YAS-News Term 4 Week 9 2023
A Note from The Principal
As we approach the end of another remarkable year, I am filled with gratitude for the incredible school community we have here at our school. The Christmas season is a time of reflection, celebration, kindness and spreading warmth and I wanted to take a moment to share some highlights and express my heartfelt wishes to you all.
This year has ben marked by numerous achievements, both big and small. Our students have demonstrated exceptional dedication to their learning which has been recently showcased at the years 6 and year 12 graduations and the R-11 Achieving of Success assembly. Whether it’s in the classroom, on the sporting field or our art displays around the school, our students continue to impress us with their talents and enthusiasm for learning.
A special thank you to all our educators here at YAS for your unwavering dedication to your students this year. Your encouragement and the collaborative way you all work together is instrumental in creating the positive and nurturing environment our students enjoy. Together we all make a formidable team that is dedicated to the success and well being of each and every student that walks through our gates.
Thanks also goes to our extended school community that has been so supportive of our school this year. The local Lions Club, Community Op Shop and Terry White Chemist at Normanville have continued to work as our partners in helping our students enjoy experiences that may not have been possible without this support.
To our amazing, dedicated and valuable volunteers. I watch each day as you come to support our students with care, compassion and genuine interest to be a special part of their educational journey. The laughter and stories the students share with me about your time together are truly inspirational.
As we take a break from our regular routine, I encourage everyone to take some time for rest and rejuvenation. This is a moment to reflect on all the achievements and challenges of the past year and to set positive intentions for the year ahead.
Wishing everyone a Christmas holiday season filled with love, laughter and precious memories with your families.
Kind Regards
Christine Bell
Principal
A Note from The Pastoral Care Worker
This is it! the end of the school year is upon us!
We look forward to this time of the year for the holiday break. It's a chance to relax & reconnect with family and friends, some that we may only catch up with at Christmas time. With excitement & anticipation, many thousands of people across the globe, both young and old, literally work towards Christmas as if it’s the peak of the year, something to aim for.
Why is this ? I wonder if it’s because, without something to hope for, life can tend to be just a series of days.
I mean, we work for reward. This reward for effort may come in the form of a wage and/or the satisfaction of achieving and fulfilment (even in retirement). Even as parents and grandparents we look forward to those treasured moments of rewards.
At this time of the year, we are told from an early age that Santa is coming to town, and he has rewards(gifts) if we are good.
But there are other gifts that can’t be wrapped but are available for us all - that first Christmas is a celebration of these. The gifts of hope, love, generosity, joy, and peace - these aren’t found under a tree.
These gifts are a part of the Christmas Spirit were given to us to give away.. as we connect with one another.
I’ve witnessed just this week, the incredible generosity of our students and families, as they gave goods and vouchers to the annual 5CY hampers. This may be a physical, tangible gift, but by giving, we also receive the reward of hope, love, generosity, joy, and peace. These are the gifts from the Christmas spirit!
CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL. I'LL SEE YOU IN 2024
Wendy Lindsay
Wow, what a year at the Cockatoo Cafe!!
I've had the absolute pleasure of working with an AMAZING bunch of talented students at the Cockatoo Cafe every Thursday! From customer service, to their exceptional barista skills, this group had it all!
Every Thursday, we had our regular customers join us and we always received glowing reports. We can't thank you enough for your support!
As a thank you to the crew, the students decided to celebrate at West Beach Mini Golf and at Glenelg. We had so much fun competing against each other at mini golf and eating food on Jetty Road!
THANK YOU so much to the AMAZING cafe crew of 2023! I am so proud of you all!
Jade Barry
(Cockatoo Cafe Manager)
Rotation Drama
In our last Drama lesson this week, we used costumes and props to perform our Fixed Fairytales. Groups have become very good at adapting the stories, depending on which members are present during the lesson. The stories presented were The 2 little pigs, with the fix being that the pigs were able to defend themselves from the wolf and took him on, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears; fixed by Mama Bear sending Goldilocks home with a nice serve of porridge so she didn't need to break in anymore. Our final presentation was Hansel and Gretel, again fixed by everyone being friends and the witch allowing Hansel and Gretel to visit regularly and eat her sweets.
Well done, stars given for voice characterisation and adaptive teamwork. Every group's wish was to have everyone consistently available to practice and perform!
Shipping Container Mural
Last week certainly was a busy week at YAS with Market Day, the completion of the Year 12 exams, transition morning for the kindy students and the shipping container mural painting. The shipping container mural project has been 4 years in the making.
Back in 2019 the ATSI Team invited the whole school to be part of a very unique mural project. To set the scene the team asked students to watch the film produced by the District Council of Yankalilla. Whilst watching the film we asked the students to think about how they connected to and identified with any of the places that were on the film, then we gave them the mural brief …
Imagine you were an Indigenous person living somewhere in the Fleurieu Peninsula (Yankalilla, Myponga, Normanville, Carracklinga, Parawa, Cape Jervis, Second Valley, Rapid Bay or Wirrina) before white people arrived.
Draw a picture or create a design that reflects how you might have connected to or identified with any of those places.
We collected all the student’s art work and taking bits and pieces from a number of the designs created a story collage.
With funding from the Wellbeing Grant money we commissioned Niccy Pallant, an Artist in residence, to come to YAS and work with students to paint the mural. For the past 25 years Niccy has worked as an Arts educator and leader in South Australian schools, whose lifelong dream is to work as an artist. Niccy took our design and spent the 3 days working with many YAS students to make our dream come true.
The mural still needs a bit more work and Bu Ellin has kindly offered to work with students to add the final details and I look forward to sharing the finished product. In the meantime if you get the chance take a wander down to the farm and spend some time looking at what has been done.
Thank you to all the people involved in this project and a big shout our to Niccy and all the students that helped prepare the shipping containers and contributed to the mural painting, it is another YAS project to be very proud of.
Walk the 'Red Carpet'
This week Marcus worked with some Middle School and FLO/Coastal students to paint our very own red carpet on the Performing Arts ramp. Thanks to the Year 10 Art class for their excellent colour choice and Blake and Kohen for taping the carpet ready for painting.
Now every lesson we can walk the red carpet like the stars we are! Check out these Rockers!
Wellbeing Workshop
The Wellbeing Workshop has been a great success so far.
I designed the workshop to meet the needs of our year 7 and 8 YAS students
The main topics we are focusing on are:
- Social & emotional wellbeing
- Assertiveness and resilience in social interactions
- Setting goals, increasing motivation and boosting confidence
- Self-worth, self-respect and self-love
Students received a questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of the session, based on their answers I can say that there was a significant improvement in all areas. It was actually quite emotional to see how much we can achieve in only 40 minutes, how much our student’s social and emotional wellbeing improved and how much they enjoyed the experience. If Wellbeing is part of the curriculum next year, we could implement a similar workshop into the program.
Gosia
Global garden
Dragon fruit trees join the Global Garden
This week some of Ms Ray's 3-4 students worked with Bu Ellin in the Global garden doing some planting and watering.
It is very excited to plant two Dragon fruit trees, kindly donated by Bu Taylor's Dad. We are looking forward to seeing the amazing flowers and hopefully, eating some dragon fruit. We discovered that they are very prickly plants! Some succulents and ground covers were also planted.
We were the first people to use the new tap that has been installed to water the garden. Thanks to Graham and Lori for getting that organised so quickly, and to John and Jake for doing all the pre-digging. It will be fantastic in Summer and make watering so much easier!
Keep an eye out on the garden, as soon the mosaic creatures created thanks to the Council's Arts and the Community grant, will join Katie's blue frog...
