Week 11 brings us to the end of Term 1, the longest term of the year. As usual, the term has brought challenges and successes, and plenty of learning. I would like to extend an enormous cheer of gratitude for our incredibly hardworking staff, who consistently go above and beyond for students and families. As well, a well-deserved congratulations to all students for their efforts with not only academic learning, but in settling into their new classes, making and maintaining friendships, and participating in so many exciting activities.

Some of the events we’ve seen this term have been: Acquaintance Night, the AGM, Year 6 Aquatics, NAPLAN, Parent Teacher Interviews, Harmony Day celebrations, Sports Day, District Athletics, Choir workshops, excursions for classes, SRC executive and the YELP group, Trent Hill Aboriginal cultural visits. It certainly has been busy and productive!

Sports Day

Sports Day is the favourite day in the school calendar for many students (and families!) and this year was no different. Despite the unusually warm weather, students put their best foot forward, giving their best effort in their events and loudly supporting their teammates. Congratulations to the Wombats for taking out the Championship trophy this year, and to the Kookaburras for securing the Attitude trophy.

Ensuring the success of such a big day takes a team effort, but special thanks and congratulations should go to Bernie De Lyster and the sports day committee, for their stellar organisation and attention to detail. All school staff, canteen staff, Keith, our groundsman, and parent volunteers are all commended for their valuable contributions.

We would also like to commend all the students who participated with such positive team spirit and came dressed in their house team colours. Well done to our Sports Day House Captains for their excellent leadership over recent weeks and on the day itself. They worked collaboratively and enthusiastically to prepare and rehearse the health hustle and team chants, which provided high levels of motivation for their team members. We also appreciated the effort they put in, by arriving at school early on Friday to set up for the day.

Well done to everyone involved in making the day a success!

Parent Teacher Interviews

Thank you to all parents and care givers who were able to attend a meeting with your child’s teacher/s. These meetings are an integral part of our assessment and reporting procedures, and provide an important opportunity to touch base, discuss your child’s progress and growth points and further set the foundation for a positive rest of the year. If you haven’t yet been able to speak with your child’s teacher, you may choose to contact them to arrange a suitable time next term.

Holiday wishes

Term 1 can feel a bit like an endurance event; 11 weeks is a long time to maintain focus and effort, for students, families and staff alike. I would like to wish everyone a very restful and restorative break. We know that holidays look different for everyone. Some families will be heading away on holidays and others will have parents working throughout, some children will attend OSHC and others will be filling their time with other activities. Whatever you find yourselves doing, I hope you can find some time to talk, play and enjoy each other’s company.

Kat Morgan, for Rob Warncken

Last week, our Year 6 SRC Executive group had the opportunity to attend the Australian GRIP Leadership Conference, a day designed to inspire and empower young student leaders.

GRIP stands for Generosity, Responsibility, Integrity, and People. These are core values that framed the day’s learning. The conference focused on practical leadership, encouraging students to take initiative, serve others, and make a positive impact in their school communities.

Students explored how leadership isn’t about having a title or being in charge, it’s about choosing to do what’s right and working together as a team to bring about change. One of the key takeaways was: “If you notice something that could be better, don’t complain, contribute.”

The sessions were engaging and interactive, helping our students build confidence and learn how to turn ideas into action. The group left the day feeling energised and ready to apply their learning here at Coro.

We’re proud of the way our SRC Executive represented our school and look forward to seeing their leadership continue to grow throughout the year.

Dan Johnson

Year 6 Teacher

Friday, week 9, we celebrated another successful Sports Day.

To begin the day, we all met on the oval, where the house captains warmed their teams up with the Health Hustle and Chants. Students, staff, and family members dressed up in team colours, adding to the spirit of the day.

We then move off to the tabloid events. It was great to see students showing off their sporting abilities, having fun, and participating in healthy competition. It was also terrific to see the impeccable behaviour and sportsmanship displayed by our students. We added a new event this year – Accuracy Throw – which was popular.

After lunch, we had our championship events: sprints, relays, tug-of-war, staff v captains event.

Wallabies won the R-6 Relay and Wombats took the honours in the Year 6 tug-of-war

We finished the day off with the presentation of the trophies. Congratulations to the KOOKABURRAS on winning the Attitude Trophy and to the WOMBATS for winning the Championship Cup.

A big thank you to the following groups of people:

• The Sports Committee: Mrs Mueller and Mr Johnson for giving up much of their own time to help me with the planning, organisation and running of the day.
• The rest of the Coro staff who helped to prepare their classes, set up equipment, paint lines, administer first aid, score, run events, take photos, and do the multitude of jobs in the front office. Sports Day truly relies on the efforts of the whole school.
• The House Captains who worked hard on many jobs in preparation for Sports Day. They helped teach the school the Chants and Health Hustle, set up and pack away equipment for the tabloid events and organised their teams for the sprints and relays.
• Families for coming and making the day special for the children.
• And, most importantly, all the children for their great sporting attitude and wonderful enthusiasm throughout the day.

I hope everyone enjoyed the day!

Bernie De Lyster

Sports Day Coordinator

Harmony Day – Celebrating Unity and Diversity

On Friday, 21st March, our school celebrated Harmony Day with a special assembly hosted by Mr Long’s Reception and Mrs Smeets’ Year 3 classes.

Harmony Day is all about promoting the values of respect, understanding, and acceptance within our community. Students and staff came together to celebrate the rich diversity that makes our school unique. Many students wore orange clothes, shoes, socks, hats and so on as a symbol of unity and inclusion.

The assembly began with the Reception class performing the song “Better Together (Harmony Song),” followed by the Harmony Day quiz. The school choirs showcased their stunning performances of “Count on Me” (Junior Choir) and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” (Senior Choir). Four students from Ms Tammy Methofer’s music class presented beautiful performances to the audience, including a piano duet, a piano solo, and an electric drum solo.

6M and 1T worked together to produce a video clip showing how to say "hello" in 20 different languages, celebrating the diverse backgrounds in our school.

Each class had the opportunity to share how they celebrated Harmony Day, with a video clip presentation of the activities they participated in. From classroom discussions to arts and crafts, every student played a part in making the day memorable. The assembly was a heartwarming reminder of how we all contribute to creating a harmonious school community.

Thank you to all the parents and caregivers who attended the assembly and helped make this event a success. Harmony Day reminded us all that we are truly “Better Together.”

Hiroyuki Yamamoto

Japanese Language Teacher

Our Youth Environmental Leaders for 2025 are Aurelia, Caleb, Elise, Ella, Lily, Patrick, Phoenix, Willow, Poppy and Sophie.

Their focus for the year is looking at local wildlife and how they can support it – which is through educating, building awareness, exploring and documenting.

They’ve spent this term sharing “shout outs” at assemblies and researching and preparing information for a partnership YELP forum (with 5 other schools) and monitoring the dam health.  Their ideas for the remainder of the year are to visit Frank Smith Park more often with cameras, continue the bandicoot monitoring, planting, installing signage at school and encouraging others to care for and share the environment.

The students really enjoyed their recent excursion to Blackwood Primary School and Wittunga Botanical Gardens.  They wrote and presented a welcome to country greeting, prepared flyers for schools on birds in the area, ran “Birdgo” (bingo with birds), project planned and participated in a pollinator audit.

We thank Tae T for volunteering her time on the day!

Sarah Todd

During Week 11, the Year 6 classes were joined by John Adams from Adventure Art Photography as part of our Picture Perfect Inquiry unit for a series of skill-building lessons.

Students explored how photographers tell stories and capture moments in time, learning techniques for taking effective photographs and how images can represent concepts, meaning, and ideas.

Using their devices, students applied both creative and technical skills—experimenting with composition, lighting, and perspective to communicate stories through photography.

This unit also encourages students to consider photography as both a profession and a personal passion.

Dan Johnson and Kylie Mueller

Year 6 Teachers

We have had a busy first term in Japanese with new language being introduced and cultural events and traditions being explored. All students practiced saying familiar greetings, with the Year One’s also learning how to ask and respond to the question “Ogenki Desuka?”. 

We have celebrated Setsubun, Hina Matsuri and Hanami and created art related to The Great Wave and Sakura (Cherry Blossoms). Some activities have related to the Units of Inquiry in both year levels, including a focus on a Japanese artist, comparing how children in Japan and Australia play and learning how to play the popular game Janken pon.

I look forward to helping the students discover even more about the language and culture of Japan in Term Two.

Carey Sensei

All students from R-6 were involved in an incursion, run by Trent Hill.  Trent is a Noongar man from Western Australia and a wonderful educator.

Students enjoyed listening his to cultural knowledge, when he shared his dreaming story sessions or his artefact sessions with each class.  These sessions connected with in class units of inquiry and science units of inquiry.  This encouraged students to be reflective as they responded to their existing knowledge or primed them ready for the next unit of inquiry.

Chess Club continues at Coromandel Valley, and it's been great to see some new faces already this year. Chess Club is held every Monday lunchtime in classroom 6J and all ages and abilities are welcome to attend.

Term 1 Interschool Tournament

In week 9, the term 1 Southern Zone interschool tournament was held, and a team from Coro travelled to St Martin de Porres School to join 52 students from 6 schools.   Amelia, Arlo, Az, Dakota, Eddie, Levi, Lydia, Olivia, and Piper made up the team, with the students ranging from Year 3 to 6, five of them competing in a full tournament for the very first time.

The Southern Zone always has always been very competitive and this term was no exception. While the final team results were separated into Primary and Secondary divisions, the individual pairings were combined, meaning our students were often paired against much older and more experienced secondary school students. For our first timers and younger players, it was quite a challenge.

Despite the tough competition, the Coro team did exceptionally well, finishing 3rd in the Primary Division and picking up bronze medals for our top 4 point scoring players.      

I was extremely proud of both the student's great team spirit and their sportsmanship during the competition.

Special mention to

- Arlo, Dakota, Levi, Lydia and Olivia who were all competing in their very first full tournament

- Amelia who was our highest placed competitor, finishing in equal 17th place, with 4 wins from her 4 games. 

- Lydia who received the Fair Play and Sportsmanship Award

- our two Year 3 students, Arlo and Levi, who were among the youngest competitors and who had to face opponents from Secondary Schools.

A huge thanks to Carrie Julian for assisting with transport for the team. It's greatly appreciated, as the school cannot compete in tournaments without parent help.

What a great term we’ve had on Tuesdays at lunchtime, for Science Club!

We’ve enjoyed opening up the club to all ages and it’s been wonderful to see lots of receptions trying new equipment, the older students teaching others and everyone working scientifically!

We’ve played with bee bots, blue bots, ozobots, done some scientific illustration and made bird feeders.

A BIG thank you to Mrs O’Connell for coming along and helping us!

We look forward to seeing old and new faces after the holiday break.

Sarah Todd

Last week, SAPSASA held its State Swimming Carnival. 

Asher and Ellie both represented our district, Southern Heights, in the 4x50m freestyle relay. Well done to Asher, who won a silver medal in his relay event.

Overall, Southern Heights did really well, finishing in 3^rd place in Division 1.

On Friday 21^st March our Year 5/6 Boys SA School Sport Cricket team competed against Westminster in the first round of the ‘Knockout’ cricket competition.

The game was played in good spirits by both teams, with our boys giving their best. Unfortunately, Coro was eliminated from this year’s competition.

A big thank you to all the parents who supported, transported and scored on the day.

Please find in the following link the Unley High School Information Brochure.

UHS_Prospectus.pdf