Email weewaa-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au ; Phone 02 6795 4477 ; Fax 02 6795 3005

http://www.weewaa-h.school.nsw.edu.au/

Principal’s Report

We were delighted to join forces recently with the other Wee Waa schools to stage our first Combined Schools Art Exhibition. The event, including art workshops proved very popular and a great way to celebrate and show off the artistic talents of our young people. It was thanks to grants from the Narrabri Shire Council and Charles Sturt University that we were able to stage this terrific event. My thanks to Mrs Doring for her coordination of the exhibition.

The cricket season is well and truly under-way and we have had many students, both male and female competing in state knock-out competitions. I know Mr Legge has been impressed with the effort and good sports-manship of our team members and I con-gratulate them for this.

Our recent Ag Open Day proved a huge success and we were pleased to welcome students from each local school to take part. Our agriculture students took the younger students through a range of fun activities as well as demonstrations and talks about showing cattle and caring for animals. Credit goes to Mrs Verity Gett and our Ag Assis-tant, Mrs Shelli Stewart, for planning and delivering an outstanding educational day.

My colleagues and I are looking forward to joining Year 12 family and friends soon at their graduation dinner. The dinner will be the culmination of the students’ secondary schooling and is something that along with their year adviser, Mrs Rhiannon Baxter, they have been carefully planning for some time. Annabel Doust Principal

Issue 14, November 7th, 2016

Combined Schools Art Exhibition

QuickSmart Graduation

It was smiles all around as QuickSmart participants celebrated their graduation from a year of QuickSmart Numeracy and Literacy skills development.

On hand to present the students with their graduation certificates were our Deputy Principal, Mr Allan Tame, Teacher and QuickSmart Numeracy coordinator, Mrs Sharon Grellman and tutors, Jo Horne, Cindy O’Neill and Kate Morrison.

It was terrific to see so many family and friends present to join in the celebration of achievement.

QuickSmart Literacy and Numeracy is an intervention program designed by the University of New England (UNE) to help students that need assistance with their basic literacy and numeracy skills.

Each year all Stage 4 students are tested for the program, with students identified as needing additional tutoring being selected to participate. Participating students are retested in the areas of literacy, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division skills at the beginning, middle and end of the program. The school then submits data collected on each student to the UNE SIMERR department for analysis.

Earlier this year UNE analysis revealed that the 2015 data showed an effect size exceeding 0.8. An effect size score above 0.8 represents substantial improvement, equivalent to approximately two to three years’ growth. This means that students are more readily able to access the regular English and Mathematics curriculum, creating confidence and improved learning.

Kitchen Capers

After six months of Food Technology, Year 7/8 students have been cooking up a storm and feeling much more confident in the kitchen.

Food Technology Teacher, Mr Josh O’Shea explained that in Year 7 and 8, students transition around four different Technology subjects including, Art, IT, Wood Work and Hospitality, in order to give students a taste of what each subject offers. During their first two years at high school, students transition through each technology subject twice.

“In Food Technology we focus on broad learning outcomes that draws together the knowledge, understanding, skills, values and attitudes essential for all students to succeed in and beyond their schooling.

Through Food Technology students learn time management, safe and responsible behaviour, they gain practice following a set of written instructions and putting them into practice and this skill can be applied to all of the subjects and life generally.

Making healthy food accessible is paramount. Accessible means it’s easy to make and has readily available and inexpensive ingredients. I show the students how to make everything from scratch and we seldom use anything that comes in a packet or a jar. This is important because as we know, unprocessed food is healthier, is

generally less expensive and always tastes better.

The skills students learn in Food Technology provide them with some of the fundamental building blocks to a healthy and self-sufficient future.”

SRC Raises Money for Westpac Rescue Helicopter

This week our students dedicated their sports afternoon to raising money for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter. The out of uniform day proved not just great fun, but a good chance to cool off and raise some funds for this vital service.

Under the direction of SRC members, students rotated around a variety of challenges. Teacher and SRC Coordinator, Mr Patrick Legge said the gold coin donation students made to come out of uniform raised a pleasing amount of money that will be donated to support the great work of the helicopter crew and staff.

Horse Sports

Sam Galagher and Charles Keft recently represented the Wee Waa High School at the St Johns Central School Horse Sports day held at the Baradine Showground.

Both Sam and Charles took part in all of the sporting events on offer and were victorious in their efforts with Charles winning highest point score for 11 and Under 13 boys, while Sam won the highest point score 13 & Under 15 boys.

Congratulations to both boys for representing your school and for your achievements.

Howzat

With Spring well and truly here, so too is the cricket season. Last week Wee Waa High School students participated in the Davidson Shield state knock out series against Narrabri High. Teacher and Coach, Mr Patrick Legge said although defeated, our young team put in an impressive effort that they can be very proud of.

Next is the Under 14’s knock out series to be played at Dangar Park in Wee Waa where Narrabri and Wee Waa teams come together for the first game in the series. Then it is the girl’s open state knock out series to be played in Warialda.

We wish all of our teams the very best.

(Photos courtesy of Narrabri Courier newspaper)

Ag Round Up - Week 4, Term 4

What a crazy busy but extremely rewarding time the first four weeks of term four have been for agriculture at Wee Waa High School!!

Ag Open Day We held our first Ag Open Day on Friday October 14. What an awesome day it was!

Run entirely by our dedicated Show Team and agriculture students, the parents, visitors and Year 5 and 6 students from the Public School, the Christian School and St Josephs were given a taste of agriculture. The visiting students participated in activities such as the Farmers Challenge, yabbie races, exploring the animal nursery as well as grain and herb guessing competitions. The gum boot throwing, tractor challenge and whip cracking demonstrations also proved popular.

A highlight of the day was the Show Team’s demonstration run by senior members of the team. It was very terrific to see the senior students passing on their knowledge and experience they have gained from being a part of the Show Team. They conveyed a real love of what they are doing!!

Congratulations to the prize winners on the day and a huge thank you to all the staff, students and parents for coming along and taking part.

Scone Beef Bonanza With carcase results just in, I received an early morning call of congratulation. Our unled steer, WWHS Mad Max purchased from Myona Charolais won both Champion Unled Carcase and also first place in his heavy weight class. Max was one of two steers we purchased from Myona Charolais this year with the sole aim of entering him into Scone Beef Bonanza. It was our first foray at such a big hotly contested competition.

My goal for 2016 was for the Show Team to gain a broader understanding of carcase specifications and that type of competition so that they could build on their judging and parading knowledge and experience.

We had a number of challenges when trying to break Mad Max in to lead. The ongoing wet weather leading up to the holidays saw us run out of time to get Max to a safe handling standard. In light of this, we decided to enter him in the unled section. Winning a champion carcase in only our third ever carcase competition (the first being the Reserve Champion we won at Sydney Royal Easter Show) is a massive achievement and one I am extremely proud of.

I put in a tremendous amount of extra time and behind the scenes work to get the steers ready for our Show Team to present and parade. It is the responsibility of the students to do the animal preparation and feeding whilst at the shows while I am kept busy setting up the

camp and making sure everything is organised and supervised. All the hard work is certainly worth it when results like this are achieved!

Show Team is such a valuable enrichment program that I am proud to have re-established here at Wee Waa High School. It involves a lot of hard work by myself and my colleague, Ag Assistant Mrs Shelli Mitchell and our dedicated team members.

Other team responsibilities while away at shows include washing and preparing animals, often very early in the morning. With twice daily feeding and constant checking of the cattle, it also often requires late nights. Being part of the team requires lots of team work, commitment and responsibility. These are rewarded with a great sense of achievement when we do well.

It’s certainly not for everyone and it wouldn’t be possible without the help and assistance of our dedicated parent helpers who come along and help feed the masses. Our show schedules are very busy affairs and the support our parent helpers give us, in addition to their delicious baked treats for the long trips is very much appreciated!

What a great year we’ve had again this year. I look forward to taking the dedicated members of the Show Team onto bigger and better things next year!

Other results from Scone Beef Bonanza include: WWHS Max. Champion Unled Heavy Weight Steer in Carcase section WWHS Tex. Kindly donated by Mr R and Mrs P Slacksmith achieved a second in his class on hook and 7th highly commended in his class on hoof. WWHS Malibu. Heaviest steer in the whole competition (of over 300 animals) and a dressing percentage of 61%. A huge achievement and one that will bring us a good financial return. Congratulations to Ally Stanfield who received a highly commended in her age group of over 120 paraders. Congratulations also go to Emily Shearin who progressed through to the semi-finals in the 15 years paraders section. A terrific achievement in a group of more than 150 students.

We also showed two Myona Charolais heifers, Myona Matilda and Myona Ella on the stud’s behalf with them placing third and fifth respectively in their classes. Verity Gett

Combined Schools Art Exhibition

It was a riot of colour at the Combined Schools Art Exhibition. Students from each of the four local schools contributed art works across a range of genres using a wide variety of mediums.

Many family and friends gathered for the Friday night opening and were impressed with the standard of work the students had produced.

Made possible by grants received from the Narrabri Shire Council and Charles Sturt University, the exhibition continued on Saturday, along with art workshops with talented local artist, Graeme Compton and celebrated Lightning Ridge artist, Daryl Ferguson.

The art classes proved to be enormously popular with many doubling up to take part in each workshop offered.

Exhibition and workshop co-ordinators Ms Nichole Doring and Ms Jocellin Jansson of Wee Waa High School said encouraging and developing young people’s artistic interest and skills were the key reasons behind the initiative.

“The level of interest in the workshops is testament to how interested our young people are in art. The classes were full and the students were enthralled with what they were learning and creating.” Ms Doring said.

Winners of the Art Exhibition

Category Primary Aged High School Aged

Painting - Landscape WWPS Group Piece - Birds in Tree Alice Haire

Painting - Aboriginal WWPS Lucy Crutcher Leslie Toomey Painting - Still Life WWPS Haylie Reynolds Chloe Wright Photography WWPS Tiarna Harrington N'Kayla Gaydon Sculpture WWPS Thomas Eldridge Annabelle Russell

Leadership for Leaders

Last week saw our newly elected Captains and Vice Captains travelled to Tamworth to participate in a leadership training program.

Together with 250 students from schools around the region, our student leaders heard from experts about the qualities of great leaders, goal setting, putting ideas into action and effective leadership.

Travelling with them was Mr Legge who saw the program an ideal opportunity for our Captains and Vice Captains to gain the knowledge and skills needed to put their best foot forward and to get the best out of their leadership year.

Captains Abby Downes and Tom Pattison agreed that the development day was really worthwhile. Tom said “It’s given me a good understanding about goal setting, planning and how to execute those plans”. For Abby, she said: “I felt that it really helped me understand how best to go about engaging with students to gain their input and ideas that could then be incorporated into our planning.”

Want to improve your success in the HSC?

At the beginning of each term Year 11 Adviser, Mrs Grellman will be coordinating a Senior Success workshop to assist students who will be doing their HSC in 2017. Held in the library, the workshops are designed for students, parents, carers and anyone associated with an HSC student to help them understand how the HSC works.

Session 1. November 17th, 5pm to 6pm Session 1: Assessments, Assignments, Revision and Study - What's the difference?

Nick Watts Forging a career in world-first cutting edge research and technology

Dynamic and energetic have to be two key words needed to describe 1995 WWHS graduate, Nick Watts. With hard work and determination, Nick demonstrates that location is no barrier to creating and delivering high impact research and technology to the world from right here in Wee Waa. We recently enjoyed catching up with Nick and talking about his years at Wee Waa High School and his career to date. What were your favourite subjects? Ancient history, biology and chemistry Can you share with us your best memories of being a student at WWHS?

My close knit group of friends and school mates. I am still best of friends with a number or people I went through school with. Another aspect I loved was that kids from all different age groups were friends. I also had some really great teachers who I still respect and appreciate for their mentoring they gave me. While at high school, what career direction did you think you would head in? I had my heart set on being a zoo-keeper or animal behaviourist. Can you tell us about your career path after finishing high school? I went straight on to university and studied a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Zoology and Biodiversity at Macquarie University. I also completed a Geographic Information Systems major (GIS). Since completing my degree I have focused on bringing new technology to the agricultural industry, something I became passionate about while studying my degree.

Did you have any hurdles early on in your working life that you had to navigate? Actually, yes. I really had my heart set on being a zoo-keeper at Taronga zoo, I did work experience there and volunteered during my uni years. Despite excellent feedback and relationships at the zoo, I realised very early on that I was unlikely to secure fulltime position or be able to earn enough money to survive or raise a family on. Zoo Keeper positions attract applications from people all over the world, particularly people with a Veterinary degree. Tarongo Zoo is so highly regarded that keepers with many years of experience apply for positions there as well. An added challenge was that positions don’t come up that often because once you have a job there, very few people ever leave it. So I had to make the call not long after finishing uni that, in the short term at least I would have to set aside my dream and pursue something more pragmatic. I never regret that decision. By pursuing a career in the ag innovation sector I earned good money straight out of uni and I was able to travel around the world extensively. I met my

wife and mother of my kids in London, so despite the initial disappointment it has been a great result. What are you doing now? I am the Project Director for Innovate Ag and the Sales Manager for Growth Agriculture.

