̽»¨ÊÓƵ

High Notes, Vol 25 No 26, August 23 2024

From the Principal

High Talent

Many High boys are celebrating after a strong showing in their winter sports. First grade Football were declared Premiers after an agonising wait for the outcome of another fixture. The win breaks a generational drought for High Football. Our last premiership was in 1995. Congratulations to William Chou (11F), Liam Cowan (12S), Dylan Dutt (11F), Aadi Gupta (11F), Daniel Lee (12E), Lachlan Leung (11E), Praneil Manandhar (c) (12T), James McLoughlin (11R), Aiden McManus (11R), Pradeepan Nadhan (12S), Liam Nottage (11S), Ashwin Rajeswaran (12F), David Sun (11S), Alex Valanidas (12E), Brendan Woo (11E) and Luke Xing (11E). Mr Higgins and his coaching staff have been re-building the football program and this result is a credit to their efforts.

Volleyball first grade earned a hard-fought co-premiership with Scots this year. Since 2003, High first grade teams have been premiers or co-premiers each year except in 2017 – a magnificent record. Well done to Roy Chae (12F), Branson Chan (11F), Karan Dahiya (c.) (12S), Arnav Gupta (12F), Nelson Lee (11R), Owen Li (11S), Athithan Mayuran (10F), Dev Punjabi (12S), Jay Ta (12R), Steven Yin (11E), Jerald Yu (11F) and Andy Zhang (11F). Second grade volleyball were premiers in their competition. Since 2006, High has missed out only twice on securing the premiership at this level. Congratulations to Colin Chen (10M), Aaron Jin (9R), Dash Lam (10R), Frederick Lam (11S), Joseph Lee (11F), Lachlan Lefevre (12E), Xile Xie (12T), David Yoo (10T), Haoran Zhang (12S), Jonathan Zhang (c) (11R), Leo Zhuang (11M).

In Fencing, our season finished very strongly. In U14 Foil SBHS won Gold (1st of 7 teams): Xavier Xie (7T), William Tran (8R), Ian Huang (8T), Rayyan Junaid (8R), Isaac Wong (8E), Keiran Tedjasaputra (8F). In Epee U14: SBHS A Team won Gold (1st of 10 teams): William Huang (8F), Alexander Howe (9M), Daxton Sor (8M) and Bill Han (8T). In Epee U16: SBHS A Team won Gold (1st of 8 teams), Hudson Cai (10M), Daniel Zhu (9R), Ben Wu (10F), Vihaan Rajit (10E). In U19 Epee: SBHS Team won Gold (1st of 7 teams), Xavier Perry (11M), Tommy Xu (11E), Jamison Lai (11E). High retained the Epee Team Premiership Plaque.

Well done to Ryan Allen (10E) who was equal first in Australia in the Australian Geography Competition (54,000 competitors from 600 schools) – an impressive effort! Erratum – Apologies to Oliver Buikema (10F) for omitting his first-place performance in the 16 years High jump at the Regional Athletics carnival.

Book Week August 17-23

Book Week celebrates the importance of reading, stories, libraries and community for learning and inspiration. We need more of our boys to be reading more books, more often. To express ourselves well in stage 6, we need to develop a wide vocabulary to choose the right word for the particular context in which we write or discuss sophisticated ideas. Wide reading in stage 4 helps us build up our vocabulary.

Wear it Purple Day August 30

Next Friday we celebrate Wear it Purple Day. The aim of the day is to celebrate and support diverse young people and to challenge societal attitudes to help shape a fairer, more humane and just society. We have been involved in this celebration since 2010 to demonstrate hope to young rainbow people, to affirm that there are other people who support and accept LGBTIQA+ youth. This year’s theme is ‘your passion, your pride’. It is a rallying cry for young rainbow people to embrace and express their true selves and pursue their dreams.

Young people are encouraged to feel inspired by successful and happy LGBTQIA+ role models. The Department of Education has been rated at silver level in the Australian Workplace Equality Index - the national benchmark for organisational inclusivity. As an organisation, ‘Wear it Purple’ has key focus areas. It acts as a resource for awareness raising through supporting Wear It Purple Days in schools. It provides opportunities for rainbow young people to develop their skills and expand their networks.  It provides supportive and safe spaces, both digital and physical, where young rainbow people can feel proud of who they are. Wear it Purple also collaborates with other organisations to further the inclusion of rainbow young people in society. Next Friday, let us all celebrate how inclusive a fair-minded country like Australia can be.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal