26 June 2023

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

The end of Term 2 has been action packed. We thank all our staff for facilitating all of the ‘over and above’ events and programs the last few weeks, whilst finalising reports, completing student assessments and planning for next semester.

TERM 3 STARTS BACK TUES 18^TH JULY

We wish our school community a very restful and rejuvenating three-week break. Students return to school on Tuesday 18^th July. Please note there is no school on Friday 21^st July for the Darwin Show public holiday.

PROGRESS REPORTS

Your child’s mid-year Progress Report has been sent home this week. If you haven’t received, please contact the front office. Please take the time to read through your child’s report with them and celebrate all their hard work and progress through Semester One. If you have any questions or queries about your child’s report, please contact their Classroom Teacher.

SCHOOL CAMP UPDATE 

The senior school camp to Wallaroo will no longer be taking place. Instead, the Seniors will join the Middle school students at Batchelor Adventure park. This camp is scheduled for Term 3 Week 7 (29th-30th Aug). A reminder to parents to ensure medications are blister-packed by your chemist and handed into the front office beforehand. 

Cost of the overnight stay is $200 and the day trip is $50. If you wish to set up a payment plan please contact the front office. 

HOLIDAY OPENING HOURS AT HENBURY PRECINCT 

The Op Shop will be open as usual over the holidays (Monday – Saturday). Please drop in to say hi, drop off your holiday clean out donations, and find some fun holiday activities – we have lots of games, books, puzzles and toys!

The café will be open for the for the first Saturday of the holidays (24^th May), we will then be closed over the three week holiday, and re-opening Thursday 19^th July.

TRANSITION AND PATHWAYS INFORMATION SESSION

On Tuesday 30^th May the annual Henbury Transition and Pathways Information Session was held in the school hall. We thank all organisations and services providers (listed below) who came along, gave an overview of their services and talked with our school community about how their services may be able to assist students on their pathway from school. It was great to have a good turnout of families be part of the information session.

• Carpentaria
• Helping People Achieve (HPA)
• TCASS (Territory Care
• Supporting Moo
• Better Connections NT
• YouthworX
• APM Disability Employment Services (DES)
• APM NDIS Local Area Coordinators
• Charles Darwin University
• MSJ ( My Supported Journey)
• Being Mentors
• WISE Employment (DES)
• Workforce Plus
• Eunoia Lane
• GTNT / Australian Apprenticeships
• DAP (Defence Assistance Program)
• Cocoon SDA Care
• Autism NT

V8 SUPERCARS STUDENTS ON TRACK

A massive 15 Henbury classes had the opportunity to be part of the V8 Supercars ‘Students on Track’ event at Hidden Valley on Friday 16^th June. The day was action packed and full roaring engine noise and fumes as students got to experience the thrill of the track. This was a chance for students to interact with other schools, practice their social and communication skills, learn about all different safety aspects, and types of jobs associated with an event like this.

Our Year 12 School Captains and Vice Captains had an added privilege of accessing the Chief Minister’s Marquee for lunch!

ANNUAL HENBURY SPORTS DAY

This year’s Henbury Sports Day was a fantastic success with students, staff and families coming together for an action-packed day of sports, fun and team spirit. Here’s some of the responses when students were asked what their favourite part of the day was –

• The games, especially the Sound Bowling and Javelin
• Getting dressed up and yelling the songs
• The snags for lunch
• The sprint races on the big oval
• Going back inside to the air-conditioning
• Seeing Carol and Sarah ride around on the bike with music from the boombox
• Hanging out with my friends
• Getting all my ribbons as the end!
• All the fun games and races
• Winning – Dingo’s won!

Thank you to Brittany and the events team who pulled the day together and catered so well to our students’ many support levels.

NAIDOC WEEK  

NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee. Henbury students participated this week in activities to raise awareness and celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Classes had access to a variety of materials to work through, and students were part of meaningful and fun whole school activity rotations, including Sand Stories, pandanus weaving, Indigenous games to name a few. Special guests included Larrakia Artist Lynnette Fejo who helped with the art program.  

Issy Keegan who is a former student also came in with the Touch football NT crew to facilitate the Aboriginal games program, and Northern Land Council Rep and Tiwi Lady, Rosanna DeSantis, also gave a presentation talk about Elders at Assembly. 

Check out the awesome photos below. Thank you to staff who organised this event and helped run our NAIDOC week celebrations! 

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END OF TERM ASSEMBLY
As is the tradition, our end of term assembly was about celebrating and recognising our students who have made great progress with their learning and personal development. Check out the list of award recipients below.

An official farewell was given Assistant Principal Dave Panjer. Dave has been Acting Principal at Minyerri School this semester and from next semester will be taking up the Ngukurr School Principal role. We will miss Dave’s positive can-do approach to everything, bright socks and passion for our Henbury School programs and students. We wish him the best with his next adventure and look forward to his visits back to Henbury. We also farewelled SESO Maddi Deery. Maddi worked in nearly all of our classes as relief SESO, and then in our Green 1 class in 2022, and in Yellow 4 this year. Maddi also was one of our fantastic Barista staff at the Henbury Precinct Café – we will miss you Maddi, all the best with your travels around Oz!   

FAREWELLS 

As well as saying our goodbyes to Dave and Maddi at assembly this week, we also say Farwell to Teacher Kate (Kathleen) Middleton and Koal Smith. Kate is taking very well-deserved retirement after nearly 50 years of teaching. Henbury was lucky enough to Kate come our way in 2016, and was our Darwin High Teacher since that time. Kate has been a wealth of knowledge to our staff and prepared so many of young people for their next steps into adulthood. We wish Kate a beautiful retirement! Koal started with Henbury in 2020 as a SESO and has worked in a number of on-campus classrooms. We appreciate all of Koal’s hard work and dedication, and wish him all the very best with his next adventures. 

YEAR 12 GRADUATION

Our class of 2023 Year 12 Graduation evening is set for Thursday 23^rd November at Darwin Hilton Hotel. An invite to families should have been taken home this week/please see attachment. Tickets are $80 per head, please contact the front office if you would like to set up a payment plan.

Raylee Parker
Assistant Principal

TOP END STAR GAZERS

On Wednesday the 31^st of May, a small, dedicated gathering of Henbury Star Gazing families met on Casuarina Secondary oval where we met Peter Ramsay who shared his love and knowledge of the stars with us. He did a brief introduction about the phases of the Moon where Killian kindly became the model of the Earth and Kristine became the Moon. Kristine was positioned 7 metres away from Killian to represent the scale of distance. We then looked through three 11 Inch Celestron Tracking Telescopes where we saw the Moon (my personal favourite), open cluster of stars also known as the Jewellery box which featured the ‘traffic lights’ with their 3 different coloured stars and the Globular cluster of stars which was about the furthest constellation we could see with this type of telescope. The students were very interested in Mr, Ramsey’s laser pointer which he needed a licence to use. Finally, a big Thank You to Sierra who spotted the shooting star travelling across the night sky and shared it with the people nearby.

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GET ON YA BIKE FOR THE TOP END GRAN FOND 2023

 Calling all students!

Ready to embark on an epic adventure and experience the thrill of cycling like never before?  We challenge you to saddle up and join us for the exhilarating Top End Gran Fondo on Sunday 2 July 2023!

🌟 The ride offers exciting distances: 22km and 52km to get in the mood or take on the big ones (110 and 145km) all the way to the Territory Wildlife Park  🌟

Whether you're a biking pro or just starting out, this event is perfect for you! 🙌✨ Grab your friends, rev up your wheels, and let's make memories that'll last a lifetime! 💪💫

Register now and be one of the first 200 participants to get a jersey and water bottle included with your registration.

BEER CAN REGATTA

The Senior Skillset in Science have been busy preparing their 2nd Regatta boat.  

This boat was designed by Sophie. It is a coffin boat made from plastic. The plastic used was PVC, milk crates and soft drink bottles.  

The boats name is called Ironic. Think how weird is it to be putting all that plastic into the sea. We all know what plastic is doing to our marine life. What a sorry tale. 

The students had to work out how much dry ice use to inflate the soft drink bottles but not under inflate them so the boat didn’t float. 

The boat will be entered into the open event on Sunday the 16th of July. It would be great to see you If you have nothing on that Sunday, please come down and support the crew. 

Science Senior Skillset 

DARWIN REGION SOCCER EXCURSION

DARWIN REGION SOCCER EXCURSION 

On Thursday the 15th June Henbury School participated in the Middles Years Darwin Region Soccer Gala Day. 

This year was the biggest number of students participating with 30 students. There were 3 teams:  Boys team- Outreach 3, Girls team- Outreach 1, and a Mixed team - Team 2. 

The Girl’s team was undefeated in their pool games and finished fourth overall. They lost 5 to 3 against O’Loughlin School in the cross-pool finals.  

Tankia - “I really like soccer. I wished I had done soccer before today.” 

The Boys team had several close games with many goals being scored on both sides. At one stage Shawn and Joshua were looking at little like a pinata at kid’s birthday party after blocking so many shots. 

Angus - “The funniest moment was Leo getting hit in the stomach twice by the soccer ball.” 
Maddy - “Marcus kept getting cramp in his left leg but wouldn’t come off because he loved playing soccer.” 
Marcus - “I loved the soccer day.” 

Team 3 was the development team with many students playing soccer for the first time. They enjoyed each game and managed to score a couple of goals. 

Arazia - “I kicked two gaols, and it was fun. I want to go again.” 
Heidi - “I liked running around at soccer.” 

Peter and Ethan were the team referees for the day.  

A big thank you to Staff who coached and managed all the players on the day. 

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EMBRACE DANCE PERFORMANCE

We are very excited to announce the disability-led dance theatre show EMBRACE is coming to the Darwin Fringe Festival on Thursday 20 July at 1pm and Friday 21 July at 6.30pm, 2023.  We would love to invite you to come along and see this amazing group of artists with disabilities, including International Super Model, Madeline Stuart and 5 times Australian and 1 time World Champion Dancer, Denzal.  

GREETINGS FROM YELLOW 5

This year we welcomed back Roanin, Jayden, Paddy, Callum and Zac. Jerome, Hamish and Matthew are our newest members, they have been a wonderful addition to the class.

Yellow 5 students have had a productive semester working on their Modified Northern Territory Certificate of Education and Training Stage Two programs. Students are completing tasks in English, Mathematics, Health and Wellbeing and Cross Disciplinary.

Our students are enrolled in Work Skill courses, work training, CDU courses, MNTCET Skill Set and work experience programs. These programs have promoted and encouraged independence and confidence in our students.

Yellow 5 students enjoy going out on excursions every Friday as part of their Community Access Program. We have gone to several locations and attended many events over the course of the semester. This is a great way for the students to socialise and unwind with each other off the school grounds.  It helps promote turn taking, teamwork, coordination and bonding.

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NUTRITION IDEAS

NEMARLUK TRANSITION DAYS

Year 6 Nemarluk students began weekly transition visits in Term 2. The Senior Sport and Recreation Skillset group used their coaching skills to facilitate games and teamwork. They did a fantastic job and look forward to continuing this program in Term 3! 

HELLO FROM P3

In Purple Three classroom, we have Beatriz and Josh who are in year 7, Tatiana, Julian and Hunter who are in year 8 and Owen who is in Year 9.

This semester, Purple Three have participated in Science and Enterprise Education classes.

We have been learning about animals that you can find in the African Continent. We invented a game based on ‘Pin the tail on the donkey’ it is called ‘Pin the tail on the zebra’.

We have also been going on community access to different places each week. When we went to East Point, we got to feed the horses.

We also get to make spinach and ricotta rolls and sausage rolls for the Henbury Precinct café each week! We’ve been perfecting our sausage rolling technique.

We have had a very busy term and are looking forward to a break and what term 3 has to offer!

WORK EXPERIENCE

Lachlan, Flynn, Mez, and Leeam had a fantastic opportunity to participate in 10 weeks of Work Experience at Darwin Convention Centre (DCC). They were supported by Emma and learnt so many new skills for working in Hospitality Industry.

Their jobs included:

• Stewardship, cleaning, and polishing service wear, wine glasses, plates, and knives and forks for events.
• Counting and stocking service ware in accordance with job order (functions). 
• Using machines and equipment to vacuum and mop function and outback areas of operation.
• Folding napkins.
• Cleaning grounds of the DCC and basement. Washing and resetting bins for events.

On their last day, the Darwin Convention Centre hosted a special morning tea and presented all our students with a certificate, rewarding them for all their hard work and fantastic attitude. The DCC is looking forward to hosting Henbury students for work experience again in semester two.

MIND YOUR PAWS

Mind Your Paws offers therapy dog visits throughout Darwin and surrounding areas. Our speciality is working with children and teenagers needing support. Mind Your Paws offer both group and private therapy dog visits. They Henbury school class rooms every week. Recently Kristy and her dogs, Harlow and Chips had a visit to the Sanderson Outreach classroom. The class really enjoyed the experience. There were lots of cuddles, tricks and treats all around.  

PUSH-UP CHALLENGE

Henbury is taking part in The Push-Up Challenge this June. Participants complete 3 144 push-ups over 23 days to raise awareness and funds for mental health. Any funds raised will go to Lifeline. In 2022, 3,144 people were lost to suicide. Our challenge as a school is to do, 3,144 push-ups over 23 days to raise awareness and raise funds for mental health.

Keen to get involved, donate or just to check out our team? Click on the link  Find out more.

Well done to people who have been participating in the push up challenge. We have already smashed the target of push up to complete. And thanks to Tara's sponsors, we have raised $620 for Lifeline. Keep logging those hours to those that are competing. Please see attached photo of our trusted leader getting amongst it!!

HENBURY SPORTS DAY

The annual Henbury Sports Day was held on Friday the 9^th of June. What a way to kick off the long weekend! We started the morning on the grass where the Red Dingoes, Blue Barramundis and Green Crocodiles were ready to battle it out in their cheers and chants. Students then went out to begin their sports events. We had some regular events from last year including Triangle Ball, Speed Ball, Sound Bowling, Bocce, Seated Volleyball and Blanket Ball. Two new events we introduced were modified Javelin and Relay races with battens. Every event was full of the Henbury Values, Respect, Teamwork, Communication, Compassion and Resilience. After all the events we went across to Dripstone oval where students got to show off their sprinting skills and run a 100m race. We saw speed, determination and cheering during these races! We then came back to Henbury to enjoy a sausage sizzle, and read out the winners from the day.

The Green Croc’s team came in with a respectable score of 353, Blue Barras came in second, scoring 353 points, and the Red Dingo’s took first place this year with a score of 391. Red won the 20 points CHANT comp at the warm up meeting giving them an early boost and records show they also received the majority of the Points for Sportsmanship for many of the events. Congratulations Dingos!

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PALMERSTON YOUTH FESTIVAL

UPCOMING EVENTS – Term 2 2023

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Happy Birthday to the following students that celebrate their birthday’s in June and July:

COMMUNITY NOTICES