Growth Agriculture is a regionally based, family owned business that has in excess of 20 years experience in providing sustainable and environmentally acceptable products to the agricultural industry in Australia.

We are importers, wholesalers and manufacturers of a unique range of products that are heavily focused on foliar nutrition and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in crop production.

Can you tell us about the journey to get to your current position? The path to my current role has been wide and varied. I’ve worked as the Head of Business Development and Client Services at Target 250 in the UK. Here I held a key role in the development of a new Information Technology and Security company which grew from 4 to 110 employees while I was there.

The experience of managing a rapidly expanding company has enabled me to be well placed to direct the anticipated expansion of Innovate Ag over the coming years.

What is the key purpose of your current role? As Project Director I have worked on the biological pesticide Sero-X project since its inception in 2007 and am leading the commercialisation process we are undertaking.

What do you love about what you do? Being involved in world-first cutting edge research is fascinating, challenging and very rewarding.

We have technology that is set to revolutionise pest management in all food and fibre crops worldwide. We will be helping communities and countries secure their food supply and at the same time, dramatically reducing the environmental impacts that chemicals can have.

One particularly rewarding aspect of what I do is the knowledge that our technology will eliminate the harmful effect chemicals can have on honey-bee (and other pollinators) populations. Bee colonies around the world are under extreme risk at the moment, with populations being reduced dramatically. Without bees our food security is very precarious but we can help reduce that risk.

What do you think is the secret to success in life and work? BALANCE! When working on something so exciting it is very easy to get caught up in it all and not focus enough time and energy on a good work/life balance.

Setting weekends and after work hours aside to be with your family in a way that you aren’t distracted by the pressures of work is critical to success and happiness.

Do you have a moto you live by? My son’s current motto is “Gotta catch ‘em all”. He’s obsessed with Pokemon! I hope I don’t live by that motto, however ambition is a good thing!!

Update from

Wee Waa Youth Scripture Education Committee

As many of you are aware, Wee Waa High School farewelled Kate Battistuzzi at the end of term two this year. We were blessed to have Kate in our community working at WWHS as chaplain and SRE teacher.

Special Religious Education (SRE) will continue to be offered in 2017 (in line with the Education Act) for those students who are interested in attending the classes. Years 7 and 8 classes will receive one lesson per week by a trained SRE teacher. SRE is focused on teaching students about the religion of their choice. In this case, students are taught the basic truths of Christianity and introduced to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

We are pleased to inform you of the employment of Christian Petersen who will begin at the start of 2017. Christian will fill the role of SRE and chaplain at WWHS and will be working part time with the Anglican Church. He and his wife Heather and their two children, Erica and Aiden are originally from the Barraba/Armidale area, but have been in Cowra for the past three years. Christian has been working as an SRE teacher in Cowra and Blayney High Schools and also helping with a church youth group. He is passionate about talking to others about Jesus, as it was while he was a teenager that he committed his life to Jesus.

They are looking forward to being part of a small rural community and being involved in helping the youth.

Written on behalf of WWYSEC

If you would like more information please contact Bernard Gabbott on 67954236

Wee Waa Chamber of Commerce

Christmas Mardi Gras

Rose Street – Tuesday, 13 December 2016

6pm

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For further information please contact Ann-Maree Galagher - 0428 888 449 / Pam Callachor - 0427 954 368

Janelle Schwager – 0407 107 357

Disability Services Expo Wee Waa High School Library

The upcoming disability services expo hosted by Wee Waa High School was the brainchild of teacher, Mrs Carmel Schwager. “Normally people have to travel to Tamworth to find out more about disability services available to them or for a child with a disability that they care for. Having a local disability expo makes it so much easier to get the information needed to make choices and decisions.” said Mrs Schwager. If you would like to know more about the disability services available to you or to a child in your care, you are invited to come along. We have quite a few providers attending, including;

• Ability Links • Challenge Moree • Kirinari • Northcott • Newell Advocacy - Disability Advocacy • GOCO • Life Without Barriers • Essential Employment

The Expo provides an excellent opportunity for people with disabilities, their parents, families and carers to get information directly from a wide variety Disability Service Providers who will attend the Expo.

It’s free – but RSVP so we can offer you a cup of tea and a biscuit while you talk to the visiting providers.

Mrs Schwager said that there are also other providers they are approaching about attending.

Disability Expo

November 17th 2016 11.30am to 1.30pm

Wee Waa High School Library

Need more information? : Contact Carmel Schwager on 67954477