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High Notes, Vol 19 No 36, November 16 2018

From the Principal

High Talent
High’s Under 16 (Year 9) team going to Melbourne for the Australian Schools Champs in December won the Open Boys Division 1 of the NSW Volleyball Tournament. They defeated our Year 12 team (coming off yearly exams) in the Final. Our Year 11 team finished 3rd. Our school is displaying wonderful depth in volleyball to manage a clean sweep at NSW state level! Congratulations to Mr Kay, Pinyan Gao and the rest of the coaching staff. Well done to Brandpon Nguyen (SHS-2018) whose HSC body of work ‘The Pervasiveness of Self,’ was selected for inclusion in ARTEXPRESS in 2019.

The Corlett Family & 1961 Old Boys Bursary Program
We recognise at High, that there are several families in each academic year suffering financial stress.  Family illness, separation, unemployment, misadventure or enforced home care duties, can constrain a particular family severely when it comes to finding money for school contributions, uniforms, camps, excursions, sporting trips and co-curricular activities. Despite the strain and hardship, some students really want to keep involved in school life. These students, who embody the spirit of High, need our help to maintain their involvement.

This year, we managed to identify and support four students.  Each boy received a credit of $2,500 on his school account to pay for the necessities of a full student life at High. The intention of the Corlett Family, who endowed the bursaries, was that worthy but needy students should be helped to participate in school life. They made a commitment to fund four bursaries for six years. The program has been broadened, as other Old Boys from 1961 learned of the purposes of the bursaries.  Hence, a second category of bursaries ‘The 1961 Old Boys Bursary’ will be awarded to an additional four students in 2019. Our target is to alleviate financial stress for eight families during next year – even more, if funds allow.

I will be making occasional reports to the Corlett family and the 1961 Old Boys, without naming any of the recipients, to apprise them of the contexts inspiring their philanthropy. Once the students leave school I will facilitate their wishes to contact and thank their benefactors if the beneficiaries reach out to the school to do so. Rather than keep this impressive program confidential, I want to make two different groups aware of its existence.  First, I would like to encourage Old Boys and Friends of High to add to the pool of funds in the 1961 Old Boy Bursary Program or recruit a few friends to fund a separate bursary under the name of their graduating year.

In addition, I would like to reach out to current parents and carers who might find that their circumstances are overwhelming and that they would struggle considerably to make all or some of the charges associated with their son’s education. If your circumstances are seriously necessitous, I invite you to write to me, marked ‘confidential’, sketching the particular context your family is experiencing. As bursaries become available, I will then have a number of families in need from which to choose additional worthy recipients.

Sydney Boys Team Travel Fund – ASF   
We have an Australian Sports Foundation Project – the team travel fund. The idea is intended to defray some of the costs of our extensive sporting travel costs – to Armidale, Melbourne, Wingham, Canberra, Taree, Grafton, Terrigal, Port Stephens or the Gold Coast. If your son represents the school in any sport and is likely to ‘go on the road’ then it may be possible to work with your MIC to reduce the cost of these sporting tours considerably via a tax deductible donation. Old Boys and friends of High are invited to make a contribution to this Fund also. If you have an interest in sport and would like to give back something to help our boys experience the fun of sporting trips while they are at school, then do as I did and donate direct to ASF at Last year the basketball teams that travelled to Victoria for the National Schools Championships were subsidised from the fund. Ask your MIC about organising a future sporting trip to take advantage of the ASF Team Travel Fund.

‘N’ Awards for Stage 5
Students in Year 10 who had unresolved warning letters in subjects were issued ‘N’ determinations last Friday. Even students in Year 9 are vulnerable, because the stage 5 curriculum is compressed in Year 9 for history and geography. They had until Tuesday of this week to hand in the missing work for assessment. Our goal in enforcing accountability for work assigned is to make sure students do not have holes in their learning that might have the potential to restrict them from reaching their potential in the HSC. Every student has a responsibility to complete work assigned by his teachers to the best of his ability.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal