Term 4, Week 3

NEWSLETTERGUNNEDAH HIGH SCHOOL

R E S P E C T • R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y • S U C C E S S

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3 GHS Community Fair

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7 HSC Exams conclude

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16 Year 12 Farewell

UPCOMING EVENTS

Year 12 students have officially started their Higher School Certificate (HSC).

The Namoi Valley Independent had a chat with our Captains Kustiani Tuckerman and Jaxon Holbrook.

Kustiani and Jaxon said the atmosphere in the first two-hour English exam wasn’t as tense as they had expected.

“It was better than I thought,” Kustiani said.“Everyone was smiling when they finished.”Jaxon said the exam was on par with the HSC

trials.“I’m good because I feel chilled,” he said.“I really thought it would be harder being our

final exam.“It’s good that it wasn’t difficult for what we’ve

been experiencing for our whole education.”Kustiani said their teacher, Belinda Foran, had

been a huge help in being exam-ready.“I think what we’ve been doing in class has

prepared us,” she said.

“Hats off to Mrs Foran.”Jaxon has a unique way of tackling his

exam papers – he completes the questions at random, starting an essay then moving on to another question before going back to the essay.

“I find it hard to do one thing at a time,” Jaxon said.

“I just feel like it’s really daunting if you finish a section and have to start all over again in another section.”

Kustiani said she found it difficult to balance study time for each subject, but recently had some news that made her feel less stressed about her results.

“I feel less pressure coming into it because I got early entry into Wollongong for environ-mental engineering,” she said.

HSC exams conclude on Tuesday, November 7 and Year 12 students will be farewelled on Thursday, November 16 with a formal dinner.

HSC KICKS OFFLachlan Batinic, Brianna Hagan, Kustiani Tuckerman, Jaxon Holbrook and Kyra Carlyon pictured before their first English exam.

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YEAR 12 FAREWELL ASSEMBLY 2017

At the end of Term 3 we farewelled our Year 12 students with a special assembly.

The assembly was filled with emo-tional speeches, an amusing slideshow, musical performances, the final roll call and balloons released by Year 12 students.

Year 12 also conceded defeat in the Ring of Honour battle against staff.

Thank you to all of the family, friends and community members who were able to attend.

YEAR 12 DAY OF FUN

On Thursday, October 19, the Girls' Open Cricket team played a match against Nar-rabri High School.

We lost the toss and were sent in to bat. Year 7 student Claire McGuirk opened the batting and had an outstanding innings scoring 90 runs. Claire McGuirk and Zoe Fleming put on an impressive partnership

of 194 runs. Zoe top scored with 107 runs before she unselfishly retired. After 40 overs we were 2/249.

Claire, Chennelle and Piper all took a wicket with Paige and Nautica taking two wickets each. At the end of their 40 overs Narrabri were 7/174. This meant we defeated them and we will be playing

the winner of Duval and Guyra in the next round.

Congratulations to the whole team and a special mention to Claire for scoring her highest score of 90 and also to Zoe for scoring her first century. Well played girls!– Miss B. Small

FIRST ROUND WIN FOR CRICKETERS

A tug-o-war held during the last week of Term 3 was the final physical battle between Year 12 students and staff fighting to take out the Ring of Honour Champions title. The staff took an early lead in the best of three con-test. Unfortunately, the rope gave way and there were spectacular crashes in the second and third attempts.

RING OF HONOUR

His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Ret’d), Governor of NSW, walked the school’s corridors, meeting students and learning about their various learning programs.

The governor took particular interest in the Girls Academy initiative, which was launched at the school in March.

Governor Hurley met with students from the academy and academy facilitators, Kylie Milsom and Blanche Biles. Also present was the governor’s wife, Linda, and Public Schools NSW direc-tor (Wollemi network), Mark Young.

The governor said Girls Academy founder, Ricky Grace, had visited him at Par-liament House to speak about the program, and encouraged him to see it at work.

GOVENOR OF NSW VISITS OUR SCHOOL

“I said, when we go to the country, if we can fit it in, we will,” Governor Hurley said.

“It’s good to see it’s working in the school itself and it’s also a networking thing as well.

“I think it’s good for building support networks for young girls in their maturing years; to have a space where they can have a quiet time or a listening ear and help in talking about

issues. Also spending time with like-minded girls.

“I think all of those things help. Teen years are turbulent for all of us.”

Mark Young praised the work of the academy’s facili-tators.

“When they’ve got good staff that can mentor and help them, if they've got mature staff they can talk to, it can help point them in the right direction and help them make the decisions that are best for them,” he said.

Program manager Blanche Biles said she felt very positive about the governor’s visit.

“It was a wonderful experi-ence to have them come and we really appreciate that they took the time out of their day and spoke to the girls,” she said.

“The girls really enjoyed it.”Ms Biles said Governor

Hurley surprised an academy student with a gift all the way from Sydney.

“The governor presented Bella with a jar of his own honey from the Government House,” she said.

Ms Biles said every time the governor meets a student named Bella or Isobella, he gives them honey because the honeybee were brought over to Australia in the 1820s on a ship named Isobella.

SOURCE: WWW.NVI.COM.AU

Gunnedah High School has been pre-sented with a unique opportunity.

Whitehaven Coal has offered the school some land on Torrens Road so it can expand its agricultural education.

The 11 acres will be an addition to the existing 2.5 acres agricultural plot on the school grounds.

GHS agricultural teacher, Nicole Dwyer said Whitehaven’s Darryl Campbell pitched the idea to her in March.

