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High Notes, Vol 24 No 9, March 31 2023

From the Principal

High Talent

Congratulations to Mr Ormsby, the Community Services Committee and assisting staff for their efforts in raising $17.2k for the Leukaemia Foundation at the World’s Greatest Shave event held recently.

Head of the River Results

It was great to be a part of the vocal High crowd at the Head of the River regatta last Saturday. There was plenty of drumming, flag waving, chanting and cheering as our five crews toughed it out over 2000m at SIRC. The best row of the day came from the Year 10 first VIII who rowed winner’s time +10.93%, the best row by a Year 10 VIII since 2018. Next best was the first VIII at winner’s time +13.43%. The crew was severely hampered by wash from multiple chase boats hitting forward of their beam and disrupting the run of the boat and their technique. They lost a minimum of 10 seconds over the course as a result of the wash effects. The second VIII pushed themselves to winner’s time + 14.71%. The second Year 10 VIII held on to complete the course in winner’s time +18.94%, while the valiant first IV soldiered on to finish at winner’s time +20.27%. Thank you and well done to all crews and coaches for your efforts this season! Thank you to the Rowing Committee for the wonderful catering under the marquee, our students for their commitment and respectful behaviour and for such great staff support on the day. High spirit is back!

Year 7 Progress Reports

Year 7 parents should ask their sons to see their Interim Report for each subject. The reports will be distributed by each Faculty on Monday, April 3. The idea of the report is to let parents know how well their boys are adjusting to school life and the workload involved for each subject. Also, having so many teachers is a fundamental change for students used to having one only for most of every day. The emphasis is on socialisation and how boys are coping with the work. Their ability to get organised and meet their commitments is being assessed also. The Interim Reports are dispositional, and socio-emotional in content, rather than academic reports. Faculties have agreed on a standard Interim Report for 2023.  They will report on 1-2 learning outcomes (e.g well developed-developed-developing) and 3 learning behaviours with the same rubric. Talk to your son about how he is responding to the teaching in the various subjects in each of his subjects and about how he is adjusting to high school life. Has he a friendship group? Is he involved in co-curricular activities?

Harassment or Bullying

Students and their parents should be aware that the school has a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on homophobic harassment, sexist or racist utterances, bullying or teasing behaviours. At High we are proudly anti-discriminatory. Quite some time ago our Anti-Bullying team developed a solid policy on what victims, ‘upstanders’ and teachers can do to combat bullying and reduce bullying behaviours in our school. There is a quick reference guide - ‘Responding to bullying at Sydney Boys High’ - posted in every classroom. No individual, student, staff member or visitor should be discriminated against by virtue of their sexual identity, race, religion, philosophical or political views or cultural customs. We promote ourselves as being inclusive and must put our actions where our words are. Students who discriminate against others, verbally, physically, in writing, on social media, or online, can expect strong negative consequences. (As part of our student behaviour strategy, we are in the process of revising our policy. Parental input is welcome.) Any defence based on the idea that teenage discourse customarily encompasses the use of homophobic language to the extent that it has lost its original meaning, will be disregarded. The essence of the problem is in the use in discourse of discriminatory words or phrases and multiple perpetrators repeating them.

Perpetrators and victims will engage in a restorative mediation process called ‘The Method of Shared Concern’. ‘Upstanders’ will be acknowledged by the Deputy Principal, Junior School. Well-reasoned argument, measured discourse and healthy debate are good for organisations. However, there is no place for harassment, discriminatory comments or racial, sexual or religious denigration, slurs, taunts or innuendoes. It starts with the way we speak – our tone and choice of words. ‘A word spoken or a stone thrown, can never be recalled’. Let us all be more respectful towards one another!

Unauthorised Parking on School Grounds

We occasionally have a number of vehicles parked without permission on our school grounds, in some cases for multiple days. We all need to be vigilant – staff, parents and students – when driving, parking or walking through our car parks. Please report to the school office or inform a Deputy Principal if you see someone getting out of a car and then exiting the site. Staff members have been issued with a circular parking sticker for their windscreens. Commuters can save a considerable amount of money by avoiding paying for a car space in the city. Sometimes people working in our immediate vicinity try to use our grounds as their car space. Car spaces for staff and visiting parents are already at a premium without the burden of freeloading commuters making things worse. Let’s be alert together to report strange vehicles on our site!

Sentence Conscious Pedagogy: Clauses

A clause is a group of words in a sentence that contains a subject and a verb. An independent (main or principal) clause represents a complete thought and could stand alone as a sentence. A dependent (subordinate clause) does not express a complete thought and could not stand alone as a complete sentence. Subordinating conjunctions are found at the beginning of subordinate clauses. E.g. because, but, so, before, after, if, when. E.g. Because I was repeatedly late for school without an adequate explanation [S], I was placed on morning detention [P].
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal