We acknowledge that we are on the land of the First People of the Murray and Mallee.We pay our respects to the Elders both past and present and honour the laws and customs that cross this traditional country, the ancestors who taught and still teach the knowledge that is embedded forever with the Aboriginal people today.

Welcome to the start of the 2021 school year. 

A special welcome to all of our new students and their families, and especially to our year 8 students who have joined us for the beginning of their secondary schooling journey. 

In addition to the 100+ Year 7 students who have joined us from our transition program last year, we have also enrolled over 20 new students across year 8-12 and welcomed an additional 12 new families to our Renmark High School community this year.

We are also fortunate to welcome some new staff members to our team: Assistant Principal Hillary Trotter (who is looking after our school operations and the year 11 and 12s), and two teachers who come to us with year 7 experience, Damian McCarthy (Design and Technology, and Mathematics), and Becc Ward (HPE, English and Art).

It was terrific to see families who took the opportunity on Monday last week to meet new staff and to catch up with familiar faces.  Meeting the teachers is a great way to make those initial contacts and to reaffirm existing ones.  It was also an opportunity for parents and caregivers to check out our nearly completed new library space. 

The next formal opportunity for parents to talk to teachers are the three way discussions on student progress (parent interviews) in week 10 and 11 but please don’t wait until then to make contact if you have anything to discuss. As I said at our welcome night last week, it is much better to address any concerns early, so please let us know if your young person needs support as soon as possible. 

The construction of our new administration facility and student services also continued in earnest in the holidays.  With the new air conditioning, ceiling and lighting in C block almost finished, we will have some classrooms back in use and are expecting the rest next week.  The remainder of the new renovations are expecting be completed by June this year.

Renmark High School Swimming Carnival                           

Well done to all of the students who participated in our recent Renmark High School swimming carnival, and thankyou to the staff and parents who supported the day.  Congratulations to the swimmers who put in a terrific effort for their teams and those who will now be selected to represent our school in the interschool event.  Congratulations also to these four students, Alice, Brock, Jayden, and Colby who won the most dedicated award for their respective teams. For this prestigious award each team nominates a student who goes above and beyond to support their team on the day.  This commendable attitude and effort is an embodiment of our school motto “non nobis solum”, “not for ourselves alone”.  Well done!

Some timely reminders:

• The standard of the uniform has been fantastic on our return to the school, please keep this up.
• Attendance by students is an important factor in their success at school, the beginning of the year is a great time to set in place the habit of being at school on time each and every school day.
• Students are not permitted to leave the school to go down the street at lunchtime.  This is in the interests of the safety and wellbeing of our students. Students who truant from school (or from school off-site activities) put at risk their ability to participate in opportunities such as excursions and camps.
• DAYMAP is an important method of communication with families and we encourage all parents and guardians to make use of this service.  Instructions on accessing the DAYMAP program are attached to this newsletter, are available on our Facebook page and can be collected from the front office.  

Our newsletters will again be issued every 3 weeks and we encourage you to access them electronically from the Schoolzine app SZapp, DAYMAP or on our Facebook page. 

I am looking forward to working with students, staff, families and our community as we continue to make our fantastic school even better throughout this year!

Mat Evans

Principal

Finance

Student Services

We would like to thank all the parents who joined us for the 2021 Renmark High School Parent Night in week 2. This event allowed us to welcome and introduce new staff to our school, as well as introduce key wellbeing staff and Care Group teams to parents.

During the Principal’s address, key student achievements in 2020 were highlighted including our excellent SACE results and the fact that all our students who applied received university offers.

It was exciting to share our newly renovated library space and we look forward to gaining access to more exciting spacing which will be showcased to the community during our open days on the 15^th and 16^th of March.

As a new staff member to the school it was exciting to see such strong parent engagement. Thank you for supporting us as a school and we look forward to working with you in a positive way in 2021.

Please could parents complete the survey by clicking the link below. This feedback will allow us to improve our events management and planning processes for the future.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JG5ZXTQ

Hillary Trotter

Director Of Operations

Welcome back everyone and a huge welcome to all the new families and new students. I heard that it was an excellent evening meeting the teachers and to make it even better it was held in our new library.

Already time is going very fast. This week we have the Aquatics camp with all the year 8 students. This is such an important time where all the year 8 students really get to know each other and their care group teachers well. The aquatic activities include water skiing, wind surfing, kayaking and sailing.  It is loads of fun, and challenging.

The instructors are excellent at what they do and how they encourage and support the students gives them that little bit of confidence. I have seen some students who have never water skied or even been behind a boat simply get up and off they go. A highlight is seeing the smile and excitement on their faces.

Enough from me just remember, keep smiling and a kind word can turn away anger. 

From your Pastoral Care Worker – Pammy

This year at Renmark High we have implemented two Learning Hubs, a Junior and Senior. This term, the Junior Learning Hub is running out of A21- the same space as last year. The Senior Learning Hub is based in H Block, running in the old FLO space. As our school continues through its renovations, the two Learning Hubs will eventually come together in the (will be old) front office space, hopefully near or around term 2. You will hear more about that this term as renovations progress.

The Junior Learning Hub, similar to last year, is designed to support all students and staff to deliver high quality instruction and intervention programs for students. The Junior Learning Hub is staffed 6 out of 7 lines with a teacher this semester, and students can come into the space, on direction from their teacher, for a number of reasons. Some of these may include:

• Sitting a test under supervision
• Extra time for completion of an assignment if students have been absent from school
• A quiet space for students to work on extension work provided by the class teacher
• Students to complete a variety of online literacy and numeracy intervention programs, including Lexia (literacy), Maths online (numeracy) and BKSB (literacy and numeracy)
• A place for SSOs to deliver intervention programs eg Quicksmart, Multilit
• A place for students who need alternate timetables for social development or mental health
• The learning hub teacher delivering small group activities for students to improve their skills in a specific focused area based on the class teacher recommendation, eg. Developing comprehension skills, to improve their reading

The learning Hub staff do not replace the role of Class Teachers, rather support students to meet intended learning by designing SMARTA goals and supporting, through quality instruction, students to meet those goals.

Last year in the first semester, 70 students across years 8 and 9 accessed the Learning Hub for at least one lesson. A typical lesson in the learning hub could look very similar to the following: Learning Hub staff member explicitly teaching a small group of students’ literacy, in particular the concept of comprehension. Teacher and students could be sitting together reading and following a passage of a story, at their pace, the Teacher checking for understanding and asking questions related to the text. An SSO may be watching over 3 students at the computers who are working through online intervention programs, one on Maths Online, and two on Lexia. There may also be 2 students sitting in a different space in the room working on extension work given by their class teacher. The Learning Hub Teacher and SSO check in and assist with questions during the lesson.

Our Senior Learning Hub is set up differently, and would be seen as a standard classroom if you were to walk into this space. The Senior Learning Hub is staffed 4 out of 7 lines with a Teacher and an SSO, and each Teacher has an area of expertise to teach the students SACE subjects. This semester students are working on Essential English, Essential Maths, PLP and Workplace Practices.

As we evolve the two spaces, and more students access them, we are continually tweaking and improving as we go. This will continue into Term 2 as the two spaces come together, which will result in extra Teacher and SSO support for students. If you have any questions regarding the Learning Hubs, please don’t hesitate to contact me at the school.

Lori Sandland

Learning Hub Leader

Dry Ice and Rubens Tray

Our year 9s have begun the year learning about energy transfer. Students were able to investigate heat transfer by making ice cream using dry ice. They were also able to visualise sound waves through the use of our Rubens’ tube. A Rubens’ tube provides a visual representation of sound waves using flames as music is played. From here students will continue to investigate heat, light and sound as the term continues.

Michael Brandford - Science Teacher

Renmark High School offers a consistent and ongoing approach to the teaching of literacy. We have a whole school focus on developing literacy skills for each and every student across all subject areas. Students will continue to develop their understanding of vocabulary and reading. Students will set individual reading goals and strive towards achieving them.

Junior school students have started this work already! English teachers have selected short reading passages and have teamed them with short activities that involve both individual and collaborative work. This has provided for the opportunity of team teaching and allowed for students to be challenged within their literacy capabilities.

Biljana Elliott

Senior Leader- Literacy and Global Perspectives

The RHS library website (https://renmarkhs.sa.libguides.com/library)

Students can access a variety of library services and information from our website. These include our latest new books, PRC information, digital reading magazines SpineOut and Good Reading, links to book review sites and databases. The library catalogue (available from the Quick Links box) can also be searched from home using the student’s unique barcode beginning with B0794 (no password required). This barcode is on both the student’s school diary and/or ID card.

Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC)

The PRC started on the first day back at school, and all students can participate. Student Reading Records can be picked up from the library or downloaded from the RHS library website at http://renmarkhs.sa.libguides.com/books/prc.

The Book Club

The Book Club meets twice a term to discuss books and reading and is available to any interested students. Our first meeting is Wednesday 17^th February in the library at lunchtime.

Mandy Smith

Teacher Librarian

LOCAL HISTROY WITH THE YEAR 8 8.2, 8.4 HASS CLASSES

Both year 8 Hass classes have been learning about our local history and indigenous community. This  week  students learnt the significance behind story telling and indigenous artefacts. In our classes students were exposed to a variety of stations around the room with set tasks, where they focused on writing dream time stories, indigenous artefacts including their names and purpose and looking at photographs based around foods, fishing traps and baskets from the Murray River. Students discussed and questioned photos and artefacts in small groups before recording their findings.

Wendy Matulic

Year 8 HASS Teacher

Year 8 students participated in their first zoned numeracy activity this week.  Students have completed a diagnostic test that determined their current level of multiplicative thinking and this was used to group them into one of 8 zones.  Each fortnight the year 8’s will work with other students in their zone on targeted activities that are designed to develop their numeracy skills.  Each student will keep a portfolio of work and when this evidence demonstrates a mastery of their current zone, they will move to the next group.

Mike Young

Congratulations to our 2020, Term 4 award recipients who received their award in Friday's assembly. Well done to each student on their success.

2021 MOST DEDICATED

OPEN BOYS

OPEN GIRLS

U14 BOYS

U14 GIRLS

CHAFFEY 2021 - SWIMMING CHAMPIONS

MURRAY TAKES OUT THE SPLASH BUCKET

MURRAY - SPLASH WINNERS

U15 BOYS

U15 GIRLS

U16 BOYS

U16 GIRLS