Upcoming Events May

9th P&C Meeting in Administration Building at 7.30pm

School Photographs –students absent 2nd May

11th Mother’s Day Breakfast

BZSSSA Cross Country Carnival

PSSA Referees Training Course

14th Year 8 Semester 1 Examinations begin

15th NAPLAN Years 7&9

16th NAPLAN Years 7&9

Parent/Teacher Evening

17th NAPLAN Years 7&9

18th NAPLAN ‘Catch Up’ Day

21st Year 7, 9 & 10 Year 8 Semester 1 Examinations begin

25th Sorry Day

Full Steam Ahead excursion – Year 8

28th Reconciliation Week begins

June

7th BZSSSA Athletics Carnival

Year 7 SRC Induction

8th BZSSSA Athletics Carnival

13th P&C Meeting in the library at 7.30 pm

Mother’s Day Breakfast

Friday 11th May, 7.00am in the library

Seven Hills High School A member of the Nirimba Collegiate group of schools

Parent/Teacher Evening

Wednesday 16th May, 3.30pm to 8.00pm.

Book an interview with your child’s teachers through the Parent Portal.

Johnson Avenue, SEVEN HILLS 2147. Phone 9624 3329

Email: sevenhills-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au Website: http://www.sevenhills-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/

Newsletter

May 2018

P&C Meeting Wednesday, 9th May 7.30pm.

At the meeting, Mr Way will be discussing and providing information on the studying of Science at our school.

All parents, carers and community members are

welcome!

It was fantastic to see some students who usually lack some confidence in Equations, or Mathematics in general, morph into confident students teaching their peers.

A thoroughly enjoyable lesson!

Joanne Andrew

Head Teacher Mathematics

When the Student becomes the Teacher!

Flipping the Classroom in Year 9 Mathematics

There are many ways to develop shared learning in a lesson and the positive outcomes for students are the same. We simplified ‘Flipping the Classroom’ to suit our students’ needs and the results were overwhelmingly positive.

The best outcome of flipping is that it became a student centered learning space. Students were able to interact with each other, learn from each other, reinforce their own understanding by teaching others, and use their own familiar vocabulary to explain things, they made connections, and ‘learned how to learn’. The teacher became a facilitator.

The students were provided with strategies, mathematics content, and research ideas to track down additional information using technology to enhance their understanding. Then they developed mini lessons to teach their individual concepts to each other.

As a class, we discussed the portability of the many social capabilities that they developed through this process and how this learning method could be applied to other subject areas and possible future learning. Students also assessed each other and developed meaningful feedback.

Chinese Gardens and Chinatown On Thursday April 12, Year 7 students attended an excursion to the Chinese Gardens and Chinatown.

Below is a report on the day, written by Amy Telfer.

Once we arrived in the city, we walked over to the Gardens and had a brief on the day’s events, then split up to explore.

We discovered that the gardens are beautiful and majestic. The gardens are also colourful and so easy to get lost in.

While in the gardens we did the Emperor’s Quest, it was a game where you went through the gardens looking for the twelve Chinese Zodiacs. The zodiacs were hiding in plain sight and we must have walked past them a million times before we spotted them. The zodiacs were sneaky and knew where to hide.

After most people had finished the quest some of our friends got dressed up in traditional Chinese clothes. You could pick almost any

Photograph by Vanessa Harvey

colour to wear from bright yellow to vibrant red and shining blue or lime green. Everyone who got dressed up looked stunning.

We went outside the Chinese Gardens and Ziah, Egan, Yasmin and I challenged each other in Chinese numbers. We met a young lady who spoke Chinese, we tried speaking to her and then realised how little Chinese we know in the grand scheme of things.

We walked to Chinatown then spilt into groups and had some lunch. I am not the best at working chopsticks so I ate all my food with a soup spoon. All my friends agreed Chinatown was not what we imagined it would be. It was fun just to walk around and with no clue where we were going.

Photograph by Ziah Burns

Questacon On April 12, 52 students from Years 7 and 8 made the long journey down to Canberra to visit Questacon. The students spent the day exploring Questacon to gain a better understanding of how science and STEM are applied to the real world.

“After all the fun in the bus we got to Questacon. There were SO MANY cool things such as the free fall, earthquake room and the lighting strike creator. Then after all the fun at Questacon we when for a walk around Canberra, we saw the new and old parliament houses, the war memorial and more.”

April Gannon

“When we first entered Questacon, we saw RoboQ, RoboQ is a Robot that acts out movies such as Star Wars. When we had finished looking at everything downstairs we went upstairs, and that’s where the fun started!”

Megan McDevitt

One of the highlights of the visit was getting back to school to discover that a member of the public had emailed the following letter to the school:

“I am at Questacon with my family today and just wanted to comment on how impressed I have been with the Seven Hills students we have been sharing the space with us. They are considerate, polite, kind and encouraging to each other and even to my kids. And they seem to be really engaged and enjoying the day. Please pass on to your staff and to which ever year group is here what a great bunch of kids we think they are.”

Carissa Howell

Top Literacy Tips for Parents • Stay involved! You can continue

to support your child’s learning at school by being interested and finding out what they are studying or what assignments they have.

• Try to continue helping them with homework. Look through the reading materials together, ask your child to show you their plan for getting an assignment done, their ideas and the timing involved, and ask what references the teacher expects. Just being there, expressing an interest and saying you want to help can make your child feel supported – even if you can’t help with the subject matter itself.

• Try to continue to read to, and with your child, and introduce more challenging books, articles or journals – you can try looking through the newspaper together or researching information on a topic of interest online.

• Talk about the things you read and watch together, e.g.:

- “This article claims that … what do you think?’

- “That movie was interesting – what do you think it was about?”

• Let your child see you reading, researching, writing and viewing different materials: newspapers, emails, cookbooks, labels, instructions, signs, films, documentaries, websites, etc.

• Have a wide range of reading materials available to your teenager at home. Encourage your child to read widely (newspapers, magazines, websites, brochures, etc.), particularly on topics that interest them – let them experience the joy of reading for pleasure.

• Don’t be concerned or comment if your child reads and re-reads the same books even when older – all reading is good. If your teenager is not interested in novels, you can suggest other types of materials including comics and non-fiction.

• Help your child to use print and electronic reference materials (dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopaedia). Discuss how to use an index, a contents page and how a thesaurus can help when you need just the right word.

• Encourage your child to rehearse oral presentations and performances in front of family members and ask for feedback.

• Be creative if your child is reluctant to get involved. You may like to keep a shopping list on the fridge and ask your child to add to it, or ask your child to read something you need to know about to you while you are busy preparing dinner, examples include the recipe, instructions, a newspaper article, school bulletin or the TV guide. Some parents find asking their child to read to younger siblings or help them with their homework is an effective method to engage their child and build confidence.

• If you struggle with reading or writing, or have a language background other than English, use the support that is offered through the school, local library and community centres, or contact the Reading Writing Hotline: www.readingwritinghotline.edu.au

• If your child is having problems with literacy, let the school know you are concerned and committed to helping your child improve their reading and writing skills – we are there to help.

https://www.literacyandnumeracy.gov.au/sites/nlnw2015/files/downloads/top_literacy_and_numeracy_tips_for_parents_-_primary_school_2017.pdf

Boys

• Plain black covered shoes with black shoelaces • White socks • Plain grey shorts or trousers (no denim or patterns) • Plain white or SHHS polo or shirt (no other writing or

logo) • SHHS jumper, jacket or Met West jacket

Options: • Plain white undergarment • Plain black, green or white scarf in winter • Hat in school colours

