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High Notes, Vol 25 No 30, September 20 2024

From the Principal

Debating Season Wrap

Our GPS first debating team – Vishruth Anand (12M), Liam Nottage (11S), Luka Miletic (12R) and Partrick Nguyen (12T) – won the GPS Premiership and 12-months possession of the Louat Shield. This is the 19th High victory since 1920 in this prestigious competition. In the overall GPS debating season, High earned the number one ranking, after strong premiership wins by our 9A and 8A teams and a co-premiership in GPS Thirds. Vishhruth and Liam were selected in the CHS Firsts team. Congratulations to MIC Viv Paul, the coaches, the teams and the parents who supported the program.

Year 9 NAPLAN results

Numeracy – 2024 target 78% scoring >/= 700. 2024 result 89%

Reading – 2024 target 82% scoring >/= 650. 2024 result 80%

Writing – 2024 target 53% scoring >/= 650 2024 result 68%

We are making steady progress, but we need to push our writing up closer to the level of the other results. We are bedding down strategies in sentence conscious pedagogy to assist in this endeavour. Regular spelling tests are being conducted in classes. We are teaching how to build paragraphs. Teachers are focusing on how texts are composed as well as the content of the writing.

Athletics Assembly

Our guest, Mr Bruce, recounted his switch of sports from a rugby background around age 15 to weightlifting. He told us about his 10-year journey since then, including a Commonwealth Games silver medal and a 10th at the Olympics in weightlifting in Paris. He mentioned his highs and lows and how he needed all his resilience to stay focused after injuries. He urged the boys to stay focused on their goals in sport and academics and to never give up. My speech to the assembly is printed below.

"Special guest, Paris Olympian Mr Kyle Bruce, Staff, parents, coaches, selected GPS athletics representatives and students, good morning and welcome to our annual athletics assembly. I acknowledge this morning the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the land and waterways on which we meet and pay my respects to elders past and present and extend that respect to any First Nations people here today. We are assembled together again today to celebrate our athletics season, extended this year by some additional Tuesday morning train-on sessions in the off season. Our purpose is to honour our teams who will compete in our name on Saturday at the GPS Carnival.’

"The school’s special thanks are extended to Athletics MIC Mr Kurt Rich who has built up our athletics program, impressively particularly over the last few seasons. Thank you also to Natalie Luu who attends and monitors the team at the Invitational carnivals each Saturday of the season. Kurt is assisted on the track by our ubiquitous Head Coach - Neil Song (SHS-2015); for Sprints by Justin Nonis (SHS-2021), Joshua Tassell (SHS 2010) and Liam Scolari; for Hurdles by Jason Huo (SHS-2017) and Kaden Kuang; for distance events by Ren-Shyan Balnave, Daniel Ma (SHS-2018) and Max Russell (SHS-2023). Our field coaches include, for Shot Put – Jack Bowditch and Oscar Greville (SHS-2023); for Long Jump – Davina Strauss and Hikun Nguyen; and for High Jump by Alex Rieger and Ross Zhou (SHS-2023). Rehabilitation for athletes is managed by Nelson Cheng.

"Congratulations to all our competitors in the Combined High Schools Athletics carnival held last week in blustery and difficult conditions. Our U16s 4x100m relay team won gold in a school record time of 44.07. Shawn Handoko won a silver in the U13s 90m hurdles, as did James McLoughlin in the U16s 100m hurdles. Dylan Dutt scored a bronze in the 17+ 200m. The team is primed for a good meet next Saturday.

"In track and field at the recent Paris Olympics, Australia won seven medals, but only one gold, by Nina Kennedy in the pole vault. Our Australian men contributed two bronze medals in the discus and the mixed marathon walk. Athletics for boys and men need greater grass roots funding and a higher profile in our society before our international results will improve. Let us hope that the great media coverage of the Olympics and Para Olympics inspires more boys to take up the sport seriously.

"At High, we run our athletics program free of co-payments because we want to encourage fitness, strength and energetic participation in our student population. Athletic competence is the basis of every sport. We want to encourage and support athletics in any way that we can. I want to congratulate the athletes who have been chosen in our team for the GPS carnival championship and those in division events. You have earned your places by showing dedication and integrity by turning up to train, meeting your commitments and competing in the lead-up carnivals. I wish you the best of luck on Saturday."
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal