14 September 2016
Newsletter Articles
- From the Principal
- From the Deputy
- Year 11 News
- From the Head of Department: HPE, LOTE & Wellness
- From the Head of Department: Science
- Maths News
- Arts News
- Sports News
- Student Representative Council News
- Library News
- Oktoberfest
- Movie Premier
- Our Rainbow House Fundraisers
- Sport Sign-ons
- BMX Club
- Duathlon
- Laser Tag
From the Principal
Welcome to this edition of our newsletter. The last two weeks have been some of the busiest of the year. Our Year 12s sat their QCS tests and then followed with assessment block for all Year 11s and 12s. On the Friday evening we had our Arts Showcase where our arts students performed and displayed their artistic works for all of us to enjoy. Well done Ms Wilcox! We also hosted the Year 6 students on Monday and gave them their first taste of high school as they ran through a series of demonstration classes and were introduced to our teachers. Last week our Year 10s were away participating in work experience around the Central Highlands. Our Supportworx team also ran "R U OK?" day on Thursday commencing with a sausage sizzle. On top of that we hosted the primary school rugby trials on Friday.
This week our year 11s commence QCS practice testing and we finish off the term with students representing us at the QMEA engineering camp. At the end of the week, Ms Comolatti flies to Japan with a group of intrepid students to undertake an amazing cultural exchange.
Parents please note at this time of the year it is imperative that students who are absent ensure they catch up with their teachers to complete outstanding assessment if necessary. At the commencement of next term we will send out interim progress reports for years 8 to 11. These should be handed to students by the end of Week 1. Parents please also note that our 2015, Year 12, Next Steps Survey, is now currently on our website. The survey is indicative of the local economy that we have experienced in the past 12 months. Our website is a vast source of relevant information and I hope you have the opportunity to visit it over the upcoming break.
Special Mentions
- Congratulations to Micah, Rachel and Yathavan (Year 10F students) who have become the runner up recipients for the 2016 STEM Student Study Tour to Japan. Well done team!
- Did you know that Ashanti Hutchins Represented Australia in Barrel Racing in 2014? Just one of the many amazing narratives our current Year 12s have already created.
- Leonie Doyle, Caera Conlon, Mikaela Reynolds and Learna Doyle all competed against a number of schools across the region in the ATAP Challenge. They won 1st in the Quiz, 1st in the Commercial and 3rd in the oral presentation!! Wow!
- Thank you to all the staff who took our students on the Emu Gully Camp, assisted with QCS test supervision and set-up, our Arts Showcase evening, work experience week, sporting competitions, assessment block, and the many other unseen volunteer work they do.
You are not born a winner!
You are not born a loser!
You are born a chooser!
Have a safe spring break!
See you all next term!
Ray Clarke
Principal
From the Deputy
Once again we are at the end of another term. Term 3 has been extremely busy for our senior school students and their teachers. They have managed to complete QCS testing, exam block, hospitality functions, Showcase, and Relay for Life to name a few and for most, keep a smile on their face. I would like to congratulate them on their efforts to date and remind them to keep their end goal in sight. It goes without saying that term 4 is a very full term for our students but in particular our Year 12 students. It is critical that our Year 12 students maintain their enthusiasm towards their learning and school right until the very end to ensure that final exit results are reflective of their ability.
Formal
The Emerald State High School Year 12 Formal will take place on November 16, 2016 at the Town Hall. Our dedicated Year 12 students under the guidance of Mrs Sharman and Mrs Carter have made beautiful decorations and invitations ready for distribution early term 4. Invitation to the Year 12 Formal is a privilege which is earnt over the course of the year. To be eligible to attend the formal student's attendance must be at 92%. The expectations about attendance have been reinforced a number of times on whole school parade and year level parades to ensure students are clear on the policy requirements. Additionally students were issued with attendance updates in August and given clear instructions about steps to take in order to rectify attendance problems to avoid loss of privilege. Any student wishing to appeal must make an appointment with me to discuss formal eligibility and reasons for the absences.
Awards Night
Preparations continue for our Annual Awards Night, which is being held on Monday 31st October. Awards Night is always a spectacular and entertaining celebration of our students' hard work, persistence, creativity and successes. I look forward to seeing you there!
Student Leadership
At Emerald State High School we take the preparation for our school leaders very seriously. Early in term 4 our Year 11 students wishing to undertake a leadership position will be attending camp at the Fairbairn Outdoor Education Centre. Students will be involved in a number of activities which endeavour to increase their leadership ability.
Our 2017 School Captains will be announced at Award's Night, with other leadership positions announced after that. I wish the students luck with their leadership endeavors and look forward to hearing their speeches on parade.
Mrs Dyer will be back in the Deputy Principal seat in Term 4.
Tanya Shaw
Deputy Principal – Years 11 & 12 (Acting)
Year 11 News
A big congratulations to all our year 11 students who participated in the Relay for Life this year. It was a very long night and they all gave it their best and I know that both myself, Mrs Hokins and Mrs Hunt were all very proud of their conduct and wonderful spirit.
Year 11s have the opportunity to begin the process of ordering their jerseys in term 4. The provisioning of the senior jersey is actually quite rigid and not all students will be eligible. Those students who have 92% attendance, exemplary role modelling of the correct school uniform and no outstanding fees or those who are on a designated payment plan are able to purchase a senior jersey. Students will be given an opportunity to purchase another jersey early in 2017. The senior jersey is a special privilege for our senior students and are also able to be worn on a daily basis. We encourage all eligible students to order a jersey as not just a memento of their schooling but as way to identify as part of our senior cohort here at Emerald State High School.
In term 4 we also have approximately 40 year 11 students beginning the application process to become a senior leader. All students are welcome to nominate for a leadership position in 2017 and those who do will need to attend the Leadership Camp at Fairbairn Dam from the 18th to the 21st of October. These four days allow the students to partake in a number of leadership and resilience challenges and provide students with assistance to write their senior leader speeches which will be delivered on a special assembly on the 25th of October beginning at 8:50am in the school's undercover area. The following day all students applying for a senior leader position will undergo an interview with a panel comprised of the Principal, Mr Ray Clarke, myself as the Year 11 Manager and a parent representative from the P&C. I would like to wish all those who have nominated the best of luck.
School Captains, Student Representative Council and House Captains will be announced at the school awards night on the 31st of October.
Kaz Van Hees
Head of Year 11
From the Head of Department: HPE, LOTE & Wellness
Health and Physical Education
During this term students have under taken many different sports and theory components. Some students were lucky enough to learn some AFL skills from the players at AFL Queensland who came out to Emerald every Friday for 6 weeks. The students enjoyed learning new skills and putting these skills in to action. Other students have been doing sports such as touch, soccer, volleyball, bat and ball games and invasion games. Each sport is teaching the students a different set of skills, but most of all getting them active and improving their health and wellbeing. In theory the students have been learning about reading food labels, Ancient Olympic Games, Basic First Aid, and safety in the gym. Next term will bring a whole new selection of sports and theory for the students to learn about and get involved in.
Japanese
Congratulations to the year 8 students who have produced some amazing brochures, booklets and posters about Australian animals. The publications look amazing and have lots of great information in them. I am sure the Japanese students next year will love reading them to find out about Australian animals. Congratulations also need to go to the grade 7 students who have made some very engaging story books about their families. These books include the family member in kanji, age, like, dislikes, festivals, food and drinks. Well done!
On the September holidays, 14 students and 2 teachers are traveling to Japan to undertake a study tour for the 2 weeks. They will spend 5 nights staying with host families in Ichinoseki and attend school for 2 days. They will then visit Kyoto and learn the history of Japan while also visiting Hiroshima and Nara. They will then return to Tokyo to see some of the newer sites and spend a day at Disneyland. The students (and teachers) are excited about the trip and look forward to sharing their experience up on their return. Safe travels to them and to everyone on the holidays.
Bek Comollatti
Head of Department HPE and LOTE
"Do you know what my favourite part of the game is? The opportunity to play." – Mike Singletary
From the Head of Department: Science
Curriculum News
The grade 7s are currently studying forces and simple machines while the year 8 students are completing their rocks, exploration and mining assignment. Year 9s are learning about ecosystems and the grade 10 Science students have been studying the big bang theory, red-shift, cosmic microwave background radiation and other cosmology and astrophysics concepts lately.
In the senior school, year 11 and 12 Science in Practice students have been learning about rockets. The year 11 Chemistry, Biology and Physics students have been busy doing their extended experimental investigations and compiling their scientific reports. The year 12 Biology students studied reproduction in plants and humans this term. The year 12 Chemistry students have been studying forensics while the year 12 Physics students learnt about space, Einstein's special theory of relativity, the Big Bang and the Expansion theories.
National Science Week Team of Queensland Scientists - high school visit
As part of the National Science Week initiative a team of Queensland women in science were sent to various remote towns in the state. Tarni Cooper (UQ), Amie Khosla (UQ) and Dr. Carly Kenkel (AIMS) were assigned to Emerald and we were lucky to have them talk to our senior students. Tarni's talk mainly revolved around topics involving veterinary science/one health/public health while Amie was super keen to connect to the students and talk to them about physics, cosmology, astrophysics and solid state physics. Carly, on the other hand, gave students an interesting insight into marine biology and its implications on the environment, climate change and the reef ecosystems. All speakers talked about pursuing career in the sciences, how they achieved their jobs and what their day to day work entailed.
Excursion
Nine grade 8 students attended the Energy for the Future Science Day in Blackwater on the 25th of last month. This is a higher order thinking activity for year 8 students with an interest in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). Energy for the Future is linked to curriculum learning, energy production and efficiencies and a grading/assessment tool is available to schools. Between 70 to 80 students from local QMEA secondary schools attended this event. They worked in teams and were allocated a country to work with at the start of the day. Students were tasked to determine the best energy type or energy mix for that country now and 50 years into the future. Students determined the best energy types by attending a number of energy presentations led by industry personnel. Throughout the day students worked together to identify or eliminate particular energy types and call upon industry reps to offer more information on certain aspects of that energy. The day concluded with the student groups presenting their findings to the room and fielding questions from the floor about their energy choices.
"Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It's posing questions and coming up with a method. It's delving in." Sally Ride
Read more at:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_science.html
Aneel Dewan
Head of Department – Science
Maths News
To encourage problem solving, a PC numeracy challenge has been in progress. Each week students are faced with a new problem to solve. National numeracy and literacy week saw the stakes raised with three problems to solve. Currently 8B are in the lead, but there's still time for a comeback as only a few points separate classes.
Term three has seen our Senior Math A students learn about investments.; researching and recommending a suitable credit card for a school leaver as well as finding a home in Emerald that our 'family of four' could comfortably afford. Year 9 students are being introduced to simple interest and determining how they work out payment plans for the next iPhone release. Year 8 students were lucky enough to plan a holiday to the Gold Coast and consider the costs of a few days at Dreamworld. Money is everywhere, as our year 10s have been using statistics to determine whether completing year 12 has an effect on your salary. There's always an outlier who leaves school early to become a millionaire, but this was the exception.
Arts News
This term has been a whirlwind of activity for the Arts department. From organising Showcase, to the Kedron music tour visit and Eisteddfod, our students have been non-stop in creating, making, producing and preforming. This year's showcase was a massive hit featuring work from senior Art, Music and Drama students. It was an evening of entertainment and fine dining with food catered for from the very talented hospitality students. The night saw a variety of the arts showcased from a market craft stall from our Visual Arts in Practice students who made over $200 for the Arts Department to the highly accomplished work of our Senior Visual Art students and their bodies of work. The Music department wowed us once again with their high energy music ensembles and also provided us with classic hits as sung by the senior music students. To finish the night off the senior drama students showcased their talents in a hard hitting, monologue fuelled production, which really got the audience to think about how drugs can affect relationships. Overall, the showcase was a massive hit. Thank you to all students, parents and caregivers that came along or helped out on the night and Ms Wilcox, Ms Fehlhaber, Mrs Jones, Ms Prior, Mrs Carter, Mr Shannon and all those wonderful people I need to mention but haven't got enough words to express my gratitude. You all rock!
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Visual Arts
The Visual Arts students and department have been very busy this term creating various types of art. It saw the completion of the authority senior assessment responding to timelines and the visual arts in practice market craft items and stall. The year 10s had their first taste of senior and completed their own body of work responding to the human condition, sucessfully comunitcating different ideas on what makes us human. Our junior school has had a focus on developing their art making skills and looking at various differents types of art making. Great work Visual Arts!





Music
Music has smashed this term out of the park once again! We had a visit from Kedron State High School band earlier in the term who workshopped and played a few songs with our instrumental students. High praises were given to the behaviour and talent of our students on the day. In week 8 we had the Swing Doctors entertain the crowd at our showcase and captivating performances by our senior music students. Last week Emerald State High School was lucky enough to participate in the Central Highlands Eisteddfod. Two of our fantastic students won awards: Chloe Kelly - Secondary Vocal Encouragement Award and Brent Rostirolla - Secondary Vocal Outstanding Award. And a mention to the fabulous efforts put in by Our Drumline, Jazz Band and Symphonic Band. Well done to all!
Sports News
Interschool sport has finished for this year with a great day held in Clermont. Our U15 boys, U13 boys and U15 girls teams managed to come away with first position in their competitions. It was great to see such large numbers participating from Emerald State High School over the length of the competition and we look forward to seeing this grow next year.
Congratulations to Emma Spires and Paxton Hayes who qualified for the Capricornia Athletics team this term. They travel away to compete in the Queensland School Sports Athletics trials on the 18th and 19th of October.
With the year 12 students completing their QCS exams this term a giant soccer game using a six foot tall ball was played between the year 12s and teachers. There was some great action on the field with a number of teachers coming off the field with injuries after being thrown to the ground by the ball. The teachers managed to keep it to a one all draw with some great skills shown by the students keeping the teachers on flat on their backs for majority of the game.
Western 7s is fast approaching with all teams in training. It will be a cracker of a carnival again this year with the U16 boys and the U18 girls teams being the ones to watch with some high quality players in both Emerald State High School teams and other teams from around the region. Make sure you come down and support the locals as a number of teams look to go one better and come away with first position. Games start the afternoon of the 14th of October and run non-stop until the finals on Sunday afternoon.
"I'll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it's sitting on the bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a team mate, or making the game-winning shot." – Kobe Bryant
Student Representative Council News
Term in Review
Term 3 is always the busiest month of the year for the Senior Leaders and especially the Student Representative Council. It started with the biannual talent show – Shines in week 2 and ended in Week 8 with a giant game of soccer.
Once again, students and staff displayed their multiple talents by singing, dancing and performing on stage during Shines. It was the big Student Representative Council fundraiser for the year (the auction was not held this year) and it has helped raise needed funds to support various charities that we support every year, including Legacy and Our Rainbow House.
August was the busiest of months with both the Relay for Life and Multicultural Festival.
The seniors won 'largest team' during Relay for Life with 28 members. Their theme was Building for a Cure, but they weren't the only team from the school to attend. Overall, about 80+ Emerald State High School students participated in the relay this year raising thousands of dollars. There were 5 official ESHS teams (2 year 11, 1 year 10 and a junior) and dozens of other students participating. In the end, year 11's Hopes from Hawaii won the best baton and the junior team, Riding for a Cure, won most of the games. It was warmer than last year, but it was still a long weekend and the fantastic kids who gave up their time should be applauded.
For the first time, the Student Representative Council participated in the PCYC's Lock-up Challenge at the Multicultural Festival. The Student Representative Council created a unique way to raise the funds needed to bail out a teacher: have a vote on which teacher should be locked up with the heaviest bucket. In the end, Ms Ross' bucket was the heaviest. In pitiful desperation she cheated, adding the two lighter buckets to Mr Ryan's. For her crime she was locked up at the festival. After raising over $350 she was released on good behaviour still vowing to have Mr Ryan locked up next year. Thanks to the teachers who volunteered to be locked up during one of the best community events of the year.
Finally, the Student Representative Council were worried about the stress of exams for seniors during weeks 8 and 9, so they purchased a giant, inflatable, 6ft soccer ball and challenged the staff to a game at lunch to relax. It was a rough game with numerous hand balls but in the end teachers and seniors drew 1 all. The game worked so well that the purchase of an 8ft beach ball will be discussed for the new year. It is anticipated that as the ball gets bigger, so will the cheating!
So what is left for the Student Representative Council before our seniors graduate in November? They aren't sitting on their laurels with National Bandana Day, Day for Daniel and a Farewell Social in October and a Christmas food drive for the Neighbourhood Centre.
The Student Representative Council and leaders who assist them during the year are an amazing group of students. They are constantly planning and giving up their time for not only the school, but the broader community. They have achieved, and continue to achieve, a lot during the year while continuing their own studies – they are admirable ambassadors of the school.
Library News
The library has been closed intermittently due to QCS and assessment block being conducted here. The library will be open for the remainder of the term. Students are reminded to return any overdue items including novels that they have finished studying in English before the holidays.
Competitions
There are a number of writing competitions currently open, most with cash prizes:
Title |
Topic |
Genre |
Closing Date |
Art & Literary Competition |
What keeps me mentally well |
Any |
23rd September |
Oz Kids in Print |
Any |
Literature (story or poem) or art (drawing, painting, photography, computer art, and indigenous) |
7th October |
Students should see Mrs Galea in the library for more details & to submit entries. Entering into these competitions earns students vivo points.
Oktoberfest
Movie Premier
Our Rainbow House Fundraisers
Emerald State High School supports Our Rainbow House through our Student Representative Council. Below are some upcoming fundraising activities that they're organising to raise funds for their school in Zambia.
Sport Sign-ons
BMX Club
Duathlon
Laser Tag