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High Notes, Vol 24 No 17, June 09 2023

From the Principal

High Talent

At the NSW Fencing Association AJ Rae U15 Team Championships in the U15 Epee Team Event our U15 Epee Team A (Hudson Cai (9M), Vihaan Rajit (9E), Benjamin Wu (9F), William Huang (7F) won the Gold, our U15 Epee B Team (Lucas Wang (9R), Daniel Zhu (8R), Luke McLoughlin (8T), Kay Minh Nguyen (8T) won the Silver. In the U15 Foil Team Event our U15 Foil Team A Benjamin Dang (9R), Lyndon Chow (9E), Tom Ye (8T), George Mermelas (9F) won the Silver. In the U15 Sabre Team Event our U15 Sabre Team A (Ethan Li (9F), Nathan Lee (10R), Akith Perera (10E), Oliver Xie (8R) won the Silver. The Roberta Nutt Shield was also presented to our school at the event by Roberta's daughter, Abby Nutt. The shield is awarded to the school with the most cumulative points from the individual fencing competition earlier in the season. Congratulations to all our fencers on their team’s results.

Well done to Henry Lau (11S) on his selection into the NSW All Schools basketball team.  Luka Miletic and his team won the prize (out of 150 students) for the Best Delegate, representing the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the first Australian Harvard Model United Nations.  Well done, Luka.

Interpreting Year 7 Reports – Semester One

Year 7 boys received their reports this week. Parents need to know that with scores for grades – HD (6), D (5), Credit (3) PM (2) P (1) or U (0) – boys are expected to score thirty points or 10 credits equivalent, in order to reach the school standard. Proficiency levels for future-oriented earning skills, such as problem solving and evaluating, critical thinking, working with others, communicating your ideas and being creative and innovative, are also reported. Parents will be able to trace the growth of their son in the five reported skills as he progresses through the Junior School.  These skills are reported in their own textbox and are distributed among the faculties. For more information on PEWCC skills reporting, go to sydneyhigh.school/curriculum/pewcc-reporting and click on Information About School Reports to peruse the skills continuum for each subject. In addition, multiple learning behaviours are reported on a rubric from ‘rarely’ to ‘sometimes’ to ‘usually’ to ‘consistently’. These behaviours are controllable by students and attention to them can improve outcomes over time.

We understand that boys transitioning into Year 7 face many adjustment challenges. Positions in the grade will not be disclosed to Year 7 students for their first two reports. The top group of boys are acknowledged on the Academic Achievement List. Unless special circumstances preclude it, letters are sent to the parents of the boys in the Academic Support Group (those boys with scores of 27 or less). Boys scoring 27 points or less may be offered a special workshop presented by an outside provider; they may be given training to learn how to organise themselves better to complete tasks and submit work punctually; they may just receive an encouraging chat from their Year Adviser; they may be referred to the Counsellor; or they may be referred to an outside agency with their parents on very rare occasions. Some or none of these interventions might be judged appropriate in your son’s case. It is our obligation to let you know of our interventions on behalf of students so that you may accept or decline our help. Unless you contact us we will assume you are OK with us using our professional judgement on actions to assist your son. We want to support any student with wellbeing challenges. We want to help our underachievers using the most effective means possible. Parents are requested to talk over their son’s report with him ahead of booking Parent-Teacher interview time slots. Your son’s Year Adviser can be contacted about options to improve future outcomes.

Proposal to Start and Finish the School Day Earlier

Since the Light Rail opened, afternoon congestion at the Moore Park Station on Monday, Tuesdays and Fridays in particular, has been heavy. Transdev cannot increase tram frequency. There is a rush to get on trains. Students are being jostled and pushed. There was a near miss recently involving one of our students. There is a student safety issue. Out of concern for a possible serious accident occurring, the SBHS staff have voted to commence each day with a warning bell at 0857, with lessons to start at 0900 and conclude at 1510 each day. The change will allow our students to catch one, or possibly two trams before students from SGHS arrive on the platform, given their finishing time is 1520. For the possibility of increased safety for our students, we are asking for Sydney High community support for this change, which we propose to introduce at the commencement of Term 3.

Annual Tax Time Appeal

More and more Australians are thinking about philanthropy, about giving something back to society to help others. Universities and schools are benefitting more than ever before from this growing social conscience. High is a State school trying to provide all the opportunities of an independent school. We succeed because of the goodwill and financial support of our staff, our parents and our alumni. This year at tax time, please make a donation to a SBHS project – preferably to the ̽»¨ÊÓƵ Foundation Building Fund. Our priority project this year is The Governors Centre – Finishing Touches. There are still seats left in the Grab A Seat campaign. Buy a theatre seat in the new theatre to commemorate your son’s time at High. To make a donation and secure your seat go to: . If you would prefer to give to the next project, the Junior Library Air-Conditioning to improve the comfort of all of our Junior School students at a cost of c$80k, make your donation to Sydney Boys High School Building Fund.

If you would like to support your son’s sport directly, you can do so through the Australian Sports Foundation. To fast track a sports donation, go to . You will be prompted to select the type of organisation you want. Pick ‘clubs and organisations’. You will then be prompted ‘type to find a project’. Type in Sydney Boys High School. Scroll down to select from any one of the 18 projects High has on the site.’ You will have options to pay by credit card or electronic funds transfer. The account name is Australian Sports Foundation Donations. BSB: 032-776 Ac No 1310159. Your Reference will be in the form of DON+ a unique number. Giving to public causes makes you feel good at tax time, too. Giving has a bi-directional benefit.

Sentence Conscious Pedagogy: Elements of a Paragraph

A paragraph is a group of sentences that includes details supporting a specific point or assertion.

• Structure - ensures clarity.
• Coherence - ensures sentences are logically connected with transition words.
• Unity - ensures every sentence supports the main idea of the paragraph.
• Accuracy - ensures the sentences are grammatically correct and clear and their types and structures should vary.

eg. Having unsuccessfully pursued a course of action, it is often necessary to start all over again [topic sentence - TS]. Such reversion is remindful of some board games, like Snakes and Ladders, in which by an unlucky cast of the dice, a player is forced to return to the beginning. The player has to move the piece ’back to square one’. The analogy to the game fitted the description of a like situation in life well. [concluding sentence - CS]
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal