indicators and ongoing assessment results available on Daymap. While there may be less written ongoing commentary recorded in Daymap, this will be replaced by ongoing, timely  feedback given directly to students or recorded on the assessment task itself. Term 2 subject overviews will be available on Daymap by the end of this week.

We are always reviewing our processes so please let us know if you have any feedback (on assessment and reporting or any other school processes) at any time.  

Uniform

Please continue to support our efforts to have all students in uniform.  I recognise this can be more difficult in winter (pants can be harder to get than shorts) however we have been working with both Yates and Tri State since last year on sourcing pants that are cost effective, appealing to students, and in compliance with our uniform policy. I encourage you to visit these suppliers to ensure your child is in uniform.

Mobile Phones

Please read the article in this newsletter on mobile phones at RHS.  I would like to highlight a small but important change in the ways we will follow up on breaches in our current mobile phone expectations.  Our aim is to ensure students remain focused on the learning opportunities in the classroom.  For students who repeatedly prioritise their personal phone needs over their learning, we have implemented a 3-strikes consequence.  On the third confiscation by a teacher as a result of infringement in class, the mobile phone being used will need to be collected from the front office by a parent or caregiver.  We appreciate the support from families in this as we continue to work together in maximising student success at school.

BYOD

We are continuing to work on a BYOD solution and have been negotiating competitive prices with suppliers. We are test running a new parent portal and will announce an information night soon!

Regards,

Mat Evans - RHS Principal