Student & School Community Achievements, School Management & Communication

Principals Address

It has been a busy few weeks here at CGHS as we work through our next rounds of practical HSC exams and students in year 11 complete their final examinations. 

COVID-19

I thank parents for your understanding regarding taking your child to get a COVID test when they present cold or flu-like symptoms. We also appreciate your sending the results through before students return to school. Emailing a screen shot of the text message would be really helpful. Students can also show the text message to the office on their way into school in the morning and the result will be recorded. 

Drills

Each term as part of Health and Safety regulations we hold a practice drill. We conduct two fire drills, one lockdown and one lockout drill each year. Recently we practised the lockdown drill. Students were given clear information about the situation from staff and as per procedure we will review the success of the drill and provide feedback to the school. The lockdown drill took around 10 minutes to practise and students continued with work as normal for the lesson. We appreciate that drills can cause alarm for some students, if your child requires additional support during drills, we are able to provide this. Please let us know and we will ensure arrangements are in place for our next drill.

Feedback about Parent Teacher Night

Thank you to the 200 parents who responded to our survey about the online parent teacher night. We have also surveyed our teachers and the combined data provides quite useful insights. Overall, parents and teachers were positive about the online format, with benefits including more on-time running and efficiency, more privacy and access for parents in the home, and ease of use of the technology. Approximately 63% of parents indicated they would be keen to continue using the online format in the future.

Graduation- Year 12

A lot of regulations have come through to enable events to take place after the HSC exams. One of the key rules relates to 4 square metres per person. In our MPC, which is the largest space available, we will not have enough room to seat even one parent per child. Therefore we have had to take the difficult decision to keep arrangements as they currently stand with no parents in attendance and live streaming of the event in its place.

HSC Arrangements

The main message for our HSC students is please stay home if you are sick and use the Illness/Misadventure Process. You will not be disadvantaged. We have three back-up venues available in case our site needs to be closed during the exam period. A detailed plan will be released on Friday regarding what we will be doing in response to a school closure. 

If your child has allergies or another seasonal condition, please organise a doctor’s certificate to explain the symptoms.

P&C Meeting​

P&C is on this Wednesday at 7pm. We continue to meet via Zoom. Please use this link to join us:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://nsweducation.zoom.us/j/68116102947?pwd=SjBKMGZpK0NFbVJFb3FOR1d2TVd1dz09

Meeting ID: 681 1610 2947

Passcode: 184364

SRC

Today and on Monday we held our induction ceremonies for our new SRC leadership group. We held the ceremonies in year meeting assemblies and acknowledged the leadership of our SRC members for 2019-20 and our incoming members for 2021. It is wonderful to see so many students involved in representative programs in the school. They add so much to our student body and time and again, students show themselves to be articulate and compassionate advocates for the school and its students. I would like to recognise and thank Cathy Jenkins for her ongoing leadership of this group.

Uniform

It is pleasing to see student uniform is going well, with most students now attending every day in full school uniform. Please assist us on sports day with asking your child not to wear yoga pants/tights to school- these are not uniform items. We are doing our best to encourage students and acknowledge the great many who are doing the right thing.

I hope you all have a safe and restful week as we head towards the holidays.

Ms Belinda Conway

SRC

Congratulations to outgoing 2019-2020 and incoming 2020-2021 elected representatives for Years 7, 8, 9 and 10. 

Year 9 Film-maker garners national awards

At CGHS, our very own budding Quentin Tarantino has been recognised for for her directorial debut! Year 9 student Charlotte Richards has received two awards - the Best Film and People's Choice awards - at the Hear for You Film Festival online ceremony on Friday 4 September.

Charlotte's film 'Dead Devices' deals with the theme of 'Life in Iso', and stars her younger sister Grace, who is currently in Year 6. 

The Hear for You Film Festival showcases films created by deaf and hard-of-hearing teenagers. Charlotte's film was judged against dozens of other entries from all around Australia. Massive congratulations, Charlotte!

RUFTS Student and Teacher Winners for Term 3

The whole school has been learning how to use RUFTS as a way to solve written questions in Literacy and Numeracy across all subject areas. RUFTS stands for: Read the question, Understand the question, Filter and reframe the question, Think of the correct formulas/techniques/evidence from the text, Solve and check/write. This gives students a clear and systematic approach to answer all types of questions, therefore limiting silly mistakes and misunderstandings of the question. I have found RUFTS really helpful because it allows me to carefully and calmly work through complicated questions. This term the school held a competition to encourage everyone to use RUFTS and become familiar with it. Students could complete questions in class or at home using RUFTS and submit the form, then one winner from each year was randomly selected. I’m so happy that I’m one of the winners for this term! All winners received a $20 Officeworks gift card each - words by Sarah Veitch, Year 12.

Congratulations to 3 teacher winners for Term 3

1st: Ms J Cooper (35 times), 2nd: Ms K Strachan (30 times),   3rd: Ms K Dunn (24 times).

Students: Please keep using RUFTS at school and at home and enter the competition for Term 4!

Teachers: Keep up the hard work and thank you for your support!

Sue Holden Amphitheatre

Here you can see the final placement of the sign, naming the Sue Holden Amphitheatre, in the garden area adjacent to the new COLA Dome next to the MPC.  Also shown is newly installed drip irrigation along the Princess St fence, to further encourage a healthy garden around the MPC area (also installed in the garden area in front of the MPC). More pictures as the garden develops will be published.

From the SAM

(On behalf of SASS, GA & SLSO)

As Term 3 comes to a close, I would like to wish all Year 12 students all the very best for the exams and in their future endeavours.It has not been an easy year for the students and hopefully things will run smoothly for their HSC.

Many thanks to:

• ​Parents and caregivers who have been patient and understanding with all administration tasks.
• CGHS teaching and executive staff for their ongoing support and hard work.
• SASS, GA and SLSO I could not do this job without the support and hard work of the team.   Every day they put in 100% and more.

Staff changes

• ​Kathleen Armour has decided to retire. She has been working for the Department for 23 years!!! 
  What an amazing achievement - I wish her all the very best in the next stage of her life.
• Jess Mastro has been appointed as Kathy Armour’s replacement.  Jess has worked consistently at Canterbury for several years.  A well deserved appointment.
• Phillis Munoz has been appointed as SAM at Granville South HS of Performing Arts.  Dianne will continue to backfill in her position.
   

Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday.

See you in Term 4.