Salisbury East High School eNewsletter

FROM OUR PRINCIPAL

A busy start to the term

The first few weeks of the term have provided a combination of challenges and also some definite highlights.

It seems that COVID-19 is slowly working its way through the school community – impacting continually on staffing. This means also that temporary relieving teachers (TRT) are in short supply across the state, resulting in more of our regular staff taking extra classes and picking up extra responsibilities to cover their colleagues.

As such, over the next week we are going into a model remote learning (as per email sent out earlier today).

Contrasted with this have been some inspiring news:

Elizabeth Nkombera (Year 9) was awarded a Harding Miller Scholarship – just one of nine across South Australia

Our VEX Robotics team participated in the World Championships as one of just three South Australian teams. Unable to make it to Dallas, Texas, the students and their two mentor teachers participated remotely in the middle of the night. Prior to competition, the Department for Education’s media unit came out to the school to meet the team and make a video for use on social media.

VEX Robotics Team Video

Our Year 7 Visual Arts students who worked with Caitlin, an Artist in Residence in Term 1 have had their work go on display at the Children’s Artspace at the Adelaide Festival Centre.

Artist in Residence Video

Our Year 7 students were treated to a visit from the Adelaide Crows as part of our school’s involvement in the STEM Footy Program where students learn about the maths and science in AFL.

Furthermore:

Year 7 and 9 students have undertaken NAPLAN tests
A number of parents have taken the opportunity to connect with their children’s teachers through phone interviews over two nights.
Salisbury East Alternative Learning (SEAL) students attended the Adelaide Careers and Employment Expo
We hosted a Youth Network event at our school to highlight to students the range of services that are available to support them.

Resolving conflict

In a school of 1050 students, it is inevitable that not everyone is going to agree all the time. Navigating relationships and differences of opinion is part of life and for most people, as they get older, they become more skilled at being able to do this.

As adults, we have a role to play in supporting young people to:

Work out what issues are important and which ones can be left. Adolescents can sometimes give over emphasis to small issues. Asking the questions: is it really important? What will happen if you do something about it? What will happen if you don’t?

Determine the best course of action from available options. Going up to someone in the school yard that you are already in conflict with to ‘sort it out’ is a low percentage strategy as is making threats on social media.

Prepare for a ‘tricky’ conversation with another person. Helping to develop a mental script can be really useful as well as considering ‘what if’s’ in case things don’t go to plan

At Salisbury East High School, we have a number of staff members who are skilled at supporting students to navigate their way through conflict. These include members of our sub-school teams – most particularly our Well-Being leaders (Amelia Molner (Middle School) and Sarah Afshin Pour (Senior School) and also our Youth Workers (Ya’ara Meyer (Year 7/8); Luke Will (Year 9/10) and Kara Walters (Year 11/12). In some cases, they can also ‘sit in’ and be a neutral facilitator in a safe space as students work to resolve an issue.

Issues with Vaping

Like many other schools across Australia, we are currently challenged by a small but significant number of students vaping at school – predominantly in bathrooms/toilets.

This presents a particular challenge to us as we are not permitted to have CCTV in such areas. We also would like to be able to trust students to be able to access the toilets during lesson time as required but are finding that this is being abused by some.

While some voluntary bags searches have been successful in ‘flushing out’ some of the vapes, by all accounts, it is common practice for students to hide them elsewhere.

Where we have reasonable suspicion of vaping, students have been suspended.

We have also had a number of complaints from other students who do not feel comfortable accessing the toilets while other students are vaping.

In the weeks to come, we will be looking at putting in some restrictions for students who are frequently late to class because they’ve been to the toilet or those who are asking to go every lesson across the day.

This is coupled with some education programs about the health risks associated with vaping.

Kristen Masters

Principal

STUDENT VOICE

Student Voice has had their first meeting of the term. In this meeting they planned the four main focus for the first half of the term. Students have broken into focus groups and are looking at how we can support female students to access sanitary products, how we can better use the house system to support academic students and convened anevents focus group.

Students are excited to plan events for Refugee Week, Black History Month, NAIDOC Week and already have started making badges for Pride Month. Students in our sanitary products group have planned a trial of a new system to start next week in selected girls’ toilets. Our house challenge group has started the process of applying for funding to support a program which promotes inclusivity and belonging at school to prevent bullying.

Kate Mckinna & Chloe Lyons

HARMONY DAY

On the last day of Term 1 we celebrated the cultural diversity of our school community. It was so uplifting to see the enormous enthusiasm for the different groups who performed and the way everyone got involved in a range of activities such as the colour run, guess the flag competition, etc.

Student Voice

INTRODUCTION TO AUTOMOTIVE

On Friday 20th May Andrew from the MTA (Motor Trade Association) hosted a 3 hour Introduction to Automotive workshop for students in years 10 & 11 who are interested in the Automotive industry. Students first had a meet and greet with Andrew where they heard about the exciting journey his career had taken, they then learnt how to check the levels in a car and replace a tyre. Andrew talked them through how to spot damaged or poorly repaired cars and ended with a Q&A session. The students were all eager to get in and get their hands dirty and gave everything a go. An excellent experience for all involved.

Michele Malonagos

VET/ PATHWAYS COORDINATOR

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROBOTICS

Our robotics team were in action again this term after qualifying for the World Championship for the VEX IQ 2021/2022 season.

With the event being held online but in Dallas, USA, the time was always going to be fun! Our 4 students plus two teacher coaches were at school for two nights competing against teams around the world.

Our students had a great time sleeping at school and competed gallantly against tough opposition. We learnt a lot of valuable knowledge for future seasons and came out of it with our heads held high! Once again the 4 boys did SEHS proud! Well done!

Jamie Broadhurst

STEM Coordinator