5 March 2012 WOONONA HIGH SCHOOL eNewsletter PO Box 155 Woonona NSW 2517 Ph: 4284 1513 Fax: 4285 1485 Web: http://www.woonona-h.schools.nsw.edu.au Email: [email protected]PSP Survey In a previous newsletter I provided information about an upcoming parent survey, well the survey has arrived and will be given to students in Years 7, 8 and 9 next Monday, 5 th March. The students will be given a sealed envelope to bring home. Inside the envelope will be; a letter addressed to parents, an envelope to return the survey and the questionnaire. The questionnaire should only take 5 minutes to complete, 7 questions, no writing required. The opportunity for the school to benefit from being part of this program is dependent upon every survey being completed and returned. Please assist us in accessing additional resources for your child by completing and retuning the survey by Friday 9 th March. Year 7 Parent Afternoon Tea On Tuesday 6 th March parents of Year 7 students have been invited to an afternoon tea in the school hall between 3pm and 5.30pm. At this time they will have the opportunity to meet with their child’s teachers, share information about their child and receive the results of individual student monitoring. Afternoon tea is very generously being provided by the P&C, many of whom will be there as new parents to the school also. We look forward to meeting you there. Year 5/6 Open Night On Monday 12 th March we will be holding our annual open night where we showcase our school to prospective students and parents. Each faculty in the school will be on display. Students have generously volunteered to assist on the evening either as guides to visiting guests or as demonstrators in classroom activities. This is an evening where we get to “show off” our fantastic teaching and learning programs, terrific staff and wonderful students. Persuasive Writing As part of our whole school focus upon literacy, next week all students in years 7 – 10 will participate in a range of persuasive writing tasks in each faculty area. Your child may be creating a persuasive poster, speech, essay or participating in a debate. Ask them to share with you their persuasive argument, challenge them on their evidence or supporting facts, discuss what technique they are employing to persuade their audience? Hopefully you will have some interesting, lively tea time discussions! Parent Survey Page 2 Student Monitoring Page 2 Student Representative Council News Page 2 Open Night Information Page 3 Year 12 Report Page 4 P&C News Page 4 Persuasive Writing Information Page 5 Year 12 French Study Day Page 6 Library News Page 6 Community Noticeboard Page 7 Uniform Shop The school uniform shop will be open next week. Thank you to Mr Bradley and his enthusiastic work crew, they have built for the school a quality facility. Mrs Walker and Mrs Overton continue to volunteer their time each week to take and distribute uniform orders with patience, good humour and amazing efficiency. The majority of back orders should be filled by the end of next week, senior students in Years 10 and 11 should have placed or be placing orders this week. The only items of uniform that are not purchased at the uniform shop are white ankle socks and black leather shoes. The next newsletter is Friday 16 th March. Belinda Wall Principal UPCOMING EVENTS Mon 5 Yr11 PDHPE First Aid Course Tue 6 Yr7 Parent Afternoon Tea World Spelling Day; Basketball Open Knockout Wed 7 World Maths Day; Area Swimming Carnival Open Girls Football Thu 8 Yr12 English Assessment; Yr11 English Assessment World Science Day Fri 9 Gideon’s Bibles Yr7 Clean—up Australia Day Yrs 7-10, Periods 1&2 Mon 12 Open Night Yr6—7 (6.30pm) Wed 14 Yr7 Camp; Yr11 Legal Studies Exc to Courthouse Thu 15 Yr7 Camp; Catholic Scripture—Period 3 Yr12 PDHPE to Sydney University Fri 16 Yr7 Camp INSIDE THIS ISSUE
PSP Survey In a previous newsletter I provided information about
an upcoming parent survey, well the survey has arrived and will be given to students in Years 7, 8 and 9 next Monday, 5th March. The students will be given a sealed envelope to bring home. Inside the envelope will be; a letter addressed to parents, an envelope to return the survey and the questionnaire. The questionnaire should only take 5 minutes to
complete, 7 questions, no writing required. The opportunity for the school to benefit from being part of this program is dependent upon every survey being completed and returned. Please assist us in accessing additional resources for your child by completing and retuning the survey by Friday 9th
March.
Year 7 Parent Afternoon Tea On Tuesday 6th March parents of Year 7 students have been invited to an afternoon tea in the school hall between 3pm and 5.30pm. At this time they will
have the opportunity to meet with their child’s teachers, share information about their child and receive the results of individual student monitoring. Afternoon tea is very generously being provided by the P&C, many of whom will be there as new parents to the school also. We look forward to meeting you there.
Year 5/6 Open Night On Monday 12th March we will be holding our annual open night where we showcase our school to prospective students and parents. Each faculty in the
school will be on display. Students have generously
volunteered to assist on the evening either as guides to visiting guests or as demonstrators in classroom activities. This is an evening where we get to “show off” our fantastic teaching and learning programs, terrific staff and wonderful students.
Persuasive Writing As part of our whole school focus upon literacy, next week all students in years 7 – 10 will participate in a range of persuasive writing tasks in each faculty area. Your child may be creating a persuasive poster,
speech, essay or participating in a debate. Ask them
to share with you their persuasive argument, challenge them on their evidence or supporting facts, discuss what technique they are employing to persuade their audience? Hopefully you will have some interesting, lively tea time discussions!
Parent Survey Page 2
Student Monitoring Page 2
Student Representative Council News Page 2
Open Night Information Page 3
Year 12 Report Page 4
P&C News Page 4
Persuasive Writing Information Page 5
Year 12 French Study Day Page 6
Library News Page 6
Community Noticeboard Page 7
Uniform Shop The school uniform shop will be open next week. Thank
you to Mr Bradley and his enthusiastic work crew, they have built for the school a quality facility. Mrs Walker and Mrs Overton continue to volunteer their time each week to take and distribute uniform orders with patience, good humour and amazing efficiency. The majority of back orders should be filled by the end of next week, senior students in Years 10 and 11 should
have placed or be placing orders this week. The only items of uniform that are not purchased at the uniform shop are white ankle socks and black leather shoes. The next newsletter is Friday 16th March.
Belinda Wall
Principal
UPCOMING EVENTS Mon 5 Yr11 PDHPE First Aid Course
Tue 6 Yr7 Parent Afternoon Tea World Spelling Day; Basketball Open Knockout Wed 7 World Maths Day; Area Swimming Carnival Open Girls Football
Thu 8 Yr12 English Assessment; Yr11 English Assessment World Science Day
Fri 9 Gideon’s Bibles Yr7 Clean—up Australia Day Yrs 7-10, Periods 1&2
Mon 12 Open Night Yr6—7 (6.30pm)
Wed 14 Yr7 Camp; Yr11 Legal Studies Exc to Courthouse Thu 15 Yr7 Camp; Catholic Scripture—Period 3 Yr12 PDHPE to Sydney University Fri 16 Yr7 Camp
Student Monitoring Twice a term each staff member completes a monitoring sheet on all students in their classes. This is then collated and students receive a printed sheet indicating their attitude, effort and application to their work in all their subjects.
Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 received these sheets on Thursday 1st March or Friday 2nd of March. Year 12 will receive theirs next week.
At the bottom of each student’s sheet is an explanation of the codes used. Students who have achieved at a high standard will be acknowledged by their Year Adviser and those who have unsatisfactory
grades on theirs will be counselled and may be monitored to support them to improve their learning.
Please discuss your child’s results with them and
encourage them to discuss with their teachers what they need to change or do in order to continue to develop as a learner.
If you have any concerns please ring and talk to your
child’s Year Adviser or to Mrs Pickering (Head Teacher Student Services).
“Welcome to Year 7 Parents” Afternoon Tea
Tuesday 6 March 2012 between 3.00pm
and 5.30pm in the school hall.
An excellent opportunity to meet with class
teachers.
Afternoon tea will be provided by the P&C.
Full details on front page of this newsletter.
2012 Digital Education Revolution (DER)-NSW Parent Survey Dear Parent/Guardian,
We seek your views on the NSW one-to-one laptop program. A formal evaluation of the program is being undertaken by the New South Wales Department
of Education and Training in collaboration with the University of Wollongong. It is an effort to determine how the DER-NSW program may impact
on learning and teaching education across the state. The evaluation has taken place over 3 years. Please go to the link below and complete the 2012 survey. It won’t take you too long.
To access the link please enter it into the long address bar at the top of the page of your internet
browser (not into a search engine such as Google)
and press enter or go – this will take you to the survey.
Individuals cannot be identified in the data.
Evaluation reports to date can be viewed online: https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/about-us/how-we-operate/national-partnerships/digital-
education-revolution/rrql/research.
Thank you for assisting us.
Ms Belinda Wall Principal
SRC News The SRC representatives for 2012 are:
Captains: Brodie Petrolo, Melissa Smillie Vice Captains: Jay Montalti, Chrystal Phillips Secretary: Cassandra Elm Special Representative: David Krowka
Year 11: Tara Bain, Dean Cambourne, Thomas O’Brien, Tiana Stevens Year 10: Connor Hawken, Luke McKellar Taylah Murrill, James Price Year 9: Chloe Apps, Jack Grief
Hayden Moran, Brenna Petrolo Year 8: Cody Bain, Jaime Carter
Taylah Carter, Andy Wong
Nominations for Year 7 representatives will be due to Miss Packer on Thursday 29 April with the elections happening the following Thursday in week 11 of this term. The SRC had two major activities this week.
On Monday we travelled to Sydney Olympic Park for
“The Impact Leadership Conference”, and on Thursday we held our Planning Day.
Monday’s conference focussed on learning how to be a good leader and why it is so important to be a good leader. We also discussed ideas on events we can hold at our school and how to implement them.
These included ideas on cleaning up our school playground and fun activities that we can implement to improve our school day. Thursday saw us come together and pool our ideas for the school and what we can do to improve school morale. We set our goals for the year and started thinking long term - in 2014 Woonona High School
turns 50. The SRC would love to get the whole
school, past and present students, past and present teachers, and the community involved in celebrating this event. If you have any ideas to help us celebrate we would love to hear from you.
On Wednesday 14th March we are conducting a survey of students to let the students decide what
activities they would like to participate in during the year. The most popular activities will be the ones we run along with some other ideas we have.
Our first activity for the year is a visit from the Easter Bunny. He will be delivering Easter eggs that are on sale for $2.
P&C News What a fantastic turnout on Tuesday night for our first P & C meeting of the year. It was lovely to see some familiar faces and a lot of new faces. We had a couple of men at our meeting, so that was great and hopefully we will see some more Dads come along to
the meetings. An interesting and informative Principal's report was given, as always. So come to the next meeting on Tuesday, 20th March (the 3rd Tuesday of the month).
UNIFORMS
The uniform shop is looking fantastic thanks to some
talented staff and students, working on their construction, painting and plastering skills. We hope to be operating out of this new space very soon. We are still waiting on some items from Poppets, hopefully
they will arrive by the end of February, so please be patient as this is out of our control.
The uniform shop will operate on Thursday mornings between 8:00am to 9:00am for
students to try on sizes and purchase uniforms. Order forms can also be down loaded from the school
website. We are endeavouring to make purchasing uniforms easier; in that you can send the kids to school on Thursday with money and they can put their order in, and receive uniforms (order forms and
money can be sent in on other days but the orders will be filled on Thursdays and given to your child). Uniforms are to be purchased at the school as they
have been embroidered with either the school crest -on the shirts and jumpers, or the school initials- on the shorts and trousers.
Please also remember that the ladies running the uniform shop are volunteers. If you are interested in helping out, come along to the next P & C meeting.
Everyone is welcome to join us at our next P & C
meeting on 20th march 2012, 7pm in the staff common room. Hope to see you there.
Jennifer Walker
P & C President
CANTEEN HELPERS
Mon 5 Wayne Regan
Tue 6 Jackie Overton / Lyn Wallace
Wed 7 Chris Core
Thu 8 HELP NEEDED
Fri 9 HELP NEEDED
Mon 12 Julie Hobbs
Tue 13 Stephanie Cotterill
Wed 14 Ida Rasch / Julie Hobbs
Thu 15 Sonja Hooker
Fri 16 HELP NEEDED
Page 4
Year 12 Report With 26 weeks before the HSC written examinations commence, 19 weeks before the trial HSC and 3 weeks till the Year 12 Half Yearly examinations it is becoming an increasingly busy period for Year 12 students. Throughout the remainder of the term
students will be working on HSC assessment tasks and preparing for Half Yearly examinations set to begin on 28th March. Also in the coming weeks Year 12 will partake in a study skills session at school to help with examination preparation.
The first order of Year 12 jackets are set to arrive this week, with the second order due early in April. A
number of students are currently involved in the organisation of the 2012 Formal, dates and venues will be discussed in coming weeks. I encourage all Year 12 students to become involved in extracurricular activities this year. There are currently a number of committees operating within the school which are working towards various projects. Involvement in
these is a great way to make a difference within the school and community.
Mr McDermott Year 12 Adviser
Years 7 & 10 Vaccinations Each year NSW Public Health Units offer the vaccines recommended by the National Health and Medical
Research Council (NHMRC) for adolescents as part of
the school-based program.
In 2012, the following vaccines will be offered:
Hepatitis B will be offered in a catch-up program
for all Year 7 students who have not already
been vaccinated with 3 doses of hepatitis B vaccine when they were a baby/younger child.
Varicella (chickenpox) vaccines will be offered in
a catch-up program for all Year 7 students who have not already been vaccinated or had chickenpox disease.
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine will be
offered to Year 7 girls as a 3-dose course.
Diptheria, Tetanus & Pertussis (Whooping
Cough) will be offered to all Year 7 and Year 10 students
Parent Information Kits will be sent home to parents/guardians. To consent to the vaccination of your child, parents/guardians are advised to read all
the information provided and complete the consent form. Only consent forms signed by the parent/guardian will be accepted. To ensure your child is
vaccinated, please return all signed consent forms to the school as soon as possible after receiving them.
Mrs Sim
Vaccination Coordinator
Page 5
Year 12 French Study Day On Friday the 17th of February, year 12 students of French attended a Languages Study Day at the University of Wollongong. The theme of the day was “Languages Open the Door to Unexpected Places”.
Students attended a forum where guest speakers told how languages played a large part in their lives. We
heard a speaker from foreign affairs, a lawyer and a PhD student talk about their love of languages and how they incorporated them into their everyday
working lives.
Our students became aware of the possibilities and opportunities available to people who have a second or even a third language as part of their repertoire of
skills. The benefits of studying a foreign language are both personal and professional.
Students did an enjoyable group activity where they came up with a short advertisement for a product in their foreign language of study.
Students were inspired by the guest speakers and
came away from the study day with a greater
awareness as to where they can use language skills in the future both in the work place and beyond.
Woonona High School Students at Languages Study Day
Professor Krashen of the University of California recently spoke at a Your S c h o o l L i b r a r y
Conference about the irrefutable evidence
that reading is a potent means in reducing and preventing the mental effects of aging. He talked about the studies that clearly demonstrated that older people who read do much better on tests of mental ability. These studies found that people over 84 who regularly read novels and non – fiction were well within the normal range for tests such as arithmetic,
memory and spatial relations while those who did not read scored well below the norm.
This means that if we encourage our children to read now, we are not only helping them to increase their knowledge and social understanding, but we are also investing in their future mental health.
HSC RESOURCES – STATE LIBRARY
The State Library of NSW now connects HSC students
with amazing Online resources. Some highlights include:
Literature Resource Centre: a vital resource for
all HSC English units. It contains author biographies, literary criticisms, historical timelines, current journal articles and additional resources.
Proquest 5000: this collection is relevant for all
HSC curriculum areas. Students can have access to almost 8000 local and international journals, half of which provide full text articles.
Health and Wellness Resource Centre: Full
text medical encyclopaedia, alternative health encyclopaedia, medical dictionary and drug and
herb information. Also includes full text magazines,
journals and pamphlets from a wide variety of authoritative medical sources.
Informit Online: Provides online access to a wide
range of Australian research and information resources covering social sciences, law, health, film studies, economics and sport.
Woonona School Library has set up a direct link
to this site. Simply go to the school intranet page and
follow the link to“ State Library of NSW”. Please note
you are required to register for a “ readers card” before you can access this resource. The website provides full instructions on how to do this.
If you have any questions see Mrs Roddis - Teacher/Librarian.
We are also running stalls and are currently looking for anyone who is interested in having a stall on the night. Cost is $15/stall - merchandise/goods & services only (no second hand stalls
please)
If you are interested in having a stall on the night please contact Kate 0468 968 064 or Michelle 0448 813 595 or email
