We acknowledge that Renmark High School students, staff and community live, study and work on Erawirung Land. We acknowledge the First Peoples of the River Murray and Mallee as Traditional Custodians of the Riverland region and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We respect the deep connection Aboriginal people have with land, animals and waters. 

We honour the Lores and customs that cross this traditional Country, the Ancestors who taught and still teach the knowledge that is embedded forever with Aboriginal people today. 

Swimming

Congratulations to Chaffey on the Swimming Carnival win on Friday, and to Sturt who were only 12 points behind!  Well done to all students who turned up on the day to participate in events or support their team. Thank you to the parent helpers and to staff for their organisation and efforts on the day.

New Teachers

Welcome to teachers Erin Pick (HASS, English and Research Project) and Nathan Phillips (Maths and HASS) who began in week 3 this term.  Both Erin and Nathan have been teaching in the UK but have returned home to SA.

SRC Assembly

Congratulations to our new SRC members who will be presented with their badges on Friday. The SRC leadership day is coming up where school priorities will be discussed.  Well done to our SRC members on being recognised by your peers for your leadership potential and I look forward to working with you all this year.

COVID Safety

Thank you to families for your support as we work through continued COVID restrictions. Please continue to keep students home when they are unwell, have COVID or a class contact and let us know if they are COVID positive. 

Teaching and Learning

We have continued to offer strong learning opportunities for students throughout the start of the 2022 school year.  Connect to our Facebook page if you haven’t already to get a window into some of the day to day happenings in our school.  These newsletters are a good opportunity to see the range of high quality learning students experience at Renmark High School.

Mat Evans - Principal

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the 1500m event on Monday.

Due to the staggered start to the 2022 school year, the swimming carnival was postponed to week 5 (February 4^th). As COVID restrictions were introduced, there was a slight chance that our carnival would be cancelled but fortunately the day still went ahead.

Since the 2021 event, the Renmark Swimming Centre has had many upgrades, and our students were fortunate to utilise these facilities. The weather and the pool were looking good as a large number of students made their way across for the day. It was the first for our year 7s and 8s and the last for many of our Year 12s.

The day was filled with many highlights and close competitions between the students, with captains working hard to ensure all events were filled. Considering the current situation, it was pleasing to see that the majority of events were filled, although we would like to see more support from our senior students during our annual sporting events. The students who attended had a great day competing, cheering, catching up with friends and ultimately supporting their captains in the swimming and splash events.

Many students (Noah, Courtney, Bailey, Noah, Madelyn, Darcy Ethan, Heath, Amber and Molly) all scored maximum points or close to it for their age group. Congratulations to all the students who achieved a place on the day, along with the age cup winners, but the most pleasing aspect was the efforts from everyone who got involved as every point contributed to your team. Unfortunately we couldn’t give out any extra ‘Most Dedicated’ medallions as there were so many students that stepped up to make the day a huge success.

The stand out performance for the day was from Madelyn. Throughout the past 4 years she has broken many records but in 2022 she broke 3 records on the day! This is a huge achievement for her and she should be proud. The records include:

• O16 Girls 50m Freestyle 2022 – 29:37 (1996 – 29:85) - 26 Years
• O16 Girls 50m Backstroke 2022 – 34:59 (1987 – 35:36) – 35 Years
• Open Girls 50m Butterfly 2002 – 32:18 (2021 – 32:50) – 1 Year

Unfortunately due to current COVID restrications, the Interschool event has been cancelled for 2022. The swimming team will have an opportunity to compete and defend the School Sport SA C Grade title in Term 2 with the date to be confirmed. 

Thank you to Mark Riedel andRemark Vitor Swimming Club and sponsors (BusBiz, Emmetts, AA Canvas and Shades, Renmark Hotel Motel, Renmark Club, Almondco Australia and Arossto Coffee) for your continued support.

Triathlon Champions

Last Wednesday, Bailey White and Jenna Lambert made their way down for the School Sport SA Triathlon Championships, held at West Lakes. Throughout the day there were individual and team events for students of various ages to compete in.

Due to the increased rainfall and conditions of the water, the organisers decided to remove the swimming section for the safety of everyone. This meant that Bailey and Jenna were required to run, ride and complete another run.

Both Bailey and Jenna had a successful day, with Bailey finishing 1^st in the U17 State Trials and Jenna 2^nd in the U19 Come & Try Triathlon Championships. Well done to both Bailey and Jenna and good luck to Bailey at the School Sport Australia Championships later in the year.   

Unfortunately due to the increase in close contacts, staggered start to the school year and lack of interest, we did not nominate any teams for the School Sport SA Triathlon Championships held at West Lakes. We are hoping to gain some interest for the 2023 event.

This week, students at Renmark High School competed once again in the annual first round of the OzCLO competition. The OzCLO (Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad) not only promotes higher order thinking through complex problem solving but also provides an opportunity for students to experience the behaviour of other languages in comparison with English. For example, the definite article, ‘the’ was not a part of some languages analysed. This year we entered four junior and two senior teams in the first-round of the nationwide competition.

This year our students had to decode the following five unfamiliar languages;

Rotuman - An Austronesian language spoken by the indigenous people living on the Rotuma group of South Pacific islands.

Waanyi – An Australian Indigenous language spoken across the borders of the Northern Territory and Queensland

Russian (baby talk) – The language of 2-year-old Russian children as they learn the sounds of their language.

Arhuaco (also known as Ica and Bintuk) – Spoken by the Arhuaco people in Northern Columbia, of which there are an estimated 8000 speakers

Wik-Mungaan – A Paman language spoken on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, with around 1650 native speakers.

Teams collaborated effectively, sharing their deep thinking with each other to find solutions to each question. Congratulations to our Renmark High School representatives who undertook the challenge over the course of three hours;

Junior Teams: Anja T, Stephen F, Fletcher H, Jemma H, Kallum M, Jocelyn G, Teleah Z, Leila P, Amber P, Tahlia P, Will L ,Logan F, Meegan G, Emily C, Mikayla M, Saraya G

Senior Teams: Lachie G, Alex T, Sakina Q, Karina S, Tamika M, Jorja K, Kelli W

Jasmine Sotiroulis- OzCLO Coordinator

Vegetable Tarts

This week the year 7 Food Technology class made vegetable tarts which included a range of vegetables that the class have been learning about.

Everyone did well for their first time cooking in the kitchens.

Wendy Matulic - Food Technology Teacher

All year 7s and 9s will participate in NAPLAN (National Assessment Program- Literacy and Numeracy) this year. NAPLAN provides parents, carers and teachers important information about how students are meeting the literacy and numeracy standards. It helps guide our teaching, professional learning and to identify intervention programs to support students. NAPLAN testing will occur between the 10^th and 20^th of May in term 2. In week 8 this term, some students will participate in a readiness testing activity. This is a trial test. The data is not used to assess your child in any way. It does provide us information around our ICT capacity and will allow your child to experience the online testing environment before their formal test.  Attached to this week’s newsletter is the NAPLAN – Privacy Collection notice. This explains how the Department for Education collects and uses NAPLAN data.

Jess Farrelly - Director of Learning

Year 9 Food Technology

Year 9 Food Technology class have made chicken, leek and mushroom pies, which were delicious. This was the year 9s first time in the kitchen cooking this year which they all loved.

Wendy Matulic

Food Technology Teacher