28 May 2021

Newsletter Articles

Assistant Princials

Paul Stevenson
Andrea Saville

Grade Leaders

Grade 7: Naomi Cartledge
Grade 8: Elle Fox
Grade 9: Skye Champion
Grade 10: Allison Stone

Support Services

School Psychologist: David McCormack: Wednesday & Friday
Social Worker: TBA
School Chaplain: Paul Burton: Wednesday/Friday
School Health Nurse: Dave Mackay: Thursday

Principal’s Report

We are already halfway through Term 2 and as always, school is a busy place. Last night saw us hold our highly successful school social. Once again, the behaviour and participation of our students was exceptional. I would also like to thank the staff who attended this event in their own time – without their dedication to these events, they cannot go ahead. Thank you to the SLC and Mr Stewart for organising the event.

Our school Cross Country was held last week with some outstanding individual performances, however, just as importantly, was the participation of students as physical activity is so vital to our health and well-being, both mentally and physically. Congratulations to Mrs Robinson and Mr Stewart for organising the event.

Reports are currently being written by teachers and they will provide parents with important information around how their child is performing at school. As always, once you receive your child’s report, please take the opportunity to come in for a three-way interview between yourself, your child and your child’s teacher to discuss the report. Dates and times for Parent/Teacher interviews will be sent out in the coming weeks.

Sarah Courtney, our new Education Minister visited the school this morning to discuss our upcoming redevelopment. This promises to be such an exciting opportunity for our school and our community, and I look forward to sharing more information in the coming weeks about the progress of this project. We also have the school farm classrooms being built this year to look forward to.

Benjamin Frerk
Principal

QUAD BIKE TRAINING - YEAR 11

The Year 11 students had a fantastic day last Tuesday with Leigh Bellchambers from TasTafe developing their skills and knowledge required to safely operate quad bikes in the workplace. Some of the activities included undertaking pre-start checks, bike handling, defensive riding, workplace scenarios and shut down procedures.

Liam Fox
VET Teacher

CITY PARK RADIO – Schools Out radio broadcasts

Grade 9/10 Drama have been focussing on developing a radio show ready to be performed live on Launceston City Park Radio. We’ve learnt about the vocal process and breathing techniques that are so incredibly important for radio.

It has been an interesting process to say the least. Putting together a half an hour show is incredibly tricky – juggling music, conversation time and ensuring we have enough to fill a 30 minute show. It certainly ensured that we worked as a team and had to all ‘pull our weight’ to make it ‘come together’. Many hours were spent fine tuning the script. On the day of our performance, working in the actual radio studio was awesome. It was fairly nerve wracking, but Chris from City Park Radio came in while the music was on, to give us pointers and advice to alleviate our anxiety.

We now have a huge amount of respect for people working on radio because we know how incredibly difficult it is. We learnt that we had to use our voice to captivate our audience, varying our pitch, tone, pace, use of pause, emphasis etc. and maintain a conversational manner.

This was such a fantastic experience. We would definitely recommend to others to take up this opportunity.

Lilliana, Layla, Hayley, Sam, Ginger and Klarissa

CROSS COUNTRY CARNIVAL

On Wednesday 19th May, the annual Cross Country Carnival was held in less than ideal conditions. Despite the intermittent showers throughout the afternoon, students pitted themselves against the elements, their peers and themselves to compete in the carnival.

The final house points were:

There were some outstanding individual results on the day, with the top four placegetters earning a position in the Inter-High Cross-Country team which will head to Kings Meadows on Tuesday 1st June. Due to a change of course for both the Grade 9 and Grade 10 Boys events, new course records were set this year. Congratulations to Ben Hockey (15:24 mins) and Jesse Kerkham (16:49 mins) respectively who now hold these records.

Our Cross-Country champions for 2021 are:

Mrs Robinson
Health and Physical Education/AST

MODEL UNITED NATIONS ASSEMBLY DEBATE

On Saturday 15th May, Aimee and Rachael (Grade 10 students) attended the Model United Nations Assembly (MUNA) in Deloraine. MUNA is a mock United Nations debate where students nominate a country to represent and debate current world issues with their 'Countries'. Aimee and Rachael selected Finland and represented not only their country very well, but Exeter High School. They were active in a lot of the resolutions and the extensive research they had completed, and subsequent notes prepared allowed them to present strong arguments. They put forward two amendments to 2 separate resolutions, one of which impressed the organisers of the weekend. There were some strong teams there including many Grade 11 students, but the girls held their own and received positive feedback at the conclusion of the debate. Aimee and Rachael thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity and are keen to participate in further debating competitions.

Thank you to Neil of the West Tamar Rotary Club who sponsored Aimee and Rachael to compete. They look forward to representing Exeter High School next year.

GRADE 8 SCIENCE

Grade 8 students are currently learning about the Digestive System in Science as a part of their Biology unit. They have been busy learning about the structure and function of the organs involved in the Digestive System, as well as the enzymes that assist this process. Over the last few weeks students have been in the science lab completing a series of experiments, testing various food samples with agents for different nutrients. These investigations have helped students better understand which nutrients are present in the foods that we eat and to make connections between where and how the nutrients are broken down by specific enzymes at different stages of the Digestive System. They are now busy writing about their findings in a scientific report.

Mrs Fox

Excellence at Exeter

These certificates are awarded to Grade 8 students in recognition of their efforts in upholding the school values and helping to make our school an excellent learning environment.

Congratulations to this fortnight’s Grade 8 students:

Riley from 8D: Riley has commenced Year 8 in a very positive manner, consistently displaying an excellent work ethic in the classroom. He is an efficient worker who tries his best and he is working especially well in English and HASS. Values demonstrated: Respect & Learning.

Izabella from 8C: Izabella has shown a noticeable improvement in her application and effort in the classroom. She is to be commended on her conscientious approach and is encouraged to apply this consistently in all areas. Value demonstrated: Learning.

MURAL WALL COMPETITION

The SLC is running a design competition for four murals to go up in our toilet blocks. The murals are to promote positivity amongst our peers at Exeter High. To help with the design process, here is a list of six words to inspire you:

Believe Inspire Smile Unique Laugh Kindness

What you need to do:

Using one of the words above, design a mural that captures and promotes positivity. Your design needs to feature your selected word along with appropriate imagery. We are wanting the murals to pop, so think about bright colours.

Your final design needs to be submitted to Mr Stewart on an A4 sheet of paper. Please also complete your design in colour. Your design can be completed on a digital program such as Adobe Photoshop or Pro Create. You will need to make sure you save your design as a jpeg file and print it.

The successful designers will then have their artworks upscaled onto the walls of the toilet block. You will also help with the painting of your mural.

Competition closing date is Friday, 4th June 2021

Mural design examples

Student Leadership Council

Term Dates 2021

Calendar – Term 2

June

July

Calendar – Term 3

July

August

September

Community Corner

West Tamar Council along with YAC West Tamar

School’s OUT Rave: Friday July 2nd - To celebrate the end of the school term, the Youth Advisory Council will be holding School’s Out on Friday 2nd July (the last day of term 2) at the Beaconsfield Youth Centre. The 'out of this world' themed event will feature a number of fun activities, including: live DJ's, inflatables, face painting, photo booth, sausage sizzle, games and giveaways. Prizes for the best dressed. Any funds raised will be directed towards Share the Dignity. Click here to visit their website. The event forms part of West Tamar Council’s school holiday program, and has a free bus transport available. Grades 6-10 only. For further information, email sharni.rawlinson@wtc.tas.gov.au

School Holiday Program: Council provides a school holiday program for young people in the West Tamar with transport subsidised for all to be involved. The upcoming program is open to 10-17 year olds and features the School's OUT Rave, Winter swimming, Laser Tag and Space Jam 2! Families need to indicate which activities your child/children will be attending and submit your form online or send a downloaded form to Council (PO Box 16, Riverside, Tas. 7250 / andrew.beeston@wtc.tas.gov.au) to reserve your place. Spaces are limited and activities may close once full. Bookings must be finalised by Friday 2nd July 2021.