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. 

Welcome to Week 6 of Term 3.

Student Assessment and Reporting
at Renmark High School

In our continued endeavour towards reporting in an ongoing way throughout the year, we encourage you to check Daymap for teacher feedback on assessments. By keeping track of student progress on Daymap you are able to support your student in an ongoing way to make changes in their efforts, or to challenge themselves to achieve at a higher level. In Daymap you will currently find traffic light indicators for week 5. We encourage you to use these to prompt conversations with your student about their progress at school. Please do not hesitate to contact teachers at the school with any concerns or questions, especially if you see a yellow or red rating.

We strongly encourage your attendance at the upcoming parent teacher interviews (see details in this newsletter). These interviews are a great chance for teachers, students and their parents/caregivers to discuss student achievement, progress, and goal setting for the remainder of the year. Interviews are not only for students who aren't progressing as well as expected, they are just as valuable to discuss the learning and skill development of students who are already performing to a high standard. 

We offer these interviews in term 3 to give time for students to put new goals and actions in place to improve results during the remainder of semester two.  Use the online booking system now to reserve your preferred time slots. 

Student Success

A huge congratulations to Renmark High School student, Sakina Q for winning SA Training Awards School-based Trainee of the Year for 2022. We are very proud of her amazing achievement. 

Student Learning

The 'Lifting Up Not Holding Back – Learner Entitlement' conference on student education, presented by the Secondary Schools Principals Association that I attended recently reinforced the great work done by Renmark High School staff every single day. The theme was 'Inclusion' and reinforced how important it is for schools to provide the teaching and learning for our young people that will enable them to be successful. Listening to speakers and participating in the workshops, I was able to reflect on the amazing things that are already happening in our school for students.  I will share some more details in future newsletters, however, in the meantime I would like to recognise our staff’s fantastic efforts in our school improvement work in catering for the individual needs of our students and look forward to our continued success developing our learning environment with students as a focus.

Thank you

Mat Evans
Principal

Year 12 SATAC Information

The year 12 students are working well as we head towards the pointy end of the year. Mid-term traffic light reports have been released and are being assessed as we continue to support students with academic coaching, academic recovery, catch up study sessions and  information about SATAC university applications. Flinders University continue to provide their mentoring program, 'Inspire', which includes regular weekly meetings with small groups of students and a whole group sessions where information is delivered around university life, how to apply on SATAC, course details, accommodation options and scholarships. This program will also include an Adelaide Uni Camp to visit all three university campuses as well as becoming familiar with city public transport and accommodation options. We would like to thank Flinders University for their partial funding of our transport costs. They are also funding the SATAC application fees for the students involved in the 'Inspire' program.

Inspire program meet ups with Year 12 students and Flinders University mentors

Families should be aware that SATAC applications need to be entered by the end of term on September 30^th. University courses can be entered after this date but the application fee will increase. Once students have applied and paid for their SATAC application they can change and update their selections. I am continuing to advertise local career opportunities in the school and will support students with their resumes, applications and job hunting over the coming weeks. 

Year 11 students

This semester year 11 students have been granted Home Study tand every family should have received, signed and returned a permission letter to be entered onto Daymap. We will monitor individual students and inform families if we believe this is not working for their child. This Home Study is only allowed in the morning and at the end of the day. Students must not come and go during the day and they must attend care group at 11.00am each day. 

Students are asked to Daymap message 'Study Teacher' to inform on their whereabouts in the school if not in the Senior Study space. Otherwise they will be marked as unapproved absence. 

Stage 1 students have also made their subject selections for 2023. These subject selection forms need to be signed and approved by parents/guardians and returned to their care group teachers. The school will then look at subject numbers, staffing priorities and student choice to ultimately deliver a broad and flexible timetable as possible.

Marina Pater
Director of Operations

Renmark High School would like to thank the Lions Club of Renmark for their ongoing support and their recent donation of $1,200 from the Funding Schools ‘Social Justice’ Program. These funds will assist our school in purchasing uniforms, text books and will provide food and other goods in our Learning Hub.

Towels (any size) for damping down clay in art space. Please drop off at the Front Office. Thanks in anticipation!

Heidi Stanojevic
Visual Arts Teacher

Congratulations to the Open Girls Volleyball team who had a successful day in Adelaide in week 3. The girls will now be heading down for the School Sport SA finals in week 6. Well done and all the best in the finals. Go Renmark!

On Tuesday of week 4 we once again welcomed our year 6s to a ‘Come and Try’ day at the high school. Students participated in a range of classes and activities including: making clay name plaques, timber birdhouses, sweet and savoury scones, language activities and singing, science experiments, music and agriculture. Chloe Shorrock also ran a feather flowering activity in Namawi Pulgi for a small group of students. Students commented on the excellent facilities and fun activities, reporting they had really enjoyed themselves. We look forward to the next transition visit in Term 4, week 2, on Monday 24^th October.

Danielle Weeks
Assistant Principal and Director of Inclusion

Pitching a Proposal

Our year 7 students have been learning about Civics and Citizenship in HASS this term. Part of their assessment included them being tasked by our principal, Mat Evans, with a very important job. It involved identifying a location within the school that they felt could do with redevelopment or refreshing.

As part of their proposal, students mapped the area, sketched improvements, measured and costed the site and created a formal presentation that they shared in front of a panel consisting of a combination of students, staff, parents and our principal.

The presentations were thoroughly prepared and confidently delivered. Congratulations to Abdullah, Sam, Riley and Dylan for being selected as having met all of the criteria set by the panel.

Biljana Elliott
Senior Leader of Literacy & Global Perspectives Teacher

Parody Performance

Year 9 Drama students have been having fun learning about comedy and parody this term with a particular focus on soap operas. From their learnt knowledge students have created their own soap opera class play based on four dramatic plotlines with defined soap opera stock characters, close ups and cliff hanger endings.

On Monday 29th August, Year 9 Drama students performed their hilarious play to year 7 and 9 students in the Drama Room. The Drama students came together, showed exceptional team work all with one goal; to perform the best they can (on stage and off) and they did. Well done year 9 Drama students!

Wendy Matulic
Drama Teacher

 

Shark Tank

Miss Caputo’s year 8 class have spent the first three weeks of term learning about Business and Enterprise. Students were given a range of household items and were tasked with turning an everyday object into something innovative. Students had to pitch their idea to the class, suggesting the functionality of the item, the target audience, an overall production cost, and competition in the market. Creations included a pair of tongs turned into a wireless hair crimper, a colander transformed into a portable camping shower, and the creation of a 3-in-1 hammock/shopping bag/outdoor pergola! Prepare yourselves to see one of these wonderful inventions featured on Shark Tank in 2029. 

Kardinia Caputo 
English/HASS/Research Project Teacher

At our whole school assembly, we acknowledged the talented and hard-working languages students whose dedication resulted in Renmark High School taking out our fourth world title in the category of 51-100 students. An impressive set of statistics for this year include; 27,1017 questions answered in 30 languages, following 351 hours online, ranking Renmark High School; 78^th out of 2824 schools, some of which have student populations over a thousand. Stand out results across some languages include:

1^st in Greek out of 586 schools

4^th in Japanese out of 91 schools

1^st in Russian out of 37 schools (category 50-100 students)

1^st in Italian out of 47 schools (in SA)

1^st in French out of 45 schools (category 50-100 students)

2^nd in Spanish out of 39 schools (in SA)

1^st in Samoan and Malay (in SA)

4^th in Arabic out of 23 schools (in SA)

Renmark High School retains its outstanding reputation on a global level, as leaders in language learning as a result of the commitment of our students. Congratulations to Meegan G, the overall winner for Renmark High School whom along with Fletcher H and Jorja K, all achieved ‘Elite Status’ earning over 10 000 points.  

Top language student by year level;

Top year 8 student: Eloise M

Top year 9 student: Meegan G

Top year 10 student: Tiarna K

Top year 11 student: Jorja K

Top student in each language;

Arabic- Anja T, year 9

French- Meegan G, year 9

Greek- Jasmine H, year 8

Italian- Fletcher H, year 9

Japanese- Angus M, year 9

Russian – Karina S, year 9

Spanish – Eloise M, year 7

Latin- Kelli W, year 11

Congratulations to all of our talented language students as we prepare to compete in the Education Perfect Language World Championships for the 10^th time in 2023.

Jasmine Sotiroulis
French, Spanish & Greek Teacher

Students were recently presented with certificates recognising their achievement in the OzCLO competition held earlier in the year. A total of 23 students from years 7-11, represented Renmark High School, competed for the fifth year in a row in the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad (OzCLO). This year we entered six junior and senior teams in the first-round competition across South Australia.

The OzCLO contest is held in two rounds, with the first round being a three-hour competition held at exactly the same time online nation-wide. Participants work in teams of four on a range of language analysis problems.

This year our students worked to decode the following five languages, unfamiliar to all of them.

Rotuman variations - spoken by the Indigenous people who live 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 – version of Russian as pronounced by two-year-old native Russian speakers

Arhuaco – spoken by the Arhuaco people in Northern Columbia, it is also known as ‘Ica’ and “Bintuk’

Wik-Mungkan – is a Paman language spoken on the western side of Cape York Peninsula by around 1650 people

Senior Team members: Lachy G, Sakina Q, Alex T, Karina S, Tamika M, Jorja K, Kelli W.

Junior Team members: Anja T, Stephen F, Fletcher H, Jemma H, Meegan G, Emily C, Mikayla M, Saraya G, Amber P, Tahlia P, William L, Logan F, Kallum M, Jocelyn G, Teleah Z, Leaila P. Teams collaborated effectively, sharing their deep thinking and reflections with each other to find solutions to each question.  Congratulations to our Renmark High School representatives; special congratulations to one of the junior teams, Anja T, Fletcher H, Stephen F and Jemma H who scored equal points with the senior team in a very challenging paper.

Looking forward to entering more teams for Renmark High School in 2023.

Jasmine Sotiroulis
OzCLO Coordinator

A two-day event in week 3 of this term, students across South Australia completed for recognition as the top student in their language, however the main prize was for the top class in the state!

Renmark High School’s year 9 French class lead the way for the majority of the competition but were just taken over in the final hours by a Japanese class at Immanuel College. Despite a little disappointment, the year 9 students were thrilled to learn they had taken out the title of Top French class in South Australia.

Congratulations to Mikayla M for achieving top student at Renmark High School and also top French student in South Australia.

Jasmine Sotiroulis
French, Spanish & Greek Teacher

Renmark’s very own rock band performed at our assembly last week, covering the Foo Fighter’s classic Everlong. The band had been practising together over the last few weeks to polish their performance for an excited crowd. It is great to see the band developing their musicianship and building a repertoire of rock classics. Keep your eyes and ears at the ready, as the band has a series of performances ready for term 4.

Alistair Ward
Music Teacher/Band Manager