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High Notes, Vol 23 No 29, September 16 2022

From the Principal

High Talent

At the All-Schools Basketball tournament the Association winners played off against each other. As CHS winners, High was invited to play against the winners of GPS, CAS and CCC. Our boys won through to the final but were outlasted by Newington College. Congratulations to our team for a great finish to the season and to MIC Ben Hayman and coach Marquis Navarre.

Debating Dinner

It was a pleasure to be invited to the debating and public speaking dinner last Saturday evening to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of our debating and public speaking programs headed up by MICs Ms Rigby & Ms Pride. It was great to be back in the Great Hall at a celebratory dinner. It will take time to build back this culture of end of season communal bonding events where parents can mingle and students can celebrate in the company of their like-minded peers. It is a nice way to thank all the coaches in the program, too.

Athletics Assembly

My speech to the athletics assembly is reprinted below:

"Staff, parents, students, coaches and selected GPS athletics representatives, good morning and welcome to our annual athletics assembly. I acknowledge this morning the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the custodians of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to elders past and present and extend that respect to any First Nations people here today. We should also acknowledge the passing of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8. Australia is in a 10-day period of mourning for our devoted and much loved monarch. Her state funeral will be held on Monday September 19 and our Prime Minister has declared a national public holiday on September 22 to honour the extraordinary life of our longest reigning Head of State. The formalities of constitutional change were televised for the first time as Charles III was proclaimed king. Today the King and Queen Consort will appear at Westminster Hall where members of both Houses of Parliament will express their condolences. They will then fly to Edinburgh and attend the Palace of Holyrood house where the Queen’s coffin is in state. They will follow her coffin on foot to St Giles Cathedral where a service of reflection will be held and where the Queen will lie in state for Scottish mourners to pay their respects.

"We are assembled together today to celebrate our intensive athletics season, which culminates in the GPS Carnival to be held on Saturday. Our athletes are special because they are making extra sacrifices to compete in athletics as well as in a summer sport. They are dedicated to the team and to earning points by competing in events – whether at championship or Division level – to help our overall standing in the competition. They are courageous to compete in front of a very large crowd, even when they have no real prospect of gaining a podium finish in their event. They show compassion for their teammates who try and fail or who are injured. They model integrity by sticking to their training and meeting their competition commitments. They respect their opponents and each other in their events. Our boys need your support to cheer them on to give that extra few percent that makes the difference in gaining one place better or not.

"On behalf of the staff and students, I want to thank Kurt Rich again for his capable, long-term leadership of our program as MIC of athletics. Thank you to Natalie Luu and Elly Harcourt for assisting with supervision. Kurt’s team contains ten Old Boy coaches who relate closely to our boys and inspire them with their passion for athletics and for the school. Fitness gained through athletics helps in most other sports. Thanks to all our coaches. For 100-400m - Joshua Tassell (SHS-2010), Neil Song (SHS-2015), Justin Nonis (SHS-2021) and Liam Scolari. For 800m-3000m – Daniel Ma (SHS-2018), Felix Cao (SHS-2020) and Adam Booth (SHS-2012). For Hurdles - Jason Huo (SHS-2017). For Shot put - Jerry Gek (SHS-2016) and Jack Bowditch. Thank you also to Davina Strauss, our long-term coach for long jump and Ray Gu (SHS-2017) who assists. For high jump this year we have Raghav Ramanathan (SHS-2019) and current School Captain Joshua Suto (12S). Thank you to everybody in the athletics program for working so hard to raise the standard of athletics performance at High.

"The Commonwealth Games have been held each quadrennial since 1930, with the exception of 1942 and 1946 due to World War 2. Athletes with a disability have been included as full members of their national teams since National teams since 2002, making the Commonwealth Games the first truly inclusive international games. In 2018 gender equity was achieved with an equal number of medal events for men and women.  Australia has participated in every Commonwealth Games, topping the medal count on 13 occasions, the latest being recently in Birmingham with 178 medals, including 67 gold. The Commonwealth Games allows emerging world class athletes to compete at a level below the Olympic Games and World championships. It brings together the countries of the Commonwealth in friendly rivalry at a high level.

"Despite our great success overall, Australia still struggles to win often in track and field events at this level. In Birmingham, Australian men earned 4 gold, two silver and two bronze. In the T38 100m Evan O’Hanlon won gold, as did Matthew Denny in discus, Kurtis Marschall in pole vault and Oliver Hoare in the 1500m. Brandon Starc (high jump) went close, as did young Peter Bol in the 400 metres. Australia lacks a large population, necessary to produce enough able competitors statistically. It has facilities and centres of excellence like the AIS and Little Athletics at the grass roots. Generally, the weather is comparatively mild. We suffer from the distance our athletes need to travel to gain strong international competition on a regular basis. We do not have enough coaches who themselves have been successful at an international level. The sport does not generate the media attention, nor draw large crowds the way that cricket, swimming and the football codes do. Australian athletics needs more funding and a higher profile to attract more athletes.

"At High, we run the athletics program free of co-payments because we want to encourage fitness and energy in our student population. Athletic competence is at the base of every sport. We want to encourage and support athletics in any way that we can. I want to congratulate the athletes who have been chosen for the GPS carnival championship and division places in our team. You have earned your places by showing dedication and integrity by turning up to train, meeting your commitments and competing in the lead-up carnivals. I wish you the best of luck on the big day."
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal