1 June 2020

Newsletter Articles

OUR MISSION, VISION AND VALUES

Our Mission

Pinnacle College strives to establish and maintain a safe and nurturing environment so that every student may reach their full potential and achieve a high level of academic excellence determined by state and federal standards.

Our Vision and Values

When you enter Pinnacle College you will be met with a friendly smile. Our level of pride is displayed by our teachers and staff. Apart from a high standard of education at our well-maintained campuses, we aim to develop responsibility in our students, alongside appreciating and valuing different cultures, possessing positive behaviour and a high ethical conscience. We also guide students to accept actions, widen their view of the world which in turn enables them to learn from the consequences of their choices. Studying in a diverse multicultural community, students have the opportunity to widen their view of the world, enabling them to help each other and be productive both now and in the future.

Principal’s Message

Dear Parents

Welcome back to Term 2.

As we all know we are still experiencing unprecedented days. COVID 19 has affected almost everyone's lives somehow. However, we have had a lot of opportunities during those days. We were able to spend more time with our children and discover their different abilities.

You had to look after your child or children and follow them up to check whether their school work has been completed or not. Particularly, parents having more than one child must have struggled a lot. I would like to thank all parents for their dedication to Pinnacle College. I hope all students were able to find a way to learn better.

Pandemic cases in SA are slowly disappearing and our lives are going back to normal after the crisis. As of week 3, we have decided to return to face-to- face teaching again. It is a great pleasure to see our children returning to school. On the other hand, we are still supporting and respecting those who don't want to send their child to school, but continuing remote learning at home.

Community Engagement and Pastoral Care Units organised and delivered the Ramadan hampers to all of our parents. Therefore, during Ramadan, we visited most of the parents. I would like to thank Community Engagement and Pastoral Care Units, staff members/community members who helped us deliver all those gifts to parents door-to-door.

The other exciting development is our gym upgrade and new library building. I am so excited to see the walls are rising. However, due to gym upgrades, we will not be able to use the gym until the end of July. But after this upgrade is over, our gym will be fully air-conditioned and have new storage and facilities. The new construction will be finalised by the end of the year.

I would like to acknowledge and extend my appreciation to most of our parents for showing sensitivity regarding their child’s uniform. We would like to see all our students completing all missing school uniform items as soon as possible and be in full uniform.

The other important issue is drop off and pick up areas. Please be extra vigilant when you pick up your child or drop them off. Their safety always comes first.

Please do not underestimate your power over your child. For example, according to researchers, your child will benefit from parent involvement in the following ways:

1. Your child will learn more. Research proves that parental involvement makes a significant contribution to language and literacy outcomes, numeracy and mathematical thinking outcomes and approaches to learning outcomes. It has also been proven that parent involvement leads to higher rates of children finishing school and greater enrolment in tertiary education. Some studies claim that a parent’s involvement in their child’s learning is the biggest factor influencing the child’s academic outcome.
2. Your child will be happier. When parents are involved in school life, it leads to a happy and well-adjusted child, who has positive relationships with teachers and peers. If you find you need to have a tricky conversation with another parent or a teacher later in the year, it feels easier when you have already met them at a school function earlier.
3. Your child will be better able to handle what life throws at them. The current psychological thinking is that resilience is the ability to bounce back from disappointments and traumas in life. There is a body of research that shows that a sense of belonging to a community is one of the most significant things that helps children become resilient. Children are more resilient when they feel they are a valuable part of the community in general, and especially in their school community. It sure helps our resilience too if we feel we are supported in the community.

Finally, I would like to congratulate all our parents and school community members’ on Eid al Fitr and wish you all happy and safe days ahead.

Till next issue

Educationally yours,

Gokhan Kot
Elizabeth Campus Principal, Pinnacle College

Community Engagement

As part of our continuing effort to strengthen our relationship with the community, we organised Ramadan Hampers for school parents, staff, and community leaders. The Ramadan Hampers were organised by the Community Engagement and Pastoral Care Teams. A total number of 370 hampers have been delivered to parents and we visited 350 families door-to-door. In addition, about 80 staff hampers have been delivered at three campuses by visiting teacher’s classrooms, staff-rooms, and offices. The following institutions have been visited during Ramadan and their hampers have been delivered as well. So far we delivered 30 hampers to community leaders in the wider community.

MCCSA, Bosnian Mosque, Wandana Mosque, Marion Mosque, Islamic Society of South Australia, UniSA School of Education, St Thomas More Catholic school, Craigmore Christian School, St Patrick's Technical College, Playford College, Federal MP Nick Champion, State MP Paula Luethen, State MP Dana Wortley, Mayor of the City of Salisbury, Modbury & Para Vista Uniting Church, Mayor of the City of Playford, Elizabeth East Primary School, State MP Tony Zappia, State MP Lee Odenwalder and Hon Jing Lee.

As Pinnacle/McYess, we supported Ramadan Conversations (two programs), organised by Affinity and Dialogue Institute of Australia and AIS. However, given the circumstances/Covid 19, we have decided to carry Ramadan to an online platform with hopes to spread the Ramadan spirit. Our guests included past Ramadan Iftar participants who are well-known in the community (Hon Jing Lee, Dr Nadeem Memon, MP Paula Luethen, Miriam Cocking MCCSA Chair).

We hope these endeavours will grow our presence in our community.

Counselling

Hi Parents and Caregivers,

I wanted to talk about the importance of promoting positive behaviours in our children. Sometimes students will develop dishonest behaviours such as lying which impacts on their choices as they progress through school. Research has shown that students will engage their fight or flight mechanism when faced with an aversive situation. Here are some strategies you can try if you have noticed your child tends to lie.

• Avoid speaking in an emotional state whether sad or angry. Objective reasoning will help your child manage their own personal conflicts in a more positive manner

• Have two consequences, one if they tell the truth but still did something wrong and one if they lied and did something wrong.
• Separate the lie from the child and speak only about the action. Then once resolved ensure that you use some of the following phrases to safeguard your relationship with them:
• “When you lie to me, it makes me scared or sad”
• “Telling the truth makes me happy even if you did something wrong”

Get creative with these but always focus on a relationship based on care and mutual agreement rather than fear. Fear will promote more dishonest behaviours. If you have any questions regarding the social emotional development of your child. Feel free to get in touch with me.

Kind regards,

Mehmet Kavlakoglu
Counsellor

Library

Family Reading Month……….
Read more in May!

Every year during May is National Family Reading Month. Research shows that family reading time is one of the best ways to grow a child’s interest in the wonderful world of books. Kids who read,
succeed!

May 15th is International Day of Families.
May 15-21 is National Families Week

Here are some great ways to get reading:

1. Set aside a reading time. Pick a reading time that is suitable for everyone. It might be before bedtime or even after homework.
2. Pick a reading place. It is important that everyone is comfortable so they can enjoy the book.
3. Read together. One person can read the book, or family members can take turns.
4. Visit your local library website – plenty of online books to borrow through Libby.
5. Involve and engage everyone. Before reading, point to the book’s title, author and illustrator. Ask your children what they think the book may be about, or during reading ask what will happen next.
6. Fill your home with reading materials. Place books, magazines, newspapers, cookbooks and more throughout the house so your child is surrounded by things to read.
7. Get caught reading yourself. When your child sees you read, they will be inspired to read.
8. Have older siblings read to younger siblings. By reading to a younger sibling, the reader will gain confidence.
9. Start seasonal traditions. Pick a book to read every year when your child goes back to school. You can also read the same special book during a holiday.
10. Keep favourite books around. It can be comforting for a new reader to build confidence and fluency by practising when re-reading a favourite book.

Front Office Notices

Dear Parent,

Year 4s and up will be receiving their ID cards, next week.
Please note, these cards will also be used on the Link SA Shuttle buses.
If the card is lost or misplaced, your child can ask for a replacement from the front office for a fee of $10.

Kind regards,
Admin

Primary

Year 1

Hello beautiful Year 1 families!

It is so nice to have a full class again! I hope you all had a lovely Ramadan with your family.

In Literacy, we have been working hard on adjectives, verbs and adverbs. This in turn, has allowed the students to create much more detailed sentences! I am also very proud and excited to announce that their reading has greatly improved which was our team goal at the start of the year, well done families, keep up the great work! Please remember to fill in your child’s reading log each night. It is vital to remember to ask your child the comprehension questions at the back of the book!

We will be starting our unit of work on addition and subtraction soon so please practise this with your child.

A reminder that HASS projects are due next week, please hand in both the paper and your Seesaw interview.

Keep checking Seesaw for notices and events.

Love Miss Rowlands

Year 2

The year 2 students have transformed themselves into Excellent Explorers for the term.

They have dived straight into researching some of the incredible countries of Asia. So far we’ve researched Indonesia, Japan and China - and we were lucky enough to also be given a box of games, clothing, toys, ornaments and accessories directly from these places. These items were given to us from a friend of Miss P’s who has travelled and lived all over the world. They look forward to their double research lesson every Tuesday!

You may have heard lots of singing in the classroom during our maths lessons, and that’s because we have been learning about all the months of the year, how many days in each month and the seasons - it’s a jingle that we haven’t been able to get out of our heads!

In Literacy, we are 100% focussed on improving our reading fluency and expression because it helps make the story come to life. We love reading with Miss P and with our partner readers. Another exciting part of reading is our Reading Eggspress Library lessons once a week, where we get to listen to books that we like, and after each chapter there is a quiz (to win more eggs of course!)

We can’t wait to finish the term off strong!

Year 2 Class

Year 3

Since the beginning of the term, the Year 3 students have been exploring elements of Poetry. Have a look at some of the amazing work produced so far:

Haiku Poem

Raindrops
Dripping from the sky
Clear water coming through night
Shinning like glitter

By Jannat

Limerick Poem

There was a teacher from France
She lost her balance
She would wear a dress everywhere
The dress would always tear
That clumsy teacher from France

By Fotima

Cinquain Poem

Stars
Twinkling, darkness
Shinning, spreading, floating
Shimmering, growing star night sky
Moon light

By Tasneem

Narrative Poem

A dinosaur squeezed through the door
And his name was Moor
Moor did a roar and ran off
He made his way to the kitchen, he did a cough

He took all the food
He was in such a good mood
He ate the wood of the table
Instead, it was a cable

The dinosaur was now for sale
The postman did a big mail
He sent the dinosaur to another person’s house
He came in and chased a mouse

By Yafi

Year 4

Dear Parents,

Our goal as a class this term is to learn our 0, 1, 2, 5 and 10 timetables up to 12. Students will have a list of the one they are currently memorising in their diary. Please remind them to revise any way they learn best – writing them out, pretend test, saying them out loud etc. When they are ready to be tested, they can let me know.

Our term topic for Science is forces and so far, we have covered push, pull, friction and gravity. The students were very excited about making a parachute and testing it to see which one stayed in the air the longest.

Given the interruption caused by Covid-19, we all need to work together to ensure students are focussed and pursuing their personal best. Especially in terms of reading – the goal is to get to level 30 by the end of the year. Ensure they are reading every night!

The pictures I have chosen represent our learning at home using Seesaw and National Family Reading Month.

I look forward to our phone interviews over the next fortnight.

Kind Regards,
Miss Sarah Watkin

Year 5

Dear parents,

It is great to have students back at school

We are currently back in routine and busily working in our classes.

Currently in Science, grade 5s are investigating solids, liquids and gases, the atoms within them and how matter can change and/or be mixed.

In ICT, students are exploring features within Microsoft Word, in order to type and make the challenges set out for them in class.

In HASS, students have received a project to research and make a diorama for an event from the 1800s. Grade 5s have started working in class with their peers and so far are doing well. All the best to our grade 5 HASS workers…

Looking forward to the parent teacher interviews during the next two weeks. Have a very blessed and joyful EID.

Regards,
Ms Nesibe

In Literacy this term, we identified the structure and language features of informative texts. Currently, the students are working on their writing assessment. They’re in the process of gathering all the required information about the chosen animal. Students are encouraged to paraphrase the gathered information to avoid plagiarism. Please work on this at home to help students master this skill.

Year 6

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

WOW! Can you believe that we are slowly approaching the end of Term 2? It is great to have all the students back at school, alhamdulillah the situation with COVID-19 is not as serious in Adelaide. However, I encourage you to continue reminding your child of good hygiene practice.

As you may be aware, Parent- Teacher interviews are done over the phone this term. I have shared two links on seesaw, please check the announcement and follow the steps to sign in on sobs to book a ten-minute slot in week 5 or 6. It’s very important that you book a meeting with all your child’s teachers in order to get an accurate insight of how your child is progressing in each subject.

In Literacy this term, we are looking at historical recounts and informative texts. So far, we have covered the structure and language features of historical recounts and created a text as a class. Therefore, students will undertake their first writing assessment for this term next week (week 5). Paraphrasing information is a very important skill students will need to master, please encourage this at home to help your child master this skill with confidence.

Finally, I wish you all a very blessed and happy Eid Al Fitr.

Warm Regards
Mrs Nibal

Year 6 Science

In Science, year 6s are investigating what happens when certain materials are mixed. We also made a LIQUID SANDWICH as a class. The goal was to layer liquids with different densities, on top of each other, so they do not mix; we were able to do 4 layers! Great work to the scientists of grade 6.

Art

Primary students have been busy working on diverse art projects. Year 2s made Chinese calligraphy banners featuring their name in this unique alphabet. Year 3s and 5s have been exploring animation making using an application called Puppet Pal while learning about camera angles, composition and shots. Year 6 students study abstraction in art through examples of Kandinsky, Klee and Pollock which allows them to experiment painting with different tools while learning the use of colour and colour theory in art.

Year 7 students learn about contemporary indigenous art. Having learned about symbols used in traditional indigenous art, they will continue to reflect on how these symbols are manipulated to fit in the modern day reality. Year 8 students have been working on modes of visual representation in Cubist art movement. They used the image of a guitar instrument to produce shattered images made of drawings and collage.

Music

Well, it is certainly wonderful to be back in the classroom with students! And I think the students are enjoying being back using our lovely room and the instruments, too!

This term the focus is on making music using a variety of different means.

Year 1 students are choosing and playing high and low sounds, loud and soft sounds and fast and slow sounds to match songs or stories. In Year 3, the students are writing and playing their own musical scores demonstrating the ability to play many different sounds on one instrument. They will sort, categorise and use instruments according to the sounds that they make. The Year 4s are exploring making a variety of different sounds with their voice and on instruments. They will create rhythms on objects other than instruments, and combine their rhythms to create Stomp-style compositions. The Year 5 and 6 students are learning about the Blues and how to play 12 Bar Blues chords using keyboard and guitar instruments in GarageBand. They will compose their own Blues song and create their own backing track using an app on the iPads.

Look out for photos of the Year 1s using scarves to show high and low through movement, the Year 4s creating lots of different sounds for words such as click, boom, rattle and pop, and the smiles of the children having fun in Music!

“Music is the universal language of mankind.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tracy Schache
Music Teacher

Secondary

Humanities

This term in Year 9 Humanities we covered a topic called ‘Making a Nation’, the history of the establishment of Australia and how it came together from colonies to a federated and democratic nation. Learning about Indigenous Australians was very engaging because not only were they the first human beings in Australia and the traditional landowners, but they also had a spiritual connection with their land, and we learned why it was important to them. We then dived into how European settlement affected Indigenous Australians, and the development of the White Australia policy. What was also interesting was that there was actually earlier contact with Indigenous Australians and other countries, such as the Dutch, Portuguese, and French, who were trying to establish new colonies in the Oceania region. This topic helped broaden our understanding of how a nation is formed, and the history of Australia.

Ali Trabolsi and Omar Litip

English

After a challenging end to Term 1 and start to Term 2, it’s exciting to see students and teachers getting back into face-to-face learning and teaching at Pinnacle!

This term, our Year 7-10s are exploring interesting ideas and perspectives, and learning to express themselves in creative ways:

• Year 7s are looking at how story-telling can be used to build up mystery in Hitler’s Daughter,
• Year 8s have been reading a range of poems that explore connections to different countries and cultures, and using these as inspiration for their own poetry,
• Year 9s are learning about the perspectives of Aboriginal people and the challenges they face in Deadly, Unna?, and
• Some of our Year 10s are exploring dystopian societies both in fiction and in real-life, while others are looking at the consequences of ambition and political intrigue in Macbeth.

(Our SACE students are also doing a great job and continuing to work hard so far this term!)

Lucy Moschos
Head of English

PE

In the last newsletter the HPE department detailed how important exercise is for your child’s physical and mental wellbeing and requested they stay active during times of isolation.

At the time of writing we are in week 4 of the school term and fortunately restrictions have eased. However, the HPE faculty had prepared for any eventuality this term and as such the first unit of work has been a ‘Healthy and Active Lifestyles’ task.

Year 7-10 students were set the task of completing at least 30 minutes of physical activity 2-3 times per week and logging reflections of these activities in a ‘fitness journal’. It was initially expected this would be mainly around student’s homes, so innovative ways of exercising at home or in the local community were shared with students via google classroom.

With most students having returned to school more opportunities have opened up for physical activity in groups, but we in the HPE faculty hope our students have learned more about the importance of physical activity over the past few weeks.

Mr. David Hannan
HPE Faculty Leader

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