30 May 2019

Newsletter Articles

Important Dates

From the Principal’s Desk

Our school was recently visited by a Director of School Accountability and a principal of another secondary ESC to go over our school self-assessment as part of the Public School Review program. Prior to their visit we published our data in a number of key areas - Student Achievement, Leadership, Learning Environment, Relationships and Partnerships, Resource Management and Teaching Quality. This data also involved the school reflecting upon its impact and plans for the future. We submitted over thirty pieces of evidence and had input from a number of staff.

The school validation visit saw the review team talk to students, staff and parents during a full day. They asked lots of questions about how do we know if our programs are effective. Feedback from everyone involved was that the process was worthwhile and, despite being nervous, which is good, they enjoyed the chance to showcase our school and what we stand for. Being well prepared helped and I would like to acknowledge the following staff and community members for their active participation - Jessica Bates, Angela Whittington, Jenny Turner, Cinnamon Bonnefin, Zena Gomes, Bernardo Dewey, Holly Coombe, Pam Cave, Glenda Reid, Rachael Jones, Angela McKennay and Tanya Buchan. Thanks also to Lily, Alex, Nathan and Cameron for showing the team around the school.

The full report can be found on the school website under the “about us” tab - click on Reports and select Public School Review. The report is a form of accountability to ensure the public that their school is running effectively. Every school is reviewed every three years. The Director described our school as impressive - it’s nice to get such positive feedback and all the staff and board should be very proud of their efforts.

For those of you following us on Facebook and have subscribed to the website, I hope you are finding it informative and celebratory. Our new mascot “AIR Bear” has returned from her travels to Canada and Alaska. Her chaperone, Mrs Sands said she had a great time and particularly enjoyed playing in the snow. Many students have been tracking her trip on a map. AIR Bear is soon off to Hawaii so stay tuned. The world is such a big and wondrous place and we all need to understand it better.

We are fundraising and have two projects on the go. Firstly, we are selling the Entertainment Book - you can order on line via the link on the school website via latest news or come to the school and buy one from our MCS, Tanya Buchan. Secondly, the P&C is selling Disabled Children’s Foundation raffle tickets. First prize is $16,000 cash, tickets are $3 each and can be purchased from either of our two school offices. Monies raised will go towards our welfare and engagement programs. Both these projects have School Board support. Don’t forget the school Market Day on June 28th - another chance to see the wonderful work of our students and grab a bargain. I have saved my pennies and will be on the lookout for some Kimchi and some plants.

June 19th will see the school conduct an open afternoon. The middle school will be open for visits where parent/caregivers can see what their son or daughter is actually doing in class and talk to the teacher. Our senior school will conduct its post school options afternoon - a great chance to look at the service providers out there and what they have to offer. Contact the school if you require further information and stay tuned for further details.

We are interested to hear from any parents/caregivers about whether they have used CONNECT with another school. We have a CONNECT community and want to commence our parent space later this year. It will allow parent/caregivers greater access to information about what their children are doing. When my son was a teenager at high school I often asked him what he did at school that day - if I got a reply at all it was usually “nothing much”. We understand finding a note in the bottom of a schoolbag with last week’s lunch is not much fun. CONNECT will open up communications between class teams and the parents especially for students with communication challenges and it will also ease up payment options and distribution of excursion letters and the like. Information is stored safely and there are no cloud storage issues.

Mrs Cave and Mrs Reid organised our prospective student morning last week. A great turnout with lots of dads in attendance. We anticipate at least two year 7 classes next year. Parents loved the classroom layouts, the gym and the garden, the technology and the general quiet nature of the school. We will be conducting a thorough transition program throughout the year. This will also include our year 10 students moving to our senior campus at Sevenoaks.

This week has been super busy with Reconciliation week, an interschool basketball carnival, a wildlife incursion and a number of staff attending professional learning courses. Last week we had the NAPLAN testing which, whilst it did not involve our students, did impact greatly as we couldn’t use Wi-Fi for the week. Many of our senior students completed OLNA testing and results are available from the senior teachers. Some of the students did really well and we are proud of all the students for trying their best, which is the main thing.

Welcome to new student Jason Cole, welcome back to Crystal Findlay. Farewell to Mr Dewey who will be leaving us in week 9 to take up further studies at university. We thank him and wish him well. We are conducting a recruitment process to find his replacement. We have some staff taking leave soon and will keep you up to date.

Andrew Wilson

Class Updates

7MST

We are so busy in 7MST that we forgot that we have not long been on holidays. Term 2 has seen us start our intensive learning rotations that allow us to develop our IEP objectives. We spend ten minutes at each station either working 1:1 with the staff in our room or independently. Our teachers are nice and give us a chill out station as well during this time where we can play on the iPad or listen to music. So far, we are really enjoying it as we are working hard, but also being rewarded for our efforts.

This term we are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We really enjoyed conducting the Skittles candy science experiment. Watching the coloured skittles make rainbow patterns in the water was great, but the best part was getting to taste test each coloured Skittle.

Charline Martlew

Jaimie working independently

Mandy enjoying the chill out station

Mark working on telling the time

Sarah working hard on her money skills

7WS

The 7WS students have been busy learning how to look after the school chickens. They have completed jobs including letting the chickens out in the mornings, raking the floors, cleaning the coop and composting the chicken manure. One of the exciting tasks is the collecting of eggs each morning. Back in class, students estimate and weigh the eggs. The biggest egg the chickens have laid is 78 grams.

Michael Smith

8C

Enjoying the daily morning fitness workout

Packing worm castings into drink bottles

Researching road signs in Australia for ASDAN

Using Auslan Key Words to tell others how we are feeling

Brendan Cunnane

8S

We have had a good and productive start to the term with the students working hard towards achieving their Individual Educational Goals.

In our literacy sessions on Tuesdays we have been enjoying reading the serial story in the ED supplement of The West Australian. We do this as a whole class activity and take turns to read and discuss the story. The title of the story is “Swimming on the Lawn” written by Yasmin Hamid. This is a beautiful story described by a young girl named Farida who lived in Sudan in the 1960’s with her family. Sudanese culture and customs are brought to life through this story and we are able to learn and make comparison with our life style here in Australia. The story is really interesting and we wait with anticipation, making our own guesses till the following Tuesday when the next supplement arrives.

In numeracy the focus has been on money and time, the aim being to ensure that students can efficiently manage using them in real life situations.

We have also been busy from the start of this term creating our enterprise product and getting it ready for sale as market day is fast approaching. We are making fridge magnets and key chains using perler beads. This is a tedious job which requires sorting the tiny bead into the right colours and numbers for producing proportionate and perfect images. During enterprise lessons we have also been calculating our expenditure and making important decisions on the price of our product, number of products to be made, poster design and sales target.

Susan Solomon

8W

This term we have been busy with lots of academic tasks as well as spending time in our vegetable garden. We have planted a great winter garden with beetroot, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, potatoes and lettuce as well as Asian greens. Last term we grew zucchini from seeds and had a great harvest, with our largest zucchini being over 5kg which grew during the April holidays! We are looking forward to harvesting more than just silver beet and rainbow chard in the coming weeks.

On Friday 24 May, we are going bowling as part of our ASDAN challenge where we identified things that we like and things that we would like to do better.

Bentley has been back at school for a couple of days this term and he has finished his level 1 training to be a certified therapy dog. He is now completing level 2.

On Friday 17 May we had Mr Greenhough come and take our class for the afternoon. We did a treasure hunt using basic orienteering skills and the two-way radios. This has been a good sample of the types of things we will get to do in secondary school when we participate in DFES Cadets.

Rhoda Whelan

9JJ

Road safety is important!

9JJ is currently addressing the pre-checklist for travel training. We have been looking at all the road signs and studying road safety. Last week our class went outside to the front of the school and practised crossing the road independently whilst keeping safety as the major focus.

We have also included public transport as one of our major research areas. When we attend our King’s Park excursion in week 7, our class will be travelling by train and bus. Each student had to research and find the best and quickest route using the Journey Planner from the Transperth website.

We will also be looking at using SmartRiders, finding a safe place, what to do if you miss your stop, timetables and schedules. Our main aim is to be ready for the workplace learning component undertaken in year 10.

Judi Janes

9RJ

Strengths and positive qualities – mental health and wellbeing

Students in 9RJ are learning to identify our own strengths and positive qualities as part of the ASDAN Key Steps program and our whole-school initiative to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our students.

We are currently completing the VIA Character Strengths online survey for youth which involves responding to a number of statements on a 5-point scale. In doing so, we are using “text-to-speech” functions to support our reading, we are focusing on basic comprehension and we are developing a better understanding of scales (math). We look forward to getting our results next week and learning more about our personal strengths and how we can use these strengths to achieve our goals.

In addition to confidence-building, we are also committing to 5-10 minutes of daily meditation and/or mindfulness practice (as this is a proven strategy to improve happiness). We are using the Smiling Minds app, which is teaching us some valuable strategies for managing anxiety and stress.

Focus on improving writing

This term we have amped up our writing because we know that writing only improves with ongoing practice and explicit teaching. Some of us are learning to write persuasive essays (for example, Bree wrote a brilliant essay on why students should wear school uniforms). We are writing our own Dreamtime story (narrative) for Aboriginal Studies, writing reports and speeches on environmental issues in science, writing formal and informal emails in ICT and we write regularly about our laundry enterprise “Laundry R US” using an electronic journal (Evernote).

To support our writing (because let’s face it, writing can be really tricky), we are using Clicker apps on the iPads to help with sentence structure and spelling. Some of us are also learning to use the Grammarly Chrome extension online which is a powerful tool to improve spelling, punctuation and grammar (in fact, I highly recommend this extension for anyone, no matter how advanced you are). Just Google it – it’s free!

Community Service

On Fridays, we continue to support our community by volunteering at the Cannington Seventh Day Adventist Church to chop and peel veggies for local food drives. Students are reminded every week of the importance of helping those less fortunate than us. Our students take their volunteer work very seriously and always work hard. We are all very proud of the kindness and maturity displayed by our students on a weekly basis. All hours of volunteer service contribute towards the internationally accredited Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award.

Rachael Jones

10S

10S has been busy since the start the term. Being involved in multiple endorsed programs has allowed us to engage in some pretty exciting cross-curricular activities. Some of these activities include preparing and researching our class product for market day, which has given us an insight into how business works. For community service and enterprise, we have continued to maintain plants for each classroom to hire. Being involved in the DFES cadets program has meant we have had to learn the basic skills of camping like putting up a tent. We continue to use these activities as an opportunity to improve our numeracy and literacy skills.

Jacob Sands

BME brainstorm for market day

Cadets setting up tents

Kayleb helping out during plant hire

Group 1

Enterprise

This term, the students in Group 1 have been working on various enterprise projects as part of their ASDAN Money Progressions program. The students have created a business and are making Emoji merchandise to sell at the various ESSN market days planned throughout the year. Our class Emoji merchandise also links in with the social and emotional learning that we are working on within our ASDAN wellbeing module, Drumbeat and our class protective behaviours program.

Below are some photos of our recent bracelet making. There are many other products on offer, but we don’t want to give it all away before the big day! Our first market day will be held on Friday 28th June where we look forward to selling our amazing wares.

Jenny Lockyer

Group 2

We’ve had a positive start to term 2. It has been pleasing to witness our students taking pride in completing their work.

The students have been updating their resume, writing their cover letters, handling money and learning about intimate relationships.

As part of the HPO program students have been partaking in various basketball drills. As the annual Hills Basketball Competition nears, students have been developing their ball handling skills, improving shot selection and their ability to work in teams. It has been rather pleasing to see our students working together and, in the process, building a sense of confidence.

Mustafa Hussein

Group 3

This term two students from group 3 attended the Chorus Volunteer Breakfast held at South Perth Yacht Club on Tuesday 21st May. This event recognised National Volunteer week and all the contributions volunteers make in our community. It was a delicious breakfast and we had an amazing guest presenter in Peter Sharp, social artist, who had us dancing, crying and sharing our feelings.

In English we have learnt about applying for jobs and completing written and online applications. We are about to start learning about the rules of completing a successful job interview.

Math lessons have included each student tallying their frequent flyers each week and working out their balance, deposit and withdrawal amounts.

During Health and Physical Education classes we have learnt about healthy and unhealthy relationships and we have created our own relationship trees. Some students have started playing indoor soccer and learning new rules and how to use tactics to score goals.

DFES topics have included learning about tsunamis and students have learnt about the earth, how earthquakes happen, how they create tsunamis and how to survive a tsunami.

Dwayne Griffin

Group 4

Wow, this term is going fast! Group 4 has been working hard in all areas of the curriculum and MAPs. Well done to the year 12s, who did their externally set tasks in weeks 3 and 4.

Here are some of the topics we have been covering this term-

• English: we are learning about written and online job applications.
• Mathematics: In foundation mathematics the students have been comparing the prices of items at different shops; in year 11 preliminary mathematics the students have been learning about giving directions – using the language of directions and following others’ directions; in year 12 mathematics the students have been learning about time and chance and data.
• Health and Physical Outdoor Education: Year 11 have been learning about rest and recovery after exercise; year 12s have been learning about the Australian Dietary Guidelines.
• DFES: Year 11 students have been learning about tsunamis and the year 12s have been finishing off their unit of work on beach safety.
• Life coaching: The year 11s have been writing goals for success in different areas of their lives.

Special accolades to:

• Hugo, who is now volunteering in the school library on Friday afternoons as part of his MAP goals!
• Lily and Alex who represented our school with some very important visitors in week 3. They looked absolutely smashing in their DFES uniforms!
• Deep Water Point Excursion

In week 3 the years 11 and 12 students went to Deep Water Point to demonstrate their skills in fishing and kayaking for HPO. Fortunately for the year 11 students it was a beautiful, sunny day. They kayaked all the way from the Deep Water Point jetty to the Canning Bridge and back. There weren’t many bites for most that day but Alex managed to catch one fish!

Unfortunately, the dreaded curse of the year 12 students continues and the weather not ideal for kayaking. Regardless, we had an amazing team of keen kayakers, Tyson, Allana, Lakesha and Nicholas. They kayaked around Deep Water Point, practising making 180 degree turns, emergency stops, paddling forwards and paddling backwards. The staff and remaining students were very impressed with their determination and dedication!

Stephanie Brown

Pathways

During week 3 of term 2 the senior students listened to a talk presented by an instructor from St John Ambulance First Aid. The presentation was about road trauma and first aid. The students learnt the importance of first response and how first aid may differ during a car or road incident. One of the things they learnt about was positional asphyxia. They were given a demonstration on how to alleviate this.

After the presentation the Pathways students logged onto the St John Ambulance website and completed an online course in first aid called “Clicktosave First Aid”. They gained a certificate on completion.

Cindi Griffin

Art

Sea Creatures

Over the last few weeks, students in 7MST, 7WS and 8S have been busy creating stained glass sea creatures. These have been created using a transparency sheet over the top of their chosen sea creature template, and coloured in with permanent markers. Crumpled aluminium foil was then fixed to the back, to give a light reflecting effect. The completed pieces are stunning and all students have been impressed with their own work when they’ve seen the final result.

Carissa Thomas

Streetscape Exhibition

The years 8 and 9 students have produced amazing work.

Lisa Goodin

Design and Technology

Year 7

Year 7 woodwork students are busy producing a string and pine robot and a finger car this term. Students are beginning to work with a range of wood working machines and practicing wearing personal protective equipment. It is great to see students taking up the challenge and having the confidence to have a go.

Daelen using the scroll saw

Dylan with his robot

Year 8

Year 8 woodwork students have completed a wooden pot stand as a Mother’s Day gift and have nearly completed a jewellery/special items box which will be lockable. Making this project uses many skills, including working with paint to create an attractive finish.

Year 9

Year 9 woodwork students have just completed a money box truck. This project encompassed many skills, including locating and fitting butt hinges and hasp and staples. Students have begun to make an Apache Helicopter replica. Students use a wood lathe to create the nose cone shape for the fuselage and work with acrylic shapes to represent the cabin glass.

Tradestart

Tradestart students were asked by our partner school to demolish a brickwork reception counter on the last day of last term. Following some workshop based training, the students used a stitch drilling method to create a weak point in the brickwork that allowed the brick counter to be removed without damage to the remaining building. School staff watching the process were very impressed with the high quality of workmanship and teamwork exhibited by students as they worked through the stages of the task.

Students have been busy learning about house design and have begun to construct an A3 size, 3 dimensional model following their own floor plan. All projects are progressing well with most students beginning to cut roof timbers and constructing trusses for the roof structure.

In the classroom students have begun to study the theory relating to workplace occupational health and safety and will shortly complete the assessment to gain a “White Card” which allows them to enter construction sites nationally and gain work experience or undertake employment.

Mark Arrantash

Key for life Program - Senior School Driver Education

Driver education students have been learning about all the things that distract drivers and cause accidents on our roads using insurance company supplied statistics. Students noted that drivers of all ages admitted to being distracted while driving. This topic created some good class discussions and expanded the students’ knowledge relating to the number of bazar things that can distract a driver other than using a mobile.

Mark Arrantash

Workplace Learning

Middle School

Year 10 has started workplace learning and the students are excited about gaining valuable experience in their chosen industry areas. At Cannington Community ESC we place emphasis on travel training as well as going to work itself. A travel plan is drawn up for the student which is followed as closely as possible. Students are encouraged to look for landmarks around where they are due to get off the bus so as to remember when to press the bell. We always use safe crossings (this may not necessarily be the quickest route but it will be the safest). All students are required to come to school on WPL days while in year 10 so that we can ensure that they are being travel trained properly. In years 11 and 12 there is the possibility of independent travel to and from work. In fact, this is encouraged provided the initial training is completed to a satisfactory level. Keep up the great work year 10s!

Cassie Banks

Senior School

Term 2 has been another busy time with several new work placements commencing. We’d like to thank all our students for working so hard and impressing our employers. This encourages employers to offer more placements to future students.

We commend Zac Bonnefin for persevering with his travel training on public transport. As the weeks have progressed he has succeeded in being able to travel to a workplace. Well done Zac.

There has been exciting news for Rebecca Percival. She was selected to attend an interview by proving that she was reliable and enthusiastic. She has secured part time employment with Kmart Australia with the assistance of Edge Employment. Mitchell Keene, who has also shown enthusiasm, is attending an interview in the next few days. Watch this space, we’re confident we will be able to report that Mitchell is also successful. Well done Rebecca and Mitchell.

We are busy preparing and organising for our Post School Options Event. This will be held Wednesday 19th June starting at 3:00pm. There will be some very informative presentations and a big variety of service providers. Such an important place to be when NDIS is coming into our area and when our students are close to the end of their school life. We look forward to seeing many parents from years 10-13. Please click on the link below.

Exciting times in year 12

There’s been lots happening at the senior campus, with a number of year 12 students nervously participating in a virtual parenting workshop held by Red Ginger Services. The students were taken through an introduction to sexual health and briefed on caring for a ‘virtual baby’.

Over the course of four hours the baby dolls were programmed to cry at random and students responded by problem solving what they needed. The comments made by students entertained school staff as the reality of looking after a baby became very real and less appealing! Although nervous at the beginning, all students walked away feeling elated that it was over and looked forward to a long night’s sleep.

Holly Coombe

WADSA Carnival

During the school holidays Amihan Parker (year 9) and Germano Marino (year 7) competed in the State WADSA Athletics Championships. Amihan was the youngest in her division and did exceptionally well in the running and throws events. Amihan received a gold medal for her age group. Germano did extremely well in sprints and jumps. Athletes from all over Western Australia enjoyed the day at Coker Park.

Fiona Woo

School Chaplain

Mother Teresa quotes.

[From: Love - words and inspiration of Mother Teresa]

Mother Teresa of Calcutta has many wonderful sayings that she has shared with the world. Here are some of them:

• Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we do.
• Let us be sincere in our dealings with each other, and have the courage to accept each other as we are.
• Never let anyone come to you without coming away better and happier.
• We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace. We need love and compassion.
• Do not allow yourself to be disheartened by any failure, as long as you have done your best.

Quote of the week: Intense love does not measure – it just gives.

Edgar Reyes

Mental Health in Schools

Lunchtime Engagement Activities

Student engagement is a school priority and we constantly strive to further opportunities to assist our students in making positive connections with their peers and the school at large.

This term has seen the beginning of various lunchtime programs at the senior school aimed at assisting students to foster positive friendships with the guidance of staff, as well as extending their support networks by including other adult mentors.

Every Wednesday, students have the choice to participate in a social group, where conversation, music and fun activities are on offer. On Thursdays, the school nurse will be running a special ‘health group’ where students are able to make positive connections with a medical professional as well as ask questions they may have relating to their health in a relaxed and supported environment. Feedback from these groups have been very pleasing and we look forward to reporting on their progress later in the year.

Katherine Athanasiou

Key Word Sign – using our hands to talk!

Key Word Sign has been gaining momentum at Cannington Community ESC. It’s been encouraging to see staff creating displays for their classrooms and incorporating it into their daily routines.

The students have embraced using sign, with some enthusiastically greeting me in sign language every day. They are keen and learning much quicker than I imagined they would. I am amazed at how much some students have remembered, in such a short time.

Some students have relished taking on the role of teacher, as they show staff the new signs they’ve learned each week. One student has even set a goal to know 100 signs by the end of the year!

We are now learning to sign the Australian National Anthem, so hopefully we’ll be able to form a group to perform this during assemblies, in the not too distant future.

Carissa Thomas

Office Information

Payments

Thank you to everyone who has paid their contributions. Just a reminder you can pay your contributions by EFTPOS, direct debit or by a payment plan. Please contact the office to arrange a payment plan. All contributions for years 11 and 12 students are compulsory. Our bank details are BSB 016 270 A/C 340822406 (when using online banking please remember to state your student’s name in the details box otherwise we cannot identify the relevant student).

Middle School Parking

We have new parking bays for 2019. 2 visitor bays are now located at the school entrance. Please note that parking is not permitted in the drive way as indicated by the ‘no stopping’ markers and yellow line, as this causes a traffic jam on Wharf Street and is dangerous for students. Your cooperation would be appreciated. Parents are welcome to park down the side of the school near the bus bays.

Visiting the School

All visitors must sign in at Reception/Business Centre and receive a yellow visitor label.

Tanya Buchan

Star Tech

Please click on the links below for useful information regarding Facebook privacy and social networking.

Ravi Bheemul