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High Notes, Vol 26 No 21, July 25 2025

From the Principal

Memoriam Andrew Xu

"Good morning. Thank you to you all for gathering to remember, honour and celebrate Andrew Xu’s life. His funeral has been held, with numerous friends and family delivering eulogies or placing white roses – the universal symbol of respect, remembrance, innocence, purity and love. Our school community needs to demonstrate its emotional solidarity and respect for Andrew’s family in their inconsolable grief, and to process his passing.

"As cruel Fate would have it, Andrew will remain forever young. His life was taken at a moment of youthful hope and expectation. His story, like that on Keats’s urn, is frozen in time. It is a story of unfulfilled promise, of potential left unrealised, of friendships cut short of hopes dashed. He will always be excited about his 18th birthday, remember fondly the music camp and look forward to the rugby camp. He will always be studying for his Trial HSC and organising his next game of pool. He will continue to plan his post-secondary life. He will expect to cross the road to go home. He is captured now in eternal anticipation.

"Cicero observed that ‘the life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.’ For those who knew and loved Andrew their memories of him will become treasures. These memories might be found in reading the ’group together’ testimonials of his friends or reading the cards with their floral tributes at the collision site or enjoying one of Andrew’s Year 10 movies or just sharing moments from his memorial 18th birthday celebration. We will establish perpetual memorials to Andrew on school grounds. They will connect us tangibly to his memory.

"Life is beautiful, but also fragile. Loss of life is classified as tragic when it meets four preconditions. The harm done is irreparable. There is a shock at the sudden nature and finality of the death – ‘this should not have happened.’ The event has moral weight for us – it violates our sense of what ought to be. A promising life ended. It offends our values – innocence lost, love forgone, a family shattered, friends bereft, criminal negligence by a driver. We appreciate the moral preciousness of what was taken away.

"When confronting tragic events, grief is the price we pay for loving, empathising and caring. Rather than describing grief in traditional stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – modern researchers are emphasising oscillating processes for managing grief. Sufferers move in and out of coping strategies. We need to accept the loss intellectually and emotionally. We must process the pain caused, rather than ‘get over’ it. We have to adjust to a world without that person in it. Finally, we should try to build an enduring connection with the deceased person while reinvesting in our lives, which must go on.

"So, it needs to be for Andrew’s memory. After some grieving time, we need just to value the worth of his life, so much of it unlived, and try to build our resilience and determination to maximise our own opportunities. We need to hold on to moments or events together and share with him products he created, or photographs he shared. Physical or audio-visual symbols can be powerful reminders of the joy of living and its purposeful pursuit. Preserve and protect memories of Andrew, because you cannot relive them. His life mattered but he did not get to fulfil it. Your lives matter also, live them well as he would have done."

High Talent

Well done to our High Rifle Shooting Teams who earned the trifecta at the All-Schools competition. The champion team consisting of Tristan Dean, Kaiwen Wang, James Cao, Jensen Wang, and Anderson Lee. Tristan Dean placed second overall on individual score. He also achieved first place at the New South Wales Rifle Association King’s Competition in C grade at the end of last term. Congratulations to our table Tennis Team on their 3rd place in the CHSSA Table Tennis Championships. Our team comprised of Alex Huang, Jasper Wu, Bryan Liu, Timothy Zhou and Thomas Cao, all of Year 12. Well done to Eric Yu (SHS-2021) who was awarded second place in the AIPS awards in the Young Photographers Category. He has recently been invited to photograph the Tokyo World Athletics Championships.

Interpreting Year 10 Reports - Semester 1

All boys in Year 10 should have their reports out after consultation with the Relieving Principal or me. Year 10 is an important time to try out electives to help goals identify possible stage 6 courses that students might be interested in studying. Equally, it can confirm which courses students do not enjoy and will not pursue in stage 6. Above all, Electives should be taken for enjoyment of the subject concepts, content and activities.

Parents should be aware that there are changes to the way the rank order is calculated in Year 10. HDs (6 points) and credits (3 points) etc are no longer added together to form the scores on which the rank order is based. We use individual marks supplied by teachers. We calculate ATAR equivalent scores for those marks based on 12.3 units (six subjects). PE is included in the calculations as 30% of two units (a subject) because it has only four periods and is assessed as a practical subject in Year 10. PASS elective scores are calculated in the usual way. Boys good at PE and taking PASS may be advantaged in the ranking. Rank order variations can be large between Years 9 and 10 for these and other reasons. For example, boys take on additional electives which do not have to include history or geography.

Many boys are attempting stage 6 courses as accelerating students, and they are assessed on stage 6 criteria which are more rigorous than those in stage 5. Sometimes, they spend more time than they should on their accelerated course and get their time management out of balance. Some of their other subjects might have weaker results as a consequence. This can lead to a large rank fluctuation and a reduced ATAR estimate. Some stage 5 electives, like commerce, robotics and filmmaking, are infused with stage 6 concepts and content. The Online Elective can only be calculated as the average of the rest of the students’ scores because it is a mastery-based elective. That calculation may lower a student’s rank or advantage him because he would have done worse in any other elective. Science is delivered in a series of modules – e.g. chemistry, biology and physics. Some boys are much more engaged with one science module rather than another.

Regrettably, some boys switch off in modules or subjects they are not planning to pursue in Year 11. These subjects can be electives that they just picked for enjoyment because they had already decided on their Year 11 courses, or ones that they chose but with which they have not become engaged.

When discussing the report with your son, please bear in mind the possible impacts on ranking in the cohort of these changed contexts. Quiz him about his three electives and how he is engaging with them and whether he is enjoying them and if he is thinking about his stage 6 course selections. Look closely at his learning behaviours profile to see how his engagement is perceived by his teachers. Discuss the next steps recommendations by his teachers to develop personal growth goals.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal