So much has changed since our last newsletter in Week 10 of last term.  When students finished at the end of that week staff were preparing for a move to online learning and we were expecting approximately 20% of our students to return after the holiday period.  As we now know, everything changed at the very end of the holidays and we are pleased to have welcomed back the vast majority of our students and we have resumed face-to-face learning.  If senior classes still have students learning from home, there is a live component to the lessons and a static online learning model is available for students in Years 8-10 who are learning at home.  We encourage all students to return to school as soon as they are able to whilst being mindful of current health advice.  As always I encourage parents to keep the lines of communication open with the school and to contact us when circumstances change or if support is needed.

Once again, I would like to acknowledge the work of our teachers over the past few weeks as they have learnt about a number of online learning platforms, spent their holidays preparing for the move to teach online (only to have it change at the very last moment), they have navigated ‘live’ lessons, then changed to mostly face-to-face classes, whilst also delivering learning programs to students at home.  It’s exhausting to write the list, let alone live it!  I would also like to acknowledge the support of parents who have been understanding, polite and respectful in their communication with the school and responsive to our emails/requests for information often at short notice.

We will continue to keep parents informed as situations change and, as has always been the case, the Department for Education takes the lead from SA Health and their recommendations and we will continue to follow their advice.  As a state, we can be very proud of the work we have done to stop the spread of the virus and keep everyone as safe as possible.  We all look forward to returning to some form of ‘normal’ and resuming activities we have been unable to participate in recently.

Staffing

Melissa Cloney has taught in our Special Class this year for three days a week and we thought we had a number of weeks with her still here this term before she went on maternity leave.  Obviously her new son Devin didn’t understand this and he decided to make his way into the world several weeks early.  Both mother and son are healthy and we wish Melissa and her partner Ando all the best as they navigate the world of first time parenting!  We are pleased to be able to announce that Pam Korreng has been appointed to our Special Class in the vacancy left by Melissa for Terms 2 and 3.  Pam comes to us with a wealth of experience in schooling from R-12 and I welcome her to the school and wish her well for her time here.

Open Night

Due to the current restrictions on large gatherings, we have cancelled our planned Open Night, scheduled for 20th May.  What we will have instead is a virtual Open Night, in the form of a video, that will be published on our website on this date and will remain available for parents, future students and interested members of the public to view as often as they like.  We will also share the video with our feeder schools and invite questions from them and, obviously students will have a tour of the school when they join us for transition.  Once COVID restrictions are lifted, we will also be able to offer individual tours for prospective students and their families.

Office365

Another reminder that students are able to download Office365 for free if they sign in with their LearnLink account.  They can install this full suite on up to 5 devices so it can be shared with their immediate family if needed.  Part of Office 365 includes access to OneDrive, with 1TB of free cloud storage for each student.  To access this, go to https://portal.office.com/account

Students should get into the habit of saving their schoolwork, resources and other important documents to their OneDrive so they can access this from home.  Currently, many students choose to save files onto their H drive on the school network, which means they are only accessible to students while they are at school.  It would be very useful for students to familiarise themselves with using OneDrive for file storage instead.

As always, I invite parents to contact me at the school with any issues, concerns, celebrations or if you would like to discuss any aspect of your child’s learning.  I can be contacted via Daymap or email Sonia.Pringle235@schools.sa.edu.au or you can phone the School on 8862 0600 to speak to me directly or to make a time to come and see me.  I wish you all good health and hope you manage to continue to stay safe.

Sonia Pringle

Principal

High Achievers are normally acknowledged at the end of term assembly, however due to current COVID19 restrictions no assembly was held, therefore we are acknowledging them in today's newsletter.

YEAR 12 High Achievers:

Georgia Allen
Sianna Bond
Abbey Bubner
Emma Davies
Olivia Loy
Tahneil McArdle

YEAR 11 High Achievers:

Caitlin Arts
Tiarhn Carpenter
Lachlan Groth
Riley Hayes-Revitt
Madeleine Karklins
Paige Lamond
Emily Lemon
Makayla Litzow
Abbie McArdle
Matt Mojares
Taylor White

YEAR 10 High Achievers:

Abi Futterleib
Mackenzie Hill
Leyla Jacobson
Kayleigh Parker
Elizabeth Renton
Hannah Watson

YEAR 9 High Achievers:

Olivia Allen
Kaye Arevalo
Jenna Baker
Abbey Bigg
Sasha Branson
Paige Bubner
Kashaya Carpenter
Tamzyn Dos Santos
Sophie Hamdorf
Alice McArdle
Brooke Michalanney
Maddison Poole
Kelsey Urwin

YEAR 8 High Achievers:

Sarah Davies
Rachel Feltham
Dahli Jacobson
Madison Litzow
Edwina Marshman
Brooke McArdle
Janna Mojares
Irish Pagadut
Bella Pratt
Taylah West

With such a brilliant start to the cropping season our Agriculture classes are all busy with seasonal topics including watching the gym oval converting into a cropping paddock. The Year 9 class are establishing a market garden and have just taken delivery of a new set of 6 week old pigs. They are also trialling a new program from Food and Fibre Education SA called the Food Biosecurity Investigation. We are one of only a handful of schools who have been asked to trial this program and it looks really interesting. The Year 10s have started their own germination trials at home to develop their understanding of the main crops in this district. They have also sown demonstration plots at school which they will monitor across the growing season. Both the Year 11 and 12 classes are working on soils investigations highlighting the crucial role soils have in farm productivity. The Year 12s are also working independently on their Production Investigations. They have set up a range of really interesting investigations including litter size in young sows, oaten hay production, growing Scepter wheat, lambs and kid goats in feedlots, meat rabbits, chicken production from fertilised eggs and lambing percentages in Dohne ewes.

Sue Pratt

Agriculture teacher

In Miss Schahinger’s Science classes this term the Year 8s have been learning about particles and changes of states of matter. We have been conducting some experiments to observe changes of state, one of these experiments was making crystals. We also made Oobleck, which is a mix of corn flour and water. We had lots of fun exploring and learning about how this non-Newtonian fluid has properties of both a solid and a liquid.

As teachers we are often called Mum, a funny little slip up, which makes others laugh. But this slip up, shows us just how much mums mean, how you are at the forefront of your child’s thoughts throughout the day. From all the students and staff at BHS we would like to wish all mothers, grandmothers, and mother figures a happy day for this Sunday. May those little rays of sunshine – your children – bring you great joy for the day, and for every other day of the year too! We thank you, for your ongoing support with your child’s learning here at BHS and know we couldn’t do our jobs as well as we do without great families. Pictured below our some of our amazing middle school students with beautiful flowers from Daisy Lane Flowers (thanks to Tess and Kate).