Message from the Principal
Term 3 Week 3
The term has commenced with its usual energy and gusto as our students embrace their academic studies and the great variety of co-curricular activities on offer. We have enjoyed a fabulous celebration of the arts with the staging of the School musical and the exhibition of our Year 12’s Textiles and Visual Arts major works.
I hope many took the opportunity to see the outstanding production of ‘High School Musical’ staged at the Orange Civic Theatre. Congratulations to the wonderful cast who clearly had put in an enormous effort to achieve such a polished, colourful and energetic production. A huge cast of over 70 students plus the back stage team and our musicians. It was fabulous to see so many involved – boys, girls, Year 7’s through to Year 11’s – and students who are also involved in a great breadth of school activities. It is a great credit to the Director, Mrs Catherine Litchfield and all the staff who were involved that such a first class production with a very young cast was achieved. It is very clear that we have many good years ahead on the musical front.
Last Friday evening the annual exhibition of our Year 12 Textile and Visual Arts major works was held. A marvellous occasion showcasing the excellence of our Senior Students whose creativity dedication and skill never cease to amaze. The quality of the projects undertaken by our Year 12’s was outstanding, reflective of their ability but also the dedication, passion and care of our staff who like the students have gone to extraordinary lengths to see that such a high quality of work is achieved. We are most fortunate to have such a committed and selfless staff.
‘To be or not to be’
The enduring appeal of England’s greatest Bard
While on the theme of the Creative and Performing Arts, I thought I might share with you an opportunity I enjoyed over the holiday period where I saw a superb production of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre in London. The Globe is a modern reproduction of Shakespeare’s original theatre situated just 200 meters from its original site on the banks of the river Thames. It is a wonderful structure, built of oak and plaster that was fashionable during the Elizabethan era.
The production was truly first class and performed in its traditional context. The work of William Shakespeare has always strongly appealed to me due to his immense ability to summarise the range of human emotions in simple yet profoundly eloquent verse. His works appealed to royalty and the common man and continue to hold broad appeal with contemporary audience.
So what is it about his work that sees his popularity so enduring? Shakespeare explores the universal themes of love, hate, duty, honour and man’s flaws in seeking to assume power based on envy, greed or position. His works are emotional, hilarious and pithy and he was masterful at imbuing his stories and characters with qualities audiences and readers readily identify with. His fellow playwright and friend Ben Jonson described Shakespeare as “not of an age, but for all time”. When we think of romance, we think of Romeo and Juliet. When we consider the dangers of ambition or ruthless politics, Macbeth and Richard III come to mind. If a comical mix up arises we still refer to the Comedy of Errors with its confusion of not just one set of twins, but two.
Samuel Johnson perceptively and accurately stated in his preface to The Plays of Shakespeare (1765) … “His characters … are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find”.
Shakespeare’s influence upon the English language is considerable and many of his words and phrases have become embedded in our lexicon. He is credited with the first usage of over 1700 words ranging from luggage, moonbeam and eyeball to worthless grovel and puking. The Oxford English Dictionary full edition contains approximately 33,300 of the Bard’s quotations.
When we hear ‘its Greek to me’, suffering from ‘green-eyed jealousy’, ‘stood on ceremony’, ‘no rhyme or reason’, ‘method in the madness’, been ‘tongue-tied’, ‘hoodwinked’ or ‘in a pickle’ we are hearing quotations from Shakespeare.
Marchette Chute, accurately captures the rationale for Shakespeare’s enduring appeal and immeasurable fame in the ‘Introduction’ to her highly acclaimed retelling of Shakespeare’s Stories.
“William Shakespeare was the most remarkable storyteller that the world has ever known." Homer told of adventure and men at war, Sophocles and Tolstoy told of tragedies and of people in trouble. Terence and Mark Twain told cosmic stories, Dickens told melodramatic ones, Plutarch told histories and Hand Christian Andersen told fairy tales. But Shakespeare told every kind of story – comedy, tragedy, history, melodrama, adventure, loves stories and fairy tales – and each of them so well that they have become immortal. In all the world of story telling he has become the greatest name. (Marchette Chute – Stories from Shakespeare, Hodder and Staughton, 1989, p 11)
Did you know?
Shakespeare’s plays were amongst the few precious books brought to Australia by Captain James Cook on his ship the Endeavour in 1770 and that Richard III was performed as early as December 1793 on Norfolk Island.
2018 Year 12 Graduation Ceremony Guest Speaker
It is my great pleasure to announce Mr Warwick Holmes as the guest speaker at the 2018 Year 12 Graduation Ceremony.
Warwick is the Executive Director of Space Engineering School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Sydney. He was born in Sydney where his passion for space started in 1969 as a 7 year old boy watching Neil Armstrong land on the moon. Mr Holmes completed a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) and then a Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney. Warwick also has a Masters of Technology Management from UNSW.
The opportunity to take an unpaid ‘summer vacation’ internship with British Aerospace got Warwick one step closer to his dream of working in space. This launched his 30 year career exclusively in the European space industry as an Avionics Systems Engineer. He assisted in building, testing and launching 10 successful European Space Agency spacecraft, culminating in his leadership of the famous comet-landing mission - ‘Rosetta’ in 2015. Warwick specializes in spacecraft avionics system engineering, and is a renowned world leader in his field.
Warwick has recently returned to Australia where he is now based at Sydney University heading the Space Engineering School. He is charismatic, humble and passionate and possesses a life story that will be valuable for our students to hear.
Congratulations
Julia Stuart – Polocrosse in South Africa
Julia Stuart has been selected to represent the Australian Team in Polocrosse to play in South Africa. She travels overseas this week and we wish Julia good luck in her matches.
Collette Lyons – National Swimming Champion
My hearty congratulations go to Collette Lyons who competed in the SSA National Swimming Championships in Hobart recently. Collette swam in 8 events & received 6 medals, the other 2 events placed 4th. One of her medals was a gold for 200m Butterfly; another gold for 8x50m all age relay. She also received a silver and two bronzes. This was a huge effort as the 13/14 year age group was combined, which meant Collette had to compete against girls at least 1 year older. Congratulations, Collette.
Dr Andrew Parry
Principal