Dear Parent/Caregivers,
Welcome Back to Term 3!
It is a pleasure to welcome you all back for Term 3! We’ve had a smooth and positive start, with students quickly settling in and our staff energised for another productive, rewarding term ahead.
Student Free Day and Professional Learning
Our student free day at the beginning of the term was an invaluable opportunity for teachers to focus on curriculum planning and professional learning. We were privileged to host Stuart, the lead facilitator from the SSO Deployment Project. Stuart shared insightful perspectives on the challenges faced by students with disabilities, particularly those with autism and ADHD. His presentation was both thought-provoking and practical.
Professional learning continued in Week 2, with staff engaging in a session on “Learnership” led by James Anderson. This workshop explored the power of purposeful feedback and how we can encourage students to actively seek out feedback relevant to their learning. These insights will make a real difference as we strive to help every student grow.
Year 7 Election Day
Our Year 7 Election Day, held on Wednesday 22 July, was a true highlight! After a term immersed in civics, citizenship and the election process, our Year 7 students brought their learning to life through impressive political campaigns. Their research included fieldwork at Tea Tree Plaza, where they spoke with local residents about the issues that matter most in our community. We were delighted to welcome parents, special guests, and politicians, including the Minister for Education, the Honourable Lucy Hood, Olivia Savvas MP, and Tony Zappia MP. They were unanimous in their praise for our students, congratulating Ms Cait Thomas and her team for coordinating an outstanding event.
NAIDOC Week
On Monday 3 August, we celebrated NAIDOC Week with a deeply meaningful ceremony. Uncle Mickey, a respected Aboriginal Elder well known in education, opened proceedings with a moving Smoking Ceremony and Welcome to Country. He spoke with inspiration about the significance of these traditions, and through his story of a young butterfly hesitant to take flight, encouraged students not to let fear stand in the way of their dreams and aspirations.
Pedal Prix
Last Saturday, our Pedal Prix team travelled to Tailem Bend for their latest competition. Mrs Hanlin shared that the students had a fantastic experience, representing our school with true teamwork and enthusiasm.
Ski Trip
Also on Saturday, a very excited group of students, together with Mr Read, Mr Bartlett, and Ms Thomas, departed for the Victorian snowfields for our annual ski trip. We’re hearing that the group is having a wonderful time, making terrific progress in their skiing and forming cherished memories. As this newsletter goes to print, they are preparing for their journey home—no doubt bringing back plenty of stories to share!
Cultural Carnival
We are incredibly excited for our inaugural Cultural Carnival, planned for Friday, 14 August (weather permitting). This special event will be a vibrant celebration of our school’s cultural diversity. Staff and students are busily preparing food stalls, games, dancing, music, kite flying, and a fashion parade, all designed to showcase our unique backgrounds and traditions. Families are warmly invited—feel free to wear your country’s traditional dress or colours! The carnival will take place from 12:00pm to 2:45pm, and programs will be sent home soon.
Please note: Should the weather be poor, we will need to postpone, as we do not have a large undercover space for all activities. Fingers crossed for sunny skies!
Subject Selection and Student-Led Conferences
Subject selection and student-led conferences are scheduled for Thursday, 20 August. All students should attend with their home group teachers and parents to select subjects for 2027 and discuss academic progress and achievements. If you have not booked a meeting yet, please do so as soon as possible. We highly value this opportunity for families to be actively involved in each child’s educational journey.
Please note: regular classes will not run and therefore students will only be required onsite when having their conference.
Music News
Our music students recently had a wonderful opportunity to participate in a workshop with the Police Band. The students thoroughly enjoyed this experience and gained valuable skills to support their learning and performance.
Achievement Assembly
Our Student Achievement Assembly was held on Monday, 3 August. This is a special occasion to recognise students who have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement. Awards were presented in three categories:
• Outstanding Academic Achievement: All A grades.
• High Achievement: Majority A grades, with the remainder being B grades.
• Improved Academic Performance: Recognising students who improved by at least one grade band.
It was pleasing to see so many students celebrated across all categories. Congratulations to all award recipients.
Year 12 Child Studies
On Tuesday, 3 August, Ms Sarah Sharpe and our Year 12 Child Studies class, in partnership with students and staff from Modbury Preschool, showcased their learning and the meaningful connections formed between our two sites. It was inspiring to see the creative toys and games our students designed for the pre-schoolers, and the genuine engagement in collaborative play and conversation. We were honoured to host Martin Westwell (Chief Executive), Nigel Gill (Education Director), Rebekah Goodall, and Charmaine Suares from the LET team. They were all highly impressed by the students’ work and the rich collaboration between our schools. Martin especially commented on the value of such authentic, hands-on learning experiences for students.
Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support. Let’s look forward to a fantastic, inspiring, and successful Term 3 together!
Ms Joanne Costa
Principal
It is with sadness that we announce the passing of a valuable member of our Modbury High School community, Mrs Faina Kanter. Mrs Kanter was a very beloved and respected teacher here at Modbury over the past 14 years.
She has contributed immensely to the growth and development of many young people. We have often heard our students say that Mrs Kanter had set them up for success. She will be sadly missed by the Modbury High School Community. Our sincere condolences to her family.
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 |
| Bradley Carroll | Jack Adams | Oluwasemilore Adewale | Ammara Ahmed | Rayyan Ahmed | Oliver Cook |
| Daisy Cox | Alicia Campagne | Imogen Gillespie | Armaan Babwani | Miranda Elder | Matthew Garstka |
| Praneet Ghotra | Hailey Caruana | Isabella Gilligan | Ghazal Eshwa | Mariah Hall | Jaiyah Keatch |
| Paige Gillespie | Victoria Chen | Soundhariya Govindaraj Lakshmi | Brea Jijo | Brendan Keast | Jemma Oors-L'estrange |
| Charlie Hall | Chloe Clements | Ella Lee | Benika Kaundal | Kayla Skurrie | |
| Emily Howson | Ruby Davie | Sebastian Marshall | Sandeep Kaur | Scarlett Taylor | |
| Hanna Howson | Jasmine Geier | Jamila Salandra | Ruby McFarland | ||
| Simon Kolman | Chester Howard | Samleen Sidhu | Fenee Patel | ||
| Aria Krstic | Holly Huntley | Fleur Rowe | |||
| Emily McKie | Harsheen Kaur | Anaum Safi | |||
| Annabella Rainey | Ryan Keast | Jay Shah | |||
| Raunav Sachdeva | Evelyn Lee | Nicole Shinkfield | |||
| Hemal Singh | Eliel Lim | Angaddeep Singh | |||
| Georgia Sollis | Kushi Manjunatha | Isabelle Thompson | |||
| Alisha Surani | Sienna Newton | Paige Willoughby | |||
| Jigisha Tanna | Ruby Noble | ||||
| Catelyn Tucker | Zara Pajni | ||||
| Akshari Weerasekera | Charlotte Rust | ||||
| Jessie Wright | Gurnoor Sidhu | ||||
| Charli Smith | |||||
| Benjamin Toonen | |||||
| Noah Toonen | |||||
| Clare Tucker |
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 |
| Phoebe Connolly | Lily Modra | Abbie Carroll | Chelsea Green | Vivaan Rajpal | Ronan Atkins |
| Sara Rajguru | Mei Nguyen | Reva Khanna | Sienna Hutchinson | Jules Sualog | Izzy Dube |
| Makayla Telford | Thomas Sharpe | Elsie Zhang | Sibella Kastanos | Gargee Vyas | Manveer Gill |
| Max Tompkins | Katie Tonkin | Isobel Leyson | Charli Hodson | ||
| Mahlie West | Kayla Murphy | Madeline Langley | |||
| Aiza Yasir | Eileen Zhang |
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 |
| Chris Almeida | Patrick Ayliffe | Max Bennett | Jye Charlton | Radin Ansari | Sean Adrian Alavi |
| Max Bicknell | Harrison Beveridge | Mackenzie Benton | Seth Charlton | Charli Bros | Krishea Cunanan |
| Phoebe Connolly | Chloe Clements | Memphis Clark | Keira Cox | Isaac Corrie | Matthew Garstka |
| Axle Fiedler | Chester Howard | Mikayla Newton | Cherinah Duthler | Levi Corrie | Caleb Gartland |
| Praneet Ghotra | Harrison Jones | Scarlett Sachse | Blake Dysktra | Mitchell Fussen | Ana Goodrich |
| Paige Gillespie | Ashanti Kalongonda | Ben Shaw | Isabella Gale | Marcus Geue | Tyler Greengrass |
| Hector Hann | Aiden Liebelt | Samleen Sidhu | Tamara Johansen | Dora Glikos | Erika Griffiths |
| Ehsan Hosseini | Harry McGeorge | Tilly Suche | Agam Kamboh | Grace Grindle | Amellia Hall |
| Jackson Juhl | Bailey McLeod | Michael Kolman | Maddison Johns | Brooklyn Harris | |
| Willow Kitson | Lachlan Murnane | Brooklyn Mann | Sam Kais | Charli Juhl | |
| Ava Lawless | Lola Newport | Charli Juhl | Aaliyah Kalongonda | Avnoor Kaur | |
| Zali Lawrence | Sienna Newton | Fleur Rowe | Olivia Kern | Cameron King | |
| Myles Mathews | Rony Siyan | Cody Schultz | Branson Kusmadi | Josh Lay | |
| Muxi Miao | Oscar Soukup | Jake Skurrie | Josh Mutton | Jack May | |
| Jaiken Newport | Aiden Sullivan | Logan Possingham | Alyssa McCullagh | ||
| Annabella Rainey | Rebekah Woolford | Demi Snider | Kade Monteleone | ||
| Tavsidak Sandhu | Deyala Naaman | ||||
| Gurfateh Singh | Connor Nolan | ||||
| Akshari Weerasekera | Ella O'Dea | ||||
| Alice Williams | Jemma Oors-L'estrange | ||||
| River Winter | Kailan Ridgway | ||||
| Archer Woodman | Harry Sheldrick | ||||
| Aiden Slater | |||||
| Jack Spencer | |||||
| Leila Suche | |||||
| Scarlett Taylor | |||||
| Emily Totani | |||||
| Kayla Travers | |||||
| Sidney War |
In Term 2, we started our Spanish unit on likes and dislikes, where we learnt how to talk about foods we enjoy and foods we do not like. This eventually led to our fun clay-making activity, where we created gross food combinations based on our ideas. One of my favourite parts of the unit was seeing everyone's creativity and imagination. It was really fun to see all the different combinations people came up with and how they brought them to life using clay. Even when some creations did not end up looking exactly how people had imagined them, they were still unique, funny, and interesting to look at. The activity was a great experience because it allowed us to be creative while using what we had learnt in Spanish. Overall, it was enjoyable seeing everyone's ideas and the effort they put into their work, and it made the learning experience much more fun and memorable.
