HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Our dedicated staff, our committed parents and our enthusiastic students have all contributed to the many highlights of 2002!

Some of our Special Achievements this year are:

• Appointment of our new Junior Primary Principal, Margaret Kellett.

• Our school website, developed by Brian Young, a past teacher at our school, continues to gain worldwide attention.

• Middle School Orientation Day in February, well supported by parents, builds team and leadership skills amongst Year 6 and 7 students.

• Kookaburra Council Leadership team selected - Cameron Lithgow, Josie Dimond and Caitlin Betts - and class representatives chosen.

• Jason XIII learning project for our Year 7 students, including time at the Technology School of the Future.

• Harmony Day in March when the theme YOU + ME = US was promoted and International students from Flinders University visited.

• Sports Day was won by Shepherd and Junior Primary students took part in Life. Be In It activities.

• Captain Burra, a fluffy toy kookaburra was sponsored by the Kookaburra Council to join the Windward Bound voyage around Australia to commemorate Matthew Flinders voyage 200 years ago.

• Edible Garden project begins with class plantings in the attractive, well developed garden area.

• Eggciting Eggshibition of decorated eggs launches our Visual Arts priority.

• Kids Eat Fresh program promoting eating of fresh fruit and vegetables with a visit by the helicopter and the Triple M team.

• Parent workshops in computing, mental fitness exercises, photography, parents as tutors, drawing and kids craft made possible by successful PIE grants.

• Student teams successfully involved in a variety of special team events - Pedal Prix, Tournament of Minds, SAPSASA sports, winning the Southern Zones Korfball Tournament.

• School Priorities developed - Program Achieve, Visual Arts, Learning Technologies.

• Waste audit of the school rubbish conducted by the Onkaparinga Council leading to a recycling program for waste paper.

• Bike enclosure developed to keep bikes safe and to encourage students to ride to school.

• Music Nights in May and September, Performance Day in July, Senior Choir preparation in the Music Festival all ensure student involvement in performance.

• Emerald Crown musical performance presented by Mrs Brettig and Mrs Higgins' Junior Primary classes to packed audiences.

• World Environment Day celebrated by planting seedlings in the Panalatinga Reserve.

• Shop for your School promotion gains $800 of computer software for the school.

• Art Displays of student work in the Long Room organised by our student teachers.

• Arts Elective week for all students with the theme 'Art of Different Cultures' culminating in an Art Exhibition.

• Frau Liepe retires at the end of Term 2.

• South Australia Police Band performances and Musica Viva presentation on jazz music.

• Outstanding student achievement in the Australian Schools Science, English and Maths Competitions and in the State Writing and Basic Skills Tests.

• Groups of students participate in the Marion Learning Festival and in the Parliamentary Debating program.

• Teams successfully participated in the Southern Chess League competition.

• American Indian drum workshops for students run by Bill Sheridan.

• World Teachers Day in October when students created and shared word pictures about school staff.

• Thank You morning tea for parents in December.

• Books for Schools campaign raised 4,500 tokens for the Tantanoola Primary School.

• Student success in the SA section of the Australian Peace Committee competition.

• Curtains in the Long Room made by Parent Club.

• Student Choir led the singing at the Remembrance Day Service in the Memorial Rose Garden.

• Junior Primary children performed 'Schneewitchen' for parents.

• Vacation Care program established at Happy Valley School beginning in the Christmas holidays.

• Family Christmas evening in December.

• Year 7 Graduation evening.

• Brian Marshall wins new principal position at Woodend School.

Lots of outstanding achievements as a result of commitment by students, parents and staff.

We believe we add considerable value to our students’ skills, attitudes and capabilities.  Data gathered from teachers confirms this.

One indicator of our achievements are the State Test results for Year 3, 5 and 7 students, which again this year were extremely high in comparison to the state mean.

Our results suggest that our students’ achievements are initially extremely high, but then plateau in year 7 in terms of basic skills.  This is common in high achieving students.  The rest of the state starts lower and eventually catches up in these basic areas of literacy and numeracy.  There are some other factors, which we believe impact on these results too.

• the style of the State Tests, we believe, is not as suited to the type of assessment tasks and learning activities we set our students, particularly at year 6&7 level

• a need to balance the number of demands on our senior students:  we like them to be involved in many things and we value real life learning experiences, however, we have logged about 25 valuable activities and leadership opportunities that take our senior students away from whole class learning sessions.

• In order to continue to achieve the very highest standards, we wish to consider strategies to continue the growth of our students in literacy and numeracy; particularly those students causing concern in upper primary.

• embed the use of learning technologies in all curriculum areas
• better understand how we can enhance student learning by the use of learning technologies

• all year 3-7 students are capable of producing a multimedia product and all R-2 students are able to create work using Kidpix
• students have log-on procedures for their own electronic folders.
• AMLIB library software which can be accessed by staff and students from any classroom.

• Review the quality of work students are producing on computers.  We need to ensure that it is really allowing students to think, achieve and communicate in ways they would not be able to do without the use of learning technologies.
• Create more space in the main computer area so that whole classes can be more effectively engaged in a combination of on-computer and off-computer tasks.
• Seek to support the management of our extensive computer network with a trained technician.

• develop their practical skills in the visual arts (Arts Practice)
• respond critically to a piece of art (Arts Analysis and Response)
• appreciate the place of art in our lives and different cultures (Arts in Context)

• creating whole school performance opportunities
• resourcing Come Out and other performance activities as important calendar events
• further develop staff skills, knowledge and familiarity with the SACSA Framework, for the assessment, teaching and reporting cycle
• maintain the profile of the Visual Arts through continued staff development and Arts Elective weeks and exhibitions.

This year data collected by teachers has shown that the target for student understanding of Program Achieve’s four foundations has been achieved. 95% of all students have been judged by their teachers as having average to very high positive attitudes to their work and social interactions.  Feedback at a recent Governing Council meeting revealed that students are now sharing and using Program Achieve language and concepts in the home.

Teacher training in Program Achieve has continued informally this year, through staff meetings and coordinator support.  Parent education in Program Achieve has continued through newsletter articles, visual information in classrooms, a parent workshop on optimistic thinking and reports to Governing Council.  Feedback at a recent Governing Council meeting revealed that students are now using Program Achieve language and concepts in the home.

• a relatively large number of new staff for 2003 will require Program Achieve training.

• Staff has identified literacy, particularly the area of reading as a focus for learning in 2003.  Staff will explore different models for the teaching of reading.

Thank you to those parents who were selected in the random sample and took the time to respond to the survey.  Once again parents at our school expressed a very high level of satisfaction.  Our results are above state averages, however, a little lower than last year.  A factor warranting further examination next year was that parents of boys, on average, responded significantly less positively than parents with girls.  The scores are on a six-point scale where 6 is extremely satisfied and 1 is extremely dissatisfied.  Scores for approximately 5 questions made up each of the categories listed in the table below.

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

The wide range of achievements already described in this report, indicate that our students, staff and parents all contribute to build a vibrant school community.  It is obvious that learning is thriving at Happy Valley.  Many members of our school community take on a leadership role to ensure that special programs and events take place.  We congratulate them on their successes and thank them for their commitment to the students of Happy Valley School.  Particular mention should be made of –

• Darryl Draper, Barb Williams, Heather Bath and Carmel Nicholson, who have contributed a superlative effort throughout the year, as co-ordinators for the three major priority areas.

• Doug MacLean, for his commitment to many school programs, including Tournament of the Minds, instrumental music, Peer Support and his management of the very successful student teacher training practicuums.

• Barb Williams for her outstanding contribution as senior choir leader.

• Jacqui Brettig for her work with students and the community in environmental education.

• John Pope for his commitment to staff OHS&W

• Yvonne Ridge and Brian Marshall for their work and commitment to Student Voice through the Kookaburra Council.

Beginning with our Governing Council, and reaching out into all parts of the school, our parents are closely and enthusiastically involved, to ensure that we provide the best programs, resourced and supported in the best way, that we can.  Thank you to Julie Abroe, as Chairperson of Governing Council, for her leadership of this group.  Her commitment and her caring and thoughtful work, has ensured that we have had an effective and efficient program of meetings, where issues have been resolved and projects have been initiated and well managed.  Thank you Julie.

Also to Wendy Nicolle, secretary of Governing Council, thank you for your work in recording the events of the year.  It is a continuous and demanding commitment and we recognise your work and especially thank you.

We have an enormous amount of parents who lead and work on sub committees and their energetic work must be acknowledged.  To these people, and especially the convenors - Georgie Goldfinch for Sport, Henk Plaggemars and Trevor Sherriff for Finance, Sue Vardas for Parent Club, Wendy Lithgow for Education, Grant Anderson for Environmental, Maryanne Eddy for the Reserve and for OSHC - we sincerely thank you for all your contributions over the year.

Helen King, our Canteen Manager, is always busy and puts in a lot of her own time to give the quality of service that students and staff and staff and parents receive from our Canteen.  Thank you Helen for your devotion to this role and for the great service we get.

Each year we lose many parents who have made excellent contributions to the school down through the years, as their families have moved through our school, with their last child finally graduating from Year 7.  This year we recognised four of these parents in particular at our parents Thank You Morning Tea on Tuesday 3^rd December.  Sandie and Trevor Sherriff, Lee brine and Ian Tattersall, have given large amounts of time and energy to the school over the years.  They have been involved in Governing Council, Parent Club, Fun and Games, the Library, Pedal Prix and Grounds, and as Brendan, Adam and Kate move on to high school, we thank you all for your commitment to our school.

At our Thank You Morning Tea, in the Newsletter and at other times, we try and acknowledge the great work of all our parents who give their time and interest, to make our school even better.  Whether it's supporting the events and parent education activities that are run, working in the classrooms, helping with camps and excursions, helping with sport, in the uniform shop, in the canteen, at busy bees or in our special programs, like Pedal Prix, Fun and Games or LAP, we thank our parents for your tremendous involvement.

It's been an active, exciting and rewarding year.  Thank you all and we extend to everyone the compliments of the season.