Engaging our school

Reconnect: Getting the fundamentals right

Updated Policy & Procedures:  Term 3, 2024 will see the official implementation of our updated Reconnect policy and procedures. The updated policy and procedures outlines our school rules regarding a wide range of matters related to everyday teaching and learning at Cecil Hills High School, such as late arrival, uniform, toilet use during class time, and the purpose of student ID/library cards. 

The continued development of positive behaviours, such as punctuality, self-regulation, responsibility, and school spirit, associated with these matters is foundational to every child's educational journey. It ensures that teaching and learning time is fully optimised in every classroom.

The list below outlines what parents and carers can do to support students in adhering to the high standards of Cecil Hills High School:

1. Ensure your child arrives to school before 8:30 am to allow enough time to settle in class.
2. If your child is late with justification, ensure they have a note to provide to the front office.
3. Ensure your child keeps their student ID/library card in a safe place, such as their bag or wallet. They will need this card to sign in to the kiosk if they arrive late, to sign into to the toilet between classes, check in for meetings at the front office, and borrow books and devices from the library. 
4. Ensure your child wears full school uniform every day.

Uniform Pool Drive: To further expand our uniform pool, we are asking any former students, parents, carers, and community members who have any Cecil Hills High School uniform items in good condition that they no longer use, to please donate them to school via the front office. We thank you in advance for your kindness. This uniform pool serves a small portion of our student population on a daily basis.

Uniform Shop: Our uniform shop is located outside the gates next to the Support Unit. The opening hours for the uniform shop are as follows: 

Rewarding improvement: We would like to congratulate the following students for their outstanding effort in developing their punctuality in Term 2, 2024 -

Numeracy: Where to from here?

Numeracy Sprints: In the area of Numeracy, we continue to see incremental success through the delivery of the Numeracy Sprints across Stage 4 during Connect. Here's a snapshot of our results:

Staff Development Day: In Term 3, 2024, our teaching staff will collaborate during our Staff Development Day to further embed numeracy and its language into our Stage 4 and 5 programs through explicit teaching in the form of subject-specific numeracy activities that target our identified areas of growth.

This professional learning session was designed in line with the NSW DoE's explicit teaching model, particularly effective questioning, and in response to the data we collected from our Curriculum and Learning Structure Review Survey, which highlighted the need for a renewed and whole-school approach to numeracy.

We also look forward to using the data collected from this professional development session to inform future iterations of the Numeracy Sprints.

External Partnerships:

Reimagining Cecil with Media for Millennials: In Week 6, we held our annual Cecil Voice Training day in partnership with Ms Stephanie Aceglav and Media for Millennials. Now in its third year, this edition of The Cecil Voice Training Day saw nineteen Year 7 students learn the basics of podcasting using the Audacity software.

Throughout the day, students had the opportunity to collaborate with each other by creating a two-minute podcast in response to the following prompt: 'If you were in charge of Cecil Hills High School for the day, what changes would you make? What programs would you implement?'

Once again, thank you to Media for Millennials and the Regional Industry Education Partnerships (RIEP) program for funding this initiative for the third year in a row.

The Rising Stars Program: In Week 8, students from Year 9, the Support Unit, and YARN Connect had the opportunity to hear from Kalinda Bolt from South Cares, along with South Sydney Rabbitohs players Shaquai Mitchell and Tevita "Junior" Tatola. The workshop centred on the importance of grit, resilience, and focus in achieving success.

Interestingly, we discovered that Shaq is a descendant of one of our sport house patrons, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, who is his maternal great-aunt. We extend our thanks to South Cares, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Mr Matt Clough, and all the teachers who contributed to the success of this initiative.

The Cecil Voice 

Congratulations Justin  & Aimee: It is with pleasure that I report that our Sorry Day Episode now has over 4,100 views, the most so far in The Cecil Voice history.

Refugee Week Episode: Our final episode for this term saw Elaine Krishna interview Imeelya Jameel and Falantina Jankel about their journey and lived experiences as refugees. This episode was produced at the request of Mrs. Marilyn Rattos, our Refugee Coordinator, who sought to amplify the voices of our refugee students by empowering them to share their own stories.

What's next? In Term 3, we will release at least two more episodes. The final episode of our Inclusion series will be released as part of our NAIDOC Week celebrations. It will feature Cameron Scroggy from the Support Unit interviewing Kalinda Bolt from South Cares, along with Shaquai Mitchell and Tevita 'Junior' Tatola from the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

The second episode will be the first episode of our Teacher Appreciation series. It will feature a conversation between Rianna Georgis, one of our SRC students from Year 9, and our principal, Mr Andrew King. 

This new series was designed in response to an overwhelming number of staff, students, parents, and carers who stated that they valued positive teacher-student relationships the most in the context of their schooling experience, as evident below when presented with the following prompt: "From the list below, select all that you consider valuable to your/your child's/your student's schooling experience".

Parent/Carer Responses:

Teacher Responses:

Student Responses

Learning partnerships with parents and carers

Parent/Carer Information Session: Our latest Parent/Carer Information Session on 17 June 2024 proved to be a great success with our community members having the opportunity hear about the amazing things happening at our school, including the external validation process, subject selection, curriculum reform, and the latest updates on our new R-Block building. I would like to thank Mr King, Mrs Cremin, Mrs Lord, and Mr Floriano for presenting during our last session.

For more information about our latest Parent/Carer Information Session, please click on the this link. 

Here's a summary of our attendance rates for our Parent/Carer Information Sessions from 2022 to the present: 

In this light, I would like to thank all of our parents, carers, and community members for ensuring that our information sessions, which contains essential details about life at Cecil, reaches a vast audience.

Watch out for my emails to learn when our next information session will be.

P&C Association: We also still in the process of officially re-establishing our P&C. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered so far. 

If you would like to join us, please fill in the following Google Form.

Invitations will soon be sent for an official re-establishment meeting in Term 3,Week 5, Friday, 23 August 2024. 

HPGE: Supporting all students across all the domains of potential

HPGE Audit: As we strive to better support our students across all four domains of potential (intellectual, physical, creative, and socio-emotional), our HPGE Team is conducting an audit of our systems and processes throughout Term 3, 2024. We look forward to sharing the results of this audit in our Week 10 newsletter next term.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please free to contact me at francis.floresca1@det.nsw.edu.au.

I wish you all a safe and happy holidays! I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday, 23 July 2024 before 8:30am.

Francis Floresca

Head Teacher Engagement