25 October 2017

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Welcome to this fortnight’s newsletter edition. The past two weeks have seen some wonderful achievements by our students and staff. Our school staff hosted 500 educators at the Emerald Educators conference and did a fantastic job. They did our community proud. The weekend before that many of our staff coached and assisted in hosting the Western 7s Rugby Union competition. This week our Year 11s are out at the leadership camp and Oktoberfest on Friday.

Fantastic result!!!

ESHS Symphonic Band has just returned from their successful band tour to Brisbane. Our band workshopped and performed with Kedron State High School and McDowall State High School. The highlight was their performance at Queensland Music Festival where they came home with the GOLD award. Our students should be congratulated on their wonderful achievement. – Dana Jones

Coming up

• School Captain Interviews Tuesday 31st October
• Awards evening Wednesday 1st November at Town Hall

Special mentions

• To the Deputy Principals and HODs who worked very hard preparing for the Emerald Education Conference, especially Tanya Shaw, Martine Shelton, Leigh Dyer and the Deputy principals and HODs who presented or assisted.
• Congratulations to Dana Jones, Jacinta Fehlhaber and our school orchestra, great result!
• Congratulations to Mrs Ross and ESHS for winning a federal award of best use of technology on ANZAC Day.
• Special thankyou to Mr Currington, Ms Comollatti and the Emerald SHS staff who coached and supported our students during the Western 7s.
• Congratulations to the Under 14 Boys team and the Under 15 Girls team who both won their divisions in the Western 7s. Awesome result!!!

“I think science has enjoyed an extraordinary success because it has such a limited and narrow realm in which to focus its efforts. Namely, the physical universe.” – Ken Jenkins

Have a healthy weekend,

Ray

Ray Clarke
Principal

From the Deputy Principal – Junior School

Western 7s

As far as Western 7s goes, it was safe to say that this year had it all! A new venue, new date, new teams, a rain deluge and new champions to name but a few. As always, Emerald High represented across all age groups in the boys and girls pools. With three new coaches this year we were excited to see how our teams would go against the best from inside and outside the region.

The final days saw the U15 girls and the U14 boys named champions after two great finals in the mud. It was great to see such committed rugby from all of our teams, regardless of their results and as always, fantastic sportsmanship. A big thank you to all of our coaches and managers for giving up their time over the weekend. Also, to the parents who traipsed around In the mud for three days to give their children the opportunity to participate, thank you.

Year 6 into 7 Enrolment Evenings

The final enrolment evening took place this week in the Library. We have over 80 enrolments for Year 7 next year with many more still to come. From now on, you will need to book in with the office to do an enrolment evening with one of the Deputy Principals at the school.

Hayden Ryan
Deputy Principal – Junior School

Positive Behaviour for Learning News

At Emerald State High School, we are P olite, we are P repared and we P articipate.

We are well into the thick of term 4 at Emerald State High School and our 3Ps are as important as ever. Evidence of our students displaying the 3Ps will be displayed at our annual awards night on Wednesday 1st November. It will be a great night seeing our students recognised for their efforts.

PBL focus for the term

This term we are consolidating the 3P’s by revisiting what it means to be polite, prepared and to participate. Each week we are addressing a different aspect of the s with our students to re-affirm our classroom expectations.

VIVO Rewards

In order to receive rewards, students need to earn a certain number of points. Congratulations to those students who demonstrate our 3Ps, we hope you enjoy your rewards.

VIVO Leaders

Our leaders on the VIVO ladder by year level is year 7, with over 46,000 points! What a great effort, year 7! Thanks for demonstrating the 3Ps both inside and outside of the classroom. Keep it up!

VIVO Product of the week – Senior Jersey

There is a variety of great prizes in the VIVO shop. This week’s product of the week is the senior jersey. Year 11 students can score $5 off their senior jersey for just 250 points.
If you have any ideas or suggestions for prizes to add to our VIVO shop, we would love to hear them.

Maths News

This year has flown by and our seniors are in the final grips of their education. This term will wrap up quickly for them and soon enough they will be studying hard for their final exams. All year 12 classes this term have an end of year exam. It has been great to see such great participation in Mathematics classes since the beginning of the year. Students have been participating very well in Mathematics classes by seeking help in their own time and completing their work to the best of their ability. It is great to see our students engaged in mathematics and being able to see the value in strong mathematical skills. Teachers from all departments have been working together to develop whole-school strategies for improving numeracy skills.

In regards to the year 11 students, this is an exciting time as much of the content being taught across the maths classes is brand new to them and things they have never come across before. Such topics are ‘trigonometric functions’ for Mathematics B and ‘fitting out’ and ‘networks’ for Mathematics A. As a reminder, it is crunch time for them to put in everything they can to this final term of the year. Ensuring they are working hard now will put them in good stead for next year when the effort and dedication has to begin from day one. Furthermore, now is the time to evaluate the success achieved in their current maths subject. If they think that it may be in their best interest to change subject, please see their teacher, the Head of Department or the Guidance Officer.

As for our junior students, the year 7s are currently learning about geometry involving angles and parallel lines and following with symmetries while the year 8s are doing probability with algebra at the end. Our year 9 students have begun something new with their exploration of similar triangles and Pythagoras’ Theorem with their final unit being on trigonometry. There is still time for each student to improve on their achievement, effort and behaviour before the end of the year.

Arts News

Term 4 has already been a busy one for our Art department! In week one the Visual Arts Senior class had an excursion down to the Emerald Art Gallery to install the Annual Youth Art Awards. There they had an induction workshop to how a gallery is run and set up. Students were in charge of listing the works, setting up the displays and hanging. In total, the students curated 240 entries from all youth throughout Emerald. On the ceremony night we had several ESHS students awarded prizes and certificates. Our winners were:

Chaente DeLange: 1st place Digital and Oil painting
Aimee Maddox: 3rd place 2D works
Wyatt Thompson: 3rd Place Photography
Kaylee Delange: Packers Choice

With many other ESHS students helping and performing on the night, we are very proud of all our students and the way in which they represented the school. If you would like to see the show, it will be up and open to the public until mid-November at the Emerald Gallery in the Council building.

The rest of this term will see us very busy, finishing up films, performances and artworks across all Arts areas and grades.

Library News

English ICAS Results

The results have come back for the English ICAS, which over 100 students in years 7-9 sat earlier this year. They were required to answer multiple-choice questions that assessed students’ knowledge of text comprehension, writer’s craft, syntax, and spelling. Here is a breakdown of the results:

Special congratulations go to Claire Reinke of Year 7 who also received the Principal’s Award! Out of the three students who achieved a Distinction, Elisha Johnston and Paxton Hayes are the others; Claire achieved the highest percentage of answers correct. Congratulations to all the participants on your excellent results!

Premier’s Reading Challenge

Between May 15th and August 25th, students in years 7-9 had the option to take on the Premier’s Reading Challenge to read 15 books. This program grows each year, and in 2017 we joined with more than 650 schools across the state that participated. Congratulations to our students that met this challenge!

Special Education Program News

The SEP have a number of events coming up. Next Tuesday, 31st of October is the Post School Options Expo, letters have been sent home to eligible students, please return notes as soon as possible. The Post School Options Expo is for anyone with a disability who is interested in exploring options after school. Another event being offered next Wednesday the 1st November is Learn Driver Course for SEP & Learning support students.

Some curriculum the SEP students have been doing recently include science experiments, measurement, active & agile and a novel study of The BFG. Another program a small group of students have been doing is ‘Zones of Regulation’.

Catherine Mahoney
Head of Special Education (Acting)

Community Events

Emerald PCYC is raffling a signed Melbourne Storm jersey. Tickets can be purchased at the PCYC or by calling (07) 4987 7475.