As we near the end of another school term, we all know our school is busy with many activities occurring at any one time. The last few weeks have been no exception. Our children and staff have been involved in a variety of activities, including; SAPSASA athletics on our school closure day, Senior Choir performing at the Festival of Music, Yr 5 excursion to the city looking at advertising, Reception students visiting Cleland Wildlife Park, Yr 3 students visiting AFL Max and Student -Led conversations just to name a few.

Congratulations to our Senior Choir on a wonderful performance at the Festival of Music last Saturday night. It was an absolute pleasure to be part of the audience seeing our excited students have an opportunity to perform after all the preparation they have put in throughout the year.

Her Majesty The Queen 1926 – 2022

Over the last week, we have been impacted by the passing of Queen Elizabeth the Second. Regardless of personal opinion, there can be no argument this is an occasion of historical significance and one that will impact Australians in many practical ways. For example, as a point of interest, we will no longer have barristers referred to as ‘Queen’s Council (QC’s) but King’s Council (KC’s). As for Coromandel Valley Primary School, the most immediate impact is that we now have a public holiday or National Day of Mourning this Thursday, September 22^nd

To acknowledge the passing of Her Majesty and as a sign of respect, the South Australian Government has supported several observances.  

• From Friday 9 September 2022, to Thursday, 22 September 2022, all flags in schools lowered to half-mast.
• Public Holiday Thursday 22 September – A National Day of Mourning 

Progressive Achievement Tests

Currently, students are undertaking the annual Progressive Achievement Tests in Reading and Maths.

The Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT) are online reading comprehension and maths assessments aligned to the Australian Curriculum. The tests are administered each year and provide teachers with information about the learning strengths and needs of their students.

Planning for 2023

Planning is well underway for the 2023 school year, which includes organising staffing, class structures and placements. 

To assist with our planning, we would appreciate it if you could advise us if your child(ren) will not continue their schooling at Coromandel Valley next year. If this is the case, please contact the school via phone (8278 3693) or school email. This does not include any current Year 6 students. Thank you.

Scheduled Road Closure – Turners Ave.

Turners Ave is scheduled to be closed between 7:00am and 6:00pm on 26/09/22 and 27/09/22

Asphalt will be removed and replaced along Turners Ave, from the start of Main Road through to Myrtle Road Hawthorndene.

Dance Performances

Yr. 3 to 6, (evening performance) –  Capri Theatre Wednesday 2^nd November

Rec-2, (daytime performance) – School gym Friday 28^th October

STEM and Indonesian PRC

Congratulations to our STEM challenge and Indonesian challenge participants. Many students received certificates for completing the challenge. Well done!

Huge congratulations also to Charlotte J. and Amelia J. who each received a certificate and medal for the Indonesian Challenge. These are only awarded to the top 50 entries in the state! Awesome job!

An outstanding effort by Jasmine M. who entered both categories for the STEM challenge. She received the Runners Up prize in her age group.  Congratulations!

Premiers Reading Challenge

The PRC for 2022 has now concluded. Our school had just over 400 students who participated. A great achievement! Thank you to those families who supported each child to read and fill in their sheet.

All participant entry sheets have been entered. The students who undertook this challenge will receive their certificates and medals next term.

Student-Led Open Night

It was lovely to see so many families joining us for our Student-Led Open Night. I lost count of the number of people who came to share their love of the library!  Students and their families enjoyed reading books together, showing their favourite books and sharing what they enjoy doing in the library. They even shared their skills of showing how to borrow and return books.

As part of our Sharing the Planet inquiry, students have been investigating what living things are and what they need to keep living. So, on Monday the Reception students jumped on the bus and headed to Cleland Wildlife Park. After a light sprinkle of rain, the sun peeked through, and they were able to explore the park. Students saw native animals such as kangaroos, koalas, emus, wombats, possums, and snakes and had the opportunity to talk to keepers about the needs of these animals and how they take care of them.

Maddie – My favourite part of going to Cleland was patting the kangaroos. I learned snakes could only move in the sun.

Lucas J – I liked seeing the dingoes. I saw the bones of the dingoes too. I learned snakes can squeeze a mouse tight.

Ashton H – I liked seeing the emus. I learned that kangaroos can growl.

Aria – My favourite part of going to Cleland was feeding the kangaroos. I saw a sign on the gate that kangaroos need space so if they run away, you can’t follow them.

Ethan – I liked feeding the wallabies. I learned that koalas sleep most of the day and night.

Aurelia – I liked feeding the kangaroos. I learned that the bearded dragon has a frill that pops out when they are scared.

In Week 8 the Parri Ngartu Creek Kids and their friends visited the Living Kaurna Cultural Centre for a weaving workshop with Aunty Janice from the Southern Elders Weaving Group. They learned traditional weaving methods using raffia. All students are welcome to join the Weaving Club, starting Term 4, each Monday lunch time in the library. 

Kylie Gardner

Aboriginal Education Teacher

As part of our unit into Toys and Games the Year 3 classes visited AFL MAX on Thursday 1^st September. Students participated in a mixture of activities designed to learn about fitness, nutrition, mindfulness and fun.

Fitness – Students learnt exercises and strategies to keep their bodies fit and healthy, but also learnt that fitness can be great fun.

Nutrition – Students learnt that to keep their bodies and mind healthy they need to eat a variety of nutritious foods.

Mindfulness – Students learnt that to be healthy they need to care for their mind, just as much as their body. This included Box Breathing Strategies and being aware of regulating emotions.

Fun – Students learnt the importance of fun in their lives.

As part of their learning about how businesses design and market their products, the year 5 classes visited Rundle Mall. We visited 15 or more different stores around Rundle Mall today to notice how stores encourage us to buy their products. Some shops had great smells and cool music, others had convincing signs or different ways to show how products worked. Some of the shops give people the opportunity to 'try before you buy' and some even offered delicious samples! Among our favourites today were Blackeby's Old Sweet Shop, the new Rebel Sport, EB Games, the Apple Store and Haighs.

Haighs was definitely a favourite, especially thanks to Nellie who is one of the staff there.  Nellie spent time talking to our students and telling them about all that Haighs do to organise their stores and provide great service and an experience for their customers. She told us all about the special Belgian techniques used to make their truffles which sounded very delicious.  Nellie commented what great students we have and how engaged and interested they were and personally gifted us a chocolate frog for all of our year 5s to take home!

Huge thanks also to Brodie, Lizzy, Coby, Mel, Agnes, Kristy, Angela, Julia, Olivia and Verity who spent the day with us and supported with supervision. It was great to be able to move around the mall in small groups and have a fun day together exploring ideas to build upon our inquiry!

On Monday the year 5 and 6 students in the Jump Rope team visited Marion Primary School to demonstrate a variety of jump rope skills and to run two workshops for the classes.

Thanks also to Tayla and Clare who helped as well, they were students at Coro last year and are still members of the Jump Rope team.

The students were great ambassadors for the school, displaying care and patience when teaching the Marion students. The Marion students told us they all learnt something new and really enjoyed participating.

Sue Matthews

On Friday 16^th of September, the PSMF senior choir took a train to the Festival Theatre, where they rehearsed on the festival theatre stage with a number of other schools in preparation for the 2023 Festival of Music.

On Saturday night, 17^th September, they performed to a full Festival theatre audience and took part in what was a spectacle of singing and dancing, accompanied by the Festival of Music orchestra. They enjoyed hearing some high-standard music from a range of secondary schools. Our choir performed with confidence and enthusiasm, well done everyone!

We also congratulate Emily C – a year 6 student, who performed a solo on the Monday night performance of the Festival of Music. Well done Emily for showing courage and skill in singing so beautifully on the night!

Recording choir for 2023 Festival of Music.

Our PSMF senior choir have had the honour of being invited to audition to be a recording choir for 2 songs of the 2023 festival of music. This will mean learning 2 songs of the new repertoire and travelling to a recording studio middle of next term to record. These tracks will then be what students across the state access to learn these songs next year! It is an amazing honour and opportunity well earnt by our student’s commitment and dedication to the choir this year.

The Junior Choir and Senior Choir will continue working on their repertoire for Dance night and celebration night next term. 

Coromandel Valley recently took part in the Southern Zone Interschool Chess Tournament.  9 students represented the school - Brandon S, Finn F, Jackson G, Jake H, Lily Z, Nicholas J, Piper G, Sahishnu M, Shravenn M.  With three year 2s and a year 1 in the team, they did a fantastic job against some very good schools with much older and experienced players..

The results announcement had St Martin de Porres School taking out first place, Southern Vales Christian College in 2nd, and Coromandel Valley in 3rd. The celebration was short lived however, when it was found the results were based on 6 rounds and not 7.  After results were amended, we were told we had finished equal 3rd with Prescott College, but that a countback would be necessary.  Unfortunately, we lost the countback and got relgated to 4th place and outside of the medals.   It was very disappointing, as we had lost 3rd place on a countback in the previous tournament in term 2.

The entire Coro team did exceptionally well, and I was extremely proud of both their efforts and their sportsmanship.   Special mention to

- Finn and Lily who finished in equal 8th place, with 5 wins from their 7 games. 

- Lily was also the 2nd ranked female player and recorded a new personal best tournament score

- Shravenn (Yr5), Brandon, Jake and Sahishnu (Yr2s), and Piper (Yr1), who were all competing in their first tournament

I hope you all enjoyed the competition and will be part of the Coro team in tournaments to come.

A huge thanks to Jeff Zweck and Shannon Rose for assisting in transporting the team.

The Chess Club continues to meet on Thursday lunchtimes in the Music Room and anyone is welcome to come along.

David Shaw

Last week our Sapsasa Athletics team had a wet, but enjoyable, day out at the Coastal Districts Little Athletics Club.  We took 22 of our most talented athletes who had a great time, competed well, and did themselves and their school proud.

Coro’s ribbon winners this year were:

10-YEAR OLDS:

Millie B – 1^st in 800m, 1^st in High Jump, and 4^th in Long Jump

Archer W – 2^nd in Shot Put and 3^rd in Discus

Sienna P – 1^st in Shot Put

Joel G – 4^th in 800m

11-YEAR OLDS:

Lucy W – 3^rd in Discus

Fletcher H – 3^rd in Long Jump

12-YEAR OLDS:

Oliver B – 1^st in Discus and 1^st in Shot Put

Kalem W – 2^nd in 1500m and 4^th in 200m

Brooklyn M – 1^st in Discus

Daniel R – 2^nd in High Jump

Special congratulations to the following students who have received invitations to compete for Southern Heights District at the State Championships on Monday 26th September at Bridgestone Athletics Stadium:

Oliver B – Discus and Shot Put

Millie B – 800m and High Jump

Brooklyn M – Discus

Sienna P – Shot Put

Mr De Lyster

PE Teacher

Congratulations to Corby from 4B who advanced to the State/Territory Finals, representing our school in the Prime Minister’s spelling Bee. He did us proud!

We’ve begun planting! You might have noticed?

The native bee and butterfly specialists spent two lunchtimes planting an assortment of native vegetation purchased from the Coro Nursery with Mrs Todd’s BushBlitz grant. We were lucky enough to have sunshine during the planting, followed by rainy afternoons and evenings to help water in the new garden. 

Next term the students involved will have a separate visit from the Butterfly Conservation Society and Gondwana Landscape and consultancy to educate the students on what native “food” we have planted and who it is likely to attract (with signage creation to follow in Term 4).

Thank you to Keith, our grounds keeper for endless support with this project.

Mrs Todd

I would like to wholeheartedly thank and congratulate our amazing Coro community for the 5 netball teams that we were able to provide for this season.  The development in both skills and sportsmanship was lovely to see. Coaches and team managers were brilliant – some with no experience and who grew just as much as their teams.

We were complimented several times for our sportsmanship and flexibility, with Coro providing players to their opposition when needed so that the games could still go ahead. With just over 50 players across yrs 2 – 6, we had some definite “character building” opportunities and challenging weather (even for a winter sport!) but the attitude of our players was a true testament to their passion for the game, as was the dedication by their coaches/managers and of course parents and umpires too.  

Janita Bentley

Netball Coordinator

Congratulations to the year 2 netball team, all of who had never played before. It was very impressive to see their skill and knowledge grow so much from the first to last game.
Everyone had a go at every position, cheered on their teammates and showed great sportsmanship and had fun, win or lose. Thanks to Paul Dowling our team manager, Kathryn Andrew and Sue Allen for coaching and to all the parents and families that came out to watch, score, time keep and cheer us on! Go Coro!

Our Year 4/5 Saturday morning team, consisting of Ella, Ava, Eliza, Evy, Flossie, Kaydah, Lola, Macie and Peyton, had a challenging, yet rewarding season. 

We worked through strong competitors, covid sickness, bad weather but all with fantastic attitudes and resilience. We worked as a team who have now become great friends. 

Well done to a wonderful group of young ladies. Coach: Lisa Richards,  Team Manager: Janita Bentley

The year 4 team had an evenly matched division and managed to win and lose against each of the teams this season.  Every girl played hard and fair and they all developed their netball skills over the season. Thanks to coach Anna Forgan and team manager Jenne Farrant and Sally Ogilvie.

Our year 2/3 netball team had a fantastic season. The girls worked hard to develop their skills and their progress was evident as they hit the court every week. They worked well together as a team and their positive attitude and good sportsmanship shone through week after week. Thanks to coach Amber Yuill and team manager Katrice White.

This season 12 year six girls represented the school in the Division One Friday night netball competition. Coached by Kelly McTaggart and Sean Moore they came together to have some fun (with a competitive edge ?) for their last year of primary school and lots of fun was had! A big thank you to all the girls for their team spirit, to Kelly and Sean for their guidance, Sue Cooper for managing and all the parents for their support.

Our lost property box is overflowing with with named and unnamed items.

If you are missing any jumpers, jackets, containers or drink bottles please come and collect them before the end of the term.

Any unclaimed items will be given to charity.