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High Notes, Vol 23 No 36, November 18 2022

From the Principal

High Talent

Congratulations to our Sydney East Blues recipients – Edward Ly 11M (Volleyball), Maxime Jalbert-Locke 12S and Nelson Cheng 12T (Rowing), and Max Russell 11T (Athletics and Cross Country). For his double sports Blue, Max was also awarded the Premier’s Sporting Challenge Scholarship for Sydney East of $500. These students were honoured at a regional level for their sporting accomplishments this year. Vishruth Anand (10M) was selected to compete for Sydney Region in the PDC Junior State Debating Championships. Well done, Vishruth!  Thank you Joshua Kuo (7R) for your community service work during term 3 and the school holidays for ‘Kids Giving Back’. This charitable organisation provides hands-on, age-appropriate volunteering opportunities for young people. Joshua helped to prepare hot meals, breakfast boxes and snacks for the homeless.

Interpreting Year 7 Reports Semester 2

In Year 7, we do not provide ranks to students. We have an Academic Achievement List for high-performing students and a Student Monitoring Register for students performing below expected standards. We try to let students settle in and find their feet before making too many outcomes’ comparisons. Our benchmark is 10 credits or thirty points. A student’s profile of learning behaviours is important to us. We collate teachers’ ratings. A high proportion of ‘consistently’ (c) ‘or ‘usually’ (u) ratings, indicates a student is adjusting well to the demands of multiple subjects (10 in Year 7).

We ask also, that you check your son’s progress in future-oriented earning skills – problem solving, evaluating, working with others, communicating ideas, creating and innovating (PEWCC). Some of these are reported each year in their own text box on the school reports. Faculties have an opportunity to report at least twice on one or more of the five ‘earning skills’ during the six reporting periods during Years 7-9.  These skills will be needed in jobs of the future. You can understand more deeply about how your son is building his capacity in the discrete dispositions that we have targeted for development as a school. The idea is that you can track your son’s growth over his three years in the Junior School. These PEWCC skills are very contextual. Hypothetically, your son might be really good at ‘working with others in English’ where he is confident and comfortable, but not so effective in mathematics where he is weaker, is reticent or defers to the strongest mathematician in the work group. Consequently, skill growth might not be a simple progression from 1 in Year 7 to 3, 4 or 5 in Year 9 (depending on the scale in the rubric for each subject). Your son’s progress might be uniform neither across the subjects, nor across the dispositions.  We are reporting on growth in individual dispositions by comparing where a student was on the scale in Year 7 and then again in Year 9 in the same subject context.  A similar comparison may be made between measures reported in Year 8 and then again in Year 10.  I look forward to an informed dialogue between parents and teachers on the individual student’s development of these important life skills.  Go to our website at then to ‘Sydney High Community’ then to ‘Curriculum/PEWCC Reporting’ for a full list of skill descriptors. Our challenge is to develop effective assessment tasks at all levels, in order to describe more accurately where your son stands in his development of these important life skills.

In Semester 2, some students choose not to put much effort into one of the languages they do not intend to pursue in Year 8. While this is regrettable, it is also understandable. As History and Geography are semesterised, a student might be stronger or weaker in either of these subjects in second semester. The consequence can be that overall achievement level, as measured by our points system, might decline or improve. Students have their second opportunity to choose a subject when they decide on their language/s for next year. Will they do one language or two? What are the commitments if they take offline classes?  Will their other activities be affected?  Please discuss language choices for Year 8 with your sons.

Orientation Day 2022

Thank you to Sharon Kearns and her staff, teachers, school prefects, students, and parent volunteers who worked so well together to make the orientation / enrolment process as smooth and efficient as possible. The enrolment processes were completed very quickly thanks to the thoughtful organisation and hard work of the SAS staff. They processed 217 new students in a five-hour window. Thank you also to our ICT staff for their troubleshooting efforts with wireless technology. Many new students and their parents were shown around the school by School Prefects. These boys also did a wonderful job assisting the SAS staff in the Great Hall as they processed applications. Volunteers who attended the various activity stalls provided an atmosphere of active, happy achievement, as did the parents who gave up their time. Thank you also to the P & C for providing refreshments and information for incoming parents. Thank you to all the people involved in setting up the stalls and serving in them for the morning. Everyone made sure our new students and parents felt welcomed to our school. Thank you to all involved.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal