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High Notes, Vol 25 No 31, September 27 2024

From the Principal

End of Term 3

Thank you to everyone for all your efforts towards making this term a productive learning and teaching experience for our students and staff. Students were rewarded with success in many areas of school life. We hope that our Year 12 students are well prepared for the examination period to come. As Year 11 complete their Preliminary Course this week, we look forward to them beginning their HSC courses in Term 4. We have important works scheduled for the next few weeks after considerable delays. The School is moving forward and with your support and encouragement, our all-round achievements will continue.

Congratulations Year 12!

In their final few days of school, our current cohort of students displayed the most maturity, positivity, mutual support and respect of any of the 25 cohorts with whom I have interacted at High. Their Farewell Assembly was a pleasure to attend. I was proud of their behaviour during this time, respecting our school grounds, property, fellow students and staff, while having fun off site. I hope this group will set the new benchmark and serve as a model for future purposeful, friendly and dignified final days of school at High.

Parents, Have Your Say

A reminder to parents to please take ten minutes of your time to let us know how you feel about how the school operates and how well it meets your son’s needs.

The AAGPS Athletics Carnival

Highlights from last Saturday’s carnival were headed by Dylan Dutt’s U17 400m last stride championship win, following a second in the 200m. Alex Ruhfus came back strongly from injury to win the U15 100m championship. James McLoughlin won the 110m hurdles U17s and Lachlan Leung won the U16s long jump. Notable Division wins were posted by Tim Chen in the U15 100m, with third in the 200m and Nicolas Fung who won the U16 110m hurdles. Strong contributions came from Shawn Handoko in U13s 100m (2nd) and 90m hurdles (3rd), as well as from Mekaeel Khan with seconds in the U14 long jump and 100m Division. Our big effort was to finish 3rd overall in the Intermediate Championship – a great team performance! Our Juniors finished 6th with an 8th place from our senior group. Thank you to Kurt Rich and his staff for supporting our team so well. Well done to those boys who attended as spectators and my thanks go to the supervising staff who gave up their Saturdays.

Year 12 Farewell and Graduation Assembly 2024

For interested students and parents not in attendance, my speech to the class of 2024 is reprinted below.

"Good afternoon Year 12, staff and parents. Welcome to our Farewell and Graduation Assembly for the Class of 2024. I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation on whose country we meet and pay my respects to elders, past, present and emerging. They represent the aspirations and spiritual connections of the traditional custodians to this land and waterways. One hundred and sixty-five of you are completing your six-year journey at High. There have been highs (such as three GPS Premierships this Winter, the Louat Shield for debating, three national teams’ titles in fencing and retaining the GPS Chess Trophy and winning the Terrey Shaw Shield); and lows -(the COVID years of 2020-21 which really impacted boys getting started well at High).

"As I observe in my Principal’s Message printed in the Year 12 Farewell Booklet, which you have received today, the student senior leaders tried hard to bring back the High culture. Also in that document, recognition of a selection of notable results by Year 12 students is included as a memento of the achievements of the Class of 2024.

"To that list we add our Year 12s for first Football –premiers: Daniel Lee, Praneil Manandhar (c.), Pradeepan Nadhan, Ashwin Rajeswaran and Alex Valanidas. For first grade Volleyball - co-premiers: Roy Chae, Karan Dahiya (c.), Arnav Gupta, Dev Punjabi and Jay Ta. For second grade Volleyball - premiers: Lachlan Lefevre, Xile Xie and Haoran Zhang. Toby Huey represented in our GPS and Terrey Shaw Shield chess wins. Congratulations to our Year 12 debaters who won the Louat Shield – a major trophy sought after by GPS schools since 1920 - Vishruth Anand, Luka Miletic and Patrick Nguyen.

"My thanks go to our Student Leaders in all areas of school life for their dedication in rebuilding our school culture – Prefects, SRC, Community Service, PAWS, Equality, Social Justice, Environment, Captains of Sports Teams and Co-curricular Leaders. Thank you to the school leaders who had input into the ‘rally round’ theme – dodgeball, push up challenge, bearpit podcast or the Student Handbook.

"I want to recognise and honour the nine scholar-sportsmen who competed in two seasons of GPS Saturday sport and earned 99.5 ATAR or higher in the Trial HSC. Leon, Brian, Ethan, Christopher, Oscar, Patrick, Samuel, James and Mohammad will be presented prizes at Presentation Night next year. Fourteen students competed in three sports. Ashwin Rajeswaran was a ‘triple first’. ‘Double firsts’ this year were Daniel Bian, Joseph Britton, Brian Cho, Fynn Hopkins, Dean Johnsun, Christopher Lau, Michael Li, Luc Tran, Harry Xin and Jacob Yin. In the ‘One-Two Club’ were Brian Ahn, Roy Chae, Landon Jarvis, Garry Liu, David Kim, Nathan Nguyen, Harry Royal, Leon Shen, Jay Ta, Joshua Tang and Aiden Wong. I want to thank the 81 Year 12 boys who showed pride in their school and represented High in at least two GPS sports in their last year. Another 72 played one sport. So, 79% of the cohort showed their dedication to our scholar-sportsman ethos in their last year at school. A strong number of 26 boys played at least two GPS sports for six years despite the COVID shut down. I applaud our graduating Year group for their dedication to our ethos. The level of ongoing Year 12 commitment affirms that our students value our ethos of scholarship and participation in school sport. Thank you to all the MICs, coaches and parents who helped in our sporting programs.

"In my Farewell Message in your Booklet, I addressed the vital characteristic of resilience. I want to expand a little on that theme today. To strengthen resilience, one needs to develop a clear sense of self-identity and to be psychologically flexible. Act according to long-term values, not short-term impulses. Try to be comfortable with all your emotions, positive and negative.  Our emotions often signal to us what we value. For example, feelings of guilt signal to us the need to make amends or to recalibrate our goals. Focus on making right choices, not on being happy. Research seems to show that if we make happiness an end goal, we are prone to being less happy over time. Whatever you do, try to find the fun in life. Laughter is an antidote to stress and triggers secretions of endorphins, dopamine and serotonin. It is a natural high and keeps your psychology positive.  Try to maintain your revision and study routines over the next couple of months. Good luck in the HSC. My best wishes go with you all in your future endeavours."
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal