Cecil Hills High School Newsletter

Another great year

Look at me

I'm where I started

Look at me

It's like I've just begun

Look at me

I'm back at chapter one

Yet there's a change that I can see...

 

‘Look at Me’ by John Dempsey and Dana P. Rowe from ‘The Witches of Eastwick’

HSC Results

In 2019, we have had another amazing effort from another excellent group of Year 12 students.  We have once again attained fantastic HSC results and our school highlights include:

  • 45 x Band 6 results (a score over 90%)
  • 161 x Band 5 results (a score over 80%)
  • Kosta Tsoukalas attained our highest ATAR of 96.65
  • Winston Fok attained 5th in NSW for Business Services
  • Felicity Olivares attained 7th in NSW for Business Services
Kosta Tskoukalas
Winston Fok
Felicity Olivares
Kosta Tskoukalas
Winston Fok
Felicity Olivares

 

We are very proud of the commitment we have to excellence in Year 11 and Year 12 and our approach is validated by these strong results.  Well done to all of our students and thanks to our amazing HSC teachers.  In terms of my introductory quote, as it is time for us to go back to chapter one again at the start of next year and do it all again.  I am proud of the fact that students are able to attend their local public high school and achieve absolutely fantastic results.  We are all very proud of the quality education we provide here and this set of HSC results makes our endeavours all worthwhile.

Save the Date - Year 7 (2020) BBQ and Year 7 (2021) Information Evening

An information evening for Year 7 (2021) will be held on Tuesday, 25 February 2020.  This will provide an opportunity for prospective parents and community members to learn more about our school and enjoy a guided tour of our state-of-the-art facilities.  Ms Karina Fagan and Ms Amy Preston, our year advisers for this year group, will be coordinating the event in conjunction with Ms Stephanie Haskett, Deputy Principal.  This will also coincide with our normal Year 7 BBQ.  As a result, we invite both Year 6 (2020) and Year 7 (2020) students, parents and families to this double event!  Please save the date and further information will be provided early next year.

Farewells

Sadly, we are saying farewell to a significant number of teachers.

 

  • Temporary teachers Ms Shaheen Ali (Science), Ms Kathy Tran (Mathematics) and Ms Olivia Pham (Social Sciences) are all moving onto other schools and endeavours in 2020.
  • Mr Josh Symons has been promoted to Head Teacher – TAS at the newly built Oran Park High School. Mr Symons has only been at our school for a relatively short time but he has made a positive impact during this period and we wish him all the best as he joins an excellent team of teachers establishing this new high school.
  • Mr Sangh Raj and Mrs Phul Raj are retiring after about 20 years of service each to Cecil Hills High School.  This is a significant commitment to the education of our students and we wish them all the best for their retirement.
  • Ms Paula Vella has provided 18 years of service to Cecil Hills High School in both Mathematics and Science and will also be joining Oran Park High School from 2020.  Ms Vella has not only been a popular member of staff but also a source of support for our P&C. 
  • Ms Roshna Sharma in our Support Unit has provided 13 years of service to Cecil Hills High School students and has been our regular 2IC, filling in as Head Teacher many times.  Ms Sharma was successful in her application to pursue a career transition to school counselling and we wish her all the best for this new role.
  • Mr Paul Hickey has been promoted to Head Teacher – Welfare at Bulli High School after 15 years of service to Cecil Hills High School.  Mr Hickey has done an enormous amount for our school in a number of capacities including Year Adviser and Relieving Head Teacher – Welfare.  I anticipate next year that at various times we will be saying “Paul used to do that” as he performed many behind-the-scenes roles including managing our school Facebook account, working with our technology team and always being on hand to help out.
  • Ms Belinda Vidot is our Head Teacher – Administration and she has secured a position as Head Teacher – Administration at Cronulla High School, much closer to home, after 16 years of service to Cecil Hills High School.  Ms Vidot does a massive amount of work to ensure we attract the best teachers to our school and then work with them as beginning teachers.  We will miss her bubbly personality, student-centred philosophy and sense of humour.  I have worked very closely with Ms Vidot in her role and I will sorely miss her expertise and assistance.
  • Mr Ben Condon is an institution at our school and will also be commencing at Oran Park High School next year.  He is an original of our school and started at Cecil Hills High School on 29 January 1996.  Mr Condon has been Sports Coordinator since the school’s first day of operation and he has ensured our school has always had a strong spotlight on sport.  Mr Condon has performed his very public work in running sports carnivals and organising sport, but also churns through a significant amount of other work in his spare time, often late at night, to ensure sporting opportunities are always at the forefront for our students.  At our presentation assembly, it was my honour to announce that our most prestigious sporting award will now be known as the ‘Ben Condon Sportsperson of the Year Award’.   Mr Condon has been given the extremely rare privilege of being able to establish a second high school from scratch and he leaves knowing he has had a positive influence on a generation of Cecil Hills High School students.

We wish all of these teachers all the best in their future endeavours.

Student Dux Awards

We had a fantastic Presentation Assembly last week - a wonderful opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge  excellence to all students who received awards. Congratulations to our Dux award recipient awardees:

Minh To, 1st Dux of Year 7
Katrina Le-Nguyen, 2nd Dux of Year 7
Dominic Nguyen, 3rd Dux of Year 7
Tiana Tepsa, 1st Dux of Year 8
Christopher Nguyen, 2nd Dux of Year 8
Djordje Kaludjerovic, 3rd Dux of Year 8
Athida Sirimanotham, 1st Dux of Year 9
Lisa Huang, 2nd Dux of Year 9
Veron Kachou, 3rd Dux of Year 9
Felicia Leong, 1st Dux of Year 10
Sonia Hoang, 2nd Dux of Year 10
Brendan Pham, 3rd Dux of Year 10
Winston Fok, 1st Dux of Year 11
Elvis Nguyen, 2nd Dux of Year 11
Helen Merza, 3rd Dux of Year 11
Minh To, 1st Dux of Year 7
Katrina Le-Nguyen, 2nd Dux of Year 7
Dominic Nguyen, 3rd Dux of Year 7
Tiana Tepsa, 1st Dux of Year 8
Christopher Nguyen, 2nd Dux of Year 8
Djordje Kaludjerovic, 3rd Dux of Year 8
Athida Sirimanotham, 1st Dux of Year 9
Lisa Huang, 2nd Dux of Year 9
Veron Kachou, 3rd Dux of Year 9
Felicia Leong, 1st Dux of Year 10
Sonia Hoang, 2nd Dux of Year 10
Brendan Pham, 3rd Dux of Year 10
Winston Fok, 1st Dux of Year 11
Elvis Nguyen, 2nd Dux of Year 11
Helen Merza, 3rd Dux of Year 11

2020 school starting dates

Wednesday, 29 January - First day for students in Year 7, 11 and 12 

Thursday, 30 January - First day for students in Year 8, 9 and 10  

Enabling translation

Enabling translation is a great way to enable readers of multiple languages to read our newsletters. The translation service is provided by Google Translate and while it is not perfect, it is an easy way to add multi-lingual support to your newsletters.

If you know of anyone who would like to read our school newsletter in their own language, see the small box on the bottom left hand side of the front page of our newsletter which allows readers to select which language they'd like to translate to.

P&C Meetings

Our next P&C meeting will be held at 6:30pm on Monday, 3 February 2020.  There will be a repeat session at 9:30am on Thursday, 6 February 2020.

 

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