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High Notes, Vol 25 No 14, May 17 2024

From the Principal

High Talent

Leon Lu (9F) participated in the 2023-2024 VEX IQ World Championship as the member of 7998B team, representing Australia in Dallas, Texas. The team secured the Teamwork 2nd place at the Design Division of middle school. Leon is a driving force in this successful team. Well done, Leon! Congratulations to our CHS rugby representatives for Sydney East Zone. Harry Xin (12E), Daniel Bian (12E), Joseph Britton (12S), Naeer Nibras (11E) and Kalan Cusick (11T) attended the CHS Opens Rugby carnival at Bathurst this week. Well done to our fencers at the Roberta Nutt Competition last Saturday. Gold medals were won by: Xavier Xie 7T (U14 Men’s Foil);Benjamin Dang 10R U16 Men’s Foil; Xavier Perry 11M (U16 Men’s Epée) and Daniel Iliffe (12R) (U16Men’s sabre). Our boys are doing well in all three weapons categories!

Sydney Boys High School’s Annual Report 2023

The Annual Report for Sydney Boys High School has been signed off and published. It is available on our website for perusal or download at sydneyhigh.school/publications/annual-report. I commend the document to you as a snapshot of what our school has been achieving. Also, under publications on our website is issue 13 of our bi-annual magazine Flying Higher. Our school prides itself on its lines of communication with its community. If you have any feedback that you would like to share with me about these publications, please email me at - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Pause on capital works programs in schools

The Department of Education called a pause on capital works, funded out of 6101 appropriation or from community raised funds 6300. The Department has withdrawn funds for both the Table Tennis Project and the Grounds Upgrade – asphalting of additional parking spaces. I am not in a position to know when these projects will get approved to go ahead. I apologise that the works I planned and had approved will not be completed on schedule. I will provide an update once the position is clearer next term.

Interpreting Semester 1 Year 12 Reports

All Year 12 students should have their reports. For the first time during their high school life, the students have an ATAR calculation based on their best ten units. However, not all parts of their courses have been examined at this time. The full examination doesn’t happen until the Trial HSC in August. A limited number of topics have been completed in the HSC courses so far this year. Any predictions about overall success in a course must be cautious. Despite these limitations, the May report is extremely important as a yard stick for possible HSC performance. Every year I would love to be proved wrong. Every year I would be glad to applaud students who do much better than their ATAR prediction derived from their April performances. Inevitably, if nothing changes in the students approach to study and revision, the predictions will be more or less accurate, assuming our quantum and spread of marks earned this year are similar to those earned in last year’s HSC.

The first report in Year 12 is often a wakeup call for boys who have been coasting. Students ought to take advantage of practice tasks, opportunities for re-writes or early submission of drafts of essays to receive very useful feedback prior to submission of their work. Students should be re-visiting their personal growth goals to see whether they are on track or have fallen behind their own expectations in each course. Lunchtime workshops are also offered for some courses. Individual Faculties also provide targeted coaching for students with weaknesses in the period up until the HSC Trial examination. Students with their backs to the wall start to listen when we talk to them about study routines, life balance and focus. I hope parents will support us once again this year by impressing upon their sons how important it is from now on to get themselves organised, stick to a study routine and find the time each week to work hard. It is equally important to maintain co-curricular activities and to sleep well.

Closer Reading: What am I reading?

A fantasy is any work in which imagination is given full rein to create life as it never could be, breaking away from experienced reality. Fantasy exists for its own delicacy and charm, but sometimes is a protest against a rationalist view of life or an escape from the harshness of living. Fairy literature is an example of fantasy (Peter Pan, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wind in the Willows, even Brave New World or Disney cartoons). A farce, on the other hand, is generally in the form of a play, replete with ludicrous situations, clowning, practical jokes, improbabilities, and exaggerations. It employs broad humour in plot and situation, relying on exaggeration to excite laughter. Famous examples of farce include Comedy of Errors and Charley’s Aunt. A burlesque derives its humour from an exaggeration of other more serious work. A person’s actions may be burlesqued, their features caricatured and their words, parodied. A burlesque holds up persons and institutions to ridicule.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal