South Otago High School Newsletter, 12th June 2015 Nga mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa Warm greetings to you all

step in building our sustainable culture of academic

success. Any feedback from parents on this would be

greatly appreciated. Please feel free to email

pmcdowall@sohs.school.nz on this matter. From this

point in the year a sustained focus is put on regularly

reviewing academic performance at all levels.

We have a number of strategies that we can use to assist

your child to succeed. However, a part of being

successful is being in class and at school. We have had

some issues lately with students exiting the grounds at

interval and lunchtime. We need to know where students

are at all times. Please reinforce with your child that

they need to remain on the school grounds. There are

clear safety issues with teenagers wandering off site and

crossing major roads.

Report Interviews

I would like to emphasise to you all that the parent

teacher interviews which follow reports are a great

opportunity speak to the teachers and work with them,

to ensure students understand what is required of them.

This is the place for us all to be working together to

ensure your child is successful at South Otago High

School. We are lucky at this school to have some of the

most dedicated and astute teachers. They know where

you child is at academically and where they need to go

to next, to continue to improve. Please take advantage of

their expertise and passion for teaching and join them at

the interviews to ensure the high levels of success

continues.

I would like to end by extending my thanks to all of you

who support your children and the school. It is our

combined effort that make this the school of choice for

everyone in the community. Feel free to share the

positive vibe about the school and let the whole district

know how well the school is going. Ka Kite Ano Mr Paul McDowall Deputy Principal

Tena Koutou Katoa

Academic Progress

One of the great pleasures of teaching is watching

young people succeed. We strive every day at South

Otago High School to foster a culture of academic

success. In last week’s newsletter I outlined how SOAP

worked. As a quick reminder, we use targets for

students to work towards as a motivational tool. The

better their results, the higher they score. Research over

a number of years has shown the use of targets to be

highly engaging and successful. The best evidence of

this tool being successful comes from our academic

success last year; our results are stunning. We had 87%

at Year 11 pass NCEA, 96% at Year 12 and 75% at

Year 13. In addition to this, we nearly doubled our

Merit and Excellence endorsements. Nobody can argue

that what we are doing is not working.

However, we always want to do better and help the

students of SOHS do as well as well as they can.

Student reports are due out soon and one of the changes

we have made this year is to make a student’s SOAP

score easier to read. For each subject a student sits, you

will be able to see if they are ‘Below Level’, ‘At Level’

or ‘Above Level’. This should tell you how well they

are tracking to meet their individualised target. As a

school we regularly monitor how students are

performing based on these results. Teachers, Heads of

Department and Deans all review a student’s progress

and put a programme in place to support them. If you

have any concerns please feel free to contact your

child’s Dean or me personally, to discuss your

concerns.

As part of the work we do, when we identify a student

who needs support, is to run tutorials. Teachers run

these as required and we do expect students to attend.

Please support us in this and encourage your child to be

working at home and keeping up-to-date with the work

in class. An extension of this will be the tutorials we are

running in the upcoming holidays. On the Monday and

Tuesday of the second week, teachers have volunteered

their time to come in and run tutorials for students who

want extra help. Please have a chat with your young

person and discuss if this is an option for them. An

exact timetable will be in next week’s newsletter. It is

moments like these that can make all the difference for

students striving for academic success.

I would also like to introduce an endorsement

programme at Year 9 and 10. Similar to getting

endorsed with NCEA, students will need to get a set

number of assessments at either Merit or Excellence.

This recognition of classroom performance is the next

Otago Secondary Schools Netball Three netball teams, Senior A team, top intermediate team and the top junior team, all attended the two-day Otago Secondary Schools’ Netball Tournament in Dunedin. These teams played three shortened games a day each - six games in all. All three teams played excellent netball. The A team can be congratulated on making the semi-final. They played strongly but eventually went down to Otago Girls by two goals. They can still be very proud of coming 4th in Otago (out of 14 schools). Thanks to everyone involved, particularly the coaches and managers who took time out to attend this. Jo Jory TIC Netball

Otago Secondary School Cross Country Results from the Otago Secondary School Cross Country held at Gladfield Golf Course, just south of Dunedin, were: Tasmyn White 3rd in senior girls Talylor Clark 4th in senior boys Sophie Mills 8th in intermediate girls Reid Johnstone also competed in the senior

boys 6 kilometre race Congratulations, on some very fine performances. Glen Ward TIC Cross Country

Rugby All of our teams have already performed with real distinction this week. For the first time in recent memory, our boys’ teams achieved a clean sweep in their Gore Interschool fixtures. The U14s and U15s were successful at home, while in Gore the 2nds and 1sts also recorded victories. This is an outstanding effort and one of which all players should be proud. Our girls then showed their quality in Wednesday competition matches, with both the Senior and Junior teams recording comfortable wins. After a timely weather-related break last weekend, competition rugby resumes again tomorrow. Matches and venues are as follows: 1st XV v Waitaki Boys’ HS 1st XV, Oamaru,

1pm 2nd XV v King’s HS 2nd XV, Kensington Oval,

11.15am U15 v OBHS U16 Colts, SOHS #1, 11.15am Junior Colts v OBHS U14 Blue, Kensington

Oval, 11.15am U14 v Upper Clutha U14, Wanaka, 1pm Minivans for the U14s trip to Wanaka will leave SOHS at 8.30am. The buses for the 1st XV, 2nd XV and Junior Colts will leave SOHS at 9am. Cost is $10 per player. We have had around 2/3rds of our subs paid for the season. Over the next 3 weeks, the remainder will need to be tidied up. The cost is $60 for all boys and $40 for the girls. These can be paid to the school office in an envelope with player name and team clearly marked. Greg Heller TIC Rugby

Gifted Awareness Week Next week is Gifted Awareness Week. This is celebrated throughout New Zealand to draw attention to gifted people and the nature of giftedness. At SOHS the English, Social Sciences, Maths, PE and Science department have organised activities for the top Year 9 and 10 students in their subject areas. Activities planned include a spelling bee competition, scientific enquiry and generally extending subject skills. There will be daily problem solving activities and a new Robotics Club is also meeting. There are a lot of talented students at this school and next week is a great chance for the school to show them support and offer them some new learning opportunities. Students involved have been given invitations and a letter for parents. If you have any questions about Gifted Awareness Week or giftedness at South Otago High School, please don't hesitate to get in touch: asmith@sohs.school.nz Amanda Smith GATE Co-ordinator

Term Two Upcoming Events

Friday 19th June ........................................................... Staff vs Council Basketball, Lunchtime New Gym

Friday 3rd July .............................................................. Last Day Term 2

Gore Winter Interchange South Otago turned on another stunning winter’s day on Tuesday for the interchange. Seniors headed south in buses and the juniors stayed here. All up we had 11 Netball teams, four Rugby teams, a Debate team, Theatre Sports team, Junior Girls Basketball team, Hockey Team and Boy’s Football team competing. At the end of the day we came out on top 11-7, an excellent result by all our competitors. A few people are yet to pay for the afternoon tea and I will be shoulder tapping those students over the next week. I want to make special mention of all the coaches, managers, referees and spectators who took time out of their busy schedules to come and support our students and their teams. We cannot run sports without these volunteers, and we appreciate them all so much! Rachel Heller Sports Coordinator

Country Coaching Visits Last Friday four SOHS teams were treated to a visit by some outside coaches (Brooke from Netball South, Nat from Basketball Otago and Jason from the ORFU), who shared their skills, drills and love of their games. This initiative is run by Otago Secondary Sports, and we really appreciate that they see the value in sending coaches out to the country areas to work with our students. The student feedback said that they all enjoyed it very much and got a lot out of it. Rachel Heller Sports Coordinator

South Otago Schools Music Festival South Otago High School music teacher Lee-Anne Parcell takes the massed choir

through Counting the Beat yesterday morning to prepare for the first night of the

South Otago Music Festival 2015 last night.

School choirs from Clinton, Romahapa, the Catlins Area School, South Otago

High School, Tahakopa, Warepa and Balclutha performed yesterday.

Schools from Lawrence, Stirling, Clutha Valley, Kaitangata, St Joseph's, Waiwera

South and Rosebank perform tonight at the Balclutha Memorial Hall.

The biennial concerts this year included 14 schools and 530 pupils.

ODT 11th June 2015

Library It’s great to hear that this year there were 106 schools contributing to the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and for the first time ever they have had students able to participate by choosing books that they thought were the best they could put forward for judging. Students were given 149 books to make their selection from and these books have made the finals. I am Rebecca by Fleur Beale, Night vision by Ella West, Spark by Rachel Craw, Awakening by Natalie King and The Red Suitcase by Jill Harris. I am pleased to say we have most of these titles in our collection and for those of you who are interested, the books can be voted for at www.booksellers.co.nz/vote-childrens-choice. It will be interesting to see which one comes out on top. Katrina Pudney Librarian

Football - Girls’ Our two girls football teams both had losses yesterday. The 1st XI hosted last year's champions, St Hilda's, and went down 5-0. This is a good result against a strong team and South Otago were not disgraced in any way by the game. The team showed a competitive edge and created good chances but came undone by the slick passing of the opposition. For our team, SusanWhite again played strongly as did Hayley Witt and Sinead Grant as well. The 2nd XI traveled to Dunedin to meet the Otago Girls Azure team. A good start saw a very even game where action went end to end as both teams showed strong attacking prowess. Unlucky not to score from any of our chances, the teams turned around at halftime with South Otago trailing by one goal. Jessie Bennett equalised with a long-range effort just after the break but this spurred Otago Girls on to fight back and score another three unanswered goals Mike Beeby TIC Girls Football

Boys’ Football Both teams had a bye last Saturday on account of the FIFA U20 World Cup matches being played in Dunedin. How fantastic it was to be able to witness world-class football on our own doorstep and it was certainly great to see some of our boys there being inspired by the incredible skill level on show. We really don't know how lucky we are. The school has fielded a 1st XI for two interchange matches over the past two weeks. A fortnight ago, the team hung on for a 3-3 draw with Taieri College after we were reduced to 10 men shortly after halftime. Goals were scored by Vicente Serra, Josh Button and Michael Buniag. Last Tuesday, the team went one better, comfortably accounting for Gore HS 3-1 - Renz Condino, Josh Button and Jesse Maher were the scorers on this occasion. A special well done to Year 10s Salman Asman and Trent Dickie for making the step up! This Saturday, the Youth team has a home game against Maori Hill and players will need to be at school by 9:45. The 14th grade team is also playing against Maori Hill, but is playing at the Oval in Dunedin and players will need to be at the bus bay for an 8:45 departure. Both games kick off at 10:30. Elliott Carroll TIC Boys Football

Netball subs are now due - $80.00 needs to be paid ASAP to the

office.