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High Notes, Vol 26 No 12, May 09 2025

From the Principal

High Talent

Congratulations to Maurice Wong (12T), who was invited to Government House in Canberra as a guest of the Governor-General, Her Excellency the Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn AC. One of her many roles is as the Prior of St John Ambulance Australia. Maurice is a trained and serving volunteer first responder and was recognised for his service in volunteering. Volunteers often feel a sense of purpose, personal growth and connection to community that comes from giving back to others. An admirable community service indeed! Well done to Benjamin Hunter (7M) who competed in Open Skiff, Division 6 at the Combined High Schools Regatta at Lake Macquarie during the holidays. He placed 3rd in his Division. He performed very well for his age in open competition. Some good weekend fencing results – Roberta Nutt Intermediate (29 competitors– Epee (William Huang 9F – gold, Daxton Sor 9M bronze eq. Sabre (Rafael Zaslavsky 8S – gold, Uday Sharma 9M bronze eq. Well done boys!

UNSW Co-op Applications

Students should be aware of what happens to UNSW Co-op applications, considering how popular they have been at High. Australia-wide, 1003 applications were submitted from 277 schools but another 1,596 remained in draft form and so were never officially submitted. At High in 2024 there were 31 applications in draft and 30 were properly submitted [Takeaway – that was our best ever conversion rate. Once you begin a project, finish it!] There were 320 interviews held for 280 applicants. Forty scholarships have been offered so far. From High, there were nine interviews, with five short listed and two students received offers - Fynn Hopkins (Data Science and Decisions) as well as Justin Nguyen (Electrical or Telecommunications Engineering). [Takeaway – if you are really interested in a course, research it and put significant effort into your application because nearly every year someone from High is successful].

Literacy Development in Years 7-9

As part of our Strategic Excellence Plan, we intend all students to engage in literacy development. In a nutshell, we want our students to be more skilful, accurate, versatile and purposeful writers. We want them to read more widely, analyse more closely and listen more actively. There is an ongoing whole school emphasis on closer reading, clearer writing. Students need to focus on audience, sentence construction, ideas generation and vocabulary. Examples of text types you should be able to identify when you read, and compose when you write, include – narrative, procedure, report, description, discussion, exposition, recount, poem, text response, analysis and evaluation. We want students to create more concise, legible, coherent and accurate texts.

In addition, students need to read more closely. We want students to do five tings to become better readers. Read actively – engage with the text by asking questions, making predictions and summarising key points as you read. Annotate what you read – Mark important passages, jot down notes or page numbers and highlight key concepts to aid understanding and retention. Build your vocabulary – Look up unfamiliar words in a thesaurus and note their meanings in different contexts to grasp the author’s intention better. Find context clues – Scan the surrounding sentences/ paragraphs/ illustrations to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words or concepts. Read reflectively - Take a break from what you have read to synthesise and summarise the big idea, connect it to your prior knowledge and think critically about the content.

We are asking for parental support to encourage wide reading using the Junior Library resources to assist in building student vocabulary. Dr Love has purchased many books recommended by the students themselves that can be borrowed from the Andrews Library. Help us to make reading an important part of your son’s weekly routine in 2025.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal