We are busy planning our Centenary Day on Friday 4/8/23.  More information about this will be sent out very soon.

In the meantime, we have found a collection of recipes that was put together about 10 years ago.  You can take a look at the family favourites of the time here Recipe book

Our Class Parent Reps will be helping us put together a 2023 version as part of our celebrations. It is quite incredible how much the cultural diversity of our school has changed in only 10 years.  Recipes should be provided in MS WORD format for ease of publication. These can be emailed to Highgate.Centenary795@schools.sa.edu.au

Cut off will be Term 3 week 5 (Fri 1/9/23) which will allow time for collation into an illustrated downloadable version.

We have welcomed Grace to our teaching team this week.  Grace will be teaching Chinese alongside Laura and replaces Wenwen who has won a fulltime position at another site.

I can also share the news that Emily Roberts will be leaving Highgate at the end of this term, having won a Deputy Principal position at another site. Emily is in her 7th year at Highgate and she is excited about the opportunity to transfer her skills and knowledge into another setting.  Emily will be a significant loss to our leadership team, but we wish her every success. A recruitment process will commence in due course.

School Calendar

Check out our school calendar for upcoming events and assemblies.
Highgate Calendar

Reading Workshop for R-2 parents

We are hosting a workshop for R-2 parents with a focus on how we teach reading at Highgate and how you can support at home. This will be on Tuesday 27/6/23 5:15-6:15pm.

Please register your attendance using the following link: https://forms.office.com/r/WH0M84J5j8

Location will be advised to registered parents before the session.

Centenary Cocktail Evening

Ticket sales have been strong for the upcoming Centenary Cocktail Night at Adelaide Pavilion on Saturday 29th July (Sat at the end of week 1, Term 3). It will be a wonderful night of celebration and dancing for the Highgate community, after a long time of limited social activities. For those of you intending to come along, we encourage you to purchase your tickets soon, as we only have 40 remaining (old scholars and external friends welcome!!)

Working Bee – Sat 24/6/23

Cyber Safety Workshop

Friendology at Highgate

We’re excited to have recently joined the URSTRONG Schools community. URSTRONG is all about empowering kids with friendship skills while providing the adults in their lives, both parents and teachers, with a common language to support them. Kids learn what’s normal in a friendship, the difference between healthy and unhealthy friendships and how to stand up for themselves with kid-friendly concepts. As a URSTRONG School we’ll have access to a variety of resources, lesson plans, videos and URSTRONG’s Friendology 101 friendship curriculum. Please see your child’s teacher if you would like more information about how it can be used in all classrooms or if you would like some resources.

For other wellbeing information, visit our website for information about Wellbeing at Highgate School.

Policies updated

As part of becoming an authorised IB, PYP school, we undertake a process to develop specific policies, which reflect the IB philosophy and procedures. This is a comprehensive process, which we have now completed for our Assessment, reporting and academic honesty policy as well as our Language policy. These policies have been developed and approved using the following process:

These policy documents are now available for viewing on our website as part of the Communication phase. We will begin the cycle again in 2026 and continue every three years thereafter, during which we will seek parents’ and students’ input into these documents.

Seeking bilingual parent volunteers to help us create a Family Languages Bank

As part of our Language policy, we are striving to demonstrate that we value the diversity of languages in our school community. To support this, we are developing an audio and visual bank of the different languages represented in our community. This is via Power point files, with words and phrases commonly used in classrooms, such as greetings, simple instructions and words of encouragement in English and a family-based language. So far, we have a Japanese, Italian, French and Chinese (Mandarin) file developed or in the process of being developed. Teachers will be able to use these files to teach and use some simple language of all students in their classes from time to time, such as when greeting each other in the morning, talking about the weather or calendar and when encouraging students as they work. Doing so, helps to support students who speak a language other than English at home, as well as to improve the communication skills and open mindedness of our other students.

If you are able to help us develop these files in a language other than English, French, Mandarin or Italian, please contact Wendy Harris (wendy.harris430@schools.sa.edu.au) to arrange for the Power point template to be shared with you or to come in and use our laptop in a quiet space to complete the file. We would really appreciate your expertise and support to develop this Family Language Bank.

What can you do at home to support your child’s learning in French?

French Homework Club

An opportunity for students to complete homework at school or ask for extra clarification.

Rallye de lecture

Is your child participating in the French Bilingual and Binational Program in years 2 – 6?  If so, make sure they participate in our French version of the Premier’s Reading Challenge!  A range of books is made available in students’ classrooms, and they may be able to complete the challenge at school.

Useful Resources

Have you visited our website for some useful French resources?  Visit French websites and Apps

Are you…………?

Currently using French digital resources that are easy and engaging and would like to share with our community? Please let Genevieve know @ genevieve.papineau947@schools.sa.edu.au

Did you know that our Mission and Vision for the French Bilingual/Binational program is on our website, along with answers to FAQs. Visit our website, Main Menu, Learning and then French.

Mark Greenwood author visit

Children’s author, Mark Greenwood visited Highgate School last week, to present to each year level over 4 sessions. His presentation was adjusted to suit the different year levels and included some great advice to our young writers. This included visiting places where historical events have taken place, to find inspiration and to support your research. He also explained that each of his stories required more than 100 drafts and he begins with research, ideas, words and sentences, many of which he then scribbles out, in a messy writing notebook. From searching for the biggest dinosaur footprint, to a gold hunt in central Australia and a visit to Gallipoli, his adventures around the world certainly had everyone’s attention! Mark generously donated two of his books to our library and every one of his books was borrowed from the library before the end of last week. It was great to see so many students inspired to read and write following their session with Mark.

Canteen Update

Right Bite Food and Drink Supply Standards for South Australian schools

The Department for Education has revised the Right Bite Food and Drink Supply Standards to meet the
Australian Dietary Guidelines and the new Wellbeing SA nutrition classifications for schools.

The revised standards use a traffic light system to classify food and drinks into 4 categories:
• Green: best options
• Amber: choose carefully
• Red 1: limit
• Red 2: should not be supplied.

The revised standards recommend that 60% of food and drinks sold or supplied at schools should be from
the green category and 40% from the amber category. The revised standards also cover recommendations
on food safety practices, single use plastic legislation and the marketing of red category food and drinks.

Right Bite standards are recommended as best practice for all public schools and may be applied to all food
and drinks sold or provided in settings, such as canteens, breakfast programs, excursions and camps,
fundraising events, sports days, out of school hours care, celebrations, rewards, incentives, gifts, prizes and
giveaways and others.

Our school is working towards implementing these standards.

Please note, the standards do not apply to food and drinks brought from home for personal consumption.

For more information about the Right Bite Food and Drink Supply Standards, visit
www.education.sa.gov.au/rightbite

2024 Enrolments

We are open for 2024 enrolments at all year levels, with some remaining spaces for this year. The department has relaxed restrictions around zoning and we are able to accept out-of-zone enrolments where capacity exists. If you have children at Kindy/Pre-school and intend to enrol them with us, please make sure that you have completed an EOI.

Centenary hats

To celebrate our school’s birthday, we are gifting centenary hats to each student.  You should have received an email asking for your child’s size so that we can order correctly.  Please take the time to respond, as we cannot guarantee a second order.

Further information about our other extra-curricular activities is available: Visit our website, Main Menu, Learning and then Extracurricular.

Christmas Pageant Mini Float Competition

Please visit our website at Highgate School for calendar dates and further information about our school.

Our Front Office team are always happy to help with questions and can be contacted on 08 82719622.