21st century learning skills

Always look on the bright side of life

If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten

And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing

When you're feeling in the dumps, don't be silly chumps

Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing, and

Always look on the bright side of life

‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’

by Eric Idle from ‘Spamalot’

Learning from Home

I would like to thank our school community for the successful transition to online learning.  In speaking with colleagues in other schools, I’m confident we have been very successful in ensuring continuity of learning for students.    

 

I have attached our new Online Learning & Wellbeing Handbook for students and parents.   

 

Families will be receiving information via post next week with our plans for Term 2.

 

In terms of my introductory quote, in these difficult times, it is important to “look on the bright side of life”.   Our teachers have implemented many of the 21st century learning skills we have been moving towards, our students have been fantastic in responding to this new model of learning and our parents have been supportive of our efforts and many have become co-educators.  We expect to be in this situation for some time to come but we eagerly await seeing our students back in person in the future.

Literacy

In these strange times with more time spent at home, there is no better time to discover or rediscover a love of reading.  The Project Gutenberg website  has 60,000 free books which are now out of copyright.  

This is a good opportunity to catch up on books such as FrankensteinAlice in Wonderland,

Peter Pan and Dracula.

Congratulations

Congratulations to a number of temporary teachers at Cecil Hills High School who have now gained permanent positions:

 

  • Bianca Li Donni coordinates debating and has taught English and History to our teaming class in Year 7 to ensure students have a smaller number of teachers.
  • Kevin Nguy joined our school last year has recently been working with our EAL/D students and teaching English.
  • Milan Cupic has also taught one of our English and History teaming classes previously and is now teaching Year 11 and Year 12 Modern History.
  • Nathan Lee is one of our Mathematics teachers and our school has benefited greatly from his expertise in technology and online learning in our current context.
  • Rania Zaidan is in our English faculty and co-coordinates our Connect After the Bell program.

Term 2

Term 2 begins for all students on Tuesday, 28th April 2020.

P&C Meetings

Our P&C meetings have been cancelled for now but we will explore whether we can hold these meetings in an online environment.

 

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