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High Notes, Vol 25 No 20, June 28 2024

From the Principal

High Talent

Firstly, congratulations to the UNSW ProgComp team consisting of Andrew Pye (11R), Archie Wijaya (11F) and Andrew Chen (11F) who placed third nationally out of two hundred and ten teams, an outstanding achievement! They will be competing in the Grand Final at the UNSW Open Day later this year. We wish them good luck in the event. Meanwhile Joshua Li (10S) achieved a Prize in the Computational and Algorithmic Thinking Competition. Well done Joshua!

Annual trips to Armidale and Music Camp

Last weekend 213 boys represented the school on the annual trip to Armidale. From what I’ve heard, the atmosphere was very positive and exciting, with everyone enjoying the clear and significantly balmier conditions than our previous experiences up north. These experiences are fantastic for the boys due to the bonds formed, as well as being great for the boys’ personal growth.

This week we’ve seen 300 boys heading down south for the annual music camp, this year at Stanwell Tops. This was followed by the Music Camp Concert on their return Thursday evening. Seeing what the boys can perform after a few days working extensively on their musical pieces is always a pleasure. Well done to all those involved. It’s always a pleasure to watch our music ensembles and I encourage our school community to attend these whenever possible.

I’d like to also thank all the staff who have attended these two camps, giving up their weekends and evenings. We could not run these without the dedicated staff in our school. So, on behalf of our school community, thank you for your time and effort!

Year 11 Reports

This week I continued to distribute the boys’ reports, meeting with Year 11 students to discuss how they’ve found the transition into Year 11. Understandably, many of the boys found the jump in workload a challenge at first but the majority have found more effective ways to manage their time in the early months of the year.

Each of the boys were provided with an ATAR estimate in their meetings with me. This estimate is calculated using the raw marks for each of their 12 units of courses and scaling them based on the previous year’s HSC results. The boys should use the feedback on their report to start considering their intentions for study in the HSC. This includes whether or not to pick up, or continue with, extension courses. A number of boys also have a course that is significantly weaker than their others, in many cases indicating a lack of engagement through their learning behaviours. These students are encouraged to apply themselves for the remainder of the Preliminary course to see what their best effort will lead to before deciding to drop any subjects.

High Spirit Survey

Last week our School Culture team began to analyse the High Spirit survey results. 426 students responded to the survey, with an even spread of responses across Years 7-12. The data indicated that 70% of boys believe that attending events such as Head of the River and GPS Swimming Carnival increase High Spirit and 70% of boys said that their High Spirit increased since they started at the school. A further 20% remained unchanged since they started, with some of those responders commenting that you can’t get any higher than what they already had coming to the school. It’s great to have such strong baseline data for us to work with as we look to continue enhancing our school culture in the years ahead.

As part of the survey, there was also an extensive range of suggestions the boys made on how we can improve our school. A large number of these suggestions were excellent, and often creative, solutions and many of these are being considered for the future. Announcements regarding these will be made in the coming months.

Student Self-Assessment

On a final note, to enhance the quality of their work, I encourage all students to utilise self-assessment as a tool for their own improvement. Accurate self-evaluation from reflection is a critical life skill that they can enhance through their studies. The boys can use the marking criteria for tasks, including any past papers they are provided with, to evaluate how they performed. This could be in their application of content, structure of the response, use of sophisticated language or many other aspects that each course prioritises for student success. By looking at exemplars the teachers provide, the boys can gain further understanding of what success looks like and utilise this in future tasks.
Jamie Kay
Relieving Principal