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High Notes, Vol 24 No 36, November 17 2023

From the Principal

High Talent

This week Mr Barris represented High at the Sydney East Blues presentation evening. Congratulations to Jack Wang, Jacob Yin and Ren Shyan-Balnave for their well-earned Sydney East Blues. Congratulations to our Year 9 Ethics Olympiad team which earned a silver medal in the competition and were invited to compete in the International Final to be held in February next year. The team comprises – Jude Ou (9R), Tristan Cheung (9R), Balhar Athwal (9M), and Mohammad Rachid (9M). Thank you to Ms Eggleton for her mentoring of the Ethics Olympiad teams. At the Youth Photographic Award and Short Film Prize 2023, Justin Huynh (SHS-2023) won first prize and $300, while Dimitri Tsovolos (10T), Kalan Cusick (10T), Branavan Prabaharan (10R) and James Cao (10T) shared $200 for their Highly commended short film Beyond.

Outdoor Education Program

It is a strong expectation of our school that all students attend the outdoor education program in Years 7 - 9. We see the camps as important socialising and independence - building experiences in the personal enlargement of our students. I urge all boys to attend to learn life lessons and mature as persons by attending these camps.

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 10 (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 community website at 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. They are perfectly free to choose just one language in Year 8 if they wish.

Orientation Day

Thank you to our SASS team, Grounds staff, IT team, MICs, Prefects, student helpers and P & C volunteers for all their work in running a very successful Enrolment/ Orientation Day this week. Queueing was kept to a minimum and with ten processing stations operating from 0800, over 200 enrolment procedures were completed by 1230. Luckily, the day was sunny and our many visitors could enjoy refreshments at the P & C morning tea stand or stroll among the stalls and exhibits in the courtyard. Thank you to everyone involved in this major undertaking, operating in parallel with a normal school day.

Sentence Conscious Pedagogy:
Develop a Thesis Statement and a Concluding Paragraph

The thesis statement should present the main points of the composition sequentially. Types of thesis statements: a personal judgement, advice or directions, a statement of consequences (cause and effect), an argument for or against an issue, an interpretation, compare and contrast. The concluding paragraph should contain its key points. The concluding paragraph should summarise, offer a solution or recommendation, pose a question, justify a position, present a point of view. Eg Provide students with some sample thesis statements and have them practise rephrasing them. Provide a list of synonyms, eg. used effect in introduction, use impact or result in conclusion. Convert an introductory statement to a concluding one by using a transition word eg, ‘in conclusion’ or ‘clearly’.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal