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Thomas Reddall High School Newsletter

Focusing on our Future

24 September 2018 Issue 6 Term 3

Principal’s Report Mrs J Fuller (Principal) On Wednesday August 29, 2018 Thomas Reddall High School was awarded with not one, but TWO Secretary’s Awards at the Public Education Foundation Minister’s and Secretary’s Awards for Excellence. This very prestigious ceremony was held at Town Hall, Sydney. We successfully nominated our General Assistant, Mr Stephen Lidbetter, for Excellent Service. Mr Lidbetter is an exceptional General Assistant who goes above and beyond every day to ensure our school is safe and beautiful. He truly is an asset to our school and to public education, and this award is due recognition for his years of dedicated service. We also nominated our Boyz 2 Men Program and this too was a successful nomination. This program has engaged our boys and their mentees at Ambarvale PS. It is a wellbeing initiative, developed and delivered by the exceptional Mrs Lisa Callaway. It teaches our boys the social and emotional skills that are often overlooked in their Stage 6 curriculum. We know that this program has been tremendously benificial for the students involved and we will continue to build on the success of this program. The good news is that we are also in the process of developing a similar program to empower and engage our girls. In case you missed it, the Boyz 2 Men Program featured on the Channel 7 News. Be sure to check it out at 27:50mins in this link https://7plus.com.au/seven-news-sydney?episode-id=7NNS18-241 Congratulations to our very deserving recipients! We are so proud of you! We thank you for your

tireless efforts and your commitment to our school and public education!

We WON! Secretary’s Award for

Excellent Service Stephen Lidbetter

Secretary’s Award for an Outstanding School

Initiative Boyz 2 Men Program

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Congratulations to Ms Kumar and the Science and Engineering Challenge Team who had a very long day competing in Newcastle. Sixth place is a remarkable achievement and you should all be very proud of yourselves. Thanks to all of the parents and carers that have ensured that their school fees have been paid. Public education is not free and your contributions go a long way to providing quality education experiences for your child. Your support is very much appreciated! Any student with outstanding fees need to have these finalised by the end of this term (Year 7-11). Year 10 students with outstanding fees will not be able to select high fee courses for 2019. Please remember that if you have children entering Year 9, 10 or 11 in 2019, you will be required to pay your 20% deposit once the courses are confirmed early next term. You would have seen our new signage at the front of the school, it looks fantastic and we are trying very hard to improve the aesthetics of our school. We have also applied for the ‘Cooler Classrooms’ initiative that will hopefully deliver air conditioning to our classrooms very soon! I look forward to celebrating the Year 12 Graduation with our students, parents and carers. I have spoken in detail about my expectations to Year 12 last week. I would ask that all parents and family respect all of our Year 12 students and their right to celebrate their achievements. To this end, I would

ask all parents and carers to remain seated for the duration of the proceedings. We understand that you want to congratulate your child but parents and family getting up and down throughout the ceremony causes disruption and blocks the views of others. We would ask that you hold off the presentation of leis, gifts and flowers until the end of the ceremony. Parents and carers who cannot comply with this request will be asked to leave and may not see their child graduate. Many thanks to the parents and carers who have been supporting our lateness and attendance initiative. It has been very successful. Please remember that the only reason your child should be late or absence is illness. Even appointments should be booked outside of school hours, where possible. The start of the school day has not changed, it has always been 8:20am, so the excuse that the start of the day has changed is unacceptable. We have a number of students that continue to be late because they drop their siblings off. This is also not an acceptable reason and parents will need to make alternative arrangements as this cannot continue to impact on your child’s learning and the learning of others. Please see the attendance brochure from the Department of Education that outlines parent responsibilities. Early next term, we will begin our planning for 2019 with an Executive Conference. We hope to have our plan finalised and shared with parents and carers towards the end of the year.

School starts at 8:20am EVERY day. Be on time! Every minute you are late is a minute

of learning you miss out on.

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Deputy Principal’s Report Mr P Abboud (Deputy Principal) I would like to start this month’s report with some fantastic news. Our Boyz 2 Men program which has been running for a several years now has been acknowledged by the Secretary of Education in NSW to receive a special award on the 29 August 2018. The program established in 2015 by Mrs Callaway and Mrs Boswell with Mr Abboud supporting the program has focused on developing the leadership capabilities of senior students at our school. The selected boys involved in the program work through a rigorous curriculum that teachers the boys the values of hard work and common decency. The boys are explicitly taught social protocols, life skills and the value of working hard to achieve their goals. In recent years the boys have linked up with Ambarvale Public School to provide support to disengaged students in their school. The boys have also made links with the Wests Tigers who support our students and provide valuable learning opportunities to the boys. The Secretary’s Awards are a big deal and for these boys and teachers to have been recognised for outstanding work is testimony to the outstanding efforts of what we are doing at Thomas Reddall to instil positive values and citizenship to our students. Congratulations to all involved. The Boyz 2 Men program was also highlighted recently on Seven News and was a great advertisement for our school, congratulations to all the boys on their outstanding work, and of course to Ms Callaway who is keeping the flame burning. To see the Channel 7 News article on our school you can visit our Facebook page. With only a few weeks left for our Year 12 students we ask the school community to support our Year 12’s as they begin their transition from school into the final HSC exams. With many highlights to come including Graduation Day and Picnic Day we ask that students from other grades remain focused on their studies and not engage in the Year 12 festivities. We encourage all parents and caregivers to become involved in the celebration of their child’s transition and attend the Graduation Ceremony on 27 September. We also need to be

mindful that we need to be encouraging our students to continue to revise their work in the lead up to the exams in week 1 of term 4. Good luck Year 12’s we are all with you. Mathematics Report Mr M Sambucco (Relieving Head Teacher) In Week 4 our Year 7 students embarked on an interactive Art/Math excursion to the NSW Art Gallery. The students had the opportunity to explore and create art which had a mathematical focus, such as looking at ratios, proportions, tessellations and 3-D objects. The students were highly engaged and well behaved, portraying a positive image of TRHS. Our top students from Years 7 and 8 will complete their Matholympiad experience in week 9 when they embark on their final exam. The students have been impressive in their commitment and determination to succeed and test their abilities on some extremely challenging mathematical

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problems. These students have shown great resilience to work through challenging questions and keep striving for excellence. PBL (Project Based Learning) Mrs S Mesba (Teacher) Projects have been exhibited by Year 7 students and were given as a present/ parting gift to our Year 12 cohort. Projects included building 3-D objects like Pinatas, making videos that were synchronised to music and gift bags. This was well received by the Year 12 students who were very grateful for the generosity of our Year 7 students. This prompted a member of the school leadership committee to say that they don’t want to leave TRHS. A great job by both students and teachers of PBL, well done TAS Report Mrs C Edwards (Head Teacher TAS) Staff and students in TAS have been extremely busy this term with many exciting and authentic learning activities taking place. Our Year 12 Industrial technology students have completed their major projects and external examiners have been out to the school to mark their work. Year 12 Construction students have been putting their skills to use and have concreted a garden bed area for future Technology Mandatory students to use as part of their learning on sustainability. They will now use their bricklaying skills to enclose the garden bed.

Year 11 and 12 Hospitality students have participated in Cluster assessment tasks and have run the now infamous T-Red Café. Students on these days have prepared and served a variety of yummy dishes including American BBQ ribs, marinated chicken, Caesar Salad, Pad Thai and a deconstructed salad bowl.

Hospitality students have also catered for the SASS week celebrations where they put on a lovely high tea for our hardworking SASS staff. They also catered for the Regional Learning and Support Team meeting that was held at our school recently. Our Stage 5 Food Technology students have been completing a unit on Food for Special Occasions. As part of the practical component of this unit they have celebrated with a class BBQ where they looked at social reasons when sharing food. Partnerships with Ambarvale Primary School have been strengthened through our TAS afternoons where Stage 4 students have experienced lessons with our TAS teachers in STEM. Students have used various raising agents when baking chocolate chip cookies and have used STL files to print on our 3D printers.

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NAIDOC Day Ms D Boot (Aboriginal Liaison) This year, on 9 August, we ran a celebration for NAIDOC for the first time. We began with a short assembly including our wonderful Year 11 Dance Class doing a contemporary Indigenous inspired dance. The class had done a workshop with NAISOA dancer Jay, and the class embellished the dance they began with him and performed it brilliantly. Following the assembly, Year 7 and 8 participated in a trail of TIG games (Traditional Indigenous Games), Cooking with Kallico Catering , sampling Crocodile in Native spices and hearing about Indigenous food and cooking, and finally some painting with Tony from the Glenfield Office. It is a great experience, sharing the Indigenous Culture that has been here for eons with new generations. Author Visit Ms D Boot (Aboriginal Liaison) We had a great visit with Indigenous Author Monty (Boori) Prior, who talked us through his life and haw he came to be an author. Students in Year 8 are doing a unit in English on Indigenous writing so they had an up close experience on how school and education can change a life. Boori is an entertaining speaker and had all the kids listening intently, laughing with him and connecting with his stories. Some of the students stayed on after school for a short while to ask him individual questions and heard about a film on his life on ABC called Wrong Kind of Black.

Support Faculty Report Ms Upkirat Kaur (Support Teacher) On Monday 27 August, a group of support unit students participated in a Fantastic Beasts themed day at school. This incursion was organised by Ms Emily Jarrett as part of book week. The students had fun creating a number of fantastic items including magical creatures and painting boxes as suitcases to hold them. After a morning snack of homemade Irish soda bread, students enjoyed reading about and analysing different fantastic beasts. This was followed by creating their own magical beasts including one called Slothharoe which was a Sloth and a Kangaroo who ate teachers! The day ended with students using wire and florist tape to make stick insects called Bowtruckles. It was a fun day for everyone and a great way to learn about the amazing world of Fantastic beasts.

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Science Report Mrs A Kumar (Head Teacher Science) This term has been a busy and exciting term once again for our students. On Thursday, the 30 of August, the Science and Engineering team of 32 students from Year 9 and 10 headed to The University of Newcastle to compete in the Superchallenge (state level). It was certainly a huge day for them, but they came home with a respectable 6th place in the state. A great effort by all.

National Science Week is an annual celebration of science that ran from the 11-19 August this year. On Friday the 17th students at TRHS participated in organised activities where they were given the opportunity to use their critical thinking skills to solve scientific problems and explore phenomena in our world through a scientific lens. Students were given an engineering challenge, where they had to construct the tallest tower out of a limited number of pegs and paddle pop sticks. There were many creative and well-planned designs throughout the day but Year 9 set the record with a 90cm tower. Students were also given the opportunity to build a hologram projector for their smartphones out of plastic and there were many great successes. Later in the day Year 12 became the teachers, as they assisted Year 10 students to perform a dissection of a cow eye. There were some fantastic explanations and enthusiastic dissecting.

Well done to all the students who participated. It was an exciting day and an excellent display of the teamwork, communication and problem solving skills our students have. Titration Competition Year 12 Chemistry students Awab Abdelrahman, Lillian Nebre and Oskar Leja participated in the NSW RACI Titration Competition on the 19 June 2018 achieving a rank of 6 out of 14 teams. Well done!

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School-Link is a state-wide initiative funded by NSW Ministry of Health, working in partnership with The Department of Education and other service. This collaboration aims to improve mental health for children and young people as well as enhancing partnerships between child and adolescent mental health services and their local schools and TAFE colleges. The NSW School-Link Initiative (School-Link) provides the capacity for NSW Health and the Department of Education (DoE) to work together to improve the mental health, wellbeing and resilience of children and young people in NSW. The NSW Ministry of Health funds Local Health Districts and Specialty Networks to employ School-Link Coordinators to implement the School-Link Initiative across approximately 3,000 NSW schools and TAFEs in partnership with teachers, school counsellors and specialist mental health staff. At a statewide level, the School-Link program is managed by MH-Children and Young People (MH-CYP), NSW Ministry of Health in partnership with DoE.

Click on the link below to see the latest Issue of the School-Link Magazine. file:///T:/Office/ADMINISTRATION/NEWSLETTER/Newsletter%20Articles%20Iss.6%20September%202018/SL%20Magazine%20Issue%203%202018%20emag.pdf

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