Back to reality for me this week. Thank you to Stephen Bosch for taking on the role of Principal in my absence and also to all of the leadership team and staff who stepped in and helped out over this time to ensure a smooth start to Term 2. I did have a wonderful time and enjoyed time with family and watching my son compete in a trials competition.

We have our Term 2 assembly this week, and some new awards are being presented to students, acknowledging students who have displayed the school values to a high level. Academic Achievement Awards will be presented at the term 3 Assembly.

The Uniform policy was adjusted at the end of last year to include dresses, school jackets and leggings. These additions were made by Governing Council after significant consultation with students. Order forms for dresses went out earlier in the year, and unfortunately, the orders do not meet the minimum order requirement of 25 dresses. We are aware there were some concerns with unknown sizes. We do now have a sizing chart. We are keen to order jackets, but for these, we have a minimum order of 50. Additionally, leggings were requested. These are sourced locally and printed locally. We will send out an order form in the next week so that if you wish to order any of the above items we can do so shortly. If there is not enough demand we will seek interest at the end of the year for a 2024 order.

We will be having our Open Day on Tuesday 30^th May, and invitations will be sent out to the Primary School families, however, our current families are welcome to attend either a 10 am or 5 pm tour and see what is happening in different areas of the school at the moment.

Our canteen will be trialing a square payment option from Tuesday. Students will be able to use a credit/debit card to purchase food at the canteen. This was an initiative from the students and supported by the Governing Council in recognition that in general cash is less frequently used. There will be a small fee added to the cost of items to cover the cost of using a card. Volunteers are certainly needed in the canteen to ensure our canteen remains viable. If you can provide some time on any day please contact the school and let us know.

Tyler Hogan - Principal

Year 8 English have started a new unit of work on narrative writing. We have had fun making Chatterboxes to help us create a prompt for writing an interesting narrative. Some of the prompts were:

‘The Prime Minister of Australia laughed dangerously in a war when nothing was safe.’

‘The Queen went with great joy into the deep dark forest.’
‘Homer Simpson laughed with great joy for 10-15 minutes and then will discover a strange figure amongst the crowd.’
‘The Crows will celebrate with Superman amongst the crowd.’

Kate Cameron - English Teacher

On Wednesday 10 May 2023, we saw ‘Emil and the Detectives’ at the Northern Festival Theatre in Port Pirie. All the Year 8's came on the day and we had a picnic outside the Theatre before we went in. We will be doing a report about what elements of drama were used for Performing Arts and will utilise the storytelling techniques in our narratives for English. The play was good, the plot had us on the edge of our seats as Emil got her mother’s money back and a $5000 reward. Thank you to Miss Kerr and Mr Martin for driving the buses and thank you to Mrs Cameron and Mr Hussell for coming on the day.

Mirra

Last Wednesday the Year 8's were privileged with the opportunity to watch ‘Emil and the Detectives.’ While arriving at the Northern Festival Theatre in Port Pirie students were not sure what to expect. The play we watched was quite interesting and we were sure to acknowledge the actors.

Yvette & Gemma

Emil was a funny person, but she likes to talk to people she doesn't know. Emil became friends with some detective's kids and it was funny seeing them try to make plans. However, when she got the money, she wanted to share but found out they weren't in the city anymore. When she arrived home, a lot of people were there seeing her and cheering her on.

Jemma

I enjoyed the play a lot, it was very cool at the start when they gassed the whole joint and it was very funny.

Jakobe

Students have been learning how drones are involved in industries and the community. They looked at the importance of drone safety. Students learned to fly the drones in our stadium using a Tello app on the school Ipads. Students then learned to code using Tello blocks and were tasked to fly an obstacle course, having the drones go above and below objects, flip and land in a designated area.

Scott Watson - Digital Media Teacher

We had a number of Year 9 and 10 boys selected at trials to represent Gladstone High School as part of the combined team with other MNSEC schools. Those students were:

George Rackham, Hudson Seidel, Riley Evans, Riley Hoskin, Gavin O’Brien, Jed Griffin, Jobe Stevens, Antwan O’Brien, Liam Coe, David Nash and Tobey Dwyer.

All the boys represented our school in a positive way and the MNSEC team came away with one win (against a combined Burra/Riverton/Eudunda team) and one loss (to Clare High School). With two wins under their belt, Clare High will continue to the next round and we wish them luck!

I would personally like to extend my thanks to all of the parents who came along to support our students and those who provided transport for children other than their own. It’s a great opportunity for our boys which can’t happen without the time and commitment from parents.

Special thanks to Jayden Walker to volunteered to come along and help with some umpiring. We were very lucky to secure a field umpire at the last minute, but Jayden’s support of the team with goal umpiring and running water was appreciated by all.

Thank you also to Paul Stevens and Nugget Griffin for their help with the goal flags, Jake Slade (JCS) for coaching the team and Kerry Sutter (Jamestown) for being the trainer.

We look forward to our Open Boys representing at their carnival in a couple of weeks, and the 7/8 boys and 7/8/9 girls teams early in Term 3.

Kate Seidel - Sports Coordinator

Last Thursday all of our year 7 and 8 students travelled to Jamestown Community School for the annual 9-a-side Football carnival. With some other events and illness, we ended up a bit short on our boy's teams and were very lucky to have some energetic girls happy to fill in. Some of the girls played in almost every game of the day – an amazing effort!

It was amazing to see our students who aren’t as experienced at football having a go to help out their classmates. Staff also noticed the effort being made to support and include those less-confident players – which is what the day is really all about!

In a surprise twist, Jamestown was warm and sunny which made for a lovely day out but meant we really had to remember to re-apply our sunscreen! We extend a huge thank you to Miss. Ramm, Mrs. Pech, Mr. Watson and Tammie Duke for joining us.

Overall, one of our girl's teams took out the top spot with lots of help and support from their coach, Chloe Crawford. We also had a group of Year 10 students volunteer to help out with coaching and umpiring and would like to say a big thank you to Liam Coe, Max Pedler, Tobey Dwyer, Antwan O’Brien, Sataya Spencer and Isabelle Batchelor.

Kate Seidel - Sports Coordinator

On the 11^th of May, boys and girls from Years 8 to 12 participated in a Knockout Hockey Carnival in Port Pirie. Barry drove the bus and we made our way to the St Marks Hockey grounds ready for our first game at 10am. Once we arrived we had some time to get ready, changing into our tops, swapping sticks, and putting our socks and shinpads on. The weather was nice and warm, the sun was out cheering us on throughout all of our games with only a little bit of wind that helped us cool off.

Our first game was against Samaritan, they were competitive and fun to play. Playing on the grass made it a little bit tricky for us, but we stayed in there. It was nice to have support and encouragement from the players we had on the bench.

We then had to play another game as soon as we finished the first, once we had finished that game we headed to the shelters where we were able to have some food and fill up our drink bottles. We sat down, socialised with the people from other schools and had fun smacking around the hockey ball, keeping warm ready for the last two games.

We played four games in total, the last two were on turf, which was a very nice surface as all our big hits made it further and we were able to control the ball enough to get a couple of goals in. The third game we played was against Mid North Christian College, we all played with great sportsmanship and had so much fun laughing and talking through the whole game.

The last game we played together as a team was against St Marks College, after that finished we headed off back to school just in time to catch the busses.

Overall it was a great day and we all had lots of fun, and it was great to see Gladstone High School students who have never played before get out there on the field and give it their best shot. Big thanks to Ali and Mr Bosch for coaching us.

Lily Emms & Layla Willsmore