NBSC Balgowlah Boys Campus Maretimo St, BALGOWLAH, NSW 2093 Ph: 9949

4200 Fax: 9907 0266

nbscbalgb-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au www.balgowlahboys.nsw.edu.au

The Balgowlah Boys Campus Newsletter

Principal’s Report Week 3 Term 1 2019

Our first school assembly of the year emphatically revealed just how successful our school has become; not just in terms of academic results, but also in terms of our growing social & cultural reputation within our community. The assembly was held on

the quad, as the whole school (1067 boys) will not fit in our hall. We collectively felt a great surge of excitement and anticipation in the school year ahead.

The school’s academic success has been widely broadcast in the media. Gaining notoriety in the Sydney

Morning Herald for the outstanding HSC results in 2018 as well as being ranked as one of the 5 top schools for

improvement in HSC results over the past six years.

Photo appearing in SMH with the report of Balgowlah Boys top 5 ranking. Four of our top performing students. (left to right) Jesse Lilley, Josh Smith, Nikita Chopenko, Ms Aimee Jan, Thomas Southgate.

While the school produced results across all faculties, once again our English faculty attained results that should not be achieved in a comprehensive school. Placed 7th in the state, this is now the fourth time in succession the school has been placed in the

top 10. This ranking includes all selective schools.

To top off an amazing year for our graduates, our Dux for 2018, Joshua Smith was this week

presented with the Freshwater Community Bank - Northern

Beaches Student of The Year Award. This award includes a $15,000 Scholarship. Josh will be

studying Science/Law at Sydney University.

Our amazing P&C has finally been

successful in getting council to construct a pedestrian crossing on

Maretimo Street.

The crossing in full use on day 1 with our new Year 7 arriving for their

assembly.

The School Swimming Carnival has been run and won. An amazing event organized by our new Sports Coordinator, Ms. Laura Duncan. There some outstanding performances

on the day and to single out one competitor, Alex Smith from Year 7 broke 10 longstanding age records.

The only negative on the day was the extremely poor handicapping in the staff race (The Bally Flop).

How many schools would handicap their principal out at 13

seconds! Well done anyway to Ms Megan

Hamilton, for taking out this year’s event.

Message from the P&C

The Bally Boys P&C extend a warm welcome to you and your boy(s) to the 2019 school year. A special welcome to the Year 7 parents and students. We hope you are settling in to the high school life – it sometimes takes a bit of adjusting!

It is a very special time to be at Bally. As you are no doubt aware the school is performing exceptionally well academically and as a result of this success has seen a large increase in enrolments. This year will see over 250 Year 7 boys bringing the school to its largest ever -

a total of over 1,000 students.

This is great news but does come with its challenges – rest assured the school executive and P&C are working hard to ensure the school provides all the required resources to keep pace

with the increasing student population.

The P&C works very closely with our school to benefit its students. To this end, we raise funds and undertake projects around the school to deliver great outcomes for your children,

the school and the teachers.

P&C funded projects

From the generosity of our parent community, the P&C was able to provide $95,000 for the following projects.

Equipment for TAS Department including 3D laser printers and a variety of woodworking equipment.

Equipment for a Music Studio

"Live the Dream, Gentlemen" Mural Ergo rowing machines for the Bally Rowing Program

Purchase of new textbooks for the English Department Astronomy equipment including a new telescope and camera New Canteen POS system

Bushlink program Defibrillator

Equipment for the HSIE/Geography Department School building high pressure cleaning

In 2019 we are planning to fund many more exciting projects, so we appreciate your continuing support.

Upcoming Events Please put these dates in your diary for 2019.

Next P&C meeting - 12th March: The P&C meet every second Tuesday of the month at 7.30pm in the main staff room. All are welcome. Our next meeting is Tuesday 12th March. This will also be the AGM where the executive positions are decided. If you are

interested in a role please make contact with Mark Sablatnig (mark.sablatnig@optusnet.com.au). We are in particular need of a Secretary as our wonderful Julie Beagley has finished her stint at the school. Thank you again, Julie!

Bally Bolt - 17th March: Bally Boys will be taking part in the Bally Bolt this year. It is a fun community and charity event organised by Balgowlah Heights Public School. The routes take you on closed streets around the local Balgowlah Heights area and Tania

Park. More information at www.ballybolt.com. We are intended to fund-raise in conjunction with this event to raise money for our school and support a local charity.

More information to come.

Trivia Night - Friday 24th May: The big event is on again this year. It's always a terrific night with loads of great prizes to be won. Keep an eye out for updates on the school Facebook page and newsletters.

Maretimo Street Crossing

A special thanks must go to Cam Mills and Ann Collins who worked tirelessly to convince the Council to install the pedestrian crossing. It has greatly improved the safety of our boys, so

well done. Kind regards,

Mark Sablatnig

P&C President

Sport at Bally

The Year 2019 is already proving to be a huge year for Balgowlah Boys in sport. With

spectacular results from the swimming carnival in Week Two and having two students already selected into the Sydney North Team for Baseball, Bally Boys are set to lead the

charge in all things sport. Students are encouraged to listen in assemblies each Wednesday for further announcements for team selections and Sydney North Trials. The Sydney North Calendar can be found

posted outside the PE staffroom in the school and further information and a soft copy of the calendar can be found on the Sydney North Website. Be sure to access this site for

information on representative teams. Students wishing to compete in a grade sport in Terms 2 and 3 should be prepared to trial

for their sport of interest in Week 8 of Term 1. Please listen to further announcements in assembly from the coaches for days and times. Sport selection for Term 2 and 3 will occur later this term and further information will be provided closer to the date.

Looking forward to an exciting year of sport.

Miss Laura Duncan Sport Coordinator

Swimming Carnival 2019

Friday 8th February 2019 saw the Balgowlah

Boys hold their 58th Annual Swimming Carnival. The conditions were perfect and carnival ran like a well-oiled machine. A huge

thank you goes out to the staff that took their jobs on the day as carnival officials very

seriously. Thank you to the parents that came to support their sons on the day, it was great to

see so many of you there. It was a very exciting carnival seeing one of our Year 7

students Alexander Smith smash an incredible ten school records on the day, two of these records were previously held by his older brother Joshua Smith, and another of his records dated back to 1966.

Congratulations to Archie Viesis the winner of the 2019 Aqua Gift. This is a novelty race

consisting of the fastest swimmers in the school on the day each with a handicap.

Miss Hamilton, a new competitor to the event, took out the Bally Flop Teachers Race. Miss Hamilton swam off a 6 Second handicap 2 seconds behind Mr O’Neill. Some of our previous

winners Mr Hartog and Mr Breheny were given a huge 16 Second handicap but still managed to finish in an impressive time and a comfortable position. Well done to all the teachers who

got involved. I am looking forward to Mr Mills featuring in the event as he has assured me it will be worth the wait, once he starts his strict training regime! Look out for him in years to

come. Miss Laura Duncan

Sport Coordinator

2019 Records

12-14 200 Individual Medley

2015 2:37:35 Joshua Smith 2019 2:34:82 Alexander Smith 13 200M Freestyle

1981 2:20:32 M. Johnson 2019 2:16:59 Alexander Smith 13 50M Breaststroke 2015 40:19 Henry Goarin 2019 39.37 Alexander Smith

13 100M Breaststroke 1976 1:31:90 M. Peterson 2019 1:24:69 Alexander Smith

13 50M Freestyle 2014 29:09 Joshua Smith 2019 28:63 Alexander Smith 13 100M Freestyle

1966 1:02:30 P. William 2019 1:12:67 Alexander Smith 13 50 Backstroke

1993 34:99 T. Sidery 2019 33:15 Alexander Smith 100 Backstroke 1993 1:17:09 T. Sidery 2019 1:13:11 Alexander Smith

13 50 Butterfly 2019 30:26 Alexander Smith

2019 Swimming Age Champions

12 Years

Rishi Shankar

13 Years

Alexander Smith

14 Years

Daniel Miners

15 Years

Caden Crouch

16 Years

Lachlan Phillips

Creative Arts

Creating and Performing Arts (CAPA) Staff - please don't hesitate to contact us for any

inquiries.

● Mr Chris Boylan - Acting Head Teacher, Visual Arts Teacher

● Mrs Emma Curran - Visual Arts Teacher

● Miss Meghan Hamilton - Visual Arts Teacher

● Ms Sally Leaney - Visual Arts Teacher, Digital Communications Manager

● Mr Geoff Walker - Drama/English Teacher

● Mr Ben Corby - Music Teacher

● Miss Eva Stokes - Music Teacher

● Mr Iain Robertson - Music Teacher

Music

We would like to introduce Mr Iain Robertson and Ms Eva Stokes as the new leaders of the band program at Balgowlah Boys. We have positive plans to take the band forward,

incorporating new repertoire and providing the bands with additional performance opportunities throughout the year.

The Concert Band will continue to rehearse on Tuesday mornings, commencing at 7:30am in the school hall. We would like as many students as possible to continue in concert band

building on last year’s successes. Mr Robertson will be taking responsibility for concert band with assistance from Julian McKay, who will be returning to school having progressed to study at the Sydney Conservatorium.

Stage Band will rehearse at the new time of Friday morning at 7:30am in the school

recording studio. Ms Stokes will lead this ensemble having extensive experience in teaching and performing Jazz and will also be assisted by Julian.

We are also introducing a new school ensemble to cater for the large intake of Year 7 musicians. This new ensemble will also be playing concert band material and will be given

equal performance opportunities in school assemblies, shows and functions. Rehearsals will begin during Week 3 of Term 1 (beginning February 11th). Rehearsal times

are as follows:

Year 7 Junior Band – Monday 7:30am, school hall. Concert Band (Years 8-12) - Tuesday 7:30am, school hall. Stage Band (Years 9-12) – Friday 7:30am, recording studio.

In the interest of developing our band program, we are requesting a small contribution of

$100 per student. This will cover the cost of repertoire, resource maintenance and external conductors to come and help the band program move forward in a productive way. If there

is an issue meeting this payment, please contact Principal Paul Sheather. We would appreciate if all students, new and returning, could please register participation in

the band program through the following google form: https://goo.gl/forms/2ufnrKBIce7JEab02

We thank you in advance for your cooperation and are looking forward to a productive year for the band program.

Guitar Ensemble

Mr Corby will be running a small guitar ensemble for selected students only. This will start

on 26th February and is every Tuesday lunchtime in G101. Please see Mr Corby if you are interested.

Music Lessons

We have a lot of demand for music lessons this year and we are still finalising places due to the high number of students interested. Please follow the link to register interest: https://goo.gl/forms/EwWQcAWpOO3ZzNIH2

Open Day

Open day was a huge success in music. Stage band played several tunes featuring a “Blues Brothers medley”, “Brick House” and “Man in the Mirror”. Our new ensemble, the year 7

concert band made its school debut (after one rehearsal) and performed an excellent version of “We Will Rock You”. Some of our H.S.C. students - Ethan Robb, Shaun Valkovich and

Nick Serrano-Sanchez) also played in a rock band and did an excellent version of “Fire” by Jimi Hendrix.

Stay tuned (excuse the pun) for more music news shortly, it’s going to be an exciting year.

Visual Art

Year 12 Last wednesday the Year 12 Visual Art Class visited the ‘Nick Cave’ (not the musician)

exhibition at Carriage Works. The exhibition helped them gain valuable knowledge and insight into contemporary art practice and gallery space. It is an amazing exhibition if you

have the time http://carriageworks.com.au/events/nick-cave-until-2018

Year 11

Year 11 have started their unit of work called “Mapping the landscape”. They are working to produce a body of work which shows an interpretation of the natural landscape, and are also

investigating a range of artists from different time periods who investigate the landscape the in various ways. Students are encouraged to work on their artmaking practice during class and outside of class time, and will also need to regularly check Canvas as all work will be

regularly uploaded to this platform. Year 11s are encouraged to see Ms Leaney or Miss Hamilton if they need extra support with their learning.

Year 9 Landscape Unit

Aidan Di Palma, Adam Hughes, Owen Chandler, Jake Scopelitis, Tom Lacy, Harry Wheeler and Tahn Dreghorn.

Open Day

Drama

The Balgowlah Drama Club is hard at work producing and rehearsing for their upcoming production ‘Lord of The Flies’. Below is a snippet of the plans for the upcoming production

"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding Scripted by Nigel Williams

Jack: "Sometimes the beast takes the shape of a man. And sometimes it's like it's an animal. A horrible animal. And sometimes it looks like a little boy. Like an ordinary little boy........it takes all sorts of shapes......"

The above quote from Jack is, for me as Director, the key to the play. It is a play about boys during pubescence who ironically, whilst being transported out of war-torn Britain in a plane,

crash on a desert island. Adults and many students are killed.

As the play opens we see Ralph (a diplomat and representing democracy) and Piggy (intelligent and rational) in conversation. Both stunned from the impact of the plane. The full

cast arrives in the form of a choir led by Jack (choir prefect) arrogant, egotistical, (who represents the horror of a dictatorship).

The play develops as these boys try to find a pathway to collaboration via a conch shell. However, the human condition, as ever, intervenes and division, conflict, tension and death arise out of terror.

The chosen cast members are committed to the task of play building and are giving Thursday afternoons and Saturdays to rehearsals.

We are excited to be performing this play whilst giving the Arts Departments an opportunity to collaborate.

For your diaries:-

Performance Dates: Tuesday 26th March 1pm onwards. (Year groups to be decided.)

Wednesday 27th March 7.30pm onwards Thursday 28th March 7.30pm onwards

We look forward to your support. Tricia Herman, Director