Annesley News, Issue 170

Friday 18 June, 2021

Principal's News

Last week we shared a very special time as a community in Gillingham Hall as we formally inducted the Reverend Peter Morton as Annesley’s full time Chaplain. We hosted the Moderator and former Moderator of the Uniting Church, Pastor Jonathan Davies from Seeds Uniting Church, along with a range of other special guests including Pastor Pete’s wife Jo and their children. The Rev Sue Ellis, former Moderator of the Uniting Church and current Annesley Council Member, formerly inducted Pastor Pete, sharing that she is ‘overjoyed that God has called Pastor Pete to serve the Church in this school.’ The Annesley Choir performed a moving rendition of the song ‘How Great is our God’ and our School Leaders shared a special prayer of blessing for Pastor Pete and our school community.

Pastor Pete is an ordained Minister in the Uniting Church and has formerly been a Pastor at Seeds Uniting Church. Up until this year, Pastor Pete has been working at Annesley as Chaplain on a part-time basis. From the start of 2021, Pastor Pete joined our team full time as Chaplain and Counsellor. We are very fortunate to have him on our team as he brings a unique skill set of being a qualified engineer, qualified counsellor and ordained minister. Not only does Pastor Pete lead our Chapel services in line with the Annesley Values, he also promotes wellbeing in practical ways across our school and uses his diverse professional skills in a range of engaging ways every week. Currently Pastor Pete is collaborating with small groups of Annesley students who have identified strengths in Mathematics and problem solving, while also facilitating the highly regarded social skills program ‘What’s the Buzz’ with various year levels. Not too many Chaplains bring such a practical and relevant professional skill set to their role!

We admire much about Pastor Pete and are truly grateful to have him in our community. Make sure you say ‘hi’ to Pastor Pete when he is on crossing duty in the morning or kicking the soccer ball with the students at the end of the day.

Luke Ritchie
Principal

Last Day of Term 2 - Friday 25 June

Our School

Staffing Update

We are pleased to welcome Fiona Brady to our Annesley community. Fiona is an experienced Visual Arts teacher having taught Visual Arts to students from Reception to Year 12 over the past 12 years both here and interstate. She has developed a wide range of skills teaching 2D and 3D mediums, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, ceramics and textiles. Fiona will be teaching Visual Arts to our students on Monday through to Thursdays, whilst Liezel Sellars is on leave for Term 3 and 4, 2021. Tali will continue to teach on Fridays.

Hosting the Director of Innovation and Technology, Lutheran Education QLD

Lutheran Education across Australia creates contemporary learning tours for their teachers to leading schools across Australia. It was a privilege for members of Annesley’s Leadership Team to recently host the Director of Innovation and Technology, Lutheran Education QLD, along with other team members from Lutheran Education from across Australia who had ‘heard great things’ about Annesley and ‘got in touch’ with us to come and visit. Our visitors showed great interest in Annesley’s commitment to personalised learning, progressive and ongoing assessment and reporting, experiential learning program The Quest and commitment to building transversal skills in our students through initiatives such as the Bouncing Bean Café. We now look forward to hosting a range of leaders and teachers from Lutheran Schools from across Australia later this year.

Operational Efficiencies 

Annesley’s growth continues to be exciting and rewarding. The School has risen to the organisational challenge that rapid growth brings with a focus on building operational efficiency with ICT solutions and strategic recruitments in key areas. In the last 18 months the school has invested in the following:

  • ICT infrastructure upgrade
  • Software:
    • Risk & Compliance software
    • Property Maintenance software – job scheduling and management
    • Application and enrolment management software
    • Roll out of Office 365 and key Apps across the School.
  • Recruitments:
    • ICT Manager
    • Risk & Compliance Officer

Although these initiatives are behind the scenes it is important that the Annesley Community is aware of them and the substantial benefit to organisational efficiency and effectiveness. They were spurred on to meet the demands of growth but at the core driven by Annesley’s aim for continuous improvement in all aspects of our school for the benefit of our community.

Alex McCole
Business Manager

Kiss and Drop

It is our ultimate goal to ensure the safe arrival and departure of our students each day. We are grateful for your partnership in ensuring this happens.

The ‘Kiss and Drop’ zone is in operation each morning and afternoon to assist Primary School families to quickly drop off and collect their children. Please honour the street signage and take note that there is no parking in this zone during Kiss and Drop times. You can assist in keeping the Kiss and Drop zone moving smoothly by moving your car forward if there is space. Staff will assist students to and from the first three cars. In the afternoon if your child is not present and waiting by the fence at the Kiss and Drop zone, the teacher will ask you to please drive around the block and re-join the queue. Thank you in anticipation for respectfully supporting this action. Please note that cars cannot be standing for more than 2 minutes in the loading zone. This is not our rule, rather the regulations. Students will not be permitted to access cars that are double-parked as it is not safe. We ask families to please adhere to the road rules and not do ‘u-turns’ over the double white lines on Rose Terrace as this compromises student safety. Please be advised that we continue to meet with the City of Unley to further enhance the traffic movement on Rose Terrace and in the surrounding streets.

We appreciate your co-operation in ensuring a smooth and safe arrival and departure for all our students.

Annesley’s Free Library

A ‘Free Library’ has popped up at the Bouncing Bean Café! We would love donations of chapter books that are in good condition to our free library and also to see members of our community taking books of interest to read and enjoy!

Policy Updates

Through the rigorous, collaborative and thorough work of key members of our team, many of Annesley’s policies have been reviewed and updated. Our policies can be accessed via School Stream in the Policies folder. You might like to view the policies that have been added this week, the Personalised Learning Policy and Language Policy, as well as the Assessment Policy and Behaviour Education Policy which were updated and added last term.

The Quest

This week the Base 6/7 students spent a day at Baptist Care SA in the Adelaide CBD that supports the needs of people experiencing Homelessness. Our Year 7 students completed their 4 week intensive program at BCSA by sharing their experiences with their Year 6 classmates on their final day at BCSA. Next week the Year 6 students invite their parents to Cleland Wildlife Park to introduce their furry friends, share their research projects and connect with the experts they have been working with at Cleland this term. Our Year 7 students are going rock climbing at Beyond Bouldering at Keswick.

Parent Mentors

We are currently seeking registrations from parents in our community that have a variety of professional experience and industry connections to mentor our oldest students in Base 6/7 or work alongside our students in Enterprise workshops. If you are interested in working alongside our students please register your experience via the recent Parent Mentor post on School Stream.

Annesley Choir

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Dance for Sick Kids – Lion’s Cubs

On Tuesday 8th June, The Lions Cubs Club held a special event at Annesley to raise much needed funds for the sick children at Ronald McDonald House.  

After weeks of planning we were so excited when the ideas started to become reality. Our aim was to raise as much money possible, so in addition to a gold coin donation to come and dance, a brilliant market stall was made, selling items that we lovingly made – including crazy party hats, book marks, and head bands.  

Aria, the Deputy President and myself spoke at our school assembly to let everyone know about the event, held in the Performing Arts studio. It was a great opportunity to let our school community know about the charity and our ambition to do all we could to help the children that are facing challenges with their health.  

It was an amazing success – we were packed with so many students who all gave a gold coin donation to come and dance, dance dance! We would like to thank Annesley teachers and students for their amazing support. A total of $300 was raised.  

Amélie Falzon
President, The Little Roarers Cubs Club  

Primary Years Learning

Year 3 (Sophie) Video News

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Early Years Learning

Grevillea Room Video News

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A Note from our Chaplain

From the 20-26 June 2021 we recognise Refugee Week. Many of our students have used the lead up to this week as an opportunity to become more aware of the issues affecting refugees. This year’s theme of ‘Unity’ aims to highlight aspects of the refugee experience and help the broader community understand what it is like to be a refugee. Unity promotes harmony and togetherness and reminds us that, regardless of our differences, we all share a common humanity. Recently, I shared with Base 4 students the lyrics of a song called “This is Home”. It tells the story of those seeking freedom in Australia hundreds of years ago. They came with skills and were willing to work hard. They were looking for a place to call home – but found opposition from aristocracy. The song goes on to ask the question of how we may respond to those coming to Australia today, looking for a place to call home – will we welcome, or withhold, their need for a place to call home?

A genuine welcome can look different for each of us, but it so often begins with compassion and humility, allowing us to open up room through our attitudes, actions and lives to help others feel at home.

Pastor Pete
Annesley Chaplain

Assembly & Chapel

Term 2

Date Assembly/Chapel Class Presenting
Thursday 24 June Chapel

Term 3

Date Assembly/Chapel Class Presenting
Thursday 22 July Chapel
Thursday 29 July Assembly Reception (Amy)
Thursday 5 August Chapel
Thursday 12 August Assembly Wattle Room
Thursday 19 August Chapel
Thursday 26 August Assembly Grevillea Room
Thursday 2 September Chapel
Thursday 9 September Assembly Year 1 (Laura)
Thursday 16 September Chapel
Thursday 23 September Assembly Reception (Leanne)

Vacation Care

The July School Holiday’s Vacation Care Program is now available. These holidays we are pleased to offer an online booking option for Vacation Care. You can access further information about the Vacation Care program and the online booing portal via the School Stream app. please make your Vacation Care bookings before Wednesday 23 June (Week 9).

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