PRINCIPAL'S REPORT - Nightcliff Middle School

Nightcliff Middle School
NEWSLETTER
PRINCIPAL’S REPORT
Although we are already in week 8, there are still lots of things happening at Nightcliff
Middle School. I would like to remind all parents of our parent/teacher interviews on
Wednesday September 28. This is a wonderful opportunity to catch up with the teachers
and find out how your child is progressing.
We should receive the school NAPLAN results in the near future. These will be
distributed to students to take home to parents and guardians. When reading these results,
please keep in mind that it is one test on one day. Many factors can influence the students
results including not enough sleep the night before or lack of breakfast in the morning.
Our school swimming carnival is also coming up. The entire school will move to
Nightcliff Swimming Pool on Thursday September 29 for a fun day of swimming events.
This is a regular school day and all students are expected to attend.
I would like to welcome Mr. Roger Bust to our staff. Mr. Bust is teaching two of our year
9 classes, Maths and Science. It is wonderful to see some “hands on” learning happening
in our year 9 classes. Unfortunately, we need to farewell Ms. Amanda Bantick who has
been offered a promotional position interstate and will be leaving us next week. I would
like to thank Amanda for all her amazing work during term 2 and 3. She will be missed
by staff and students alike.
Next term we will be trialing some extra communication methods with the local
community. We are looking at working with ICT for Learning and setting up a Twitter
feed for a short daily announcement and possibly a blog for some community feedback.
This is a wonderful idea that was suggested by one of our fantastic parents. If anyone else
has new ideas for the school, please do not hesitate to let us know.
As this is our last newsletter for this term, I would like to wish everyone a safe and happy
week break and we look forward to all our students returning refreshed and ready to enjoy
a productive term four.
Sarah May
Principal
School resumes
for Term 4, on
Monday 10 th
October.

Reggie Dabbs Comes to Nightcliff Middle School
On Thursday the 8 th of September, year 9 and some year 8 students were inspired by a guest motivational
speaker named Reggie Dabbs on his nationwide tour of Australia. The teachers and students were blown away
by the power of what Reggie had to say. This is what two of our students have to say about what they
experienced.
“Reggie Dabbs was amazing. He made many cry and many laugh. He came to our school and put on a show
about his life, he left our school one hell of a hero. Everyone in yr 9 and some yr 8 students participated in the
talk as well as many teachers. Reggie Dabbs is a well known guy that travels the world telling schools about
his life and how strong he was to go through everything he did. Reggie was a funny guy to begin with but no
one knew what he had behind him, he had a very tough childhood. He now has a beautiful young boy and a
wife that‟s a flight attendant. Reggie plays the saxophone and is well and truly good at it. He is a proud man,
proud about his choices he made and is an inspiration to many students and many adults.”
Reggie Dabbs - “He was truly amazing and so inspirational, I thought he was just a funny guy that the school
had sent here to convince us to do something with ourselves, like most other guest speakers do, but he was
different. He started out funny and then told us his story, he is one of the strongest people I have ever met. I am
going to seriously take in what he has said because he has ‟got my back‟. (:‟

Stranger Danger
YEAR 10 INFORMATION EVENING
CSC invites students who will be in Year 10 in 2012 and their
parents to an Information Evening.
Tuesday, 20 September, 5:30pm – 6:30pm in the Library.
Phone: 8920 1211
Email: csc.admin@ntschools.net
Parents, please discuss with your child,
the importance of being aware of
situations where someone may approach
them and they feel unsafe.
Give your child the knowledge and
strategies to help to protect themselves in
dangerous situations. Also, keep your
child’s age and maturity level in mind and
base lessons upon that.
The single most important thing to
remember when teaching your children
about stranger danger is to instill
confidence, rather than fear.
If they are approached by a “bad” stranger
who tries to lure or physically pull them
away, the best thing they can do is get the
attention of other adults - whether that is
by running to the nearest home, or making
enough noise to be heard by someone, the
vast majority of adults will help a child in
danger.
The four R’s are:
Recognise the danger
Refuse any offer
Run away
Report it to the first person
they feel safe with
Also if any student sees anything unusual
or feels unsafe please report this
information to the school immediately.
Invitation
Year 9 into Year 10 2012
The Principal and Staff of
Darwin High School invite parents and
Year 9 students wishing to enrol at
Darwin High School in Year 10 2012
to an Information Evening in the
Tank on Monday
19 September 5:00pm–6.00pm.
Information about the following will be
available at this event:
Year 10 Curriculum
Specialist Programs
Enrolment Applications
Marion Guppy
Principal
Reminder:
� Final Payment for Yr 9
Camp due Monday 19 th
September
� Parent Teacher Interviews
Wednes day 28 th
September
� NMS Swimming Carnival
Thurs day 29th
September

Yr 9 Cupcake Fundraiser for the RSPCA
On Friday the 19 th and 26 th of August, the year 9 students sold cupcakes to students at both NMS and
Nightcliff Primary school to raise money for the RSPCA.
The students spent weeks planning these events for their Business and Enterprise assessment for
Humanities, deciding how to best advertise and market their product to maximise the profit for a cause that
students were all really passionate about. Students were all adamant that only free range eggs be used in the
ingredients after learning about the processing of cage laid eggs.
When it came to the sale days, students worked amazingly together in teams to create great looking,
yummy cupcakes. There were absolutely no kitchen disasters involved in making the cupcakes and they
sold like the proverbial hot cakes raising a total of $370 for the RSPCA .
Students were deservedly very proud of their efforts and happy to see how something they were involved
in during class could create such a positive result for a charity.
The year 9 students would very much like to thank all of those that made these events possible, especially a
big thank you to NMS parent Aaron Phillips who provided a great big batch of his own cakes for students
to decorate and sell at the primary school. The year 9 teachers would like to thank all students for their
enthusiasm and excellent efforts! Well done!

The „Tekkos‟ program at Nightcliff Middle school has been designed in collaboration with staff and
students, members of ICT4 Learning, Apple representatives and schools who have run similar programs.
The program aims to provide the school community with opportunities to participate in tailored ICT support
sessions delivered by trained “Tekkos”, a group of student leaders.
The „Tekkos” team is supported by mentors within the school who work with the students to guide and
facilitate their learning and delivery throughout the school.
We would like to welcome the 2011 Tekko‟s;
Reece Steinohrt
Jay Kenna
Jack Davis
Melanie Vrnak
Tarlia Bone
Jonathan Lokangaka
Kiara Hendy
Why Tech Angels at NMS?
Nightcliff Middle School, a Leading Microsoft Innovative School and member of the Nightcliff Education
Precinct, values and understands the importance of students being competent and safe technology users. The
„Tekkos‟ team plays an important role in the sharing of this knowledge with all members of our school
community.
Being „digital literate‟ is not only important to students when working with a range of devices but also has
strong learning links with developing Literacy, communication, critical thinking and problem solving skills.

SRC
The SRC had a very successful term. They began the term with Daffodil Day in week 5 and were selling
merchandise at lunch times throughout the week. The SRC also made a visit to Nightcliff Primary
School.
Their hard work and dedication resulted in a grand total of almost $400 being raised in donations and
merchandise sales. Just when one event finished another begins. Last Friday was Footy Colours day.
This allowed students to wear the colours of their favourite football team. In addition, students and staff
had the chance to participate in a variety of fun activities during recess and lunch. Students and staff
enjoyed themselves, especially those students that walked away with awesome prizes such as N.T.
Thunder tickets, AFL balls and Football posters.
Finally, students also participated in an SRC sleep over with the SRC from Nightcliff Primary. The
students shared stories from past events and fundraisers and discussed ideas for future events. It was an
extremely enjoyable and successful evening.
Year 7 Arts Class - Drumline
The Yr 7 Arts/Music Class did its first public performance at School Assembly. With the assistance of
Mr Greg Jansen from the NT Music School, Mr Nicholson‟s Year 7 class performed “Here‟s the Snare”,
an original composition of Mr Jansen‟s written for 15 snare drums in the American Marching Band
tradition.
The school community is looking forward to upcoming assembly performances by other Nightcliff
Middle School ensembles.
VAMPtv (Visual and Music Production TV), a new initiative of the Northern Territory Music School to
promote the Arts and its educational value has begun screening. Much of the show is filmed here in the
Nightcliff Precinct. A select group of Nightcliff Middle School students have begun working with the
NT Music School and the VAMPtv‟s Producer and will be helping to produce content and develop their
skills in Music AV Production. The show can be watched online at vamptv.com.au

Year 8 Wellbeing program:
The year 8 Wellbeing program for term 3 entitled „Reaching Out”, provides students with a greater
understanding of the various community support services available to Darwin residents. The students have
enjoyed guest speaker presentations from community service organisations such as Mission Australia,
Cancer Council and Darwin City Council‟s Youth Services Team. The students are now busily preparing
information on a community service of their choice. This will be presented to the year 7 and 9 students
during a community services information expo to be held at the end of term.
Sport and Recreation:
The year eight students will begin their new rotation for Sport and Recreation in week eight. Students will
be provided with a permission form to participate in sport and recreation at the Nightcliff swimming pool.
Please ensure that these are returned by Friday 16 th September. In addition, students will be required to pay
a small fee of $1.20 to be returned with the permission form.
The Exodus Tutorial Centre at Nightcliff Middle School offers its students the opportunity to improve their
literacy skills in a positive and encouraging learning environment. We‟re now over a third of the way
through the program and all of our students have settled in well, reading, writing and learning lots along the
way. It has been a pleasure getting to know and work with each of these students during this time. We look
forward to watching their knowledge and confidence soar as the semester continues.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
As part of their program, our students participate in supported reading classes. One way we know we can
further improve their learning, is by giving them additional reading time in a one-to-one setting. We require
volunteers to be able to achieve this. Currently we have two lovely and dedicated vollies who help us
through two mornings worth of reading, however to be able to offer the students the daily sessions they
require, we need more help! If you think you can find the time to join us from 8:10 to 9:25 Monday,
Tuesday or Friday morning, please call Courtney Redman on 0427180377.
Anne and Jemma

Clontarf Chosen 2011 Leadership Group
Last week the Nightcliff Clontarf Academy selected its inaugural 2011 Leadership Group. The boys were
selected by their peers and staff due to obvious leadership qualities and an improvement in behaviour. The
leaders are: year 7 Keenan Harwood and Cameron Croker, year 8 Jayden White and Duane Councillor and
year 9 Davin Ferreira and Karnell Lyons.
During the year, Academy staff members will be working closely with this Leadership Group to assist in
developing the remainder of the program and discussing issues relevant to the operation of the Nightcliff
Academy.
As part of our 2011 Leadership Group we took the boys to dinner at Ten Litchfield Restaurant. The boys
enjoyed oversized meals and had a few laughs when the owner of the restaurant came and did a few magic
tricks. The owner was so impressed with the boys behaviour he gave them all free ice creams, which was a
true credit to the boys.
The night was a great way to give the boys a clearer idea of what is required from a leader and also help staff
with the programming throughout the year. Overall, it was a fantastic night and the way the boys carried
themselves and represented Clontarf and the School was just terrific.
Nightcliff Road NIGHTCLIFF NT 0810 I Phone: (08) 89850850 I Fax: (08) 89850860
Admin.nightms@ntschools.net I ww.schools.nt.edu.au/nighcliffmiddleschl