Respect ~ Perseverance ~ Growth

Principal Matters by Mark Watson

HSC Update for Year 12 Year 12 returned to normal lessons this week following two weeks of trial exams. They are now in the final weeks of their studies before the HSC exams. These will be held during the first half of next term. Students studying language courses and courses with performance and major practical projects will have these assessed and marked before the end of this term. Preparations are well underway for both the Year 12 Graduation and Formal with both being held during the last week of this term. These will be ma-jor events in a final week of celebrations marking the end of classes for Year 12. Year 12 students are expected to be in attendance for every lesson this term as new content is being presented, assessments completed and revision un-dertaken. Trivia Night A trivia night was held last Saturday at St Ives bowling club to raise money for the school musical. The theme for the evening was “School Spirit” in keeping with the theme of the musical Matilda. It was great to see so many dressed in

school uniform and loving it. While there were some out of uniform slips passed around, no detentions were issued on the night. The trivia was run by the same team who run the mid week trivia at the bowling club. It was great fun. Apart from the questions, that were very diffi-cult, whole tables bid for the opportunity to sing along to classics from the Beatles and Queen. A silent auction was also held with bids on items from the beautiful to the bizarre donated by the community. A very big thank you to the parent musical support group for organising the night and raising funds for the show.

2019 Year 7 Survey – Now Live For the last few years, we have surveyed Year 7 parents about their child’s experience at SIHS. The purpose of this survey is to gain feedback about areas where we are excelling and areas that require enhancement or changes. Some of the changes introduced in response to previous surveys include a roll-out of the Parent Portal, a communications flowchart for families, restructuring of the Year 7 Parent Welcome Evening, a coordination and reduction in assess-ments and changes to our Parent Teacher evenings. The survey has been created in partnership with the P&C and it has been emailed to parent email addresses. It will take about 15 minutes to complete and is anonymous. Please re-member to check your Junk/Spam folder if you cannot see the message in your Inbox. If you are unable to complete your survey in one sitting, you can use the link in your invite email to take you back to where you left off at any time be-fore the closing date. We value your feedback about your experience at SIHS to date and thank you in advance for the time you have taken to complete this survey. The survey closes on Saturday 31

st August at 5pm.

Personal Best Tracking Years 7 to 10 The first strategic direction in our school plan is “developing independent and motivated learners”. Personal Best Tracking is one program we have introduced to support this strategic direction. The program aims get each student to reach their personal best in each of their classes. Earlier this year teachers allocated a score out of '5', indicating the amount of effort each student placed into their work with ‘5’ being the most effort. At our staff meeting on Tuesday, we discussed student goal setting using the Personal Best Tracking data. Students were given a scorecard on Wednesday’s assembly with their personal best scores listed for each subject. Students, under the guidance of their teachers, will use these scores to assist them set goals for the remainder of the year. You can assist your child by dis-cussing their scorecard with them. Some questions you might like to ask your child are; Do you feel that your scorecard reflects your efforts from earlier this year? If not, how can you gain greater clarity about why you were given this score? What can be done to move towards a score of '5'? What would it mean to you if working at a '5' level?

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What would you see yourself doing if you were working at your best each lesson? How will you know if you are on track? Hopefully these questions are helpful. If your child enrolled after term 1 this year, they will not have a scorecard. This should not, however, prevent them from having a discussion with you using the above questions. Building update An exciting development in the refurbishment of the TAS and CAPA C-Block will be the addition of an outdoor work-shop coming off the woodwork classrooms downstairs. This week the concrete paths on the side of the building where the workshop will go were demolished. Discussions also took place about the audiovisual equipment to be installed in classrooms so that the cabling required can be identified and installed. These decisions are required now as the rooms are currently being sheeted with Gyprock. The rooms will have the most up-to-date wireless networking devices installed, giving students fast and reliable access to the internet. The good news is that the school ’s wireless network will need to be upgraded to support these devices which has the potential to improve network traffic across the entire school. SASS Week Next week is recognition week for our School Administrative and Support Staff (SASS). This is a statewide event and it recognises the work done by this important group of staff that keeps the school running. Our SASS staff are the face of the school. They are often the first people you meet when you visit the school. The SASS staff carry out office tasks including finances, orders, enrolments, first aid, printing, grounds work, maintenance and technical tasks. We are lucky to have a warm and friendly staff in the office. If you do come in next week, wish the SASS staff the very best for the week. CAPA Performance and Exhibitions In the coming weeks we have a feast of performances and exhibitions from students studying in the CAPA KLA. It all begins this Friday with an evening of drama performances from students including students in our T program. These are in the school hall from 7pm. On Sunday afternoon the Concert Band will be performing at the State Band Champi-onships at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith. The Music Soiree will be held next Wednesday Evening from 7pm in the school hall. This is a wonderful opportunity to see and listen to performances from students studying music. Our annual Art Exhibition will be held during Week 7 and includes art work from students in Year 7 through to Year 12 major art works. It’s always an outstanding exhibition. Congratulations This week, congratulations go to;

The students who received awards for the Geography competition in this week’s assembly (see the report in this week’s newsletter)

Congratulations to Shelly Z and Samantha C S N who have had their artwork selected for this year's Operation Art Exhibition. Artworks are selected to be on permanent display in Children's Hospitals across NSW.

All of the students who participated in the Gridiron and Oztag gala days this week. Best Wishes Mark Watson Principal

ARTEXPRESS Last week St Ives High took part in a joint project with the Department of Education and The Arts Unit focussing on ArtExpress to create a Professional Learning resource for Stage 6 Visual Arts teachers. The Creative Arts Advisor came to the school with a cameraman to interview former St Ives High School student, Nicholas Budisetio, about his body of work, a film titled ‘Present’ which was selected for ArtExpress 2019. His Year 12 teacher Mrs Gettens was also interviewed.

OZTAG COMPETITION

On Wednesday we had a number of students competing in an inter-school Oztag competition at Koola Park. The day was run by the National Rugby League and was designed to give participants a safe alternative to full contact rugby league. We were heavily represented with Years 7, 8, 10 and 11 boys teams. We also had Years 8, 10 and 11 girls competing. Standouts from the day were Emma V and Rhona C in the girls who drew on their speed scoring many tries and Ryan F and Aaron H in the boys, who took on the roles of team organisers directing play. Many thanks to Mr Shannon for organising.

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AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHY COMPETITON

The Australian Geography competition was held in May at St Ives High School. Approximately 70 students participated and yet again, St Ives High School continues to achieve outstanding results.

The results have recently been distributed and special congratulations goes to the following

students for achieving a high distinction result or a top 1% result across Australia: Edward K, Jude B, Lily R, Lynden W, Zoe J, Matthew J, Mia S, Zoe B, Keetan S, Jeyanth G, Nina K, Phil-lipa R, Will G and Abigail B. Well done to all the students involved!

YEAR 8 VOLUNTEERING

Year 8 continued their volunteering program this week with a visit to Wahroonga Nursing home. Some of the 8I stu-dents entertained the residents with a sing a long while others shared afternoon tea and a chat, and another group shared some time in the craft room making jewellery. A short but valuable visit, the students will return again on 18th of September.

OUR TALENTED STUDENTS HAVE BEEN BUSY REHEARSING FOR OUR SCHOOL

PRODUCTION OF MATILDA! IT IS LOOKING GREAT!

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CAREERS UPDATES University Open Days USYD Saturday 31 Aug 9am-4pm UTS Saturday 31 Aug ACU North Syd Saturday 31 Aug UNSW Saturday 7 Sept 9am-4pm www.futurestudents.unsw.edu.au/openday Scholarships for future teachers are now open The NSW Department of Education is offering a range of scholarship opportunities for high achieving students entering teacher education degrees after their HSC. Applications are now open for 2020 scholarships for future teachers. The scholarship programs for future teachers offer a range of benefits, including financial support whilst studying and a guaranteed permanent teaching position in a NSW public school on successful completion of studies. The scholarship programs for future teachers include: Teacher Education Scholarships Teacher Education Scholarships - Aboriginal teach. Rural Scholarships teach.MathsNOW Scholarships are now open Parents and carers, this is for you. Do you know an industry professional or current university student in a career area requiring tertiary studies in mathematics - for example, in engineering, accounting, finance or IT - who would make a great secondary mathematics teacher? The teach.MathsNOW Scholarship offers an opportunity to change career path and retrain as a mathematics teacher in a NSW public school. teach.MathsNOW scholars will receive up to $50,000 in equivalent upfront course contribution fees, paid part-time em-ployment during studies and a guaranteed permanent teaching position in a NSW public school on successful comple-tion. To find out more about these and other great opportunities, please visit the teach.NSW website and follow the teach.NSW social channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter). For more information on any of these or other careers matters visit the Careers Adviser or email Mr Holmes at neil.holmes@det.nsw.edu.au or call the school on 9144 1689 ext 116.

Visit my free careers website at http://www.careeradvicensw.com to view career videos, take career tests, view subject selection resources, links to all universities on bonus points, scholarships, elite athletes schemes, alternate entry to uni-versity, the job market, SRS and more.

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It is a privilege and honour to be voted by your peers as a member of the St Ives High School Leadership Team. All students are encouraged to apply for this position, however you should consider your willingness to commit to this task, which requires enthusiasm, responsibility, pride in your school and an understanding that you may be required to work on out of school hours activities. Please complete the application below and hand in to the front office, on or before Wednesday 4th September. You will then receive an email confirmation and should expect to attend an interview in week 7 with the Senior School Leaders. After this time, nominees will be required to deliver a speech to their year group, prior to voting. Best wishes to all applicants, Ms Tania McGurgan SRC Coordinator Your nomination means that you will be required to attend an interview with the Senior School Leaders. Completing the following question will be significant to this process.

What skills do I bring to this leadership role? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Name of Student Nominated

Email of Nominated Student

Please indicate ( by circling) which year group you are in:

CIRCLE Yr 7 Yr 8 Yr 9 Yr 10

NOMINATION FOR JUNIOR SCHOOL LEADERS 2020