Congratulations

Blue skies, smiling at me

Nothing but blue skies do I see

Blue days, all of them gone

Nothing but blue skies from now on

‘Blue Skies’ by Irving Berlin from ‘White Christmas’

25th Anniversary

In 2021, Cecil Hills High School celebrates its 25th anniversary. Similar to the Japan Olympics, we will hold our anniversary one year later in 2022 so we can celebrate in style when restrictions ease. Thanks to Ms Zoe Watson in CAPA and students in her Year 11 Photography class for creating our 25th anniversary trailer video.

Return to School

In 2022, we have the following return to school dates:

Year 7, Year 11, Year 12: Tuesday, 1 February 2022
Year 8, Year 9, Year 10: Wednesday, 2 February 2022

In term of my introductory quote, we are aiming for “blue skies” in 2022. It has been a difficult year in 2021, especially for our HSC students, and we hope the new year will bring a sense of normality for students.

Year 12 Graduation

Our Year 12 graduation was held on Friday, 3 December 2021. It was wonderful to see this special group of students return for this important event. You can watch a recording of the graduation here:

Year 12 Graduation Ceremony

Reports

We are aiming for Year 7 to Year 10 reports to be issued on Friday, 10 December 2021. These will be released electronically and parents are able to request a printed copy.

2022 Student Information Booklet

Our 2022 Student Information Booklet is now available on our school website. This document has been available for collection from the school for our Year 6 parents.

It is important for all students and parents to be familiar with this document in preparation for the 2022 school year.

Previous Christmas Videos

Our staff have been busy contributing to this year’s Christmas video. You may wish to view our previous videos as we are creating quite a collection!

HSC Exams and Results

Due to the delayed HSC, there is a delay to the release of ATARs and HSC results. NESA is still in the process of marking HSC exams. ATARs will be released on 20 January 2022. HSC results will be released on 24 January 2022. We wish our Year 12 students all the best.

Staff Farewells

At the end of 2021, we farewell a number of staff members at Cecil Hills High School.

Mrs Alison Randall has been our wonderful Head Teacher – Welfare since 2006. She has made a significant contribution at Cecil Hills High School as an expert Business Studies teacher, leader of the welfare team and longstanding member of the school executive. One of her legacies is the fantastic welfare team she has created, consisting of year advisers, leadership coordinators, counsellors, our youth worker and learning support teachers. This important work culminated in a case study on effective student wellbeing practices by the NSW Department of Education. Mrs Randall provided invaluable assistance to me when I first commenced as Principal. At that time, she relieved as Deputy Principal and did so again in Term 2 this year when Mrs James took up her new role. Mrs Randall will still be working with our school next year in a part-time capacity supporting new teachers and continuing to share her expertise after a long and successful career in education.

Ms Julie Cheah is one of our longest serving staff members, having commenced in 2001. During this time, Ms Cheah has expertly taught a range of courses with a specialisation in senior IPT and Multimedia. As our computer coordinator, she performed an enormous amount of work on many behind-the-scenes applications including our school reports. Ms Cheah will be working with us on a part-time basis in Term 1, 2022 and we will officially farewell her at the end of Term 1, 2022. Many of her students have chosen to pursue a career in IT and we will miss her expertise.

Mrs Stephanie Spencer has been a permanent staff member since 2005. In this time, she has provided excellent opportunities to our students in the support unit. Mrs Spencer has accepted a transfer to a school much closer to home and on behalf of our support unit students and staff, I wish her all the best in her new role.

Ms Mel Petrovska has been an excellent Hospitality and TAS teacher at our school since 2019. Ms Petrovska has accepted a transfer to Birrong Girls HS. We will miss her expertise in VET and she leaves with our best wishes.

We have a number of temporary teachers moving to other roles in 2022 and we wish them all the best.

In CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts), Ms Ezgi Cakir has attained a permanent position at another school. I would like to Mr Tom Joannides for his work with two HSC classes this year, in addition to other services he has provided to our school in the area of staff wellbeing and his work in the community engagement team. In TAS (Technology and Applied Studies), Mr Shannon Flexman has secured a position closer to home.

Two longstanding SASS (School Administrative and Support Staff) members will be retiring at the end of 2021. Mrs Debbie Van Der Meer started working at Cecil Hills HS in 1996, our inaugural year. She has made a significant contribution to our Library and in fact worked in the head office for a couple of years implementing the Oliver system in all NSW public school libraries.

Mrs Debbie Freeman has worked as an SLSO (School Learning Support Officer) at Cecil Hills High School since 2001 and helped students in our support unit over many years. As you can imagine, working with students with intellectual disabilities can be very intense but rewarding work and our school has benefited from Mrs Freeman’s role in the support unit during this time.

I would like to thank all of these staff members for their many years of service at Cecil Hills High School and on behalf of the school, I wish them all the best for their next endeavours.

Latest COVID Advice

You can access the latest information from the NSW Department of Education in relation to COVID here:

https://education.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/advice-for-families

Parent Information Session

Our next Parent Information Session will be held at 6:30pm on Monday, 7 February 2022. This will be followed by a short P&C meeting for those who wish to stay online. Please note that the Annual General Meeting for the P&C will be held in March 2022. Information on logging into the Zoom meeting will be emailed to parents.

I look forward to continuing to work with the staff, students and parents of Cecil Hills High School, the best school in NSW.