PRINCIPAL: Ms Monica Williams

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL: Mr Mal Jurgs

SENIOR SCHOOL COORDINATOR: Ms Kathryn Hese

JUNIOR SCHOOL COORDINATOR: Ms Katrina Hood

info@meningieas.sa.edu.au NEWSLETTER 20 www.meningieas.sa.edu.au 27

th November 2009

FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S

DESK

I am pleased to advise that both Katrina Hood (Junior School Manager) and Kathryn Hese (Senior School Manager) have successfully re won their positions and have been appointed within these roles for the next three years. Congratulations to both Katrina and Kathryn. Both ladies bring significant teaching and leadership expertise to the school. With the introduction of the New SACE next year Kathryn will continue to provide support to the whole school community, in particular teaching staff, as they work through the new requirements. Katrina will support Junior school staff in developing curriculum in Science and Maths as a part of state wide curriculum initiatives.

Staffing and classes for 2010

We are still in the planning stages with classes for next year. We are pleased to announce that Margaret Hart has been reappointed to the school for next year and will be teaching in the Junior School. Margaret is a very experienced teacher, who has taught in a number of schools and at various year

levels both in Australia and internationally before taking up a

one year position here at Meningie at the beginning of 2009. We are still waiting on the completion of staffing in other areas within the school before finalising classes for 2010.

Presentation Night

Please make sure that you have Tuesday 8th December marked in your diaries. This is the date planned and advertised for Presentation Night, where we celebrate students’ excellent achievement in academics sport and citizenship. Denise Betts will be our guest speaker. Denise completed her schooling at Meningie at the end of 1999. She has since gone on to University, completed her studies in Science and worked and travelled overseas. Denise has recently taken up a position in her field of science in Melbourne. We are pleased Denise is able to speak as our guest, and thank her for accepting our invitation to do so. Invitations with regard to Presentation Night will be sent out next week, as well as advertised in the Lakelander. This is a formal occasion and we remind families that students are to be in school uniform.

Bushfire Policy

The school has been assessed as a safe refuge area in the event of a bushfire. If a bushfire does threaten Meningie, the school hall will be used as a refuge. If fire is known to threaten a bus route, the bus concerned will be held at the school until clearance to release it is received from the C.F.S. We will attempt to inform the families concerned of the situation and the action being taken. In the event of a major bushfire in the district, children will be cared for at the school until it is safe for them to be taken home. Children will only be released to the care of their parents/guardians or to a person named in a letter signed and dated that day by a parent/guardian while the school is in a state of bushfire alert. It is strongly suggested that children will be safer at school than travelling through a bushfire-affected area. Parents are encourage not to drive to the school to collect children while the emergency lasts, because this exposes them and their children to increased risk.

D I ARY DA T E S :

T E R M 4 2 009

30 Nov

Pool Supervisors Course:

12.30 - 3.30 or 3.30 – 7.30 pm

30 Nov Core Planning meeting 8.00 pm

1 Dec 5th

Kindy Transition

2 Dec Whole School Assembly 12.15 pm

4 Dec Last day of term for Year 11’s

8 Dec Presentation Night 7.30 pm

9 Dec End of Year Junior Assembly 2.00 pm

10 Dec Class Party Day

11 Dec Whole School Assembly 12.15 pm

11 Dec

Early Dismissal at 2.20pm.

Buses depart at 2.30pm

MENINGIE AREA SCHOOL

Ph: 0885 751106 Fax: 0885 751368 1 North Terrace MENINGIE SA 5264

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Building The Education Revolution

This week we had a meeting with the Project Coordinator from Candetti Constructions. Candetti has been given the brief to manage the refurbishment of the school gym. Between now and the start of the 2010 school year, architects and consultants will be visiting the site to prepare for work to begin on the gym during Term 1 2010. This will be a major refurbishment. The school has already begun looking at minimising the impact on events, in particular our own Sports Day and Interschool athletics days during March 2010. We are looking to hold these events at the Town Oval, and are in current negotiations with various clubs. Monica Williams

MATERIALS & SERVICES CHARGES

Meningie Area School Bookroom will be open

Thursday 21st January and Friday 22nd January

between 9 am and 2 pm for payment of Materials &

Service Charges and to pick up student packs for book

covering and labelling.

