Latest News - Stuart High School and Port Augusta Secondary get together to welcome the PAFC
The Port Adelaide Football Club and flew across the Spencer Gulf to Port Augusta for the Aboriginal Power Cup (APC) visit, which was held on Thursday 2 June 2011.
The Port Augusta Secondary school was joined by Stuart High School from Whyalla for this visit, which made the class the biggest for the year. This was a fantastic effort and we thank Ms Kirk and Mr Struck for arranging the Stuart High school students to attend.
The two schools were visited by ex-Power player Wade ‘Bullet’ Thompson, Amy Rogerson and Pauly Vandenbergh. We also invited Kriston Thompson, the younger brother of Wade to this visit and between all staff, we believe are real role models for these students, especially with Wade and Kriston growing up in Port Augusta.
We came to find out that the schools haven’t given themselves a nickname, so we were encouraging them to use the name Port Augusta Power, but we couldn’t convince them in the end. Pauly then came up with the Guldas, which the students laughed at, as a Gulda is better known as the Blue Tongue Lizard.
The staff introduced themselves and gave the students some background on themselves and where they come from and the students were then asked to introduce themselves and tell us where they’re from. This took some time, given we had over 40 students in attendance.
Majority of the students had a connection with the Adnyamathanhapeople, who come from the Flinders Rangers and surrounds and now live within Port Augusta. A number of students had a connection with each other, which Pauly explained why this process is important. He also explained the importance of knowing our history and significant events that took place and that the students should become more knowledgeable on them.
We then went into our very competitive Ice Breaker game, that involves each student receiving a playing card and we time how fast they can get into number order. Ace through to King. Parainsula Nungaz has so far set the quickest time of the season with 8.40 seconds.Just when we thought it couldn’t get any quicker, it didn’t… haha unfortunately the students from PASS and Stuart High could get under that time. Awesome effort though, given the size of the class.
Amy then lead the group and began discussing Goal Setting with Wade, Kriston and Pauly speaking about their goals and how important it is to have a Back-Up Plans, in case your first plan doesn’t work out. We had the captains of the girls and boys teams stand out the front and write on the white board the Gulda’s team goals for APC. They came up with some great team and individual goals.
Wade and Kriston lead the discussions around Career Aspirations with the students and had some great involvement from the teachers who explained what their first job was. We wanted to show the students that sometimes you have to start somewhere in the workforce and slowly work your way up until you find the right job for you.
The students filled in the career aspirations form and you could see some students have already begun thinking about their careers and explained some of them to us.
Pauly worked through the APC booklet and talked about the P-Plate program and the life/work skills activity and explained if the students were able to tick off all the boxes in that table, then we think they’re ready to enter into the workforce.
We finished our theory for the day and headed to the school oval for some football drills and skills.Wade and Kriston undertook some drills and then organised to play a full game.
“I feel very privileged to work for SAASTA and be involved in working in partnership with the Port Adelaide Football Club. The best part of my work is seeing the student’s joy when they get a visit from the Power players. I wish I was able to do the Power Cup when I was at school 4 years ago. Fortunately, I am now one of the many people working for such a great initiative”. Kriston Thompson
We would like to thank the students and teachers from Port Augusta Secondary School and particularly the Stuart High Students for travelling from Whyalla to be with us and we look forward to seeing you at the APC Carnival.
Good luck for the rest of the year.
