15 February 2018

Newsletter Articles

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Last Friday we held our Dux Assembly which provided an opportunity for us to recognise students who have accepted the challenge of leadership positions in the school in the form of Student Leader and/or House Captain. It also allowed us a final opportunity to celebrate the success of our Class of 2017, in particular Taryn Kelly who achieved our highest ATAR score, making her the Dux of the school. Two highlights of the assembly were Daniel Seidel’s speech on what makes a good leader and Taryn’s speech sharing the highs and lows of her Year 12 experience. With Taryn’s permission, I have included a copy of her speech where she likened Year 12 to running a race of hurdles where sometimes there are highs and sometimes there are lows where we need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and continue to the finish line. They were wise words that resonated with a number of students and staff.

Our school values are a code of conduct decided on, and agreed to, by the school community and they provide a set of standards for us all to measure our behaviour. Over the past couple of weeks I have had a number of occasions where I have revisited what they are, what they mean and actions through which we can demonstrate them.

Respect is a way of treating or thinking about something or someone. It is important that all members of the school community including students, staff and parents respect other people and their property. Our words and actions need to demonstrate care and consideration towards others and we are reminded to always speak respectfully. The old adage of treating others how we wish to be treated ourselves comes to mind.

Having responsibility means to be answerable or accountable for something within your power, control or management. Students and teachers need to take responsibility for their words and actions, however it is not only that simple. We are also required to be responsible for things such as our organisation, meeting deadlines, returning notes, being prepared for lessons and meeting challenges as they arise.

Honesty refers to your moral character and involves being trustworthy, fair and truthful. It is a trait that is highly valued by the school and the wider community and we see this in our students and staff by holding them to account to always act with integrity and by doing the right thing. For some of us, in certain situations, this isn’t always an easy task, but we expect each person in the GHS community to act with honesty.

Our final value is doing your best, however, at GHS I think we can ask for more than this and that we should all strive for excellence in everything we do. It is not only about putting in our maximum effort but also taking failure in our stride, remaining optimistic and not giving up. As with all of our values, how we live them is totally in our own control.

I encourage students to embrace all of the learning opportunities that come their way and be the best version of themselves they can be. Furthermore, I encourage all students, parents and teachers to be proud of their involvement with Gladstone High School as there is much to be proud of.

Sonia Pringle
Principal

Taryn Kelly 2018 DUX SPEECH

Hello everyone, to the people who don’t know me, I’m Taryn Kelly. I came to Gladstone High in Year 8 from Crystal Brook Primary and graduated at the end of last year.

Being awarded DUX of 2017 is such an honour and I really do feel so grateful but today I am going to speak about my Year 12 experience and give you some advice which hopefully everyone in the room can take something away from.

My Year 12 experience had a very rocky start.

I will admit, I started term one with quite an arrogant attitude. I thought Year 12 would be as easy as I had found Year 8 to Year 11, but I quickly learnt it was far from that.

I thought because there were only 4 subjects that I had to do – which was like half the amount I had in Year 8 – it would be a breeze. I quickly learnt that was also wrong.

I will never forget the last week of Term one where I unofficially employed Miss Pringle as my therapist.

Because of my attitude towards Year 12 I had done the bare minimal to keep up with the work and due dates so I had to have the conversation with Miss Pringle and my Mum about how to save me from actually failing Year 12. So we tried to brainstorm how to get through the position I had put myself in.

This lead us to making a homework schedule for my holidays. So while all my friends (who were up to date with work) enjoyed the holidays, I was stuck doing hours of homework every single day. There went my so-called school holidays.

After Term one, I had woken up to reality and realised how tough Year 12 was going to be so I became much more motivated and worked hard during every lesson and took every opportunity I got to talk to my teachers about how to improve my assignments or work which definitely paid off.

So make sure you don’t get lost in the excitement of the new year and concentrate from the word go.

One big piece of advice I will give you is that every single teacher can offer you help. For example, at some stages I had Mr Smith the Tech teacher giving me advice on my artwork. Miss Kerr would be willing to have a chat about how my PE was going. Miss Pringle would offer her help in Maths and Food and Hospitality, giving me advice on my English in these subject’s assignments.

Miss Thamm, Miss Hoare and my family were also always there for support in general and over all subjects. Help is always out there, you just have to look for it and make sure you’re thankful for whatever help you get.

Now, to the Year 12s especially, but like I said, hopefully everyone can gain some advice out of this.

I didn’t want to come up here and say some cliché Year 12 advice that you hear in majority of speeches given so I’ve decided to come up with my own theory.

So many people explain Year 12 or any new experience as a rollercoaster with the ups and downs but in my opinion, I saw Year 12 as more of a hurdles race.

I thought of this while driving home last night because I wanted to relate Year 12 to something that everyone here can relate to and because you all do it at sports day or sports day practice I thought it was a perfect example.

The reason I relate it to hurdles is because at the beginning of the race (or beginning of Year 12 in this instance), you know you have obstacles to jump. Some students might be very brave and have no fear of these obstacles, some might not even want to give it a go at all and some try their best even though they’re not the best at hurdles.

To determine how well the race will go depends on how well the runners jump over the hurdles. In other words, the way you face the challenges Year 12 brings will determine your results. If you choose to not jump a hurdle and quit, your results will reflect this. If you’re not the best at jumping over the hurdles but you still give it your all, you will still finish the race, even though you may not get the best results, and the people who can jump over the hurdles the best will be rewarded with a good sprint time (or end result). If you fall over during the race, you can always pick yourself up, take a breath and continue on, just like I did after Term one.

The hypothetical hurdles I am relating to include every dead line, every assignment, every disagreement you have with a close friend or family member, every Maths question in the textbook, just every little thing that arises this year.

If you look at it this way, hurdles is not hard. We all have the ability to jump, you just have to put in the effort and your results will reflect the effort you put in.

I would just like to add if anyone at all is looking for help, support or advice during school, especially the Year 12s, I will be more than happy to lend a hand to help you out or point you in the direction of someone I know that will be able to help you. I’m always available to chat over Facebook or anything.

Anyway, I hope you all can take something from this. Thank you for letting me speak today and for listening. Good luck to everyone this year and don’t be scared to jump those hurdles.

Thank you.

INTRODUCING ALISON JOHNSON

I am thrilled to have the opportunity to teach at Gladstone High School. This is my first full year contract after going back to complete a Grad Dip Education at Adelaide University in 2016. In 2017 I taught at Marree Aboriginal School and did some relief work in and around the southern suburbs in Adelaide. Previously I worked in operational and human resources roles in Melbourne, Toronto and Adelaide. I have degrees in English, Psychology and Industrial Relations. I come from a big family who all live in Adelaide and my favourite role to date is being 'Aunty Ali' to my nephews and nieces. I look forward to the coming year at GHS, it's going to be great!

INTRODUCING SIOBHAN CURTIS

Hello, my name is Siobhan Curtis and I am very happy to be teaching at Gladstone High for Semester 1. I am originally from the Mid North and I’m quite excited to be living and working back in the area. I have taught in many school sites across South Australia and also Victoria, mainly teaching in the areas of PE, Math and Science. I have already had a great start to my time at Gladstone High and I’m looking forward to continuing to work with the students and staff.

South Australian Aboriginal Sports Training Academy

Gladstone High School has been fortunate enough to have 4 of our Aboriginal students selected to participate in the South Australian Aboriginal Sports Training Academy (SAASTA). The program offers an alternative pathway which has a sports and health/wellbeing focus which aims to deliver rich learning experiences improving both educational and student wellbeing outcomes. SAASTA provides culturally sensitive curriculum aimed at improving Aboriginal student attendance and retention.

Students are given the opportunity throughout the year to participate in state-wide events including sports clinics, camps, leadership clinics, career expo’s and cultural workshops.

COMMUNITY NEWS

St Ann’s College

All students in Years 11 & 12 received a copy of the St Ann’s College Application Form

SOUTHERN FLINDERS COLTS AGM

SOUTHERN FLINDERS NETBALL CLUB:

Liz Winter is our uniform coordinator for the 2018 season. New players within our club can contact her to organise a fitting. Junior players soon grow out of the last seasons uniform so check now as Liz would like to order within the next couple of weeks.

Contact Liz on 0419 844 150