10 May 2017

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Welcome to this fortnight’s newsletter. With the past three weeks being short ones, our students have had to keep up the pace at ESHS. Thank you for the great turn out of parents and students at out parent teacher evening, also special thanks to Mr Shannon who organised the two buildings and maps for the evening. A special congratulations goes to Mrs Ross and Mrs Hunt who organised our students for the amazing ANZAC ceremony held at our school Monday 24th April. Also amazing was our student turn up for the dawn service and main march. All I can say is thankyou to all those students and staff involved and to our student leaders who presented and spoke extremely well. Our student leaders also had the opportunity to engage at our Mayoral Youth Summit two days later and made us very proud.

Last week we had our Biology excursion running and this week our Year 7s and 9s are participating in the national testing regime of NAPLAN. They will be supplied with breakfast each day and thankyou to their teacher and HODs who have prepared them for the testing.

Keeping up to date with class and assessment work

Parents the best way for your child to keep up to date with their work especially during term 2, is to ensure that have a reasonable study plan, with set times for study as well as weekly discussions about their study and assessment items. You can download your child’s assessment schedules from our website and use them to ensure your son/daughter is on track to complete their study requirements on time. If you aren’t clear on how they are progressing, please ring the school to contact their teachers or departmental heads.

Special Mentions:

• Thank you to Mr Ryan for organising the NAPLAN testing this year, it is a huge job coordinating hundreds of students and many staff.
• Mrs Ross for representing our community at state level for the ANZAC celebrations in France.
• Courtney and Jacob for giving excellent ANZAC Day speeches at the main parade.
• Congratulations to Miss Fehlhaber and Chloe for their results in the Miss Sunflower competition.

“Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along.” – Hugh Allen

Ray Clarke
Principal

From the Head of Department – Humanities & Honours

Welcome back to an action packed semester. Our History teachers are busily teaching the Australian Curriculum History to our students.

Reading in History

This semester year 7-9 History classes have been focussed on reading in history. The structure of these readings uses the our Super 6 reading model. The Super 6 are also used in local primary schools and are an essential part of reading development. Please encourage your child to read in their own time as well as at school. This will help support the great work that History teachers are doing.

Year 7 – Comparing Ancient Egypt and Ancient China

In year 7 this term, students will be comparing and contrasting key elements of Ancient Egypt and Ancient China. They received their assessment sheet in week 3 and should be at the stage of researching. The research task will require significant homework time to complete it to a high standard. They will be presenting their findings in a presentation to the class in week 8. We look forward to some engaging and well researched presentations. It would be great to see students bringing their devices to school to assist with research

Year 8 – Comparing Medieval Vikings and Medieval Samurai

In year 8 this term, students will be comparing and contrasting key elements of Medieval Vikings and Medieval Samurai. They received their assessment sheet in week 3 and should be at the stage of researching. The research task will require significant homework time to complete it to a high standard. They will be presenting their findings in a presentation to the class in week 8. We look forward to some engaging and well researched presentations. It would be great to see students bringing their devices to school to assist with research.

Year 9 – World War One

In year 9 this term, students will be studying the key events and sources of World War One. They will complete an exam in week 8. It is essential as the date of the exam approaches that students are reviewing their notes and completing revision sheets.

Honours Program

Within our Honours Program it was great to see the majority of students achieving highly in their academic subjects and fully complying with expectations for effort and behaviour. We have also met with some students to discuss their progress on their term one reports and to reinforce the importance of behaving and trying their best at all times.

Ben Van Hees
Head of Department- Humanities

From the Head of Department – Vocational Education & Training

It is Government policy all students undertaking a Vocational Education and Training (VET) to have a Unique Student Identifier (USI). As all students in year 10 study Workplace Practices, this means that any student in Years 10, 11 or 12 at our school must have provide the school with their USI. The USI allows us to link information about a student's VET achievements, regardless of where they studied, therefore making it easier for students to find and collate their VET achievements. It is very important that every student provides the school with their USI as certificates cannot be issued without this. Below is the parent fact sheet for further information. If you have any queries or difficulties with this, please contact me at the school.

In week 9 of this term our year 10 students will undertake work experience as the 2nd block as of their Certificate II Workplace Practices course. For many students, deciding on a career for work experience was very difficult. As part of the course students undertake surveys to get a better understanding of what work will suit them. The Australian Government has produced a booklet “Parents Talking Career Choices”. The booklet gives parents helpful hints in guiding your child through career development and is below.

Annette Carter
Head of Department – Vocational Education & Training (Acting)

From the Head of Year – Year 8

The year 8s made a strong finish to Term 1 and it was excellent to see many students excel across their subject areas and achieve their goals they had set themselves. They have carried that momentum into Term 2 as I see the students continuing to work hard. With the interruptions of consecutive four day weeks behind us the students can now focus on working towards the end of term as we approach the beginning of assessment time. Term 2 is often seen as the time for students to really begin to step up and achieve what they want to achieve. We have had term 1 to settle into year 8 and now is the time for the students to shine both in and out of the classroom.

The focus for this term is POLITE and what we are looking for at school is students interacting with both staff and other students in a positive, open and courteous manner. Something as simple as a ‘hi, how are you today’, can make a student’s day that little bit better. If we all work towards being polite to others, then the school community will continue to grow into a cohesive and harmonious one.

It was tremendous to see so many of our year 8 students turn out to pay their respects at the ANZAC dawn and morning services in town recently. The school representation at the ceremonies this year exceeded expectations and the students did us all proud. Adding to these services, the behaviour and respect that was on display at our school ceremony was exceptional and I was very proud of the way the year 8 students carried themselves.

Andrew Gardner
Head of Year 8

Arts News

The Arts Faculty has been very busy so far this year and has had some major milestones, the first being our new annual event Music on the Green. The night was a huge success with performances from our talented students, face painting and amazing support from our community including Mister Whippy supplying cold treats and a popcorn machine from Denison Sate School.

We then hit the ground running at the start of term 2 with our first annual Arts Camp in Mackay. We had three Arts-packed days. Day one saw the students visiting the Mackay Artspace where we had a tour and our own Emerald State High Artspace youth ambassador Will Southwell had the opportunity to tell us all he knew. The students then had the opportunity to go bowling, see a film and have a lovely dinner at Sorbellos. Day two had us up and running to CQ University for workshops in Music, Drama and Digital Media. The students had two sessions in each of these fields with Music students having singing lessons, Drama learning improvisation games and Digital Media having a go at animation and green screen. We then closed off the day with a talent show where our students had the opportunity to show off their talents. Our winners were Chappy Mr G and Brent Rostirolla singing a duet of “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You”. We then closed off the trip with a sing along bus ride home.

This momentum is continuing with our next event will be a pie drive to raise funds for the Arts department. The funds raised will be going towards future Arts events, similar to our camp and will allow students opportunities to learn and showcase their tremendous abilities. These abilities are also being fostered in our upcoming Musical “Battle of the Bands” where our students are working hard every week to present a fantastic show that you would not want to miss!

G’Day USA News

Library News

ICAS

The next upcoming ICAS are for Spelling and Writing. The Spelling ICAS, produced with Macquarie Dictionary, assesses and reports on students’ spelling ability in different contexts. The Writing ICAS requests students to write a particular text type. Each test will only take 1 lesson on June 13th for Writing and June 14th for Spelling. From this, each student will receive a certificate along with an explanation of their results. It is also considered an extra-curricular activity. If your student from any grade is interested in Writing or from Year 7 only is interested in Spelling, they need to collect a permission letter from Mrs Galea in the library and ensure that it is returned to her along with the $13.20 for Spelling or $19.80 for Writing to the office by May 12th.

Instrumental Music News

Our Instrumental students have been busy this term already. Our Symphonic Band performed at ESHS Anzac parade. Thank you to Miss Fehlhaber who conducted the band in my absence. Well done to all.

On Wednesday 26 April we were fortunate to have Yeppoon State High School visit us as part of their western tour. Their Symphonic Band, Jazz Band and String Orchestra performed for our students during the day. Our students joined with Yeppoon SHS for a workshop /concert after school. It was a wonderful collaboration between our two schools. We made a powerful sound with over 90 students playing together.

Students have a number of upcoming events. Please see Mrs Jones to nominate for the following:

Festival of Bands and Community Workshops

From Thursday July 13th to Saturday July 15th students have the opportunity to participate in intensive band and choir workshops led by the saxophone group ‘Barega Sax’. The workshops are open to all musicians regardless of ability levels with a number of bands and choirs on offer. I encourage all ESHS musicians to participate in this fabulous weekend of music making.

Central Highlands Eisteddfod

CH Eisteddfod will be held in Emerald from 30 August – 1 September. Nominations are now open for all vocalists and musicians. Please see Mrs Jones to nominate.

Community Events