01 Principal's Report 20 P&C
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CAMMERAYGAL HIGH SCHOOL | PH: (02) 9954 7100 ISSUE #70 1 APRIL 2021 Cammeraygal High School Empowered to Achieve 01 PRINCIPAL’S REPORT 20 P&C MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL The delivery of our grand piano this week has CALENDAR been a wonderful way to end a very successful TERM 2 | WK 1 | 19 – 23 APRIL Term 1 here at Cammeraygal. Our first opportunity to showcase the grand piano for all students will be Monday Staff Development Day at our Anzac Day ceremony which will be our first Tuesday All students return for Term 2 on site whole school assembly since the start of Friday ANZAC Day Ceremony COVID, restrictions permitting, in Wk 1 of Tm 2. TERM 2 | WK 2 | 26 - 30 APRIL Student Safety in the Community Tuesday Cross Country We have been advised that there have been Wed - Fri Combined HS Swimming several cases in our region lately of students being approached by strangers while walking to and from UPCOMING EVENTS: school and in some cases of those strangers trying Careers Expo Incursion (Yrs 10/11 & 12) | 7 May to persuade students to get into vehicles. With the Y12 Parent Teacher | 11 May holidays upon us please continue to regularly Y11 Geography Excursion | 12 May speak with your children about the importance of Y8 Medieval Incursion | 13 May being aware of their surroundings (and not immersed in their phones!) while out and about Zone Athletics | 14 May and of seeking help from local businesses and Zone Cross Country | 20 May residents if they feel threatened. Y11 Parent Teacher | 27 May Cammeraygal Represented at the Regional Cross Country | 4 June Australian National Rowing Championships Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday | 14 June Lili H (Y12 )again demonstrated her outstanding Y7 Parent Teacher | 21 June rowing prowess at the Australian National Rowing Y10 Work Experience | 21 – 25 June Championships in Tasmanian this past weekend, Y8 & Y9 Parent Teacher | 24 June competing in the finals of the Schoolgirl Single Last Day Term 2 | 25 June th Scull for Cammeraygal and placing 5 overall. This HSC Trials | 26 July to 6 August is an extraordinary achievement and is a testament to Lili’s focus, determination and grit. We are very Next P&C Meeting proud to have Lili represent our school at this prestigious competition. 4 May @ 5:30pm Location TBA 1 PRINCIPAL’S REPORT CONTINUED… Music Performances Last week on the Pacific Highway Campus we were treated to some amazing performances from our CAPA ensembles and elective classes during recess concerts in the Drama studio. Our CAPA Faculty has been hard at work getting the ensembles ‘performance ready’ again after the disruptions of COVID in 2020, and they have clearly been very successful! Both performances saw packed houses of students wanting to support their peers. The level of performance for this early in the year was wonderful – a huge thank you to the CAPA faculty for their enthusiasm and dedication! Holiday Wishes I would like to wish all members of our community a very happy and safe (and, for Y12, productive!) holiday break. It has been lovely to get to know all of the students on both campuses this term, and this experience has reaffirmed for me yet again what a fantastic school community we have here at Cammeraygal. Thank you to all of our hard-working teaching and administration staff for their tireless efforts this term, and in particular to Mr Barraclough, Ms King and Dr Mirto for their support. We are all looking forward to welcoming Ms Melky back from her leave next term rested and refreshed. J Arrow Relieving Principal Deputy Principals’ Report Open Day Tours Special mention must go to our student leaders from both campuses who generously gave up their time, out of hours, to facilitate open day tours last week. The feedback from prospective students and their parents about our student leaders was positively glowing. Please follow the link below to view a short video developed specifically for open day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBsRvgzWj54 Canteen Purchasing Students are regularly reminded that mobile phones cannot be used throughout the school day. This extends to purchasing items from both canteens. If your child wishes to make purchases from the canteen, please ensure that they have either cash or a debit card to make the transaction. Extra-Curricular Activities It has been wonderful to see so many extra-curricular activities returning this term with the easing of restrictions. In particular, the past few weeks have been full of opportunities for students to engage in knock out sports, music and drama performances, wellbeing incursions, public speaking competitions, CAT competitions and more! 2 Year 8/9 Japanese Incursion CAPA Recess Performances – Pacific CitizenBlue We are pleased to announce that the Environment Committee, led by Mr Foster, will be installing special recycling bins outside the canteens, commencing Term 2. The contents will be collected periodically by CitizenBlue to be recycled, and we will be paid for the privilege! All funds will go to the P&C to help support future environment projects. Thanks in advance to Mr Foster and the Environment Committee for their work in educating the student body about the program and also sorting the recycling for collection. P Barraclough Deputy Principal 3 Faculty News LOTE What a day! All of Y8 and Y9 Japanese classes participated in an eventful morning of learning about the wonders of Japan through games hosted by Mama Dojo. Games Boy JP was a theatre presentation that sees students experience Japan’s language through playground games in the style of Undoukai (sports day) to teach them about the lively modern culture. Students were jumping up and about trying to win in the classic game of Jan Ken Pon using their feet and had wild guesses at where the Okashi was. There were some Kawaii (cute) as well as Kowai (scary) poses out there! Y9 had the chance to be involved in an extra language intensive workshop – they practised their Shinobi skills, chopping each other’s Ude (arm) and Ashi (Feet) off in fits of laughter. Zhuo Sensei was amazed at the level of evasion and fitness shown by our students, very ninja indeed. What was even more surprising was the intelligence that some of our students shown in the game of Fukuro-Toru, a strategic game of stealing the red bag back to your team base without getting tagged. All in all, it was a very Tanoshii (fun) morning. Otsukaresama deshita! (Thank you for the hard work!) 4 MATHEMATICS Some information for Year 7 parents about Task 1 Students in Year 7 recently completed their first mathematics test at Cammeraygal High School. This task is designed to formally evaluate a student’s skill working with negative number operations and their understanding of the early stages of formal geometric reasoning. Completing the first task at the end of Term 1 marks an important milestone in the development of what we like to call “The Four Foundations”: negative numbers, fractions, algebra and equations. Mastery of the Four Foundations is the gateway to high school mathematics, which is why we put so much emphasis during Year 7 on developing them. Our goal is for all Year 7 students to gain mastery of the Four Foundations. Students who are yet to fully master negative number operations will be supported throughout Term 2, and Term 3, and even through to Term 4 to keep working with negative numbers until they do reach mastery. Students who did not reach ‘C’ grade level on negative numbers this term will be invited to the morning workshop (see below). At this time, it is also worth highlighting that if a student gains a ‘C’ grade outcome, this means they are making solid progress. The formal definition given to schools for a ‘C’ grade is: The student has a sound knowledge and understanding of the main areas of content and has achieved an adequate level of competence in the processes and skills. Based on past experience, we are confident that if a Year 7 student is at ‘C’ level for negative numbers in Term 1, they will likely reach a ‘B’ or ‘A’ level for negative numbers by the end of the year if they keep focused in class and do assigned homework. We will be reviewing and extending negative number work in the coming months, and students will have another opportunity to be formally assessed on negative number skills in the next task at the end of Term 2. 5 Maths Support Workshops for Term 2 In Term 2 we will be providing targeted support for specific groups of students: Year 7 students yet to reach the ‘C’ grade level for negative number operations, as seen in their result from Task 1, are invited to the Tuesday morning workshop with Mr Zuber on the Pacific campus 8:15am – 8:45am. Year 10 Maths 5.3 students who need review of algebra, as seen in their results from Task 1, as invited to the Tuesday afternoon workshop with Mr Yang on the West St campus 3:20pm – 4:00pm. Year 11 Maths Advanced students who need review of the Term 1 content, as seen in their results from Task 1, are invited to a new Tuesday morning workshop with Mr Hwang on the West St campus 8:15am – 8:45am. Maths Online Subscriptions Students who have subscribed to this service should have received user accounts and passwords from their maths teacher. The Maths Challenge Students are now working on the last set of problems, due Friday 30 April. Please see the cover of the workbook given to students for more details on submission.