WOONONA high school Our Fantastic Volunteers! EXCELLENCE INNOVATION SUCCESS New s l e t t e r Issue No. 8 5 June 2017 PH: 4284 1513 [email protected] Minnamurra In this issue: 8 8 Page 5 Athletics Carnival Page 6 Athletics Carnival Fun Page 7 2 Wise Monkeys Cafe Page 8 CoS CAPA Day 5 Page 9 SongMakers Project Excursion Page 10 CAPA IRT Performance Page 11 KYUP! Self Defence Page 12 Living Books Page 13 World’s Biggest Morning Tea Page 14 Library Book Club Page 14 Volunteering at WHS Page 15 Canteen News Page 15 Mathematics Comp Page 16 Regional SRC Conference Page 16 Year 8 Checkerboard Cakes 6 Calender Mon 5 Jun Stage 5 Assembly 16 Thur 8 Jun Monty Prior Visit Thur 8 Jun Captivate CAPA Showcase Thur 8 Jun Accelerated Art Portrait Display Wed 14 Jun CoS Leadership Day Fri 16 Year 10 Science, Lunar Park Excursion Mon 19 Jun—Fri 30 Jun Year 12 Trial HSC Period 12 Excellence Innovation Success Page 3 I had the pleasure of attending the Illawarra Regional Dance Festival on Wednesday evening. It is always wonderful to see the depth of talent in Public Schools and in particular the talent at Woonona High School. Congratulations to the students in both dance troupes who performed beautifully and thank you to Mrs Steele and Miss Sharp for their dedication, expertise and commitment to the performing arts at Woonona High. This Thursday evening we will host the annual CAPA Showcase, I encourage families to attend as the array of creativity that will be on display is inspiring. Thank you to all CAPA staff who have been Principal’s Report preparing students, troupes and displays for the evening. Today Woonona High School is hosting the annual NAIDOC Public Speaking workshop. We welcome students from a number of Illawarra schools who are participating in the event and wish our students well as they represent our school. Thank you to Miss Potter for liaising with the Northern Illawarra AECG and organising this event. GONSKI: There has been a great deal of information about Gonski in the media recently. I thought that I would share my perspective as the Principal. Where it originated, what it is about, what is it trying to do and what is the impact at Woonona High School. Collecting information from around Australia The Gonski Review was a bipartisan committee that conducted public hearings in six states and heard the views of a wide range of stakeholders: public, Catholic and independent school associations; parents, teachers, principals; unions and, in some cases, State and Territory Governments. In addition to the public hearings, the committee received over 3400 submissions over the course of the inquiry. What Gonski recommended The Gonski Review made 41 recommendations for a fair, equitable and efficient school funding system. The Gonski Review found that Australia is investing too little in schools, and that the way we distribute the money is neither fair nor effective. The Gonski funding arrangements are designed to ensure that the right resources are in every school to give children the individual attention and support they need to excel. The six-year Gonski agreements the Federal Government signed with five States and Territories began in 2014 and were designed to bring schools up to an appropriate level of resources in six years. Primarily there was a greater need to invest in education. A $6.5 billion per year funding increase (about 15% extra) distributed to schools based on a model that gave every student a funding benchmark amount plus extra money, or “loadings”, for specific disadvantages. The Gonski Review found that Australia has one of the biggest gaps amongst developed nations between high and low performing students, a gap that is growing. It also found that educational performance is strongly and unacceptably linked to students’ backgrounds - the more disadvantaged, the worse the child’s outcomes. The loadings would cover six identified forms of disadvantage – low socioeconomic background, indigenous background, Refugee or non English speaking background, rural or small schools and disability. While all sectors enrol a mix of students of different backgrounds and educational ability, socio-economic and educational disadvantage is heavily concentrated in the public school sector. In 2010, public schools enrolled 80% of students from the lowest SES quartile, 78% of disabled students, 85% of Indigenous students and 68% of students of non-English speaking backgrounds. Excellence Innovation Success The Gonski Review stressed the need for an equitable school funding system: one that ensures that differences in educational outcomes are not the result of differences in wealth, income, power or possessions. To address the current imbalances, the review recommended a national needs‑based and sector-blind school funding model. The new funding model would provide a level of base funding to all schools and additional targeted funding to disadvantaged students in order to remove inequities and minimise the identified performance gap. Cont. So what has happened? Schools have been the beneficiaries of funding over the past four years through equity loadings. These equity loadings have enabled additional support to assist students from low socio-economic backgrounds, students with low level disabilities, students who have no or very limited English and students from Aboriginal backgrounds. This funding has enabled our school to operate additional support programs that are targeted at supporting students. We have put in place school strategies, resources for classroom learning programs, employ additional staff and allow for time to support our students and teachers in order to support our students achieve their best. Many of the successful initiatives for which Woonona High School has received positive publicity have been made possible due to the additional funding we have received in recent years. The Gonski funding does make a difference and will continue to make a difference at Woonona High School. CAPA Showcase and Portrait Display Applications for the next group of Visual Arts Accelerated HSC students close at the end of Week 9. This opportunity is for those students in Year 8 who are part of the Art Extension elective. This is the third group of students who have the option of undertaking the accelerated program. Our initial group is in Year 10 and on their way to completing the Preliminary HSC course. Some of their work will be on display in the hall this Thursday 8th June from 3:30 to 6pm. If you would like any information regarding the course please come along or contact Mr David Hoole on 0400 242 247 Also on display 3:30 – 6pm will be the 37 Portraits completed by Year 11 Art students. For this task they had to produce a 2D work capturing a Year 11 student or member of the Woonona High School Staff. The results are fantastic and cover a wide range of media and techniques. On Thursday you can come along and post a vote for the “People’s Choice Award” with a chance to win a prize just for picking which portrait will get the most votes. Excellence Innovation Success Page 4 Page 5 2017 Athletics Carnival Our annual athletics carnival was held on Tuesday 23 May in absolutely perfect conditions. Attendance at the carnival was high and there was lots of competition in all events. Mr Landy (carnival organiser) said that there were some great athletic performances and that the atmosphere of the carnival was fantastic with students and staff getting into the sports carnival spirit. Track events, high jump, long jump, javelin, discus and shot put as well as the more fun events such as tug-o-war and “sack” races were very well supported. There were some stand out performances with several students beating their personal bests on the day. Congratulations to all students who participated and to those who were place getters. Official results and age champions will be announced at next week’s assembly and reported in our next newsletter edition. Also, see our facebook page for lots more photos. Students who have made it through to the Zone Athletics Carnival on 23 June are busy with preparations. Once again Mr Thompson (guest coach), is helping with athletics coaching and students have been offered training sessions with him. Mr Thompson has joined us here at Woonona High School for over 10 years to help our students with their athletics carnival preparation and his efforts have been greatly appreciated by our students. Excellence Innovation Success Page 6 Fantastic Carnival Atmosphere Not only do our sporting carnivals (athletics, swimming and cross country) give our students the chance to show their athletic abilities, the special atmosphere that is generated at our carnivals is legendary and allows all students to have a fun and relaxed day with their peers and teachers. All our carnivals are very well supported by students and staff and a lot of effort goes into ensuring that students enjoy the day. Firstly, a big congratulations to Mr Landy for his organisation of the Athletics Carnival. Mr Landy worked tirelessly to ensure that the carnival ran smoothly and that everyone had a fantastic time. Mr Landy acknowledged that he had lots of help from other staff members with Ms Sharp, (helped by some of her Music students), making sure the music was energetic and entertaining, Ms King’s CAPA class put on a brilliant opening performance that certainly set the tone for the day, Mrs Mete, Mrs Cannings and Mr De Main catered for staff and Year 12 students sold cakes and goodies, with money raised being donated to the Cancer Council. Other members of our staff made sure there was lots of entertainment with Mr Rayner and Mr McDermott taking on the high jump, Mr Chamberlain having a go at discus, Miss Kate Sharp and Miss Walker trying their hands at the novelty events and Miss Potter organising the staff soccer match.