The KHS girls football team at the Grand Final on Tuesday

Well done to our Knockout Football Girls Team – who made it all the way to the Grand Final for the state on 15/8, only to finish second to Norwood International High School. While it wasn’t the result they hoped for, this is still a significant victory for the team and our school being silver medallists for the state. An acknowledgement to the team for their great representation of our school – along with Miss Madigan and Mr Leslie for their efforts in coaching the team. Well done.

Curriculum Prospectus 2024

Our Curriculum Prospectus for 2024 has been officially launched and can now be accessed by students and families. This document helps students and families to consider the enriching curriculum on offer at Kapunda High School and make decisions around subject choices, future pathways and special interest programs. Please take an opportunity to invest some time and have a read of the opportunities on offer at our school at the link below.

KHS Curriculum Prospectus 2024 https://kapundahs.sa.edu.au/curriculum

First Nations Education

On Wednesday 16/8, Deputy Principal Mr Jones and I took part in a conference for all of the School Leaders in our region. At the conference, we had a focus workshop on First Nations education and so we invited students Tali, Oscar and Teagan along with Aboriginal Education Workers Luke Milera, Marisha Hughes and Coordinator Mr Durand.  

The team delivered a session about First Nations Education and students demonstrated great leadership in sharing their experiences and all of the great initiatives happening at Kapunda High School in First Nations education. Congratulations and well done to all involved.

School Rugby Jumpers

Working in partnership with our students and Governing Council, Option 2 of the School Rugby Jumper has been accepted and has progressed to a sample stage. We expect sample garments to arrive at our school in the next few weeks – we will then gather further input and make a decision on formally adopting as an optional part of our school uniform, with ordering to follow. There has been great involvement, input and collaboration amongst students, Governing Council and our school. We’ll keep you informed as this work progresses.

Karen Bromley, Shane Verrall, Steve from Vater Machinery and Lance Crowhurst.

Thank you and farewell Mr Verrall

Farewell to Shane, who has been with us in a Groundsperson role over the past year and undertaken significant work in maintaining, improving and upgrading our school grounds. Shane has overseen a number of projects in our school, like organising the fencing for the Hawke Street Campus, our new school tractor, the new entry/exit for bus students and much more.

We thank Shane for all of his efforts and wish him all the best for his new job opportunity.

Governing Council

Our Governing Council met recently, on Tuesday 8th August to work through a wide range of school improvement initiatives. We are undertaking great initiatives in a range of areas, including curriculum and program offerings, school facilities re-developments and future directions for our school. On Tuesday 15th August the Governing Council undertook a specially organised and guided tour of the Eringa worksite, with a facilities manager from Ventia. This was an opportunity to reflect, review and forward plan for the future of our school. Our next Governing Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 12th September.

David Marino

Principal

Hats required from Monday, 28th August (Week 6)

School Closure Day Monday, 4th September (Week 7)

Pupil Free Day Tuesday, 5th September (Week 7)

Last Day of Term 3 Friday, 29th September (Week 10)

SCHOOL CARD SCHEME  

If you think you may be eligible for School Card, please complete the online application form at the link below as soon as possible, as School Card applications are now due.

If you have applied for School Card and haven't heard if you've been approved, please call 1800 672 758 to check your approval status.

Kapunda High School was very fortunate to host 12 Japanese students from Meidai High School for two weeks.

Meidai High School is a prestigious high school in western Tokyo. The students had an amazing time at Kapunda High school and visiting places in Kapunda and surrounds. This included a visit to Kapunda Primary School and Freeling Primary School.

Kapunda High School would love to acknowledge the support of all the homestay families to opening their homes to these students. We would also like to acknowledge the Schmaal family for hosting a Bonfire Party that was a special memory for many of the students. If you would like to be a host family, please don’t hesitate to contact Scott Durand and we would love to bring you on board to be one of extremely valued homestay families for 2024.

Scott Durand 

Japanese Teacher

Our Aboriginal Education team recently attended the Gawler Secondary Alliance meeting of School Leaders to share our journey for First Nations education at Kapunda High School.

This included a presentation from students and staff about the great initiatives in place to promote understanding, culture and connection.

Including: Scott Durand (AET), Luke Milera (ASETO), Marisha Hughes (AEW) and students.

Well done to all involved.

On Friday 11th August, 70 students from year 10/11/12 attended the Flinders University Open Day. This was an opportunity to attend presentations, be engaged in interactive displays, speak with university staff and students.

This was a valuable experience for students to explore potential courses, careers and gain a glimpse of uni life.

Students were asked what they enjoyed on the day a responses included;

"Trying out CPR and learning about the different health course and pathways."

"Learning more information about future career options, meeting new people and communicating with a wide variety of people."

"Working as a team to solve the murder mystery in the escape room."

It was a great atmosphere with Flinders also putting on food, music and entertainment throughout the day.

Jason Keep 

Assistant Principal

VET & Flexible Pathways

Semi-Finals

On Tuesday 8th August, the Girls Football team competed at Dutton Park. They played against Banksia Park International High School. Kapunda put up an excellent fight and defeated Banksia Park 84 points to 15. 

Grand Final

KHS then went on to play in the grand final at Thebarton Oval against Norwood International High School on Tuesday 15th August. At 3/4 time, the score was 20 points to 32 Norwood's way. Kapunda played really well in the third quarter to get back in the game. The final score at full time was 27 points to 41. Congratulations to Norwood for their success.

Congratulations to all the players on an excellent run of games this year to make it to the grand final, this is a fantastic achievement! Special thanks goes to Mr Leslie and Miss Madigan for their coaching, guidance and organisation.

On Tuesday 1st August, the Open Girls Basketball Team travelled to Balaklava to compete. They played two games, against Clare and Balaklava.

To celebrate science week, we would like to share with you some of the recent learning experiences in science at KHS.

CONASTA

Over the school holidays a number of the KHS science staff attended the Convention of Australian Science Teachers CONASTA 70.  This four day event was held in Adelaide this year and the delegates were thrilled to learn about the fantastic resources and opportunities to develop science learning and understanding that are available to us.

One of the outcomes of the conference is that science students in year 7 to 10 will be trialling the learning platform STILE for the rest of the term.  This platform gives the students the opportunity to learn in an engaging online space that is integrated into their classroom learning environment.  We are looking forward to seeing how the platform works for our students.

SPACE DISCOVERY CENTRE

In week 1 this term the Year 10 Space and Astronomy students had an excursion to the Space Discovery Centre at Lot 14 in Adelaide.  This gave them the opportunity to discover what having the Australian Space Agency located in South Australia means for the future of employment in the Space Industry and the jobs that will be created in the future.  The students were challenged to think of a job or career path that would not be needed in the space industry and found very few.  Jobs of the future that we heard about included: Space communicator, Space plumber, Space pathologist, satellite engineers and propulsion technicians.  The students then got to find out more about people already working in the space industry and the projects currently underway right here in South Australia.

ABORIGNAL LEADERS IN STEM

In week 3 this term a small group of Kapunda High School students got to represent our school and the South Australian Aboriginal Leaders in STEM congress at the Convention Centre in Adelaide.  The students got to meet and engage with a number of leaders in STEM careers and hear about how they had made their way to achieve what they had, the challenges that they had faced and how they had motivated themselves to keep working towards their goal despite them.  There was also a number of STEM challenges including designing a water filtration system, building a boat that could hold the most weight without sinking (which the KHS team of Tali and Ruben won) and navigating and exploring the Adelaide Zoo.  It was a jam packed couple of days but incredibly rewarding to be part of.  Special thanks to our KHS Aboriginal Secondary Education Transition Officer, Luke Karpany who also attended with the students.

IN THE CLASSROOMS

Year 8s are learning about energy and how potential gravitational energy transforms into kinetic energy that can then be transformed into elastic potential energy in the “Wil E Coyote – Egg drop”.   The challenge is for the students to supply Wil E Coyote with exactly the right number of rubber bands to absorb the kinetic energy of the falling “Wil E Coyote egg” so that he can capture the Road Runner without smashing on the ground. 

Year 10s are learning about the Periodic Table of the Elements and how it is organised, by designing their own periodic table of a topic that they are interested in.  We have seen periodic tables of sneakers, flowers, AFLW players, NBA players and much more!

Kathy Coombs

Science Coordinator

Preparations for the Adelaide Show are well underway and students have been spending their lunchtimes with the animals, getting them ready for the competition.