Care | Opportunity | Success

S O U T H SY D N E Y

Principal’s Report

HIGH SCHOOL

Newsletter | Term 3 Week 8| 13 September 2019

Congratulations:

To the students who received awards at the Achievement Assemblies held this week.

These Assemblies were a pleasure to attend and it is wonderful to see students strive to

achieve in many different aspects of school life.

To the Students involved in organising the RUOK Day.

To the School Band for their performance at the Big Bash Performance.

To the Students who participated in the stage 5 STEM Day.

To the Students who are performing at the Pagewood Public School Market Day.

To the students that proudly represented the school at State Athletics - Rose Jennings who

finished 8th in the girls 17yrs 800m final, and Tahlya Dower finishing 6th in the girls 12yrs

800m final.

School Leaders 2020

Congratulations to the following students who have been elected to the following positions:

School Captains and Vice Captains

Nikki Ketmontri– School Captain Brendan Warddrop – School Captain Jessica Vu – School Vice Captain

Dobin Seol – School Vice Captain

School Prefects Victoria Harris- Year 11 Edward Zhang- Year 11 Liam Mungovan- Year 10 Anthony Sitnikoski- Year 10 Luti Maile- Year 10 Makayla Manu- Year 10 SRC President - TBC

I was impressed with the quality of the students that wanted to be considered for a leadership position at South Sydney

High School in 2020. Students participated in workshops, interviews resume writing and public speaking. Many thanks to

Alison Maynard and Brendan Benischke for organising this process and in doing so strengthening our leadership capacity of

our future leaders.

Nikki Brendan Jessica Dobin

Student Numbers

If you know anyone else that is wishing to apply to come to South Sydney High School, please contact the school as soon as

possible as we are currently working on the number of classes and the timetable. If you are moving, please let us know as

soon as possible so can accurately forecast our student numbers for 2020. We also ask if you are travelling and will be away

the first few days of the 2020 school year please provide a note so we can count every student in the Department of Educa-

tion auditing processes.

Kind Regards

Janice Neilsen, Principal

Mock Interview Success Collaborating with business partners and colleagues for the Mock Interview program proved outstanding for all those

involved. Companies such as T.Rowe Price, D.B Schenker, AIS, Microsoft, Dell Computers. Maroubra Police, The Royal

Australian Navy and some Board members from United Way Australia proved invaluable. These companies interviewed year

10 students in real world scenarios. Of course, our Dazzle your CV Day program was great preparation for this day. My

thanks to Mr Macintosh, Ms Graham and Ms Lopez for their tremendous assistance. The students were very well prepared

and the results were better than expected.

Helen Stell

Coordinator SSHS Opportunity Program

Year 11 Good Luck to Year 11 - Exams start next week

Year 12 - Finalisation of the Higher School Certificate

A letter outlining Procedures for the Finalisation of the Higher School Certificate was sent home with all Year 12

students. Please see a copy for your reference below:

Bayside Women’s Shelter

Bursting with pride and possibility! Earlier this year, my Goodfella Jack Ellis and I presented to the students at South Sydney High School during phase one

of Women's Community Shelters “Walk The Talk” program. For phase two, these phenomenal teens were asked to sup-

port the work of their local refuge, Bayside Women's Shelter. We asked them to apply all they had learnt about gender

equity, respectful relationships, and being community change makers; we encouraged them to walk the talk on domestic

violence.

A core working party at the school, lead by the Aboriginal Programs Co-ordinator /Transition Adviser Jenny Wilson, invit-

ed me to come to the school to collect the herbs and veges grown by the school for the women and kids in our care, the

wooden toys the students MADE WITH THEIR OWN HANDS for our children, and the pile of gift vouchers they had raised

funds to purchase.

Can you even cope with the fact that 15 year old boys carefully crafted wooden toys for kids fleeing violence? I cannot.

But my feelings tipped over when I was told the story behind the beautiful hand made candles.

Let me talk you through how these came to life....

A teacher at the school was so taken with what the students were trying to achieve, he wanted to support their

campaign. Using funds from his mother's estate, he purchased the supplies for a candle making enterprise for them.

What a legacy to create for his Mum!

The students proudly gave me some of their candles to pass on to the women, but explained they needed the rest to sell

to raise funds for the shelter. Was that ok, they asked. Yes, my brilliant, creative, generous Walk The Talkers. That is more

than ok.

I drove straight to Bayside to drop off the gifts and the staff there were so, so moved. "These donations have caused so

much excitement here already!" messaged a case worker immediately after my visit.

Wooden toys are already set up ready for little hands to play with. Beets are being prepared for dinner. There's a fragrant

candle burning, bringing light (and hope). Youth led, positive, practical and protective. ❤

Have I mentioned before how proud I am of this project? #bestjobever#connectedheartsandmindsbusyhands”

Danielle Miller

Enlighten Education

Library News

In my capacity as Teacher Librarian, it is my role to advocate for reading to learn as well as reading for pleasure. The

library has added to the collection three nonfiction books solely focused on the practice of reading. Reading Engagement

for Tweens and Teens is written by Dr. Margaret Merga, a senior lecturer from Edith Cowan University. Her extensive

academic research projects have concentrated on literacy and the social influences on reading engagement. Dr. Merga’s

book contains recent research addressing attitudes of adolescents towards reading and strategies to engage non-readers

to increase their literacy levels.

Raising Readers by teacher librarian Megan Daley aims to foster a lifelong love of reading in children. Daley emphasises

the benefits of reading on comprehension and vocabulary skills as well as the connected power of story. Both texts

emphasise the role parents play in their child’s literacy journey and encouraging their child to read.

A Velocity of Being is an absolutely gorgeous book which celebrates the love of reading. It contains 121 letters from

people of diverse backgrounds and interests sharing their stories and sentiments of how reading shaped them. Accom-

panying each letter is an original illustration by a prominent artist in response to the text. A Velocity of Being is a visually

beautiful love letter to the transformative power of words. It absolutely demonstrates “a life of reading is a richer,

nobler, larger, more shimmering life” (Popova, 2018).

Julie Maddocks

Teacher Librarian

Congratulations to the twenty five students who received Certificates of Participation in the WHAT MATTERS? WRITING

COMPETITION 2019.

This writing competition asks students to express their views about the things that matter to them in our changing world.

Their writing shows their contribution to helping play a part in the shaping of our nation.

WHAT MATTERS? Is just one part of the civics and citizenship program developed at the Whitlam Institute within Western

Sydney University.

Jennifer Tilby

Writing Competition Coordinator

Writing News

STEM Enrichment Day Wednesday 11th September

In Term 3 we have been focusing on opportunities for our Stage 5 Enrichment classes to extend and enrich their skills in a

variety of areas of interest and aptitude. Having offered students opportunities to ‘Write a book in a Day’ and to plan for

creating short films we turned our attention in Week 8 to students whose areas of interest and aptitude might be found in

STEM.

STEM is an approach to learning and skill development that integrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Through STEM, students develop key skills including: problem solving, creativity, collaboration and the ability to work

effectively with technology. Wednesday 11th September saw Mr Chadwick deliver a day focused on robotics and computer

science to students from 9Y and 10Y who signed up to take part in this day of STEM learning. Depending on their choice of

project students were set a series of tasks that challenged them to complete a series of steps. The aim was to have

programmed robots and assembled computers built by the end of the day. The day was such a success that we plan to try

to offer a similar STEM workshop to Stage 4 (Years 7,8) students in Term 4.

Our year 7 & 8 Students are being offered a chance to engage in three

days of project based learning in the beautiful surrounds of Pittwater. Our

annual Junior SSCIM Camp will take place from Wednesday 30th October

until Friday 1st November. Students have already begun returning notes

and discussing the projects they will be engaged in during SSCIM Club on

Thursdays in the Drama Room. Projects nominated to date include work-

ing on a musical instrument to have a performance ready for CAPA night

(Term 4), photography, drawing and short film making. There are still

spaces available for any year 7 or 8 students who would like to extend and

enrich their skills in an area of their interest and aptitude by completing a

project at SSCIM Camp.

South Sydney Club for Intelligent Minds Camp - Week 3, Term 4

Dress for Success

Ten girls from Year 10 were delighted to be invited to Marrickville’s, Dress for Success Organisation to be personally styled

and informed about correct deportment for working in a professional environment. They received beautiful outfits to keep,

a wealth of useful information for future workplaces they will experience, as well as a gift bag with everyday essentials. This

was a wonderful event for our students.

Ms R. Lopez,

Opportunity Team