High Notes, Vol 12 No 19, June 24 2011
From the Principal
High Talent
Class of 2010 University of Sydney Scholarship winners were: Jonathan
Du, John Wormell, Mario Moreno, Benjamin Li, Brian Kelly, Andy Chiem, Vithusan Mohan and Nelson
Wang. Elbert Ly (Year 10) has been accepted to participate on a 3-month student exchange program
to Japan, departing in November. The recent Mufti Day and barbecue for Boggabilla raised $2014.
The total fund raising by the Community Services Committee this year to date is $22,169.
Congratulations to all concerned. It is heartening to witness the expression of social conscience
among the relatively privileged boys (and their families) at High.
High Senior School Assembly – Prefects Investiture
The Internship system of
School Prefect management worked well again this year, with all original Internees qualifying to
receive their Prefects badges after serving the school as leaders since term 4, 2010. Far from
being merely symbolic, the School Prefect badge at High is a statement of sustained service to
our school. Respected sports journalist and prolific sports biographer, Ian Heads (SHS 1960),
spoke to the boys about the great qualities of perseverance and self-discipline that he had
identified in his research into the lives of famous sports people. He drew a parallel between
character traits needed for success in sports or in life. He was an engaging speaker. Many boys
who won awards previously published in High Notes were presented with medals, certificates or
plaques. It was good to spend time in public acknowledgement of the achievements of our boys. Mr
Devlin spoke to a detailed Moodle-based Athletics program allowing athletes to find information
about athletics and access permission notes and entry forms online. Year 11 boys stayed on to be
briefed in detail by Mr Kesting, Prefects Master, about the eligibility requirements for the role
of School Prefect, the role of the School executive in the selection of Prefects and the election
process.
High Junior School Assembly
Mr Viv Littlewood (SHS Captain 1952), himself a great
example of loyalty to High, spoke to the Junior Assembly about loyalty in three directions:
upwards, to your parents, teachers and leaders; sideways - to your team mates, friends and
colleagues in work situations; and downwards, to those whom you lead, influence or have
responsibility for. He emphasised what a lifelong impact being a High boy has had on him and
exhorted the boys to appreciate the privilege of a High education and to show their loyalty to
the school by engaging in its activities. Boys were honoured for their achievements and various
medals and certificates presented. I spoke to the boys about the ubiquitous comments in their
reports from teachers and offered them 5 tips on how to improve their academic standard in
semester 2. Get organised – boys who do not use their diaries and write things down
and plan their work fail to hand something in which hurts their award. Focus in class
– so many boys miss opportunities to learn because they allow themselves to be distracted
in class. Socialising is for outside of class time. Classes are for learning. Complete all
tasks – Failing to complete assigned tasks, either in class or for homework, leaves
gaps in knowledge that show up at assessment time. Revise your work – Notes from
lessons, summaries, examples, essays re-written after feedback, practice problems, getting
concepts in your own words – that’s revision. It takes time and is an entirely
individual process. Whatever works for you. Study before exams - to study is to refresh
your understanding, to appreciate the concepts, to practise the skills and to memorise
significant details. You need to study what you have previously revised.
School Reports and Parent Teacher Evenings
By now all boys should have their
reports. Parents of boys in Years 7, 10,11 and 12 have had an opportunity to talk to teachers.
Please ask your son for his report if you have not seen it yet.
Tax Time – Donation reminder
If you have been thinking about making a tax
deductible donation to one of the school’s registered funds, now is the time to do so. The
120 Monthly Giving Scheme participants were sent their receipts this week for their contributions
since July 1 last year. I thank them for their ongoing support for our project. We need your
support to raise the capital to build a substantial addition to our school facilities in the form
of a performing arts and multi-purpose space. Our first target is $2m. Help us meet our
goal!
Dr K A Jaggar
Parent-Teacher Interviews
Years 8 and 9 will take place on
Wednesday 29 June 2011
3.00pm – 6.30pm
Booking interviews with your son’s teachers
This year we will again use a web
based electronic scheduling system for arranging interviews. This produces better results for all
participants, especially more compact time schedules for both parents and teachers. The system
works as follows –
- On Tuesday 21 June all parents of boys in Years 8 and 9 were sent by email details of the
scheduling system and a unique code to be entered at .
- This email will be sent to the address currently held by the school. If you have not received
this email by the following day (22 June) or, if your email address has changed from what had
been previously advised to the school, you should notify the school at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
advising of this. Please indicate your son's name and roll class or date of birth so that the
information can be forwarded to you.
- On the Edval website you will see your son’s teachers listed and you will be able to
select those with whom you require an interview. (If you hover over a teacher’s name, the
subject involved will be shown.) At the same time you can indicate your availability between 3:00
pm and 6:30 pm.
- Once the majority of parents have requested interviews, the overall schedule will be
generated by the school and your individual schedule should be available for you to download and
print from two days before the interviews.
- Boys from all Years will be dismissed from class at the conclusion of Period 5 on the day of
the interviews. School Special buses will run to normal schedules and there will be supervision
in the Junior Quad of boys waiting for these buses.
-
Interviews should not exceed five minutes’ duration. If there is insufficient
time, a further appointment may be made for a later date, or contact by telephone arranged.
Careers News
It is important that parents and students have access to the latest careers news and information.
The Careers News section of the Student Portal and of the Parents Portal is updated daily
with this latest information.
Visit the Careers News section to read the latest information about:
- Guest speakers
- Bonus point schemes
- Overseas education opportunities
- UMAT
- University admission
- University information days
- University-school enrichment programs
- Work Placement information
And much more.
Log into the Student or Parents Portal by clicking the Intranet Login link on the Sydney
Boys High School website.
Please see the Careers Adviser if you have any further questions.
Year 12 Interviews
All Year 12 are required to have an interview with the Careers Adviser during Term 2 or
Term 3 to discuss all aspects of post-school education including ATAR, UAC, scholarships,
preferences etc.
Interviews are booked online through the Student Portal. Students should access the Careers
Interviews section of the Student Portal and select a time for interview. There are two slots per
period that the Careers Adviser is available.
Drama: Sharp Love
Sharp Love was at its climax last Friday and Saturday. The boys’ and girls’
school collaborated on a glee-esque style production with plenty of dramatic flair and humour. By
6:30 the cast was excited and energetic. On both nights the Campbell Hall at SGHS was packed with
an ecstatic audience, many of us enjoying the company of senior students and also some Year 9
students. We’d spent the entire day rehearsing and perfecting before our opening night.
The play consisted of scenes exploring themes from time periods in the 50s, 70s, 90s and the
present day with a framework of an intricate story of the internal struggles in a newspaper
office. With an intense start of tableaus and a circuit, the production started to flow. The
night ran well with audiences laughing at cheesy moments and in awe during the solemn romantic
bits of each scene. The play culminated in a wonderful rendition of ‘Seasons of
Love’.
The whole play was a success after many long rehearsals, with audiences leaving both nights
emotionally satisfied. The production was a great sign of the support and interest with the drama
department and the beginning of many collaborations with the girls’ school.
On behalf of the cast of the production I’d like to acknowledge the endless effort from
both drama teachers; Ms Surbey and Ms Rohr, as their guidance was a large factor in our
success.
Andrew Wei
Die Deutsche Frage
Two weeks ago I asked: wo ist der Dinosaurier? No-one has spotted him yet. The next clue
for him is: er frisst grüne Blätter.
Therefore there will be two chocolate bars to be won. Today’s question is short and
to the point: Bertha?
Frau St Leon
SBHS Debating
Next term the GPS season begins with our first debate against Kings on 22nd July. I have
organised a bus to take students to Kings, but parents will need to collect their sons. Please
ensure that your son has safe return travel arrangements made from Kings.
On that first Friday we will have our debating Assembly where we present the GPS Firsts and
Seconds. Any parents who would like to attend must please contact me.
As you may know the annual dinner to celebrate debating at High concludes the debating season. It
is held the week after the final debate of the GPS competition. We are also thanking our staff
and coaches for their great work on all of the competitions that High enters in 2011.
This year’s Debating Dinner is on Saturday September 10 2011 in the Great Hall at 6.30
pm
The cost of the dinner is $30 per adult/student.
A special price for children under 10 years has been negotiated at $20. Parents BYO.
Payment for the dinner can be made at the main office by 2 Sept 2011. NO bookings can be accepted
after this date as numbers must be finalised for catering.
If you can help set up on the day, please email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Please put this date in your diaries.
Rachel Powell
MIC Debating
Year 11 PDC
The first round of the year 11 PDC was against Woolooware High School,
where we found ourselves negating the topic "that we should have performance based pay for
teachers." Our case revolved around the harms of having this kind of pay system, such as by
stopping the sharing of new teaching ideas or teachers solely teaching to the test. In the end we
won fairly convincing, partly due to our arguments and partly due to the fact that the other team
many times only referred to pay increases in general, and not pay tied to performance. Thanks to
Mr Webb for organising the Year 11 PDC team and debates.
Christopher Chiam
Year 10 Main Squad
Agnish Nayak
Connor Robinson
Kritman Dhamoon
Khushaal Vyas
Wilber Koslowski
Ian Li
Reserves
Jonathan Clements- Lendrum
Albert Chau
Year 8 A and Bs to be decided
Josh Malouf
Kevin Liang
Thomas George
Bosco Tran
Niyazul Bari
Jonathan Chew
Ganeshmoorthy Chandrasekaran
Gautham Shankar
Niyazul Bari
More information can be found at and will be emailed to
you on a weekly basis.
Please CHECK YOUR EMAIL regularly and ensure we have current contact details for both students
and parents.
PARENTS: If you are not receiving weekly emails about debating please email us at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
and ask to be added to the parent
group for your child’s year.
Drama Festival School Incursion
20-21 July
The Great Hall
Dear Parent/Caregiver,
At the start of Term 3 Sydney Boys High will be hosting the school’s annual Drama Festival.
The festival will include performances from students in Years 7 – 11 Drama classes. This is
an exciting annual event on the school calendar and some participants will go on to represent the
school at both the Sydney Region and State Drama Festivals.
To celebrate the achievements of our students we have organised two School Matinees for students
in Years 7 – 10. Students in Years 7 and 8 will attend on Wednesday 20 July periods 3 and
4. Years 9 and 10 students will attend on Thursday 21 July periods 3 and 4. The cost of the
incursion is a gold coin donation payable to your son’s period 3 Teacher upon entry to the
Great Hall.
There will also be an evening performance at 7pm on Wednesday 20 July. Tickets will be available
at the door at a cost of $5 for students, $10 for adults and $15 for families. This promises to
be a fun, lively and highly entertaining event. Your support and attendance is greatly
appreciated.
If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact me at the school.
Kind regards,
Jennie Rohr
Drama Department
From the Libraries
New Resources this week - Andrews Library
(Last week we got it wrong, no pictures of covers– this week we hope you will see our
resources – in magnificent colour - in the online High Notes section of the SBHS Website)
We also hope to see them on the various Portals. They did appear (if you could ever find Library
hidden in “Curriculum”) on the School Website.
Mrs Crothers
Junior Library
Reading Torque
Limitless (aka The Dark Fields), by Alan Glynn (2001), provided one of my favourite
reading experiences to date. Not only is the plot enthralling, but the themes of this
techno-thriller novel are not pitched far beyond an adolescent mind. The story is about a writer
in his mid-twenties, Eddie Spinola, who is living a dead-end life, failing to reach deadlines for
projects, and binging on alcohol and junk food. He is so depressed that even wasting time is an
effort.
Through an encounter with an ex-brother-in-law (a bad omen for starters), Spinola comes across an
experimental drug, ‘MDT-48’, which enhances the function of the brain four-fold. It
grants him heightened creative, intellectual, and learning powers, and the ability to see
meaningful patterns in large amounts of disparate information. Through usage he completes all of
his writing projects in one sitting, learns new languages in a few days, wins back his
ex-girlfriend, and then abandons writing for a new career in high-finance. The catch to this drug
is the horrendous withdrawals. In fact, unbeknownst to Spinola, all previous users are either
dead or terminally ill. As the story progresses, and his dosage of the MDT-48s increases, Spinola
clean sweeps the Stock Exchange and gets involved in a merger deal which sends forty-eight
million dollars his way. His ever-increasing usage worsens the drug’s side-effects however,
causing untimely black-outs and lack of sleep. His limited supply also begins to run out, and
Spinola falls under life-threatening pressure from Russian loan sharks who are demanding MDT-48s
from him.
This novel is intriguing because of the mature atmosphere of the book and the clear manner in
which it is written. Also, because Limitless has a first person narration, the reader has full
access to Spinola’s thoughts. I felt a connection to him as if I’d known him for
years, and if I were to stop reading, I’d offend him.
Overall, it is a great read, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a novel with lots of twists
in the plot and conflict within the main characters.
John Seroukas
Yr 9
What's up in the McDonald Senior Library?
The anime film festival held in the library in weeks 7 and 8 was a great success with many senior
students enjoying the three excellent films shown. These were The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan
and Porco Rosso and Howl’s Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki. So much so that
we have had requests to repeat this another time. This will probably happen next year now.
Thank you to Tim Chan for his help with his webpage promotional poster and assistance with the
crowds attending! Thanks also go to Joseph Lui for his brilliantly designed and drawn anime
poster for the event and also to Hubert Suen for his clever and effective poster!
We would also like to express our appreciation to Mr Hannon, a fervent Miyazaki buff for his
support during showings, his spot-on suggestions and for providing preview copies of all the
films.
The McDonald Senior library has been operating as such for over two years now and has developed
into a fully functioning library with our collection growing each term to provide both online,
book, magazine and DVD resources available for students to use and borrow. The Teacher Librarian
is available to assist students in their studies to find and utilize effectively the information
they need and to give readers advice about good fiction and literature in general to suit their
learning requirements and to encourage reading for enjoyment.
To ensure that we are on the right track we are asking students to provide feedback in the form
of a survey which they can complete. There will be a link from their student portal
to the Library Surveys in Moodle titled MCDONALD SENIOR LIBRARY USE SURVEY.
Finally, many new books and other resources are currently being added to the Senior Library
collection, information about which will be appearing on a new webpage called LibraryThing. So
students and teachers should look in their portals for the link to this useful information about
exciting new resources in the libraries!
Ms Gordon
T/L McDonald Senior Library
From the Canteen
New menu items!!
Come and try something different with our Perri Perri chicken focaccias, our hot lamb wraps and
Tandoori rolls.
Putting in a lunch order will guarantee you WON’T miss out!!
Thank You
Our thanks go to the following people who have helped out in canteen over
the past 2 weeks: Pam Jepson, Yoshi Ita Leong, Usha Avrind,, Annette Ng, Pauline Chan, Angela
Feng, Slodjona Petrovic, Lorna Deng, Jim O'Sullivan, June (Wu) Long, Kamala Selvakkumar, Frances
Salmon, Ming Lee, Nina Ilina Liu, Soogie Sim, Elsa Li, Robyn Gordon, Hiroko Kitajima, Mary Chan,
Doris Fong, Vikki Angel, Usha Arvind, Louise Warren, Linda Perris, Shilpar Punekar, Special
thanks to Mei Gibbs, a relative of one of our students, who is recently arrived from Hong Kong.
She is finding that helping in the canteen is quite beneficial to improving her English as well
as developing food preparation and service skills that she can use in her new country. We are
most appreciative of any time people can give to help canteen and it is good to see that our
volunteers, as well as the school, can benefit in different ways too.
When you are at canteen next, take the time to have a look at the ways in which profits from
canteen have been spent to help improve school facilities including technology – we have
put a list on the wall. Volunteers at High are very much a valuable resource, so thank You all
very much!!
We are currently down on helpers for Mondays so if you or anyone you know might be able to spare
some time please contact canteen.
Canteen staff: We would like to welcome Katie back on board who will be working with Karen
while Tracey recovers from shoulder surgery. Katie is the younger pretty one, while Karen is the
other pretty, but not quite as young, manager. We wish Tracey a speedy recovery.
Please phone Canteen on 9360 4027 if you are able to help out on any particular day.
Thank you
The Canteen Team
High Store Stocktaking Sale
Friday 24th June till Wed. 29th June
- SHS Cuff Links $16.50 NOW $10
- Sky Mesh Basketball Shorts $27.50 NOW $15
- Basketball HIGH T-shirt $27.50 NOW $20
- SHS Number Plate Cover $39.95 NOW $30
- Polar Fleece Supporter Jumper $69 NOW $50
- Sydney High Hoodie 10% OFF Now $60
HIGH STORE WILL BE CLOSED ON FRI 1st July for Stocktake.
Cross Country
Congratulations to 8 SBH students who raced in the Regional Championships and have now qualified
through to the NSW Championships. These students are Francis Torok, Sam Lane, Yale Wong, Henry
Lu, Adam Booth, Jeremy Dobrowski, Johnathon Clements and Nafis Rahmen.
So strong is the Sydney Boys contingent in the 18 Years division, that we have SBH representing
as the School team at State level.
These Championships will be held on Friday the 22nd of July out at Eastern Creek.
R Dam
SBHS Drama Festival
7pm July 20 2011
The Great Hall
Tickets available at the door $5/$10
Enrolment: Years 8 - 12, 2012
Applications for years 8 - 12, 2012 close on 28 July 2011
Application forms are available from the school or visit: and click on the link to enrolments.
Phillip Day Memorial Scholarship
For existing or enrolling students in years 7 - 12 who meet the scholarship selection criteria.
To apply, visit for full
details.
Publications 