探花视频

High Notes, Vol 26 No 15, May 30 2025

From the Principal

High Talent

Last Monday, High hosted the local final of the Plain English-Speaking Competition. Franklin Huang (10M) progressed to the Regional Final. Last Tuesday, at Easts Leagues club, the local final of Rostrum, Sharvil Pande (10S) finished third. Well done, lads! Last Wednesday at Knox, who hosted the State Da Vinci Decathlon Final, our Year 9 Team - Chase Chan (9S), Alex Deng (9T), Mekaeel Khan (9M), Vladimir Loukine (9E), Marco Ma (9M), Matthew Ryder (9E), William Tran (9R), Yihong Zhu (9T) 鈥� finished in second place. Our Year 11 Team - Aaron Huang (11S), Nathan Nguyen (11S), Hamzah Ahmed (11E), Lachlan Yuen (11S), Michael Zhuo (11S) and Ryan Allen (11E), finished in third place. Congratulations to all our Teams! Well done to Liam Greacan (12E), for winning the U19 Novice Wind section of the Metropolitan Bands competition.

Mabo Day Tuesday June 3 2025

Mabo and others v Queensland (No 2) (1992) was named after Eddie 鈥楰oiki鈥� Mabo, the man who challenged the Australian legal system and fought for recognition of the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional owners of their land. The Mabo case ran for ten years.

Eddie 鈥楰oiki鈥� Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander who believed Australian laws on land ownership were wrong and fought to change them. He was born in 1936 on Mer, which is also known as Murray Island, in the Torres Strait. The Mer Islanders decided they would be the ones to challenge the legal principle of terra nullius in the High Court and that Eddie Mabo would be the one to lead the action.

On 3 June 1992, the High Court of Australia decided that terra nullius should not have been applied to Australia. This decision recognised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have rights to the land 鈥� rights that existed before the British arrived and still exist today. The Australian Parliament passed the Native Title Act in 1993. To have native title recognised under the Native Title Act 1993, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples must prove that they have a continuous connection to the land in question and that they have not done anything to break that connection (such as selling or leasing the land).

Native title can be recognised in different ways. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples may be granted the right to live on the land; access the area for traditional purposes; visit and protect important places and sites; hunt, fish, or gather traditional food or resources on the land; or teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander laws and customs on the land. In some cases, native title can include the right to own and occupy an area of land or water to the exclusion of all others. Indigenous land use agreements set out arrangements between native title holders and others regarding who can access and use the land in question. These agreements play an important role in making native title work for all Australians. There are currently 967 registered Indigenous land use agreements in place.

High鈥檚 Regular Giving Scheme  

For new and existing parents 鈥� there is a really painless way to help the school reach its capital development objectives 鈥� the Regular Giving Scheme. We have successfully completed building the Governors Centre and the Junior Library Air-conditioning. The COLA has been extended. Extensive internal building works have sequestered our network switches. The Table Tennis Centre will move into design and preliminary construction stage in 2025. It will need more funds to complete. Previous cohorts of parents have helped significantly to build up our assets for the use and enjoyment of the current boys. We need to replace the Fairland Pavilion. We need to build a retaining wall at the Outterside Centre. The Regular Giving Scheme allows you to make a deduction each month from your nominated credit card account. Deductions occur around the 21st of each month. In late June each year, the 探花视频 Foundation can send you a statement for taxation purposes, including the total of your donations for the year. I urge you to do as I do and make a regular financial investment in public education.

If you are interested, please click:

I find that philanthropy in a public cause is bidirectional - it benefits the donor and the recipient. It makes you feel good to help a worthwhile cause.

Winter Sports Assembly

My speech to the winter sports assembly is reprinted below:

"Parents, staff, students, welcome to our first Winter Sports Assembly, honouring football, rugby and cross country. We assemble before the first official matches of the GPS competition 鈥� winter season - to introduce some of our winter teams and acknowledge the work of our staff, coaches and committees. Our second assembly next term will complete the process for the other winter sports.

"In our Football program, I would like to thank MIC Sam Higgins who has worked tirelessly to lift High Football from no wins when he took over, to taking out the GPS Premiership last year 鈥� a tribute to his perseverance, energy and skill. Thank you to our Football Teaching staff 鈥� Jamie Kay, Matthew Hood, Jeremy Ohlback and Richard Gifford. We acknowledge and appreciate our GPS competition coaches - 1st XI coach Alexander Barnstone, who is looking to repeat the 2024 success, along with Bruno Pivato piloting second grade. Thank you to our Old Boy coaches - Dean Rong (2019), Ohm Bhandari (2021), Samir Uddin (2021), Mushfique Ahmed (2021), David Li (2022), Liam Cowan (2024), Praneil Manandhar (2024), Zarif Faisal (2024), Sachit Kashoji (2024), Nitin Raghavan (2024), Gurik Sall (2024), Daniel De Costa (2023), Ramin Hossain (2023), Hikun Nguyen (2023), Ben Pirom (2023) and Vithushan Srimurugakumar. Old Boy coaches are the backbone of our program. We appreciate all the support and time offered by our Parent Committee - Kevin Leung, Cynthia Leung, Amy Sim and Luke Nottage. Thank you to you all. Let us get behind our boys as they defend their title this season.

"I want to applaud Vivian Paul for his efforts as Rugby MIC again this year. If his enthusiasm for the sport were contagious, we would have many more Teams. Thank you to our High staff 鈥� George Barris, Hannah Jackson, John James, David Knox, Stuart Olsen, Shane Jennings and Kurt Rich. Thank you also to our coaches: Jack Bowditch, Liam Scolari, Hugo Roach and our Old Boys - Vincent Dorahy (2020), Edison Dorahy (2019), Ethan Cusick (2020), Jordan Wong (2022), Jack Mulder (2023), Thomas Britton (2022), Joseph Britton (2024), Nelson Cheng (2202), Quan Nguyen (2023), Patrick Ta, Joo-Young Kim (2024), Jeremy Lu (2024), Daniel Bian (2024) and Neil Song (2015). We appreciate the work of our High Rugby Association members: Yves Stenning, Diana Chan, Andrew Kuo, Tuan Truong, Kelland He, and Brian Peakall, and our parent helpers organising events:  Parking 鈥� Peter Zeng: Dinner 鈥� Grace Quan.

"Our thanks go to Kurt Rich, MIC cross country for 2025, who has brought a fresh development perspective to the sport with interval sprinting for developing runners. Thank you again to Rebecca Dam for her decades of service in this MIC role from which she is taking a well-earned break. Thank you to John Prorellis for his long-term support for cross country. Thank you also to Lena Park for her assistance in the program. We acknowledge and thank our coaches: Ren-Shyan Balnave (SHS-2018), Max Russell (SHS-2023) and Neil Song (SHS -2015).

"Last season, in the thirtieth anniversary of the 1995 GPS victory, our first XI were successful. Back in 1995, Alex Lamb summed up their 1995 season in 鈥楾he Record鈥�: the Team did not have an easy game in the GPS season and if it were not for the determination and spirit of both the players and our coach Mr Dolan, things may well have turned out differently. We battled injuries and other setbacks to record a 鈥渢radesman-like鈥� performance of five wins and two draws in the competition, which was enough to gain us the premiership by the second last round. Our real preparation for the season began back in first term with Mr Dolan鈥檚 fitness sessions, followed by a succession of trial matches in which we recorded impressive victories against keen sides such as Moriah and Cranbrook. Although we were eliminated from the CIS Cup in the early rounds, we felt we were ready to produce a consistent performance in the GPS competition鈥�. Combined GPS representatives that year were three in 1st grade; and two in each of 2nd and 3rd grade.

"In cross country, the GPS Championship was held at St Ignatius and High lived up to its earlier promise by winning the 16s Team event with the small total of 14 points, beating its nearest rival by 30 points. This was the first time that any age group from Sydney High had won such an event since the advent of Cross Country as a GPS sport. Placings Under-16 Marc Bennie 1st Andrew Bennie 3rd Sean Garber 4th Justin Lodge 6th.鈥� In hindsight, this result seems phenomenal.

"It was an exceptional year for rugby in 1995. MIC Steve Storey wrote: Our 1st Grade were unlucky not to win the GPS Competition, coming second, and the 15 Years made the semi-final of the state-wide Buchan Shield Competition. Special tributes must be extended to coaches Tony Hannon (1st Grade) and Steve Codey (15 Years). Mark Stcherbina captained the Australian Schoolboys to Europe and together with fellow tourists, Luke Mann and Jason Jones-Hughes, these boys join an elite group in the tradition of High.

"These snapshots of past exploits highlight the long tradition of achievement by High boys. We extol the virtues of competitive sport because it is educational and healthy, because it increases camaraderie among students, and because it provides Team memories that can last a lifetime."
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal