Principal's Message

Dear Parents & Friends,

Starting off the term with a Cross Country event and Inter-House Quiz on a beautiful April day was a great way to get our students moving and thinking. It was especially good timing as the river was flowing during the last week of term and would have made it impossible to run the event.

It’s always nice to welcome new academic staff, and in Term 2 we welcome Leah Carmichael - Science, Ottiliah Mangi - English, Cole Lowry – Maths & Science and Kris Wheeler – Physical Education to our team. We also welcome Arisa Sakamoto, a Japanese student teacher and Jodie Jensen in Girls’ Boarding.

The new Year 8 Integrated approach to the curriculum has started well due to the hours of planning by the Heads of Faculty and our new Design Leader Rebekah Cook. Salaam Al Marashli has been promoted to Year 8 Curriculum Coordinator as recognition of his willingness to develop a program that increases engagement and interest in learning with real world applications. A very big thank you to Steve Kimber who spent most of the holiday re-arranging the timetable to ensure we had the best teachers available for each lesson.

At the end of last term, we farewelled Cameron Wurst and Jason Joyner and we wish Bill Kerr a speedy recovery as he has gone on sick leave for an undetermined amount of time.

Outdoor Education expeditions have started with Year 8s leading the season with bike riding and canoeing in and around Ellery Creek Big Hole. The Year 7s are off in the coming weeks followed by the Year 11s during the last two weeks of term.

I’m very happy and excited to announce that inventor, and Scientia Professor and Director of SMaRT Centre (Sustainable Materials Research & Technology) and Associate Dean (Strategic Industry Relations) faculty of Science, UNSW, Professor Veena Sahajwalla, will be the guest of honour at the opening of the Discovery Centre on Tuesday 18 June at 2pm. The professor is the inventor of “Green Steel” which utilizes old truck tyres to make steel, thus reducing greenhouse gasses. She has also worked out how to recycle clothing and glass to make tiles. Veena was featured on Australian Story and was one of the panel members of The New Inventors.

I’m also looking forward to receiving more feedback on our Year 8 program in Week 5 during our Q & A session. I invite all Year 8 parents to come along and let us know how this new curriculum is progressing for your student. All the Schoolbox pages have been integrated so you can see how each subject is linked to the overall theme of the project. I’m very fortunate to be part of the Year 8 Maths team and am absolutely loving the opportunity to be teaching at this level.

We will be moving to winter uniform as the weather cools. The second-hand uniform stall did a brisk trade on the weekend with parents getting ready for the change. Once we announce the official date, students will only have a week to be in correct uniform so please make sure you have everything you need. Students are allowed to change to winter uniform earlier, especially if they feel the cold, however, it’s important that the student be in either summer or winter uniform and not a combination of the two. All the information in is the diary and on our website.

There’s lots to look forward to this term so please make sure you keep informed and this is possible through the School App, Schoolbox and the College website.

Kind regards,

~ Leslie Tilbrook

Principal