PE Uniform

• School PE shirt • Black shorts

Note: • PE uniform to be worn only during PE/sport lesson

Girls

• Plain black covered shoes with black shoelaces • White socks or plain black/flesh coloured stockings • Plain green skirt or trousers (no denim or patterns) • Plain white or SHHS polo or shirt (no other writing

or logo) • SHHS jumper, jacket or Met West jacket

Options: • Plain white undergarment • Small necklace, earrings and bracelets allowed • Plain black, green or white scarf in winter • White or black plain headbands

PE Uniform

• School PE shirt • Black shorts

Note: • PE uniform to be worn only during PE/sport lesson • Tights/leggings are not a suitable replacement for

skirts, shorts or pants

Where to purchase uniform

The school PE shirt and jacket are purchased through the school. The remainder of the uniform is available through Lowes at Seven Hills.

Study Advice for Students Be organised and focused. Know what is going to be in the test by paying attention to what the teacher says in class, and prepare for what to study accordingly.

Read with a purpose. You should have a mission when you read. Find out from the teacher what you’re supposed to be looking for or figuring out while reading.

Mark your workbook. Highlight or circle and underline phrases and words that stand out to them and write questions and notes in the margins.

Summarise. After reading, you should ask yourself, what’s the idea of what I read? Jot down notes of the most important parts of what they read, such as the main idea and some supporting details.

Make flash cards. For memorizing vocabulary definitions, math formulas, or important dates, make some flash cards with index cards or pieces of paper. You can quickly look at them for review, and simply making them will also help you to remember the important points.

Make up rhymes, songs, or mnemonics. A good memorisation technique is to use one of these devices for the answers of your review questions. Musically inclined students may find it helpful to make up a rhyme or song to memorize information

https://www.wikihow.com/Study-a-Week-Before-an-Exam

School Uniform The community of Seven Hills High School strongly supports the wearing of a uniform by students as it believes uniform is integral to providing and maintaining high standards of self-esteem and safety for all its students.

Anzac Day Each year Australia commemorates The Anzac tradition. The ideals of courage, endurance and mateship, established on the 25th of April 1915, when the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula, are still relevant today.

At Seven Hills High School, staff and students participated in a school based formal ceremony to honour this Australian Tradition.

Students listened to the history of the Anzacs address by Ms Rodd (HT Eng/HSIE) and viewed a presentation on Australian involvement in international war and peace-keeping activities. Mr Jones (Eng/HSIE) represented the staff in reading Ken Bunker’s tributary poem to the assembly, while Jade McManus (Year 9 School Leader) responded with a reading of Victoria Taylor’s (former student) poem: “Our Boys”. Mr Burgess (Eng/HSIE) led a reading of “The Ode”, before a minute’s silence and both the “Last Post” and “Rouse” were played. Mr Johnstone (Principal), Ms Macan (Deputy) Amneh Chaker (Year 10 School Captain) and Alanna Kauffman (Year 10 School Captain) were able to lay wreaths to honour the fallen.

For staff and students of Seven Hills High School, Anzac Day is not merely a date, or some remote campaign, but rather a spirit. It is a time to reflect on the qualities of past generations of Australians who in hardship displayed courage, discipline, self-sacrifice, self-reliance, and friendship. Even as the number of ANZACs grows smaller, the ANZAC spirit, which was bestowed to us from battlefields long ago, will live on, because it is a reflection of the very heart of our nation.

Teresa Rodd

Head Teacher English/HSIE

KILDARE ROAD MEDICAL CENTRE Introducing Dr. Nasim Ahmed MBBS FRNZCGP FRACGP

Dr. Ahmed graduated from Chittagong Medical College, Bangladesh and soon after moved to New Zealand where she completed her internship, relocating to Australia this year. Dr. Ahmed is focused on continuity of care for the patient, their family and the community as a whole.

Interests: all aspects of family practice, mental health, paediatric medicine and women's health

Languages: Bengali and Hindi

To make an appointment with Dr. Ahmed go online at kildaremedical.com.au,

download the free HotDoc App or call Reception on 8822 3000

36 Kildare Road, Blacktown NSW 2148

bulk billing - open 7 days