The Black Swan

General School News

POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR FOR LEARNING

 

As a PBL (Positive Behaviour Learning) school LIHS rewards students who are respectful, responsible and resilient in every setting. PBL promotes positive behaviour in learning.

 

Our school values

 

We show RESPECT by being tolerant and accepting of everyone, being polite and considerate of others, using appropriate language and wearing the school uniform. 

We show RESPONSIBILITY by being at the right place, right time, staying on task in class and being prepared, following procedures and instructions including putting rubbish in the bin and caring for our surroundings. 

We show RESILIENCE when we try our best, attempt new things, reflect on learning and keep trying in the face of adversity.

 

Merit System and VIVO Online Rewards 

VIVO Miles is a point-based system where students are rewarded on a FAST and FREQUENT basis for positive behaviours.

How do I earn VIVO points?

  • For following the school values.
  • Representing the school (debating, Science Fair, Tournament of Minds, Peer support, SRC, Southern Stars etc.)
  • Representing the school in Sport.
  • Placing in the top 5 results in any test, assignment, assessment task.
  • Exceptional achievement: Monitoring with 6+ above averages, Attendance 100% in a term, End of year Presentation Awards, Principal Awards, ROSE Award, Year Advisor Awards, 1st or 2nd place in subject, Scholarships, State representatives, Australian representative.

 

The Vivo shop has many varied items on offer, including:

  • Event Cinema gift vouchers
  • School and stationery products
  • EB Games gift cards
  • Donations to various charities
  • iPads
  • Food treats
  • Pop! Vinyls

 

Students can check how many VIVO points they have earned by logging on to their account through the VIVO miles website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top 3 VIVO recipients

 

LIHS staff would like to congratulate the following students from Year 7 - 12 for their achievements so far this term:

Year 7 – Chae Conte, Cayden Dawson, Byron Da Silva

Year 8 – Matilda Ciufici, Ja’Lanah Arif, Gypsy Cornwall

Year 9 – Deegan Moore, Vicky Minic, Seth Brown

Year 10 – Jayson Scourse, Emily Croker, Molly Yates

Year 11 – Joe Fox, Michael Tully, Kasey Yates

Year 12 – Brianna Kerr, Ryan Stocks, Claudia Balatti

 

100% Attendance Draw

A huge congratulations to Mischa Kumar (Year 7) and Cooper May (Year 10) who were the lucky winners of a voucher for Pinocchio’s Pizza in Week 9 to celebrate their 100% attendance. We thank Pinocchio’s Pizza for their ongoing support of Lake Illawarra High School!

 

PBL Focus

Focus Values: RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY and RESILIENCE

 

Current Value – RESILIENCE

Resilience is defined as a person’s ability to recover quickly from difficulties. Ways this can be seen in the real world include;

  • Bouncing back after difficult times
  • Dealing with challenges and still holding your head up.
  • Giving things a go or trying your best
  • Being strong on the inside
  • Being able to cope with what life throws at you

Ways that students can demonstrate this positive behaviour in the whole school is by;

  • Setting achievable goals
  • Caring for yourself and others
  • Seeking help when needed
  • Attending school
  • THINKING before you act – is it Thoughtful, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, Kind

PBL: Following procedures, safety guidelines and instructions

Students at LIHS have a RESPONSIBILITY to follow procedures, safety guidelines and instructions.

It is a student’s responsibility to be compliant in regards to school procedures, safety guidelines and instructions. 

These include;

  • It is a student’s responsibility to be on time for class and arrive before the second bell in addition to lining up quietly, in two lines outside the door.
  • If a student is late, students must sign in. Year 7-10- sign in with your Deputy upstairs and Year 11-12- sign in downstairs with the office staff.
  • If you have permission from a parent or guardian to leave school early, you also must sign out at the office.
  • All students are to WALK their bikes, skateboards and scooters to the bike compound at the beginning of the day.
  • There is no student access to the staff carpark at any time.
  • Phones are not to be seen or used during class time and between periods. They are permitted during recess and lunch times.

 

 

Why is compliance important?

  • So others in the classroom aren’t distracted
  • So your peers can learn
  • So YOU can learn
  • Creates a less stressful environment for everyone
  • It is your responsibility as a student at LIHS
  • Prepares you for the workplace

 

WINTER IN THE AGRICULTURE  PLOT

 

The Agriculture students have been hard at work, tending to their gardens and harvesting a range of delicious winter veggies. 

Look at those beautiful colours! 

Who said winter had to be drab?

 

HARBOUR CENTRE NEWS

We welcome back all our Harbour Centre students, and thank parents, carers and students for their understanding, adaptability and resilience during the Online Learning period. 

It is great to have our students back in the classroom, and Term 3 is shaping up to be an exciting term. In our key learning areas, we have begun exploring area and volume in Mathematics, Picture Books in English, forces and changes that impact the Earth in Science, Changing places in Geography, the Black Plague in History, Puberty in PDHPE, Pop Art in Visual Arts and in TAS a combination of Cooking and textiles projects.  

In addition to this, you may already be hearing about ‘Brain Breaks’.  We have introduced short stimulating brain breaks into our Harbour Centre routine. This is driven by evidence based research that suggests, carefully selected brain breaks increase social, emotional and behavioural benefits for students. Something that we strive to increase in all our students, and doing so, in a fun way can only be a good thing.

This fortnight a number of students had the opportunity to show their culinary skills in the Salt Water Café.  Students in E15 have been cooking up Anzac biscuits and choc chip cookies, while students of B11 have been cooking crepes and pancakes, students in A11 make Chicken Burgers and A12 made Cheeseburger Spring Rolls that were sold to staff and were such a hit they sold out. These are valuable experiences for our students and we hope they can apply the same diligence when cooking in the home environment. Now you know what they have been up to they have no excuse. 

We look forward to an exciting term and we have many more fun and engaging planned. 

Thanks 

Harbour Centre Team 

NATIONAL POETRY FINALISTS AT LAKE ILLAWARRA HIGH SCHOOL

Students from Years 7 - 10 English participated in an annual national poetry competition, 'Poetry Object', which required students to compose a poem about a treasured personal object. Out of thousands of entries, Byron Arif (Year 9) and Cooper Baker (Year 7), were announced as finalists! Their poems are in the top 20 best high school poems in Australia. They are also still in the running to win the high school category of the competition. Final results are released on the 20th of August. 

Follow the link below to see the finalists in the 'Poetry Object' competition https://redroomcompany.org/projects/poetry-object-2020-shortlist/

 

Both Byron and Cooper were hesitant when their classes commenced a study on poetry. However, after reading a variety of poems and discovering new methods for producing poetry, the boys, as well as their peers, composed beautiful and powerful poems. Read their poems below!

 

Well done to Bryon and Cooper, as well as all the young poets at LIHS.

Ms McLoughlin

LIBRARY

G’day everyone

Well I’m sure you’ve heard it time and time again but 2020 has been quite a crazy year. We at the library have continued to function regardless of the challenges and changes that have been thrown our way.

While schools were operating in the digital landscape, we maintained an online presence through our Google Classroom AND with regular Zoom sessions where we played online games, dungeons and dragons, and had some fun discussions on digital resources.

Now that we are back at school full time, the library is operating much the same as it always did with the exception of us maintaining a safe and sanitary environment.

A big thank you goes out to each and every library patron who has been observing our regulations to minimise risks of cross-contamination.

 

Before I go on with my recommendations for future reading, it is with regret that due to the nature of the world as it stands, we will not be running book week this year as we have done in the past. Hopefully we see a very different scenario next year that allows us to gather once again and run our famous book giveaways and cosplay day.

 

In a world where sharing physical books may not be the most ideal thing to do, there is no better time to get involved with digital books.

My favourite way to ingest the latest and greatest novels is audiobooks.

If you haven’t given an audiobook a try, can I recommend subscribing to Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/

Scribd is a subscription-service that has an enormous collection of ebooks and audiobooks. It is essentially Netflix for digital books.

If ebooks OR audiobooks are something that you’d like to try, I’d recommend subscribing to the 30 day free trial and if it doesn’t work for you, cancel before the month is up.

If you are after a physical book, try one of the CBCA shortlist books for 2020:

 

The Boy Who Steals Houses by CG Drews

How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox

Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller

When the Ground is Hard by Malla Nunn

Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte

This Is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield

 

All these books are available from the library.

 

That’s it from me this time. As always if you have any recommendations or questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Cheers

Mr Nairn

Teacher Librarian