-Daisy Cox
I had fun learning about the different Spanish vocabulary for “I like”, and “I don’t like” in my Spanish class. One of the main reasons I enjoyed the topic was because we had to make gross food combinations in pairs and make a skit about them which led to recreating these combinations in clay form. There was enough clay and tools to use. Some food combinations included mayonnaise and peanut butter as well as soy sauce cordial. This was a great learning experience because it taught us about Spanish words while making it fun and inclusive. I would definitely recommend keeping this in the Modbury High School curriculum.
-Bailey Wood
I did a lot of research and found out that pineapple and chocolate are acutally a dish people like! When i was making my sculpture it was very hard and not easy to make at all it was hard to shape and It was difficult to shape the clay and get all the pieces to stay together the way I wanted them to. I also had to be very patient because I made a few mistakes and had to fix them. This took a lot of time, but it helped me get better and make my sculpture look nicer.
-Amber Reed
We learned how to say I like and don’t like in Spanish and made disgusting food combinations. Then, we made little clay figurines out of those food combinations. I made a cheese flavoured candy cane and a cracker with candy canes on it. I found it very fun to shape and use the clay to make these figurines and have people figure out what you made. Learning how to say I like and don’t like was fun especially when we get to do fun activities like these.
-Impahlah Carter
My name is Henry; I had a lot of fun doing this little project because I got to see all the other disgusting food combinations my class had made. 1 that stood out to me was broccoli chewing gum, made by Lola in my class. It stood out to me because it was unique and seemed interesting. Me and my partner Bailey made some disgusting combinations to. We made strawberry jam and mayonnaise on toast, cordial and soy sauce which seemed quite interesting to me. We were studying Spanish foods and culture before we started the project, in the assignment we had to make disgusting food combinations and make a script with voice recording in Spanish as partners. I found this task exciting and challenging because sculpting the toast was quite hard because of the shape bread is in.
-Henry Carpenter
I had fun doing [likes and dislikes unit] especially with my partner it but my fav thing was the combos that we made, and they looked so gross and recording it was so much fun like when I got to yell No! ¿Guacala!
My experience with [creating the clay sculpture] in the end term 2 was so much fun I loved making the different combos with the colures of clay, constant ides flowing through my head of things I could make with it in the end I made soup with fairy floss
-Jaiken Newport
On a brisk morning with the temperature sitting at just 1°C at 7am, our Modbury High School Pedal Prix teams took to the 3.4 km track at Tailem Bend, ready for an exhilarating eight-hour challenge. As the sun emerged, it offered a hint of warmth despite the continuing chill, setting the scene for a determined and spirited day of racing.
Our school was proudly represented by four teams, consisting of 23 riders. Together, the teams completed an impressive 275 laps—covering a remarkable combined distance of 937.8 kilometres. Each participant faced the challenge of either undertaking longer stints or multiple stints in the vehicle, compared to previous races this season, showcasing endurance and teamwork.
Individual team results were as follows:
Cheetah: 85 laps, 14th in category
Pink Panther: 61 laps, 5th in category
Lynx: 71 laps, 17th in category
Puma: 58 laps, 38th in category
A sincere thank you goes to our dedicated Team Managers, marshals, first aid staff, and catering volunteers, as well as our ongoing partners at Fast Cats Racing. Their commitment and encouragement ensure the continued success of our Pedal Prix program.
We now look forward to the upcoming 24-hour Murray Bridge race in late September, eager for more achievements and team camaraderie!
Nine Year 10 students had the exciting opportunity to attend the Port Power Empowerment Day at Adelaide Oval. The day started with a warm welcome before students met Port Adelaide players, participated in fun football drills, and took part in interactive activities focused on mental health and wellbeing in partnership with Headspace. Throughout the day, students developed new skills, learned the importance of teamwork, resilience, what it is to be a leader and looking after their mental health, while also working with students from other schools. It was a fantastic experience that encouraged confidence, friendship, and personal growth. Everyone had an enjoyable and memorable day, leaving with new friendships, valuable life lessons, and lasting memories from a truly inspiring event.
Isobel Leyson
Year 10 Student
We believe in a culture of achievement in a respectful and rigorous learning environment
