10 May 2019

Newsletter Articles

Important dates

Thursday 16th May – School Council meeting
Tuesday 14th – Friday 25th May – NAPLAN
Wednesday 15th May – Friday 17th May – Year 8 Clontarf Camp to Uluru
Friday 25th May – Year 9 Transition Visit to Centralian Senior College
Thursday 30th May – Athletics Carnival
Friday 31st May – Staff Learning Day – no school for students
Monday 10th June – Queen’s Birthday public holiday

From the Principal

Dear families

We have a big few weeks ahead of us with NAPLAN Online commencing on Tuesday. This will see all of our Year 7 and 9 students complete four assessments – in writing, reading, language conventions and numeracy. We want students to confidently do their best, but we want everyone to enjoy the opportunity to demonstrate their learning. I have included information about NAPLAN Online later in the newsletter and I ask you to read that carefully.

Attached to this newsletter are our Assessment Schedules for the term. These documents identify the key assessment tasks and timelines in each learning area. As such they are a great reference for you to have to keep track of where your young person is up to in their learning. It would be good to print them out and keep them in a prominent place, such as the fridge.

Nominations have opened for the 2019 Teaching in the Territory Excellence Awards. These awards are an opportunity to recognise the many teachers and school staff who go above and beyond to consistently provide engaging learning sequences and positive learning environments to our students. It means a lot to our staff to be nominated and I encourage you to consider making a nomination. There is more information and a link later in the newsletter.

Please be aware that we are having a staff learning day on Friday 31st May, which means there is no school for students. Staff will be focusing on continuing to develop a bank of high impact teaching practices that we use across the school. We appreciate that it can be difficult to make other arrangements for your young people and we thank you for doing so.

Warm regards
Paul van Holsteyn
Principal

NAPLAN Online

Students in Year 7 and 9 will be completing NAPLAN Online next week. NAPLAN stands for the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy.

While the skills being assessed are the same, NAPLAN Online will be different than previous paper based NAPLAN assessments. The main way is that all assessments apart from Writing are adaptive, which means the questions get easier or harder depending on how the student is going. For instance, if students do really well on the first series of questions, the next questions will increase in difficulty so that we get a much better idea of exactly what the young person can and can’t do.

It is also different in that the testing period for NAPLAN online will span two weeks. We will be scheduling the testing as follows:

Tuesday 14th May – Writing
Wednesday 15th May – Reading
Thursday 16th May – Language Conventions (spelling and grammar)
Friday 17th May – catch up for missed tests
Monday 20th May – Numeracy
Tuesday 21st – Friday 24th May – catch up for missed tests

Year 9s will complete their assessments in the morning while Year 7s will complete their assessments after recess.

We want to make sure that all of our students do their best on NAPLAN as this will give us the best information about their growth, strengths and weaknesses which we use to target ongoing teaching and intervention. We don’t want NAPLAN to be a stressful event, but we do want students to put their best foot forward. We appreciate your support in this. Please encourage your young person to try their hardest and do their best; to have a go at every question and persevere even if some questions are difficulty. Please also ensure they have a good night’s sleep and a healthy breakfast, so they are able to do their best.

Assessment Schedules

Below are assessment schedules for each year level. Please refer to these to be informed about the key assessment tasks your young person will complete this term in each learning area, including key dates and time.

If you have any questions, please contact your young person’s teacher.

School news and updates

Teaching in the Territory Excellence Awards

Nominations are now open for the 2019 Teaching in the Territory Excellence Awards. These awards recognise teachers and school staff who go above and beyond to consistently provide high quality learning environments to students. You can nominate a staff member at the link below.

Student Leadership update

Our student leaders have been meeting fortnightly to develop their leadership skills and provide feedback to the school. As it is a large group, the initial focus was for everyone to get to know each other. Now we are starting to collect feedback on aspects of the school – for instance: what is learning like at CMS?

Welcoming back the class of 1977

We welcomed back the Alice Springs High School class of 1977 last week for a tour of the school. Alumni came from right across Australia to catch up with each other and reminisce over the experiences they had at ASHS. It was really interesting to hear their recollections – amazing how some things change while others very much stay the same!

Alice Springs Language Centre celebrates 30 years

The Language Centre is a key partner of CMS, allowing our students to study a diversity of languages from primary through to senior secondary school. The Language Centre is celebrating its 30th year in operation and our students were able to join the celebrations alongside their primary school colleagues by participating in a Games Boy show and workshop which incorporated languages and games from around the world.

Congratulations to the Language Centre on this milestone!

Clontarf Corner

WELCOME BACK TO TERM 2!

Welcome back to Term 2 everyone. Clontarf has returned to business as usual after a slowish start week 1 with a few public holidays. Even though we had an interrupted week 1, it was still jam packed with awesome events.

ANZAC DAY DAWN SERVICE

Thursday morning last week we were up very early doing house pickups from 6am. The early start was no deterrent for our fella’s, who bounced out and into the Troopy’s to head off to the dawn service atop of Anzac Hill to pay our respects to past and present defence force personnel. It was a great service, and all of the fella’s really got something out of it.

After the service we headed to Wicked Kneads Café for breakfast, where the boys impressed the owners and staff so much, they put a photo on their Facebook page congratulating them on their behaviour and thanking us for our support.

EARLY MORNING TRAINING

Wide World of Sports has also continued to be a big hit with the boys for morning trainings, with our first session for the year very well attended, and followed by a pancake breakfast.

“HEALTHY LEGENDS"

This week Arnold Young is our Clontarf “healthy legend”. He received a basic check-up and was awarded a deadly choices T-Shirt.

OLYMPIC AND AUSTRLAIAN TABLE TENNIS COACH

Every Thursday night six boys earn the chance to play in a table tennis comp at OLSH. With positive behaviour and over 80% attendance, every Clontarf lad can earn their chance to play. The boys have been improving their skills recently, namely, Jarkine Squire, who recently defeated an A-Grade player in one set last week. Well done Jarkine.

Friday we were lucky to have a very special guest, a former Australian Table Tennis coach. 12 boys and 3 staff were very keen students as we soaked up the amazing knowledge on offer. Truly amazing to see the skill level on display and we all learnt so much from the simple coaching points he gave us. Since the visit, it has become increasingly difficult to beat anyone on the tables.

“BRISKET TUESDAY IS BACK!”

IN OTHER NEWS - Taco Tuesday has been replaced with Beef & Pork brisket rolls, which were delicious!!!!! If any teacher’s or staff would like to experience this delightful treat, please see a friendly Clontarf staff member to make a reservation.

“From little things big things grow”

Lock your bike up

Unfortunately we have been having difficulties with bikes being stolen from school. These bikes have not been locked up nor put in our bike shed.

While we provide a shed for bikes, students have to put their bikes in the shed and lock them up. If your young person rides their bike to school, please make sure that they have a lock.

Community Announcements

Steiner School Fair

Newland Park Road Safety Centre Family Fun Day

The Road Safety team is inviting Alice Springs families to the annual Family Fun Day at the Newland Park Road Safety Centre. The Family Fun Day is a family friendly event where parents and carers can bring their children to practice bike riding and learn the road rules in a safe environment.

Families are encouraged to bring a picnic rug, their bikes and helmets (or use the ones available at the Centre) and join in the fun! There will be appearances by Hector the Road Safety Cat, a free sausage sizzle, face painting, helmet decorating, jumping castle and plenty of other kids’ activities.

Events at Telegraph Station

Call out for young opera singers for upcoming production of Madama Butterfly

The Department of Tourism, Sport and Culture’s Araluen Arts Centre is looking for young singers to take part in the Children’s Chorus of the upcoming production Madama Butterfly by Opera Australia. The Regional Children’s Chorus program gives 20 children aged between 9 and 14 years the chance to perform as part of the chorus when Opera Australia visits Alice Springs as part of their 2019 National Tour.

The Children’s Chorus is a collaborative process that encourages teamwork, focus, participation and confidence, as well as a love of music. Children interested in taking part in the choir are invited to attend an audition in Witchetty’s at the Araluen Arts Centre on Wednesday 15 May from 3.15pm.

Auditions will take 5 minutes and participants are asked to prepare a short song to sing for the choir leader. Interested singers and their parents can book an audition or find out more information by emailing lisa-marie.burgoyne@nt.gov.au. .

Facebook

Keep up to date with all our news and updates

Head on over to ‘like’ our Facebook page to keep in touch with school news, highlights and achievements of our wonderful students. We encourage people to like and share our posts.

Please read the terms of engagement before posting comments.