Respect ~ Perseverance ~ Growth

Principal Matters by Mark Watson

Year 7 Welcome Evening On Tuesday this week we held our 2020 Year 7 parent welcome evening. Parents arrived at the school for some delicious finger food prepared by our Year 11 Hospitality students. Parents were able to catch up with friends, meet new parents and chat with staff. There were many comments about the high quality of the food the Year 11 students had prepared. Parents then moved to class-rooms based on their child’s core class for presentations on the Year 7 curriculum. A five-minute presentation of each subject was given to parents that outlined the topics for the year, homework, assessments and tips for parents to assist their children. The evening concluded with a presenta-tion for all parents in the hall. Following a welcome, parents heard from Ms Abraham, Year 7 Year Adviser; Libby Cameron, our P&C President and finally from Mr Lawler, the Deputy Principal look-ing after Year 7 2020. Mr Lawler spoke about a range of topics that covered mobile phone use, parent portal and who to contact when needing help. The big take home message was to stay con-nected with the school as your child moves through the years. Thanks go to Mrs Doherty and her Hospitality students and to Ms Abraham and Mr Lawler for their efforts to run a very successful evening. Year 7 Peer Support This week our peer support program for Year 7 continued. Classes for Year 7 were suspended for the period so they could take part in the activity. The Year 10 leaders were also off class as they ran the peer support successions. The program will continue with some intensity in the lead up to the Year 7 camp. In response to surveys from last year, it has been decided to extend the peer support program so that it runs for the full year. A big thank you to Mrs McGurgan and her team for this highly rated program. Student Numbers Our official numbers for 2020 were reported to the Department this week. While our numbers fluctuate week by week, the official number reported to the Department is used to determine our staffing and budget for the year. Our numbers for 2020 are;

Year 7: 219 Year 8: 205 Year 9: 214 Year 10: 154 Year 11: 164.983 Year 12: 139.661 Hearing Support: 13

The numbers for Year 11 and 12 are interesting. It is possible to be a part time student as a student can choose to spread Years 11 and 12 over more than two years. There are also adjustments made for students studying at other venues such as Distance Education, the Secondary School of Languages and TAFE. The end result is that the official count for Years 11 and 12 normally do not give a whole number students in these year groups. These numbers give us an official school count of 1109.644 students for staffing and budgeting purposes. Executive Planning Day On Monday this week the school executive held a planning day to review our 2019 HSC results and plan for 2020. In the review sessions we were interested in understanding what led to the success of our 2019 Year 12 cohort. Of course there are many reasons for this and lots of these are out of our control. Some educational academics have made it a life’s work to identify what it is that makes a difference to a child’s learning. We have focused on a number of these such as how we give feedback to students and how we teach students the skills to analyse and answer questions re-quiring an extended written response. For some years we have been focusing on having a consistent approach across the whole school to support students. A more recent initiative has been student coaching. Before the HSC last year we conducted focus groups to evaluate what we have done in this area. From the findings we believe that coaching has certainly developed more self-motivated learners and it also appears that it may also assist students manage the anxie-ty that surrounds the HSC.

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We then analysed our staff survey results from 2019 and previous years. Our staff are essential in the success of our students so we are interested in reducing the pressures they face so they can concentrate on teaching. We looked at strategies we can implement to support them in 2020. Our final session reviewed assessments across the school in years 7 to 10. In particular we looked at the skills we are trying to develop in our students as learners and how these can be supported through our assessment program. With this in mind we are looking at commonalities across subjects and hence ways we can reduce the number of assess-ments.

Immunisation The NSW Department of Health runs a school immunisation program and on Wednesday this week it was our Year 7 students turn. They were immunised for HPV dose one and dTpa. If your child missed their injection, there will be a catch up later in the year.

P&C News The first general P&C meeting for 2020 was held on Thursday evening this week. The meeting began with a tour of the newly refurbished C-Block. The normal meeting followed this where many new Year 7 parents were welcomed. Topics discussed at the meeting included the 2019 HSC results, asbestos, wellbeing, mobile phones and road safety. Reports from the President, Treasurer and the uniform shop were also given. A decision was taken to form a road traffic group to look at road safety issues facing the school. If you are interested in being involved in this group, please contact the school and your details will be given to the P&C.

Storm Damage Sydney’s summer of weather extremes had an impact on us this week after the storm on Tuesday night. Fortunately the damage did not impact on the school’s operation and we did not lose power. Trees and power poles fell across Hunter Street causing damage to our fence and closing Hunter Street. The biggest issue was getting students to and from the school safely. Students were escorted across Hunter Street at the Horace Street end in the morning. Buses had to be re-routed at the start and end of the day using bus stops on Horace Street as Yarrabung Road was not accessible.

Building Update and Information Session Now that the investigations into asbestos in our roof cavities has been completed and the roof cavities of A, B and D Block encapsulated, attention is now turning to the remediation work that will be on going this year. The first step will be the delivery of additional demountables to accommodate us while the remediation work takes place. This week class-rooms were delivered to the school and will be available for our use next week. A drop-in information session will be held next Thursday afternoon from 5pm until 7pm in the school hall to answer questions you may have about the asbes-tos that has been discovered and plans for remediation. Building works on our sports complex are continuing. Earth moving works have been ongoing for some weeks and the site of the building is now really starting to take shape as the photos in this newsletter show. We will be taking every measure we can to minimise the disruptions from all of these works on student learning.

Open Night We will hold an open night for prospective students and families next Tuesday afternoon from 3.30 to 6.30pm. Visitors will be able to hear presentations in the hall and visit classrooms for displays and activities that cover all of our Key Learning Areas. We have advertised the event widely, however, if you are aware of families considering our school, please pass the information on to them. In 2021, enrolments will be limited to students within our catchment, as the school has exceeded its enrolment cap.

Congratulations

Jeff L (Year 11). Jeff has been selected for the Australian Institute of Sport’s national under 18-soccer squad. He will travel with the team to Korea to play for Australia in the South East Asian Cup. This will not be Jeff’s first game on the

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DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

25 February: Open Afternoon for prospective students and parents

4-6 March: Year 7 Camp

17 March: Year 12 Parent/Teacher Conferences

8 April: School Cross Country

9 April: Last day Term 1

International stage. He recently competed in Queensland against France. Unfortunately, Australia was defeated 7 – 3, however, the 3 Australian points came off Jeff’s boot, giving him a hat-trick for the game! Jeff plays in the midfield, and his talents have not gone unnoticed, he has been invited to trial for the Western Sydney Wanderers to play in the A-League.

Little Athletics participants. This past weekend saw some of our students compete at the Little Athletics Regional Championships. They all performed extremely well and a number of them have now qualified to compete at the NSW Little Athletics State Championships at Olympic Park in March. The state representatives are: Jensen W (1500m), Lynden (100m & 400m), Logan S (HJ), Ryan F (1500m) and Kirsten F (800m, 1500m, 3000m)

Best Wishes Mark Watson Principal

VALENTINES DAY

Love was definitely in the air last Friday as a herd of cupids and their minstrels accompanied by a loving bear delivered flowers, singing telegrams and bear hugs to classrooms. Celebrating love and friendship prevailed. The photographs speak for themselves!

Tania McGurgan Valentines Day Co-ordinator Visual Arts Teacher

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ARTEXPRESS SUCCESS We congratulate Kate Farkas, class of 2019, whose HSC Visual Arts Body of Work is now being exhibited at Hazelhurst Art Centre in Gymea. Kate was at the opening of the exhibition which will run until 13 April. Patricia Gettens Head Teacher Creative Arts Gats Coordinator Visual Arts Teacher

YEAR 11 GEOGRAPHY EXCURSION The Year 11 Geography class ventured out to Bantry Bay on Monday 17 February as part of their ‘Biophysical Inter-actions’ unit. The day consisted of the students conducting fieldwork to examine human impacts on the environment at both a local and regional level. A variety of map work and photograph analysis was undertaken using topographic maps, satellite photos, aerial photos and stereoscopes. In addition, soil testing was conducted using a centrifuge and linked to a discussion about erosion and land clearing. Furthermore, the students also analysed the introduction and impacts of introduced species and creek water quality was evaluated by testing turbidity, water pH, water phosphate levels and catching water animals to use as indicator species. Overall, the students learnt valuable Geographic skills and enjoyed the learning experience.

Adrian Zaboklicki HSIE & PDHPE Teacher

Reminder that Bootcamp is held on Friday mornings at 7.00 am

and is open to students, staff and parents.

Please wear appropriate footwear and bring a bottle of water. Brekkie Club serves breakfast at 8.00 am.

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Starts Friday 27 March

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