Principal Report

Welcome to our last newsletter for 2024. 

At this time of the year, we recognise the successes of our senior students with the release of the HSC results. Our new pattern of HSC studies has seen our student cohort achieve the best academic results in living memory. We congratulate our Dux, Bianca Stanton who made the NSW Distinguished Student List in 2023 and 2024 with Band 6 results across both years. She was also joined on the list by Melad Shersy for his Band 6 achievement. Dinuk Ekanayake achieved an ATAR of 95.1. What distinguishes these students for us is, that they achieved their results across the Humanities, Arts and Sciences demonstrating a breadth of curriculum. 

Our student cohort also achieved the highest number of Band 5 results with outstanding results in Music and Visual Arts. Of course, these achievements are the result of hard work and we recognise them for their commitment and focused approach to their studies. I would also like to recognise the commitment of their teachers who have guided them through classwork, assessment and study. To all their parents and carers, thank you for your support – it is truly a joint effort.

Early in Term 1, 2025 we will be recognising all students who received First in Course with a formal assembly. 

Our students have many post school pathways, including traineeships, apprenticeships and university. Congratulations to our students from years 10-12 who have achieved apprenticeships in electrical, plumbing and building industries. Thanks must go to Ms Doyle; our new Careers Adviser, Ms Bonser; and our partnership with external providers through the Educational Pathways Program in providing students with opportunities to connect with employers and TAFE.

Congratulations to all Intensive English Centre students who have completed their studies at Evans and have departed to commence, in 2025, at their new schools across Western Sydney. Many of these students have highly traumatic backgrounds but they have persevered and successfully navigated learning a new language (often the third or fourth one), social expectations and building new friendships. Acknowledgement must go to the highly specialised teaching staff, the SLSOs, SAOs under the leadership of Relieving Deputy Principal, Ms Kavanagh, who have supported students and their families in the beginning of their journey through their initial education experience in Australia.

This year saw the full launch of our new House System. Led by Mr Sondaar, the Evans House system recognises students’ successes across sporting, academic, leadership, community and wellbeing domains. Students have received points for their houses: Chang, Freeman, Kerr and Irwin for achievement in these areas. Points were also taken away for inappropriate behaviour not in-line with our school values of being Respectful Trustworthy and Motivated including the non-submission of assessments and persistent lateness to school.  The 2024 House of the year is Freeman.  Celebrations included a bbq and movie on the last day of school.  There are bigger plans afoot and we encourage all students to support their House in 2025.

We have continued to improve our facilities building program throughout the year with our new volleyball courts now in full use; delivery of six new classrooms and two Science laboratories.  The demolition of our old gym to make way for a state-of-the-art new space with great facilities for students studying PDHPE, Sports Coaching and Sports Leisure and Recreation has commenced with a completion date of our return to school in 2025. Over the holidays, our sporting ovals will be revitalized, grounds works and extra seating around the school will be put in place.  By the middle of the year, the final phase of our school hall renovations will be completed with the installation of the audio-visual system and the renovation of our Visual Arts classrooms will commence.

At this time of the year, we say goodbye to staff who are moving on. Earlier in this term, we said farewell to Ms Marasinghe who is moving into retirement after a distinguished career, firstly a teacher at Evans and then as Head Teacher Science.  With over thirty years of service to our school and community, she will be sorely missed and we wish her well with her new found focus of grandparenting.

We also say goodbye to Ms Doyle who joined the Evans staff as Head Teacher Technology and Applied Studies in late 2017, quickly going on to becoming Deputy Principal. Since then she has extensively worked on our evaluative and school planning processes along with keeping her student year cohorts on the straight and narrow, guiding them through their high school and adolescent journeys.  We wish her well as she takes on the challenges of a new position at another school.

Farewell to Ms Field (Milloy) who has made significant contributions to our school. She has successfully led us through the development of our new HSC pathways which has brought great success to our students. We wish her well in her move to country living. Likewise, we also say goodbye to Ms Lauren Wright who is taking up a new position closer to home. We really prized her expertise as a Metalwork and Technology teacher and Year 7 Assistant Adviser. Finally, thank you to Ms Khattar for her work in the IEC to the development of language acquisition skills for many newly arrived students.  We wish you all the best in your new school.

Thank you to all the staff at Evans for an outstanding year.  From our cleaners, teachers, administrative staff, paraprofessionals, General Assistants, executive leaders, Year Advisers to canteen and uniform shop staff it is a team effort and what a great team it is!

The world has become a little more unsettled as we leave 2024 and we will face more challenges in the coming year. Our focus at Evans, will continue to be the provision of a high-quality learning environment that will nourish, support and build our students to make their way with the skills and knowledge to build a better place.

On behalf of the staff at Evans, we wish you a safe festive season and summer break and a wonderful new year.

Nerina Pretlove

Principal