Queries, School Card and part payments can also be

made on these days.

Charges for 2009 are:

Reception to Year 7 $197.00

Year 8 – SACE $263.00

VACSWIM

The vacation water safety and swimming program, SA Water VACSWIM, will be conducted at Meningie Area School from Monday 11th until Friday 15th January 2010. Enrolment Day will be conducted on Saturday 9th January 2010 from 10 am – 12 noon at the school pool. For information contact Sarah Wright on 0408 573128.

Premier’s Reading

Challenge

The Premier’s Reading Challenge is designed to recognise readers across South Australia. Over 100,000 students competed, with forty of our students successfully completing the Challenge this year, and many more attempting it. Twelve students who have achieved their first year in the competition received a certificate. One student who has competed every year since its inauguration six years ago receives the Legend Medallion. Twenty-seven students have received bronze, silver, gold and champion medals.

Certificates for first year achievers Cheyenne Carter, Tiarnie Ling, Aaron Clarke, Justin Brooks, Cameron Mazzone, Corey Poulish, Brooke Turner, Mitchell Holme, Riley McNicol and Destiny Rankine. Older students who were first year achievers were Alexandra McPherson and Melissa Botha. Bronze Medallion Brigette Botha Silver Medallion Tessa Bagshaw, Zac Byrne, Trae Rigney, Abbey Hood, Dylan Richards, Keith Weetra and Amber Gibbs. Gold Medallion Coco Karriem, Shannon O’Connell, Jace Stephenson-Hoad, Tamika Williams, Kaitlyn Reid, Kaitlin McKenzie-Campbell, Mikayla Smart, Marni Hood and Alana Standley. Champion Medallion Dale Appelkamp, Scott Biddle, Erin Pittendreigh, Montana Wenske, Hannah Pittendreigh, Lauren Bagshaw, Alysha Eckert, Marcus Rowett, Megan Herrmann and Oliver Crossman. Legend Medallion Sam Sanders Margaret Clarke (Librarian)

“ONE WELL”

Mrs Woolston’s Reception class has been looking at water issues world wide. We have been reading a little book that Charlotte Treloar brought into school, ‘One Well’, by Rochelle Strauss. From this book we understand that all the water in the world has been here for a very long time; even before the dinosaurs and is now being used for many more things than just dinosaurs! So, just as water from one well needs to be treasured and looked after because it is so precious and will only go around so far; then so too does our water because that’s all there is. We have been making posters to be better informed and inform others about water use in general as well as looking at some of the water issues here in our district.

We have learnt that the water in Lake Albert is getting lower because there is not enough water getting through the Murray Darling system to keep our lake full and so healthy. We also know that because of evaporation that the water will get a lot lower during summer if water is not let down the Murray and into our lake. We know how the water cycle works and that in South Australia we don’t get a lot of rainfall because of our climate. We also know that a lot more people have been taking water out of the river that

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flows through our area, which is called the Lower Lakes and Coorong. This is making the water unhealthy for a lot of the natural life that lives there and already some of the animals have left or are dying like the long-neck tortoise and many of the water birds like the Royal spoonbill, kingfisher, Great crested grebe, black swan and others. On Wednesday, November 11 we walked across to the lake to help with water testing with fisher Robert Brooks. He showed us how to draw some water from the lake into a syringe then to force the water through filters so it can be sent off to scientists in Adelaide for more testing. The tests show how much silt, algae and other impurities are in the water, which is making the water unhealthy. We also saw fisher Michael Gibbs coming in off the lake. He like many local fishers caught carp during the fish down, which was run by the government to catch as many of the feral fish as they could out of our water ways. On the way back we could smell the water, which smelt like rotten eggs and found a dead tortoise on the sand. We were very sad. Fisherman Robert Brooks showing daughter Georgia how

to filter water for testing for impurities.

We watched fisherman, Mr Michael

Gibbs, coming in off the lake.

