2020

Undoubtedly, 2020 has been a difficult year due to the pandemic. Despite the challenges presented, I’m proud of the fact that our students and staff displayed resilience during this time and met these challenges.

For our staff, they embraced the steep learning curve of implementing online learning overnight and many of our advances in using technology have remained.

For our students, they returned to school with a positive mindset and continued to engage in quality learning in all areas.

For our parents, we feel incredibly supported as a school and value the fact parents showed immense trust in us in 2020 and worked in partnership with teachers during learning from home.

In terms of my introductory quote, life is made up of many “moments” and we have certainly had a “rainy day” type of year. I encourage everyone to spend quality time with their families over the break, even for just “half a moment” and reflect on the fortunate position we find ourselves in compared with other countries at this time.

End of the Year

A reminder that students finish on Wednesday, 16 December 2020. Thursday, 17 December 2020 and Friday, 18 December 2020 are set aside as professional learning days for staff. As our staff have completed professional learning requirements for 2020, we will have only a very small skeleton staff at school on these days.

Staff Farewells

At the end of 2021, we farewell a number of long-serving teachers at Cecil Hills High School: Regan Schell, Celeste Wrona, Antonella Verter and Jade Erickson were all successful earlier in the year in gaining positions at Oran Park High School. All of these teachers will be missed at Cecil Hills High School and will be working much closer to home, which is wonderful for these individuals and their families.

Ms Schell has been a wonderful teacher with us over many years and was previously a member of our welfare team as a year adviser. She has been very successful as one of our senior coordinators in the last couple of years. Ms Schell supported many students to produce the best HSC results possible and helped many of our students on their transition plans.

Ms Wrona is a highly skilled visual arts teacher who was previously a member of our welfare team as a year adviser. Ms Wrona is a successful artist in her own right and many students have benefited from her expertise in the art classroom.

Ms Verter is currently our excellent Head Teacher – CAPA and leads an impressive group of visual arts, music, dance and drama teachers. Ms Verter has held a number of important roles in the school including year adviser and coordinator of our school’s communication and engagement team. On a personal note, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Ms Verter as a member of our executive team and I have appreciated her commitment and dedication as a school leader.

Ms Erickson’s main teaching area has been Engineering Studies in addition to other TAS courses. She has played an important role of modelling the importance of TAS, STEM and timber courses for our female students. She contributed to the development of a number of programs for the new TAS syllabus at the state level and her expertise in these areas will be missed.

Mr Chris Waters has been successful in gaining a position closer to home. Mr Waters has taught mathematics for many years at Cecil Hills High School. He also coordinated our driver education for senior students which helped students access a qualified driving instructor through the school.

I would like to thank all of these teachers for their many years of service at Cecil Hills High School and on behalf of the school, I wish them all the best for their next endeavours.

New Staff for 2021

We have a number of experienced teachers joining us next as new staff members. I will provide more information on our new teachers in our first newsletter of 2021.

I would like to thank Mrs Haskett for her immense service as Relieving Deputy Principal over the last two years. She has played an important role in the senior executive team for a significant amount of time, nearly two years. Mrs Haskett expertly led our current Year 9 students and graduating Year 12 cohort, with a focus on making sure students have the best educational opportunities. Mrs Haskett will be returning to head teacher next year in a new role that involves working across the school on a number of target areas and I look forward to working with her closely in this new capacity.

I am pleased to announce that Mr Joel Howard has been appointed to a permanent Deputy Principal position at our school via merit selection. Mr Howard is currently Relieving Deputy Principal at Homebush Boys High School and I look forward to welcoming him to our school when he commences in 2021. Mr Howard comes to our school with a wealth of experience in whole school administration, systems, timetabling, attendance, professional learning and educational leadership. Mr Howard will be responsible for a number of school areas including responsibility for Year 10 (2021).

HSC Results

HSC results and ATARs are traditionally released on the final day of the year for students. However, due to the pandemic, these are being released two days later on Friday, 18 December 2020. HSC results are released at 6am and ATARs are released at 9am. I will send a brief summary of HSC results to our school community on this day with a more detailed overview in 2021.

Upcoming Holidays

As teachers, we are aware of the strategies that improve learning. Professor John Hattie from the University of Melbourne compiled these strategies in a list which he updates from time to time:

Literacy and numeracy skill level in students can reduce a little in the school holidays, which is understandable, as students are having a break. Some ideas for the home to maintain student skills, as suggested by Professor Hattie, include:

playing chess
mindfulness activities
exercise
quality sleep
drama/art/music activities
outdoor activities

This list may give you some ideas for the upcoming school holidays.

P&C Meetings

Our P&C meetings are run as informal information sessions for parents and we value your input to help us with our decision-making. Our next meeting will be held at 6:30pm on Monday, 1 February 2021 and will occur online. In particular, I encourage our new Year 7 parents to log into the meeting.

I look forward to continuing to work with the staff, students and parents of Cecil Hills High School, the best school in NSW.

Mark Sutton

Principal

Meet our senior student leaders