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High Notes, Vol 23 No 15, May 27 2022

From the Principal

Having returned from extended long service leave on Monday I want to thank my colleagues who covered for me and for each other while I was away. In particular, Jamie Kay filled in for me admirably as did George Barris as relieving Deputy Principal junior school and Natali Luu as relieving Head Teacher Teaching and Learning. They grasped the opportunity to lead in a higher capacity and did so efficiently and seamlessly. John Prorellis managed IT, personnel and properties with his customary care and attention to detail. The workload added to his area of responsibility by COVID compliance and coverage for absent staff has been burdensome. I thank him for his untiring efforts to keep us safe and the school staffed.

High Talent

Congratulations to our Senior B team who won the Grand Final of the Friday evening debating competition against Riverview – Mohammad

Medlej (11F), Sarvesh Parthiban (11M), Nicholas Francis (12R) and Shaun Parasher (11S). At this year’s International Mathematical  Modelling Challenge, 94 teams from 26 schools competed. High’s teams performed well. Successful participant – ‘Irrationals’. Honourable Mention – ‘Mathicals’. National Finalist –‘Radiant’. Great job, boys! Congratulations to Praneil Manandhar (10T) who was selected in the combined GPS U16 Representative Team and participated in the CIS Championships this week.

Staffing Changes

Dr Pinnington-Wilson has been seconded to work for the Department for two days per week on Careers and Transition Education. Rather than have a role-sharing arrangement we decided to appoint Mr George Barris as relieving Deputy Principal senior school until the end of 2022 and that Dr Pinnington-Wilson would serve as Deputy Principal Instructional Leadership for three days per week. Her focus will be on aligning programs with the latest CESE research, team-teaching in faculties to enhance literacy through clearer writing for extended responses and assisting staff to embed program changes as a result of responding to data. Certain DP duties will be retained. Mr Barris will provide the day to day DP activities and interact with staff, students and NESA re Stage 6 matters. More specific task allocations will be negotiated next week. Mr Tim Davis-Frank has taken up a permanent appointment at Randwick Boys High. Mr Rian Wiramihardja, our senior school Librarian has taken up an appointment in Qatar. Short term cover arrangements are in place until these positions can be filled.

Interpreting Year 8 Reports Semester 1

All boys should now have their reports. Parents need to know that a few marks up or down near cut-off scores for Distinctions or High Distinctions can make a big difference in their son’s points’ totals. When moving from Year 7 into Year 8 students get their first-choice process – one language or two? As a consequence, some boys do ten subjects as in Year 7 and others, nine. To calculate the boys’ scores, their best 9 subject outcomes are counted (27 points at credit level). So, boys doing more subjects may have an advantage. Conversely, they may be disadvantaged by having more subjects to master. Language choice can affect ranking outcomes. For example, some boys chose Chinese Advanced. Some chose Latin, other chose Latin and Classical Greek. These are demanding subjects. Getting Distinctions in these subjects is harder – fewer students do them, too. Boys not doing two languages have to have their PE results counted.

Sometimes boys in Year 8 start to think about what electives they might do in Year 9 and what the compulsory subjects there are. These future choices might affect their motivation to succeed in some of the compulsory subjects that they are doing currently. Because of the semesterisation of history and geography, students who perform much better in one of these disciplines more than the other can produce big swings in points earned at the half yearly or yearly report. Quite a few boys who have done well in their Yearly Report take their foot off the accelerator and coast through semester one, with effects on their ranking. Often, they get back on track by the time of the Yearly Report again.

In short, there are many reasons for big swings in rank. I think that +/-40 positions of swing means that something has altered. Their biggest issue usually is distraction, due to gaming, social media or other myriad teenage activities. Often, big positive or negative fluctuations are due to changes in learning dispositions: boys listening in class, acting on teacher feedback, being organised and managing their commitments, taking notes, doing homework, accessing past papers and revising before assessment periods. Alternatively, if they stop doing these things, their results may decline. Circumstances in their domestic life may affect their learning concentration or motivation and result in big swings in the rank order also.

The Co-Curricular Supervision Levy

In order for us to run a six-day school with after-hours activities for 15 sports, debating, music ensembles, cadets and chess, we need to provide a teacher/MIC/manager for organisation of the activity and staff to provide supervision of students to meet our duty of care obligations. The DoE does not fund the extra training sessions and competitions on Friday evenings and Saturdays. Some parents are asking: ‘Why should I pay this co-curricular levy when I’m paying quite a lot in co-payments for a sport or activity for a season?' The money raised from the levy is used to pay for the time that supervising teachers/MICs have to spend on the activity. Their duties include but are not limited to hiring and managing coaches; organising teams, booking fixtures and venues; buying and managing equipment; supervising coaches during training sessions; coordinating results recording / publishing; following up on attendance; awarding Student Award Scheme participation points in a text file; getting reports from sports captains; managing assemblies and dinners; as well as travelling and being there for competition fixtures on Friday nights or Saturdays. All these non-teaching duties take time for which personnel must have some compensation, by way of time, money or a combination of both. In 2021 our parents paid $174,502 ($144/student) to support these programs.

In addition, the levy is used to pay for health and safety services and equipment. Physiotherapy services are provided at certain venues and at selected times at school in the winter season to assess injuries to students. Also, an extra allowance is given to the Head Teacher Sport to manage the overall sports program. The levy has to meet the cost of running athletics and swimming programs which are provided free of charge to all students. The levy does not cover the running costs of sports – coaches’ fees, venue hire, equipment, consumables. All these items must be funded through co-payments, parking receipts and school budget allocations.

To clarify why the levy is necessary and should be supported by all parents, I want to share with you the direct costs to the school of management, supervision and duty of care of sport and co-curricular activities. Staff members are remunerated by way of allowances (time free from face-to-face), or the period equivalent in money or a combination of the two. Non-teachers are paid the equivalent of the period allowance that would have been offered to teachers. The employment on costs of >18% are also paid by the school. The cost to the school for these services in 2022 will be $439,987 for sport and $188,020 for co-curricular and wellbeing. As well, we pay a capitation fee of $78k to the AAGPS in order to be a financial member and compete in its competitions. This amounts to $582 per student. Please support the school in its attempt to deliver a plethora of high-quality co-curricular activities by contributing to the Co-Curricular Supervision levy each year.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal