22 August 2019

Newsletter Articles

Important Dates

From the Principal’s Desk

There was so much information with numerous website links in the last newsletter that many people have only just finished reading it. Don’t forget to subscribe to the website and subscribe to our Schoolzine app. We have added some new links to the NDIS via our parents’ tab on the website. If you know of any useful links, we are happy to put them on the school website as long as they are not for commercial gain. There is so much information out there for families it is often difficult to sort through all the sources. We will continue to provide on line and face to face sessions to assist our families with their NDIS planning and implementation.

The School Board recently met and went through a number of key agenda items. The Board considered some new policies, building plans, budget implementation and public relations. If you would like a copy of the minutes, please let us know – we will get them to you. We will also have an open meeting in term 4 for interested community members. If you would like to observe a meeting you are most welcome. Keep an eye out for our EOI for membership on the Board in this newsletter - we have some vacancies that need to be filled now and in the near future.

Term 3 is often the most productive in terms of student learning. In particular, the senior school students are completing their SCSA courses and need to attend school regularly. Many courses require hours of participation and it is difficult to make up assessments if attendance is not regular. Senior school students (years 11-13) who have yet to pay their compulsory school fees will no longer receive school subsidies for many school activities and excursions. Reminders have been posted to all families and they are encouraged to contact Mrs Buchan, our MCS, to rectify payments.

Letters will be posted out to parents/caregivers of our senior students about end of year dates. Due to a change in ATAR exam schedules Sevenoaks year 12 students will finish school on October 18th which is only six school weeks away. Our students may also leave at this time however we will be running programs till the end of the year - December 20th. Notes need to be returned with intentions.

Our business plan is nearing completion. It will outline our priorities for the next three years. Our focus is upon quality teaching in the key areas of literacy, numeracy and social skills, continuing to be a culturally responsive school, incorporating the NDIS into our person centred planning processes and ensuring every student leaving school has a pathway. We will be highly accountable and accessible to our community - we are #CAN DO school. The business plan will be available on the website prior to the end of term and we welcome feedback.

Andrew Wilson

Introducing Tanith Brien, Therapist

We are pleased to introduce Tanith Brien, consulting speech therapist from the Independent Living Centre WA, who will be working with our students.

Therapy Dog

During semester 1, Mrs Rhoda Whelan has been undergoing some training with her young Basset Hound, Bentley. This training has been done through K9 Support and has provided certification of Bentley as a Therapy Dog and Mrs Whelan as an authorised Therapy Dog Handler.

Bentley has been attending school this term up to three days per week. When he is at school, he wears his Therapy Dog jacket and hangs out in the Demountable 1 classroom.

Therapy Dogs are known to provide many benefits to people, including reduction of anxiety, positive mental health effects, stimulation of memory and problem-solving skills.

If you have any questions about Bentley and his role in the school, please don’t hesitate to contact Mrs Whelan.

Air Bear has been busy

Tree planting

Out and about

Enjoying the WAESPPA Network Evening

Middle School Cross Country Race

Last term our middle school students had the opportunity to participate in the Cannington Community College and Cannington Community ESC Cross Country Race. Our students did extremely well, with special mention to the following students who received certificates:

Class Updates

7MST

What a busy start we have made to semester 2. We are completing a new round of testing to show just how much progress we have made over the year so far. We have all made significant gains which we, and the staff working with us, are extremely proud of.

This term the book we are reading is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from The Chronicles of Narnia, written by C. S. Lewis. We are enjoying being taken to another realm through a wardrobe. Sometimes we wish we had a wardrobe just like it at home. The staff would occasionally be happy to have the classroom store room do the same.

We have commenced our community access and travel training excursion. The first was a huge success. The staff were exceptionally pleased with the mature attitude we displayed while out representing the school. We completed a set worksheet while visiting IGA that allowed us to learn a little more about where things are located in a shop.

We have just completed writing our letters to a future us that we will be posting to ourselves on our next community access excursion.

Our combined sports sessions with the other year seven class have been a rousing hit. We are frantically practicing the skills required to compete at the ESSN sports carnival and the CCC athletics carnival, both in week 9. Some of us are very excited and would love the taste of victory; however, we also know that winning is not everything and it’s more important to just try our best and to display great sportsmanship.

Charline Martlew

7WS

On Monday, 17th June, our class participated in the school cross country competition. It was a great experience for all of us. We all tried our best and, despite feeling exhausted, most of us demonstrated great sportsmanship skills. Congratulations to all!

Proudly displaying their certificates

On Friday, 2nd August, our class participated in Tree Planting Day at Kent Street Weir. Everyone wore a pair of gloves and were given a trowel. We all planted between 8-12 plants. We’re hoping to go back in a few years to see how much our plants have grown!

Lynna Woon and Michael Smith

Tree planting

8C

Brendan Cunnane

8S

It has been a busy start this term and students are to be commended for adjusting themselves to the changes in their schedule. Therapists have been visiting classes and working closely with the students on a regular basis, providing strategies to support individual student needs. We have also had IEP meetings in week 3. A special thanks to the parents for attending the IEP meetings and making valuable contribution towards the individual student goals.

As usual, we are continuing with the morning fitness program at the start of the day, but this term we have made it more interesting by incorporating fitness exercises like lunges, push-ups, squats etc. along with our morning walk. We end the session with some stretches which allows our body and heart rate to gradually return to normal. We have also introduced yoga on alternate days which helps relax our body and mind.

Enjoying lots of exercise

Students are continuing to work well and are gaining confidence with their functional literacy and numeracy skills. On Wednesdays we are learning Key Word Signing (KWS) with Ms Thomas and we are finding it really interesting to communicate with each other using the sign language. We have started creating a personal dictionary of these signs using Book Creator on our iPads. We are all excited as we will soon be learning to use KWS when singing our favourite songs.

Susan Solomon

Learning about Key Word Signing

8W

Term 3 has started with a bang – lots of things have been happening in our classroom. On August 2, we headed to the Flats on the other side of Kent Street Weir and participated in Planet Ark ‘Plant a Tree Day’ with SERCUL. Cat, the lady from SERCUL was very impressed with the speed at which our students planted a total of 600 trees. We have already booked for the same activity next year at the end of term 2. This excursion completes our community service hours for the IGNITE award.

Helping Planet Ark

In independent living we have been focussing on ‘pantry shopping’ for our cooking activities. This involves looking at the ingredients we already have in our pantry and finding a recipe on the internet to use what we already have. Last week we made upside-down pear cake which was a huge hit!

We have also had IEP meetings with parents to set new goals for this semester. It has been great to have every parent attend and support this process, thank you!

We have harvested some excellent sized beetroot, rainbow chard and Asian greens in the garden. We are looking forward to our potato harvest and we planted tomato seedlings this week.

Ms Thomas has begun to teach us Key Word Signing every Tuesday. We are enjoying this and applying it to conversations in our classroom. We are making an iBook with videos of ourselves demonstrating each word.

The rest of this term will continue to be busy as we finalise our ASDAN certificates for this year and get ready for the portfolios to be moderated.

Rhoda Whelan

9JJ

9JJ has been given a wonderful opportunity to take part in the ‘Music Rocks’ Program. Music Rocks is a program that gives students the experience to play an instrument, sing and be part of a band. Their teaching system promotes an ethos that 'music is for everybody' and guarantees success for beginners to come together as a team and perform on stage in front of an audience.

This term we are fortunate to have Reece Wilkie, Jeremy Dela Serna, Jasmine Sunderland and Ashley Pabai join the team. We are really looking forward to seeing their live performance and will keep you posted on their upcoming performance date.

Judi Janes

Enjoying Music Rocks

9RJ

Students have worked enthusiastically on creating a 1-Week Healthy Meal Plan using new knowledge of nutrition from term 2. They researched healthy meals and recipes online and curated a plan that includes breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for seven consecutive days. Students reflected on their plans by assessing meals based on sugar, fat and salt content, as well as energy, vitamins and minerals. Whilst completing this task, students also improved their tech skills by inserting and working with tables in Microsoft Word, shortening URL links, copy/pasting images from the internet and editing text and alignment in cells.

Everyone agreed that googling delicious recipes for our meal plans was really fun and often made us feel super hungry!

We joined forces with SERCUL and other classes to plant up to 700 saplings including a variety of native trees, shrubs, and water reeds around the Canning River at Kent Street Weir as part of National Tree Day. A special shout-out and thanks to Mrs Whelan who organised this valuable volunteering opportunity for our school and contributes towards our Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Working hard planting trees

During terms 2 and 3 we have been working with therapists from the Independent Living Centre to use Talking Mats, a strategy to support communication using visuals and open ended questions. Students have used different variations of Talking Mats to come up with lists of personal skills and qualities as well as thinking about, and communicating, our preferences for a future workplace.

Rachael Jones

10S

We can't believe it’s term 3 already. The year has gone so quickly! We have continued our attempts to make a difference in the community. We have spent a day tree planting with SERCUL at Kent Street Weir and then made biscuits for the less fortunate supported by HD Streetwise. We have worked on our team-building skills, which have included some blindfolded activities during DFES Cadets lessons. Friday afternoons continue to be our time to improve our music skills during Music Rocks lessons. As always, the newsletter is a small sample of what we do in 10S, but we never forget to do a bit of fitness to stay healthy in both body and mind.

Jacob Sands

Group 1

Students have continued to work hard in all their lessons. They are finding out that it is good to take a break and to be aware of what their bodies and minds are capable of and to make sure they take care of their health. They take part in mindfulness sessions where they take time to listen to recordings that help them to focus on important things such as their breathing. Students have been trying out mindfulness to see if it can help them to feel relaxed and ready to try things which might be unnerving such as going to a new work place.

Students’ opinions on the Mindfulness sessions:

Enterprise:

During term 2 the students made and sold items for market day at Cannington Community ESC. They called their enterprise Emoji Enterprise. The students attended business meetings where they chose their enterprise name and decided to make items using emotions. They chose to do cups, bracelets and bookmarks with happiness words, smiley masks and stress balls. All the items sold out. The class is now making more of the same items for the next market day which will be held at another school in term 4 this year.

Hazel Marshall

Students working on their Emoji Enterprise

Group 2

We have had an eventful start to term 3 with the students continuing to work on their assessment, partaking in the mock job interviews and commencing their new MAPS goals for the semester.

Allister Gibson has recently commenced travel training. He has shown great maturity and thoroughly enjoys catching the train home.

During HPO on Monday afternoons we have seen our students participating in various individual games such as; badminton, Pot Black, boccia, indoor soccer and ten pin bowling. This is a great opportunity for our students to showcase their abilities and work on their problem solving skills. It has been pleasing to see them show great resilience whilst completing the activities.

Mustafa Hussein

Health and Physical Education

Group 3

We have had a busy start to the term, including the year 12 students participating in mock job interviews during English lessons. The mock interviews were with an external provider from Edge and it was interesting to see how the students handled their interviews. Later this term the year 11 students will have their opportunity to complete their mock interviews.

During DFES theory lessons some students have been learning how to use a CB radio and we put this into practice at our recent excursion to Mundaring Sculpture Park. It was pleasing to see some of our students riding over 10kms during our excursion and getting used to riding on gravel tracks. We also had a number of students geocaching and they were able to find some locations.

The year 11 students are all getting ready to sit their Keys for Life theory test in September. They have been practicing the tests online and working hard during lessons.

Zac is attending a Passport 2 Employment course in Subiaco. He has had his introductory session and he enjoying having a day out to meet new people and learn new things.

Dwayne Griffin

Group 4

Group 4 has been working hard as usual! Here are some things we have learnt so far this term:

Year 12

English – Mock interviews
DFES – Fire Safety
Maths – Measurement and budgeting for a function
ASDAN – Careers and Your Future (team building)
HPO/HPE – Individual Games and designing an advertisement for a chosen health campaign (e.g. anti-smoking)

Year 11

English – Pet research and community entertainment activities
Maths – Budgeting
Life coaching – MAP planning
ASDAN – Careers and Your Future (team building)
HPO – Resilience and individual games

Mock interviews

The year 12 and Pathways students had mock interviews with Jenny from Student Edge early in the term. They had worked very hard to prepare for the interviews during term 2 and the beginning of term 3. The students practised greeting people appropriately, talking about their work experience and describing their skills using the Situation, Action, Outcome format. They all did very well in their interviews, despite some expected nerves! After the interviews the students watched a video recording of themselves and identified aspects of their performance they need to improve in future interview situations. Well done to all students involved in the mock interviews!

Allana at her mock interview

Tyson Worthington - National Inclusion Carnival

Congratulations to Tyson Worthington who was selected to play for the All Australian Men’s (football) Squad as a midfielder last month! Tyson was selected to be part of the team based on his demonstration of the AFL’s values, Play to Win, Play Fair, Play with Passion and Play as One Team after competing for WA in the National Inclusion Carnival in Blackbourne, NSW during the school holidays. The All Australian Squad will travel to Brisbane to take part in an exhibition match at the 2019 INAS Global Games in October. The INAS Global Games is the largest sporting event for elite athletes with intellectual disability and is held every four years. Tyson has also represented Western Australia in the State men’s basketball team. Well done, Tyson we are all very proud of you!

Stephanie Brown

Congratulations Tyson!

Pathways

This term we have been busy finishing off our ASDAN PSHE Short Course. The modules we have covered are: Wellbeing, Becoming a Parent, Careers and Your Future, Economic Responsibility and Intimate Relationships. We have learnt some interesting things especially in the Becoming a Parent module. We now know that looking after a baby is not easy, especially when you have other responsibilities! In the Wellbeing module we have learnt how to look after ourselves and others, both physically and mentally. We have been using the Mindfulness app on the iPads to help us relax and unwind which helps us to keep mentally healthy.

Cindi Griffin

Art

This term year 7 students have had a go at digital art, creating Aboriginal-inspired designs using the Book Creator app on their iPads. These designs will become part of a collaborative, visual, Noongar-English dictionary. The students have enjoyed this no-mess medium and have produced some amazing work. Well done year 7!

Carissa Thomas

Awesome Artwork

Design and Technology

Year 7

Year 7 students have been making a wooden ski boat model. This project has involved students using the wood lathe to turn the boat's captain into shape. The windscreen for this model is made from acrylic, which is cut out on a scroll saw, drilled and the bent using an acrylic hot wire bender. Our students are making toys to take home and along the way are working with a range of materials, gaining confidence and learning many new skills.

Year 8

Year 8 woodwork students have just about finished a model Spitfire aircraft. Students making this model have used a templating method and a scroll saw to cut out the components. When the model is assembled, the students have been giving their planes a two-tone camouflage paint job. Students are about to begin making a wooden paper towel dispenser. To make the components for the dispenser they need to use the wood lathe, a jigsaw and a table-mounted router.

Cole painting his Spitfire

Year 9

Year 9 woodwork students have been concentrating on shaping timber and acrylic using hand tools. Students have recently completed a monster truck and a wooden navy frigate. The frigate model gives students the freedom to customise the shape of the hull and choose a finish. Students have now started making an acrylic cake slice, which involves learning to gently draw file their project into shape.

Olivia with her frigate model

Tradestart

Students participating in the Tradestart course have been learning about safe material handling and the use of a range of levelling devices. Students have received a timber order and placed the timber into storage following cutting to length and sorting by size. Tradestart students are working on several practical projects in the school garden area. A new garden bed is being built using reconstituted limestone blocks and a soak well is being installed to collect storm water. These hands on projects allow students to gain some great experience and new skills.

Mark Arrantash

Elvis and Hannah laying limestone blocks

How does exercise affect mental health and wellbeing?

Physical activity promotes many aspects of child and adolescent development, including social and emotional skills, as well as physical development of motor skills.

Active play also helps improve classroom behaviour and promotes a more positive learning environment. Here at Cannington Community ESC, we provide daily physical activity opportunities for all our students including individualised gross motor therapy programs, class fitness sessions, access to our school gym, lunchtime sports as well as a variety of curriculum programs that meet the needs of our students.

There are many positive links between physical activity and mental wellbeing:

Physical activity:

• can increase levels of serotonin and endorphins; the neurotransmitters involved in regulating and improving mood
• promotes sleep – which also helps regulate moods, increase energy levels and improve memory and learning
• increases the connections between the brain neurons, which improves memory and learning capacity
• pumps blood to the brain to boost mood, concentration and alertness
• promotes relaxation by reducing skeletal muscle tension
• provides children and young people with an outlet for excess energy and frustration, which relieves tension
• provides an opportunity for children and young to socialise and meet new people, reducing loneliness and isolation
• improves motor and cognitive skills, which boosts self-esteem
• •distracts children and young people from negative thoughts.

So take up the challenge and add a little physical activity to your week to help improve you and your families physical and mental health.

For more information see at the link below.

Katherine Athanasiou

Workplace Learning

Senior School

We have had yet another busy term. Congratulations to all the students who were able to begin in a new workplace successfully.

Almost all students have now participated in their MAP meetings. Information from these meetings will be used when we are organising new work placements to make sure the placement suits student’s individual interests.

Callum McSorley-Hayes, Elvis Lewis, Brandon Corby and Zac Leheste have commenced the Passport 2 Employment course. They all completed travel training prior to the start of the course and are now successfully travelling independently to and from Subiaco.

We are looking forward to working with the year 10 students who will be starting the transition to the senior campus next term.

We are a little sad to be so close to the end of the school year for the Pathway students. We would like to thank you for your commitment to the workplace learning program and wish you luck in your new life after school.

Carollyn Pears

Luke making flags at Workpower

School Chaplain

Spike Milligan's poem on smiling:

Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu,
when someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner and someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realized I'd passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile, then I realized its worth.
A single smile, just like mine could travel round the earth.

So, if you feel a smile begin, don't leave it undetected.
Let's start an epidemic quick, and get the world infected!

“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.” – William Arthur Ward

Edgar Reyes

Key Word Sign – using our hands to talk!

This term the middle school students have embraced the new teaching format in Key Word Sign (KWS) lessons. They have been tutoring themselves through watching videos, then teaching what they have learnt to the rest of their class, including staff. They have had fun competing against each other in quizzes - as individuals, as part of a team and against staff. The students usually come out the victors when faced off against the staff!

A notable mention must be given to the students of 8W and Mrs Whelan. The students have really involved Key Word Sign and Mrs Whelan has gone to a great effort creating and even colour-coding her KWS resources. Well done! A big thank you also goes out to Mr Smith who was happy to demonstrate his signing skills for our video, KAHOOT! Quiz. The students loved it and thought the man in the video looked a lot like Mr Smith!

We will be focusing on integrating KWS with Visual and Performing Arts for the remainder of the term.

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