High Notes, Vol 17 No 26, August 26 2016
High Talent
Our volleyball program showed its strength at the recent NSW
All Schools Championships. Despite not having first grade boys due to Year 12 exams, the U17 team
won the open Division. The 15As won the 15s Division, defeating our 14As in the final. The 16As
lost the 17years final to Baulkham Hills. Congratulations to all the boys who stepped up and
played so well in Divisions above their age group. The final weekend of fencing was successful
for High. The U13A, U15 and Senior Epée teams all won gold medals. Congratulations, boys!
In the ICAS Writing Competition, medals were awarded to – Jonathan Gu (8R), Sadin Afsar
(11M) and Dibyendu Roy (11E). Great results for excellent writing! Well done, boys! It was High v
High in the final of the NSW Schoolboys Shield table tennis. Edward Belokopytov (12E) and Lenny
Han (10R) prevailed over youngsters Adam Masen (8E) and Alex Yeung (8S). Our boys completed a
clean sweep of available table tennis titles for 2016: NSW Schoolboys Cup, CHS Knockout, Sydney
East Knockout and the NSW Schoolboys Shield. Congratulations to our team, coach Peter Masen and
MIC Anthony Cipolla.
Senior Leaders for 2016-17
Our Student Executive team for 2016-17 is Hugh
Bartley (School Captain), Lucas Wong (Vice-Captain) and Dharmesh Sharma (Senior Prefect).
Congratulations to those office bearers. I trust all the Prefect Interns and the wider school
community will support them in their important roles.
Commuter Praise
“I would like to congratulate you on your pupils who
were on Friday afternoon’s train from Central to Campbelltown. They were subjected to
verbal abuse from a very angry woman on the train who had a problem with school children sitting
on seats. Your boys kept to themselves and did not engage with her. The Prefects traveling
with the boys took control and told the other boys to keep quiet and they vacated two rows of
seats for the woman and her children (she stayed sitting on the stairs ignoring the fact they had
made the seats available). It shows your school’s values, teachers and their parents have
instilled morals in these boys”. — Mr A.S.
My thanks go to the students involved who modelled the ethos of our school autonomously.
Tell Them From Me Survey
As we are having an external validation in
October, it would be really good to have recent data from parents indicating how they feel about
certain aspects of our school’s operation and culture. The Partners in Learning
Parent survey goes live on 26 August and will close on 21 October. Information given is
confidential and will not be used in any way that identifies a person or the school. Additional
information for parents, including parent FAQs, can also be found on the CESE website at:
http://surveys.cese.nsw.gov.au/information-for-parents.
I urge as many parents to participate as possible. Parent voice is very important to us at High.
To access the survey, go to https://sbhs.co/pil16
Good Readers Make Good Writers
Students in Years 7-9 are not reading enough
as evidenced by the borrowing frequency rates from the Junior Library. In the first six months of
this year, Year 7 boys on average borrowed <4 items each from the Library. Year 8 and 9 boys
borrowed just on 2 items each. In Year 8 there were 40% of boys who never borrowed anything! In
all of Year 9 36% of boys didn’t borrow from the library. In the Junior School wide reading
is essential. Boys are gravitating towards eBooks but even so, our borrowing rates are
inadequate. Parents are urged to promote wide reading in their boys. We need to know more about
the reading habits of our boys in order to provide them with more of the genres they are
interested in. It is imperative in the Junior School to gain exposure to all forms of literature
before the cognitive and homework demands of Years 10-12 kick in.
Illuminate Festival 29-30.8.2016
We invite parents, Old Boys and friends of
High to join us for our inaugural Illuminate festival. Illuminate will feature
artworks, HSC drama performances, HSC music extension performances, a dramatic monologue and a
poetry reading. As special guest for the evening we have Damian Martin, Oscar Winner for Best
Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). A team of staff,
students and parents have been working hard to showcase the creativity and performance capability
of our boys. Please join us in the Great Hall from around 6pm on Monday 29 August.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal
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