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High Notes, Vol 23 No 25, August 19 2022

From the Principal

High Talent

Firstly, congratulations to the 1st and 2nd volleyball teams who both won their respective GPS premierships for 2022 last weekend. Well done to the boys and their coaching team for yet another successful season of Sydney High volleyball!

In other sporting news, the 15 years basketball team have also had a successful week, continuing their undefeated run last Monday across in the CHS Sydney East tournament competition. Congratulations boys and we’ll be cheering you on in the next rounds!

Another success story this week is Joseph Britton (10S) being accepted into the NSW State Drama Ensemble. He will be participating in school holidays workshops and rehearsals for upcoming performances with the ensemble in late October. We look forward to seeing Joseph’s ongoing development in the dramatic arts!

Parent-Teacher survey results

Earlier in the week the school analysed survey results on the use of Zoom for parent-teacher nights. The results clearly indicated that both parents (57.5%) and staff (67.6%) prefer the use of Zoom over face-to-face meetings due to the ease of use, clearer communication than previous interview methods and the convenience of flexible locations for online meetings. With a large number of responses also indicating no preference between Zoom or face-to-face, the school will be continuing with online parent-teacher nights in 2023.

I’d like to thank all those who responded with feedback in these surveys. The comments provided by both parents and staff were also highly valuable to assist in our planning, including remarks on the benefit of face-to-face contact for parents to get to know the teachers better. We will endeavour to refine our processes to ensure that we can best meet the needs of everyone in the school community.

NAPLAN Results

NAPLAN results have recently been released for schools to analyse and plan for student learning. On Tuesday, our Relieving Head Teacher Teaching and Learning, Ms Natalie Luu, led a planning session with our faculty Strategic Improvement Plan (SIP) Leads relating to the Year 7 and 9 NAPLAN results. All faculties discussed the results and determined how we can best support students in grammar and punctuation, reading, spelling and numeracy within their own learning areas.

Writing results analysis is currently underway to examine our next steps to support students in their writing skills. I’d like to thank the work of Ms Luu, the SIP Leads and all the teaching staff involved in developing and implementing strategies to support the boys’ growth in literacy and numeracy.

On an individual level, the school will be providing additional support for students with identified specific literacy and numeracy needs observed in the NAPLAN tests. By developing these skills in the early years of high school, we intend to give every student confidence and capability in these areas for their future studies. Hard copies of individual student NAPLAN results will be sent to our school at the end of this month for distribution to parents. These will be provided to the Year 7 and 9 students in the coming weeks to take home. Stay tuned for when this will occur in future High Notes.

Memorial for Mr Bob Outterside AO

At 4:30pm on Wednesday 31st August, a memorial service will be held in the Great Hall for Bob Outterside, ex-Principal of Sydney High. We welcome members of our school community to attend as we celebrate Bob’s life and the significant impact he had on so many over his incredible life.
Jamie Kay
Relieving Principal