.3\N ` H The Weekly Newsletter of Sydney Boys High School Vol 18 No 31 13 October 2017 From the Principal Tell Them From Me Survey Welcome Back to Term 4 We need your help! The School and The I I trust all staff and Learning Bar need to collect feedback from students had a you, our parent stakeholders, through the restful break. The TTFM surveys. We do not have a large enough HSC starts next sample to make informed decisions. The week for Year 12. survey site will now remain open until October, Summer sport is 20. You can complete a survey at any time. G in full swing. Staff changes this term: Steven Over recent years we have built up a data base Marcos Head Teacher Sport replaces Mark of staff and parent opinions about various Pavone, Anna Hitchcock appointed in English aspects of school life. We appreciate the (replacing Evan Higgins), Natalie Mackenzie in feedback – both positive and negative – as it Science returns from maternity leave helps us with our forward planning in our (replacing Chris Noble), Emily Stephens is search for continual improvement. Information back for Ron Boros in mathematics and given is confidential and will not be used in any H way that identifies a person or the school. Matthew Kwong is filling in for Angie Ward in mathematics. Maria Glenn is relieving SAM Additional information for parents, including while Sharon Kearns is on LSL. Welcome to parent FAQs, can also be found on the CESE everyone. website at: http://surveys.cese.nsw.gov.au/information- High Talent for-parents. I urge as many parents to Congratulations to Thomas Schanzer (10F) participate as possible. To have your say about who was named the 2017 our school go to https://sbhs.co/pil17 Parent Science Teachers voice is very important to us at High. Help us Association, Young to make decisions based on a strong amount Scientist of the Year. This of data. award is important N because thousands of Sydney Boys Team Travel Fund – ASF young scientists compete We have an Australian Sports Foundation for the honour. Great job, Project – the team travel fund. The idea is Thomas! Benjamin Coan intended to defray some of the costs of our (12E) and Jonathan Zeng (11M) represented extensive sporting travel costs – to Armidale, NSW in the U19 Men’s Volleyball Team which Melbourne, Wingham, Canberra, Taree, O competed at the National Championship on Grafton, Terrigal, Port Stephens or the Gold the Gold Coast. Well done, boys! Coast. If your son represents the school in any sport and is likely to ‘go on the road’ then it may Terrorism and Homicide Victims be possible to work with your MIC to reduce Remembrance Day the cost of these sporting tours considerably This Thursday was a designated day of via a tax deductible donation. Old Boys and T remembrance for victims of terrorism and friends of High are invited to make a homicide. This day was gazetted by the contribution to this Fund also. If you have an Premier in 2007. It behoves us to recognise interest in sport and would like to give back and be grateful for the relatively peaceful something to help our boys experience the fun society in which we live. Nevertheless, there of sporting trips while they are at school, then have been many victims of terrorism and do as I did and donate direct to ASF at E homicide, many by www.asf.org.au/make-donation/sydney-boys- domestic violence, in team travel fund/ Last year the basketball our recent history. We teams that travelled to Victoria for the National need to eradicate Schools Championships were subsidised from racism, sexism and the fund. Ask your MIC about organising a prejudice from our future sporting trip to take advantage of the S society, starting in our ASF Team Travel Fund. schools. Foundation Day Assembly civil war. Dr Christian Barnard successfully transplanted a Jon Isaacs (SHS-1967) was our special guest at our human heart. Sgt Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band was a annual Foundation Day Assembly. He was School ground-breaking album for The Beatles. Captain in 1967 and spoke with great insight and In 1967 there was a real changing of the guard here at High. experience about the elements of leadership and how to A.R. Jessep departed after 17 years of service to the school in behave well as a leader. He emphasised the need to be the areas of Classics – as teacher and master, in sports true to yourself, to be honest with yourself and admit development and management, the School Union and the weakness, to find your appropriate leading style, to be a chess club. J. G. Bradford was appointed Deputy Principal. He good listener always, and to attract people around you took over from Murray Callaghan as Principal in March of 1973 with complementary skills to yours. Twenty or so Old and led the school until 1976. Fourteen new staff members Boys from his year were in attendance to share in the entered on duty in 1967 – a major shift in personnel. It was a experience of revisiting High in the 1960s. My speech to time of renewal and of hope, as the Wyndham Scheme the assembly is reprinted below: replaced the Leaving Certificate with the Higher School Certificate, as the School Certificate had previously replaced Special guest Jon Isaacs (SHS-1967), Ms Andrea Connell, the Intermediate Certificate. Years became Forms and the Principal SGHS, Paul Almond, President SHSOBU, Geoff Class of 1967 were our first Sixth Formers. The curriculum Andrews, Chairman, SHS Foundation, Professor Ron Trent, became broader, but as Callaghan said in The Record, High’s President SBHS School Council, Ben Wilcox (School Captain “essential aim remained unchanged – that of providing a full 2012) distinguished Old Boys from the Class of 1967, staff, educational experience, a rich opportunity for each pupil”… parents, Prefect Interns and students, welcome to our Urging our students to seize the myriad opportunities on offer, Foundation Day Assembly for 2017. It is inspiring to have 23 is still a catch cry of ours at High. Old Boys to celebrate Founder’s Day with us this morning. Thank you all for coming. Thank you also to our piano players Jon Isaacs, as Captain, in ‘The Record’ of 1967, characterised James Li and Christopher Yuan. school spirit by identifying its manifestations …”we can acknowledge it by deeds, by accepting it as part of our faith, by The central reason for today’s gathering is to celebrate the consciously directing our participation towards the school’s opening of the School on October 1, 1883. While reminding advantage…School spirit, like religion, is a way of life.” There ourselves annually about what we believe the school was is an element of seeing support for the school as a calling that established to achieve, we also reinforce the cultural rite of we can still relate to strongly. People have a propensity to passage for its student leaders as they enter their final year. adhere to a principle, cause or belief greater than themselves, Our school was founded to prepare students for university in order to add more depth to their lives. Too often in study. That is also its objective today. In the 1880s students contemporary society, people in general and students in wanted their school life to be richer than just academic study, particular, are apt to inquire – ‘what’s in it for me?’-, before so they organised ‘games’. High’s co-curricular life grew out of committing themselves to an activity. There is just so much student action, culminating in membership of the AAGPS in choice and so many distractions in this technological age that it 1906. is increasingly hard to keep students focussed on devoting time and energy to any one pursuit. There is a sense that personal We honour the impressive student leadership traditions that empowerment through online activity is more of a priority than have developed over 134 years since our establishment. The seeking empowerment through commitment to an institution or investiture ceremony for Prefect ‘Interns’ restates our belief in to others. For those that do commit, there are personal and our core values, preserves our past traditions of service, social rewards. Jon’s characterisation of a spiritual commitment revives the stories that bind us to our interpretation of those to school life is very much aligned to the way we promote our traditions and reaffirms our vision for the future. Modelling school today – ‘You can’t buy spirit.’ Indeed, you have to live it. cultural values through leadership is, and has always been, an integral aspect of our school culture. Turning to those who will carry on the fine leadership traditions at High, I exhort our Prefect Interns to be great role models and Our guests today include School Captains and Prefects from demonstrate high quality leadership. Each one of you must the past. Their names are signed in the Prefects Book – our pledge to uphold and enhance the traditions of this fine school. special record of generations of leaders. Their names are on You will have to maintain a high academic standard in state our honour boards. They were awarded prizes for physics or terms throughout your internship. You will need to participate in chemistry. They represented in the first XI, the first and 2nd XV, two GPS sports in your final year, starting with summer sport in the first VIII, the IVs, first grade tennis, water polo, debating. term 4. You will need to earn 100 Student Award Scheme points They played in the orchestra.