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High Notes, Vol 26 No 18, June 20 2025

From the Principal

High Talent

As a result of CHS Regional cross-country performances, the following students have qualified to run at CHS state level: U13 – Anton Bolofer; U15 – Nathaniel Ng; U16 – Elijah Lees, Nestor Chan, Charlie Cheshire; U17 – Aayush Kumar, Max Chen, Lucas Zhang; Open – Tanish Sarathy, Aaron Chu, Matthew Taylor, Micah Jouravlev. Congratulations to you all – a credit to you and the cross-country program at High. From the Roberta Nutt Individual fencing competition – Senior boys Foil – Banjamin Dang (silver); Senior Sabre - Daniel Iliffe (gold), Ethan Li and Akith Pereira (bronze eq.); Senior boys Epee -Tommy Xu (silver), Hudson Cai (bronze eq.). NSW Fencing League - U14 Individual Epee – Shawn Handoko (silver) and Jackson Lai (bronze eq.). Congratulations to all our medal winners!

Interpreting Semester 1 Year 7 Reports

All Year 7 boys should have seen me to receive their reports by Friday, June 20. Parents need to know that with scores for grades – HD (6), D (5), Credit (3) PM (2) P (1) or U (0) – boys are expected to score thirty points or 10 credits equivalent, in order to reach the school standard. Proficiency levels for future-oriented earning skills (PEWCC), such as problem solving and evaluating, critical thinking, working with others, communicating your ideas and being creative and innovative, are also reported. Parents will be able to trace the growth of their son in the five reported skills as he progresses through the Junior School. These skills are reported in their own textbox and are distributed among the faculties. For more information on PEWCC skills reporting, go to sydneyhigh.school/curriculum/pewcc-reporting and click on Information About School Reports to peruse the skills continuum for each subject. In addition, multiple learning behaviours are reported on a rubric from ‘rarely’ to ‘sometimes’ to ‘usually’ to ‘consistently’. These behaviours are controllable by students and attention to them can improve outcomes over time. Finally, teachers’ recommendations for next steps towards improvement are included to focus family attention on some actions that might be taken immediately to aid learning improvement.

We understand that boys transitioning into Year 7 face many adjustment challenges. Positions in the grade will not be disclosed to Year 7 students for their first two reports. The top group of boys are acknowledged on the Academic Achievement List. Unless special circumstances preclude it, letters are sent to the parents of the boys in the Academic Support Group (those boys with scores of 27 or less). Boys scoring 27 points or less may be offered a special workshop presented by an outside provider; they may join ‘Diary Club’ to learn how to organise themselves better to complete tasks and submit work punctually; they may just receive an encouraging chat from their Year Adviser; they may be referred to the Counsellor; or they may be referred to an outside agency with their parents on very rare occasions. Some or none of these interventions might be judged appropriate in your son’s case. It is our obligation to let you know of our interventions on behalf of students so that you may accept or decline our help. Unless you contact us, we will assume you are OK with us using our professional judgement on actions to assist your son. We want to help our underachievers using the most effective means possible. Parents are requested to talk over their son’s report with him ahead of booking Parent-Teacher interview time slots. Your son’s Year Adviser can be contacted about options to improve future outcomes.

June 30 is EOFY Time

Starting to think about making a donation? The EOFY is a week away. Act now and join the growing number of Australians giving something back to society to help others. You will feel better after having made a contribution to a worthy cause – facilities for public education. If you have intended to make a tax-deductible donation to our SHSF Advancement Fund [Fairland Rebuilding Project] but haven’t yet done so, I invite you to make that donation before the end of the financial year. I ask for your help to make High an even better place in which our students can learn and grow.

Pride Assembly 2025

The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG and Raymond Roca (SHS-2007) were our special guests at the Pride Assembly Q and A held on Tuesday this week. We welcomed also a delegation of students and their teacher from Fort Street High. Michael spoke about Darwin’s Law of Variation that demonstrates how our diversity makes pur species grow. He emphasised love and kindness, the longevity of loving relationships and the moral duty of gifted people in secular education to stand up for human rights everywhere. Raymond spoke about how travelling widely exposes the weakness of our human tendency to create stereotypes and then to act upon them. He believed his exposure to diversity at High was very beneficial to his personal development.

My speech to the assembly is reprinted below.

"Special Guest, the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG, staff and students – welcome to our Pride Month Assembly, held on the land of the Gadigal. I pay my respects to elders past and present as the traditional custodians of our lands and waterways and extend that respect to any Aboriginal people here today.

"We are holding our assembly in June this year as a celebration of Pride month, commemorating the 28 June 1969 raid on the Stonewall Inn by New York Police, which sparked five days of rioting. We honour today those pioneering protestors. It is a depressing déjà vu to witness the current heavy-handed actions of American police raiding neighbourhoods, arresting undocumented citizens and casually shooting a reporter with a rubber bullet. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance – particularly when it comes to protecting constitutional and human rights.

"We need to reflect on the intervening 56 years since 1969 and ask ourselves whether the goals of inclusion and equality of the Pride Movement have been achieved. Awareness, definitely, has been raised, but are we as a society convinced about the righteousness of equality? Are we determined to treat each other fairly and with kindness? At least the right to marry is no longer gendered in our country yet acts of discrimination against LGBQIT citizens still occur with depressing regularity. In recent months, we have imported other societies’ problems and taken sides here. Our citizens are being attacked by extremists, just for identifying with a particular race, nationality or religion. It is time we began to live the ideal of equality, rather than just talk or write about it. Genuine multiculturalism is hard work for any society.

"Locally, we have been involved in promoting inclusion since Nelson Tang (SHS – 2015) organised a basketball match with SGHS in 2013. Our school leaders, ever since 2010 Wear it Purple, have been trying to operationalise the aspiration of inclusivity. Our School Prefect leaders have been focusing on student mental health promotion for several years. Each new cohort of High boys needs to be made aware of our school policy and commitment. Our Equality Committee is the standard bearer for inclusivity in our school and the keeper of the promise of equality in its broadest sense. We need to turn to each other, not on each other.

"The same sex marriage movement is celebrating its silver jubilee in 2026. Same sex civil marriage is now lawful in 29 countries – in Europe and the Americas. However, in Africa and Asia, only South Africa and Taiwan have legalised same sex marriage. There is still a long road to freedom in many countries.

"Locally, nationally and internationally Pride Week remains a movement for everyone’s rights. As we have witnessed in the USA, precious rights are vulnerable to pseudo-legal attack. They need to be guarded, endorsed and promoted as ‘inalienable,’ as envisaged in the US Constitution. That is, human rights are neither transferable, nor removable. At our school, let ‘the pursuit of happiness’ be our ditch to die in. Each one of us deserves this protected pursuit, free of harassment or violent interference. As Clarence Darrow, eminent American lawyer put it, ‘you can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom’.

"I exhort everyone at High to enact our values of respect and compassion and be sensitive in our utterances and kind in our actions towards one another."
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal