Dear Parents, Caregivers and Students of the Modbury High School community, welcome to Term 2. We are looking forward to sharing the many exciting activities that our students have participated in over the last few weeks.
Generations in Jazz
On Friday 5 May music students boarded a bus driven by Ms Woolford to travel to Mt Gambier for the Generations in Jazz Competition. What a fantastic experience for our students. As well as participating in the competition they were able to watch many other school bands perform and attend an amazing concert on Saturday night. A very big thank you to Mr Gareth Budd for his planning and organisation of the event and the many hours he worked with the students to get them ready for the competition. Thank you also to all the instrumental teachers who supported the students to learn their individual music parts. Thank you to Ms Woolford who drove the students to Mt Gambier and for all the administrative support she has provided to Mr Budd.
Parent Forum
On Wednesday 4 May, we hosted our first Parent Forum. The purpose of the forum was for parents to work with us and provide feedback on how we can further improve our school. Parents provided feedback on the following areas: Communication, Student learning, Parent Involvement and Connection to the school.
Chair of Governing Council, Martin Crabb, expertly facilitated the evening. These amazingly dedicated parents provided us with constructive feedback, which we have collated. We have divided the feedback into two areas, those that we can immediately address and those that are long term.
Thank you to the following parents, who despite their busy schedules joined us on the night and in doing so supporting us to make our school an even better place for our students and our school community.
Sonia Kastanos, Kristy Jolly, Matt Green, Pauline Huettenrauch, Susannah Dodd, Donna King, Amandeep Singh, Kimberly Stevenson, Marilou Capistrano, Maryann Cunanan, Tejas Shah and Renae Woodman.
You will find the feedback inside this edition of the newsletter.
Student Forums
As well as running Parent Forums, we have also started to hold Student Forums. For students we are mainly seeking feedback on teaching and learning and in particular areas of improvement that teachers and the school can make on pedagogical practice.
Ms Shelly Brown, Deputy Principal is facilitating the forums. The first one which consisted of year 7 and 10 students was held on Monday 15 May. Over the next few weeks students from each of the year levels will participate in the forums. Their responses will be summarised and shared with staff with the intention of identifying areas of improvement.
Year 11 Road Awareness Program (RAP) Presentation
On Monday 15 May, Year 11 students participated in the Road Awareness Program (RAP). The 90 minute presentation aims to show students the impact of road crashes and in doing so help students understand the importance of driving in a safe manner at all times.
Students and Ms Madeline O’Brien-Dent spoke of how valuable they found the presentation. The presenter congratulated our students on their participation and engagement with the presentation.
A big thank you to Ms O’Brien Dent for organising the event.
Farewell to Ms Emma Baulch
On Friday we farewelled Ms Emma Baulch who is taking leave for the reminder of the year. Ms Baulch seamlessly stepped in to the role as Counselling Coordinator and is a passionate, committed, and enthusiastic teacher. Her students always spoke of her engaging lessons and how she has supported them to improve their learning. She will be greatly missed by all her students and colleagues.
Ms Joanne Costa
Principal
Parents may have read or heard of the passing of one of our old scholars, Antonio Loiacono. Antonio was an extremely talented sportsman. He was not only a gifted footballer, he excelled in Athletics, Touch Football, Basketball, Ultimate frisbee, pretty much any sport he turned his hand to. Apparently, he was even a junior Squash State Champion.
He won the outstanding athlete on Sports Day most years and travelled to USA with the school basketball trip where he was awarded the Most Valuable Player of the junior team.
Antonio was a unique character who was always positive, lived life to the fullest and made friends wherever he went. He related equally well with staff and other adults as he did with his peers, in many ways an old head on young shoulders. A very popular young man who will be greatly missed.
Mr Trueman
PE Teacher
Lara Somfai leads the u18 South Australia metro team at just 15 years of age, to Gold. Lara won the only award for the whole Australian National tournament and was named the footlocker MVP/defensive player of the tournament.
In January 2023, Lara received a scholarship to the Australian Institution of Sport and she will be heading to Canberra later this year. The next step for her is also going to the u16 Asia cup selection camp where they will be heading to Aman Jordan mid July.
Visual Art students from years 11 and 12 visited the SACE Art Show and the Art Gallery of SA at the end of last term. Practical works and developmental folios were on display at the SACE show, including a work selected from our school created by Jayden Stephens. This excursion helps students to understand the wide range of possibilities in terms of media and techniques, how to structure and use language in folios and practitioners statements and the level of practical application skills that can be achieved by senior Art and Design students. It was great to visit Adelaide Railway Station to view a Flinders University Graduate Exhibition in costume design and art works in the space. We also admired the city architecture and showed our Japanese exchange students our wonderful Torrens riverbank precinct in the heart of the city and of course the Malls Balls! This excursion was just days before they returned to Japan, a fitting final experience for them.
Mrs Moeller
Arts Coordinator
During the school holidays, Crystal Hurcombe undertook the prestigious task of playing for the Playford Council's ANZAC Day dawn service. It is a task that requires immense focus, and preparations, due to the size of Dawn service crowds and complete focus on what the musician is playing. MHS Music is pleased to share that Crystal performed to a very high standard and the council has asked her to return next year to reprise the performance. We are proud of what our MHS Music students continue to achieve with their craft and look forward to more great performances in the future.
Mr Budd
Music Teacher
This week we had a facilitator from Talk Money with Ecstra Foundation come and deliver the first of 2 workshops to our Year 8 and 9 students.
Talk Money is a free financial education program, developed in collaboration with education experts and a financial education advisory group, that teaches young Australians money lessons for life and aims to help students be confident when talking about money and to make informed financial decisions.
Our Year 8 students are experiencing workshops on spending and saving money, where they explore how spending and saving choices today can affect future finances.
Our Year 9 students are experiencing workshops on making money work, where they discuss different ways to make money and learn some practical skills for navigating the world of work.
If you’d like to know more, you can check out the Talk Money website www.talkmoney.org.au.
Ms Freeth
Year 9/10 Leader & FLO Coordinator.
Jed De Koning was recently on the Gold Coast representing SA at the Australian National Gymnastics Championships. Jed won a Bronze in MAG Level 7 Vault.
Congratulations Jed!
Each term, the school acknowledges the students who achieve exceptional end-of-term results.
Outstanding Achievement awards are presented to students who obtained the maximum number of A grades for their year level (i.e. a GPA of 7). The academic achievement of these students were recognised at our Outstanding Achievers Recess in Week 2 this term.
High Achievement awards are presented to students who obtain one fewer A grade than the maximum for their year level.
Congratulations once again to these students!
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 |
| Armaan Babwani | Demi Snider | Aki Sicoy | Rei Cook | Oscar Elder | Vaughan Stonestreet |
| Liam Hanlin | Isha Bane | Christopher Kastanos | Anton Kastanos | Angelina Hansen | |
| Rania Saitov | Kaiwen He | Jak Kastanos | |||
| Caitlyn Scott | Nyx Little | ||||
| Liezel Wong | Sienna Garstka | ||||
| Emily Zhang | |||||
| Keilah Haldane |
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 |
| Eileen Zhang | Gargee Vyas | Peter McMillan | Luke Haskard | Lara Somfai | Tara Barrett |
| Samantha Heward | Kaitlyn Sollis | Charli Hodson | Bryce Sanders | Quinn Duncan | Tiffany Taylor |
| Payton Richardson | Brendan Keast | Saarakshya Sharma | Soheil Haidari | Hana Wong | Jeran Tiong |
| Sienna Hutchinson | Vivaan Rajpal | Jess Freebairn | Danika Low | Jasmin Andrews | Brianna Mesecke |
| Brea Jijo | Tyler Gaskin-Osborne | Emily Totani | Amber Hayward | Jazsmin Smith | Yalarasey Sooriyakumar |
| Fleur Rowe | Ava Huettenrauch | Ariel Lim | Charlotte Bland | Jade Pelton | Lydia Wighton |
| Rachel Wagener | Hayley Byrne | Isabelle Cox | Kanon Sato | Ella Martin | Vicki Rowe |
| Sibella Kastanos | Evan Zawada | Elliot Webster-Brown | Jade Kolman | Asha Duldig | Matthew Maletto |
| Jack Clyma | Matthew Doyle | Leila Suche | Breanne Button | William Wighton | |
| Liam Bairstow | Avnoor Kaur | Mia Ly | |||
| Angelica Lizaso | Isla McGraw | ||||
| Tom Whistler | Elise Harmer | ||||
| Abi Cavenett | Belle Parrish | ||||
| Amerson Green | Mady Sharma | ||||
| Nicholas Davie | Ella Turner | ||||
| Hannah Lock | Imogen McNamara | ||||
| Maddison Carter | Josh Stewart | ||||
| Alex Dinedios | Abby Scott | ||||
| Scarlett Taylor | Lara Murphy | ||||
| Lily Grant-Allan | Daniel Wagener | ||||
| Ethan King | Cooper Seaton | ||||
| Kayla Skurrie | Katelyn Fraser | ||||
| Ricky Ditria | |||||
| Siba Ghamrawi | |||||
| Ethan Ingram | |||||
| Imogen Janicki | |||||
| Holly Manoel |
On the 5th of May, Susan and Steph from Centacare, an organisation which works with young people experiencing emerging mental health concerns, visited Miss Baulch’s year 11 psychology class to run an engaging workshop on resilience. The workshop was an engaging summary of the class’s recent wellbeing topic and involved identifying risk and protective factors for psychological wellbeing. The session also involved constructing a resilience tree, where students got creative with some arts and craft supplies to identify their supports, strengths and coping or protective strategies. Susan and Steph were impressed with the students’ active participation and knowledge of concepts learned so far this year, including the role of neurotransmitters, the fight or flight response, and various frameworks such as the biopsychosocial model.
Ms Baulch
Teacher
Last term the Year 9 and 10 cohorts were surveyed mid-term and at the end of term on their overall Wellbeing. In both surveys, Year 9 and 10 students indicated lack of sleep as the biggest thing impacting their wellbeing.
When a student is tired, they have decreased motivation to engage in the day and therefore their productivity will reduce. This will mean students aren’t completing their schoolwork to the best of their ability. Young people who are tired also are less resilient, more sensitive, less in control of their emotions (meaning we see more anger, giggles or tears) and have reduced impulse control. If you are noticing these things in your student or are hearing students aren’t completing work or are getting detentions, it is possible they aren’t getting enough sleep.
Please talk to your student at home about the importance of sleep and assist them with some of the strategies below to improve their sleep.
Here's how to create ideal conditions for a healthy, restful sleep:
1. Set a consistent sleep schedule.
2. Create a relaxing bedtime/pre-bedtime routine.
3. Keep your room cool and comfortable.
4. Dim the lights after dark.
5. ...unplug an hour before bed.
6. Steer clear of stimulants late in the day.
7. Avoid foods that can disrupt sleep.
8. Get regular exercise.
9. Only use your bed for sleep. Don’t do homework or play games on your bed.
10. Limit or avoid naps during the day.
Click here to access the Headspace website for more information.
Click here to access the Sleep fact sheet.
Ms Freeth
Year 9/10 Leader & FLO Coordinator.
Generations In Jazz 2023
Friday of Week 1 saw MHS Stage Band students from Years 9-12 travel to Mt Gambier/Buandig Country to compete in the three-day Generations in Jazz Festival.
It has been four years of waiting to return in person to the Jazz ensemble competition with months of dedicated preparation that started before the end of the 2022 school year. MHS Stage Band students also had a chance to meet, and hear performances from, many other students not only from our state but around the nation.
We are all very proud of how our MHS Music students performed, conducted themselves, represented our school, and demonstrated what we have to offer as part of our school’s Music program. The extra time, dedication, and effort, by all students over weeks of rehearsal awarded them with an experience that has no comparison. Preparations for GIJ 2024 had started almost as soon as we returned from the trip.
Congratulations to our Year 12 soloists, Theo Kelesis and Shania Newstead, for stepping up and providing performances that earned special mentions from the adjudicator.
The Stage Band will be performing their GIJ music during our end of semester Music night later in the term and we encourage everyone’s attendance to experience the band.
Mr Budd
Music Teacher
On the 8th of May, our school had an Australian award-winning author come and visit. Phillip Gwynne, best known for his novel “Deadly, Unna?”, spoke to a group of our students about his life and his work. It was a great opportunity for students to hear from an author and have the chance to ask him any questions they had about writing or being an author.
After his presentation, there were two workshops for students. They were able to work with Mr. Gwynne as he took them through a couple different exercises to help develop their writing skills. Students were able to share their work with each other and Mr. Gwynne and learn some different techniques to use whist writing.
Mr. Gwynne, afterwards, said that he was incredibly impressed with the work of the students and knew that there were a few aspiring authors in the group.
Communication:
What is working well?
What is not working well and needs improvement?
What can we do to make our communication with parents more effective?
Connection to School:
As a parent, how do you engage and connect with the school?
Are the opportunities provided by the school for parents to connect and be involved with their students learning efficient?
As a school, what are some other ways that we could increase connections between school and home?
Teaching and Learning:
What aspects of teaching and learning do you think we are doing well (teaching instruction, assessments, feedback, task design, homework etc)?
What aspects of teaching and learning do you think need to be further developed?
Learning TIPS:
What Learning TIPS will assist you to support your child with their learning?
How learning TIPS would you like to be provided? Eg Newsletter
Kristina Jenni Clonan attended Modbury High School on Friday 12 May as part of Olympics Unleashed and connecting with Years 7 & 8 students.
The students learnt from Kristina Jenni Clonan's Olympic journey how to build resilience, the importance of setting goals and how to find what you are passionate about.
Students heard firsthand from Kristina Jenni Clonan about how they overcame challenges to compete in their chosen sport at the very highest level, and how some lessons they’ve learned in sport can help students to be the best they can be – whether that’s in school, at home, on the sporting field or with friends.
We believe in a culture of achievement in a respectful and rigorous learning environment