RUGBY LEAGUE CLINIC

On Friday 20th November the Year 5-7 students took part in a Rugby Tag clinic conducted by Rugby League Development Officers at Meningie Town Oval. Students from Salt Creek, Tintinara, Coomandook and Coonalpyn also attended. The day started with the students learning how to perform the main skills involved in Rugby Tag such as passing backwards, tagging, defending and performing the roll ball. They then participated in a number of drills and small games to develop and refine these skills. After learning the skills students were taken through the basic rules of the game before beginning a mini competition. In the mini competition Meningie had 2 boys teams and 2 girls teams. Each game went for approximately 15 minutes. The competition was fierce with all teams trying to apply the skills and rules they had learnt previously to out manoeuvre their opponents. All the teams played well and had a lot of fun, with 2 of the Meningie teams remaining undefeated at the end of the competition. The Meningie students are to be commended for the way they behaved and the enthusiasm they showed towards learning a new sport. Well done!

Lauchlan trying to out run Sam & Scott

Mikayla performing a roll ball

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Australia Day in Meningie

Work on the 17th annual Meningie Progress Association Australia Day Fun Run has begun and the Meningie Progress Association wishes to invite the school community to participate. As the event will be held on Tuesday 26 January, the day before school goes back in 2010, there will not be an opportunity for a reminder, so please read the following carefully and mark it on your calendar. The event, this year, will look very different from the past with a number of changes. * Firstly, the start and finish of the fun run will be positioned in the jetty car park area opposite the Chambers and the breakfast will be cooked in the MOCA tent at the northern end of the Jubilee Park. This is due to a change to the route of the Fun Run and that there is a good chance that the new toilet-block in the park will be under construction. Participants will now walk, ride or run on the bike track north of the Lions Jubilee Park, past the Sailing Club, onto Hyde Avenue, past the Waterfront Motel with the turning point at the 2 ½ km mark (just short of the track meeting the Princes Highway), at this point the participants may choose to return via the same route or follow the track onto the lakebed and return via the lake bed depending also on the condition of the lake-bed on the day. The Coorong District Council have approved the closure of Hyde Avenue and the Jetty car park during these events and the Department of Environment and Heritage have approved the use of the lakebed for both the fun run and the regatta. There will also be opportunity to pre-enter the fun run and if you do so, you only have to arrive and join in. See the entry form for details. * Secondly, in order to turn a negative into a positive, promote the lake and put a positive spin on the water crisis or lack of it in the Lake, we are holding a Henley on Albert Dry land Regatta on the lake bed. The children’s event will be held straight after the award presentations at around 11am followed by the major event of the day with the team regatta. Children of all ages are invited to make a craft from an old box. Children assemble at 10.45 at Lions Park jetty car park, opposite the Chambers. All children must register and a parent or guardian must sign the supplied consent form which will be available at the assembly point. Simply find a box that can be stepped into (open top and bottom), decorate it and add straps or handles so that the child can run while inside. A trophy will be presented to the most imaginative craft. It is a fun event and no emphasis is placed on being the first across the line. Australian flags are encouraged. All participants must wear shoes, sunscreen and a hat. This will be followed by the team event. The start and finish line for these events will be at the jetty with a turning point at a distance north of the jetty. All the details of the Regatta and the Breakfast and Australia Day award presentations can be viewed at

www.australiadayinmeningie.webs.com.

* Thirdly, We are planning to have lunch available in the park after the regatta and we would like to hear from any clubs interested in catering for this. The Australia Day Fun Run arrangements will be on the agenda of the next Progress meeting on Thursday 17 December at the Chambers at 8pm and a meeting for the Fun Run will be held on Thursday January 14 at the Chambers at 8pm to make any last arrangements. Any queries to; Marianne Cunneen (Coordinator; Meningie Australia Celebrations) - All details and entry forms are on

www.australiadayinmeningie.webs.com

HERE WE COME A-CAROLLING

Do you want to go singing?

The Community Carols are being held on the

20th December.

WE WANT YOU to come along and sing.

Anyone who is interested in being part of the

choir can come along to the Uniting Church on

WEDNESDAY nights from 7- 8 pm and join in.

Any students or community members are

welcome. If you want to know more please

contact Anne Wright or Nancy Burgoyne.

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