“He was really excited,” she said.“He said, ‘We’ve got this land. We’re

not doing anything with it. Would you be interested?’ ”

Mrs Dwyer said a number of meetings followed and together, the school and Whitehaven figured out which parcels of land would suit.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us and them for community collaboration and the potential for student outcomes is enor-mous,” she said.

“What we’re hoping is to set-up a sheep operation where we might start with lambs to begin with and hopefully move into a sheep stud.

“We could do some cropping out there for livestock fodder and maybe put some

BIG BOOST FOR AGRICULTURAL STUDIES

NSW Governor David Hurley and his wife Linda (centre) view Gunnedah High School's new agricultural site on their regional tour. They are pictured with Science head teacher, Karen Kruse, Whitehaven's Tim Muldoon, Principal Shane Kelly, and Agriculture teacher Nicole Dwyer.

“I think we’ll go from strength to

strength and we can offer what other schools can’t.”

bees out there; just diversify what we’re doing at school and do it on a larger scale.”

The teacher said agriculture was a “hugely popular subject” at the school and the Year 11 Primary Industries class was completely full, with a second agri-culture teacher to be employed to keep up with demand.

Mrs Dwyer said the new plot would enable students to pursue agriculture in their studies and would be an incentive for Year 9 and 10 students to pick the subject.

“There needs to be a focus on agricul-ture because it’s such an important part of Australian society to know where our food and fibre comes from,” she said.

“Because we’re in the heart of the Liverpool, it’s really nice to see so much support from the students and the par-ticular in ag.

“I think we’ll go from strength to strength and we can offer what other schools can’t.”

The ag teacher said she was hoping the new plot could be utilised in the new year but “it’s in the hands of the Department of Education at the moment”.

Principal Shane Kelly said after a 12-month trial, Whitehaven may release as much as 100 acres to the school.

“With the land that we get out there, with the potential of getting more in time, we’ll probably start breeding our own cattle as well,” Mrs Dwyer said.

SOURCE: WWW.NVI.COM.AU

“We’re actually turning students away at the moment,” she said.

“We’ve got a huge interest for Year 9 and 10 students coming in. Agriculture is really strong here.

“With the mandatory technical require-ments, we’ll have more students coming through, so we’ll end up with nearly two-thirds of the school doing ag, which is really exciting.”

Year 10 students had a successful fieldwork excur-sion and enjoyed the beau-tiful weather out at Cushan's Reserve during the last week of Term 3.

This excursion was part of their mandatory fieldwork and was used to refine the stu-dents geographical skills in developing a Research Action Plan.

Activities on the day included testing basic water quality, soil testing across a transect and observing land and water management issues in the environment.

The main objective was to study Cushan's Reserve as a community based regenera-tion site and its development over time.

Our Aboriginal Educational Officer Sommar Conlan, joined us to talk about the traditional use of the area by Aboriginal people. She also assisted some of the students to con-struct a model of a traditional fish trap.

Many thanks to Gunnedah Urban Landcare Group mem-bers Owen Hasler, Pat Mayoh and Rod Browne, who gave 7their time, expertise and materials to help our Year 10 students plant some trees as part of the plan to regenerate the site.

These plantings are a part of developing the civics and citizenship of our students and pride in their contribution to our community environ-ment.

YEAR 10 GEOGRAPHY STUDENTS STUDY CUSHAN'S RESERVE

CAREERS NEWS

Year 10 are now transitioning to Senior Study and preparing to take on leadership roles within the school. To help them focus on their goals the School hosted the “Skillsroad Show” on Wednesday week Two. Year 10 students listened to a presentation and partici-pated in a workshop to intro-duce them to this important new resource.

“Skillsroad” is an initiative of NSW Business Chamber and is backed nationally by the Australian Chamber movement, which represents over 300, 000 businesses and therefore has a vested interest in helping school leavers to transition to the labour market. “Skillsroad” is a one-stop-shop for Australian youth, their parents and teachers to navi-gate the increasingly complex career planning process. This excellent online resource was introduced face to face by young people who are in the transition process themselves, so students can relate directly to the presenter’s experi-

SKILLSROAD SHOW STOPS IN

ence. This leading online tool supports the school’s career advice program in encourag-ing senior students to engage with Career Planning for their future.

Our thoughts are with the Year 12 students as they prepare for and meet their final High School challenge - the HSC! We wish them every success in

their exams and with their future plans.

The Northern Inland Academy of Sport (NIAS) is calling for applications for their 2018 sporting programs. Some sport appli-cations will close shortly. See below or check out your sport on the NIAS website www.nias.org.au

NIAS is seeking athletes throughout the North West and New England regions who are passionate about developing their potential both on and off the field and looking for opportunities on the pre-elite sporting pathway.

Sports for 2018 include (age of appli-cants turning in 2018):• AFL (boys and girls) - 13 to 17 years -

CLOSE 27/10• Athletics (boys and girls) - 13 to 17 years• Basketball (boys and girls) - 14 &15 years

• Football (boys and girls) - 16 years• Golf (boys and girls) - 12 to 18 years -

CLOSE 31/10• Hockey (boys and girls) - 16 to 18 years -

CLOSE 20/10• Lonestar (Individual sports) - 14 to 18

years - CLOSE 31/10• Mountain Biking (boys and girls) – 12 to

15 years• Netball - 14 to 16 years - CLOSE 20/10• Rugby League - 15 years• Rugby 7’s (boys and girls) 15 & 17 years -

CLOSE 3/11• Tennis (boys and girls) – 13 to 16 years

Sporting programs will consist of skill development sessions and camps, which will be held within the region from Novem-

ber 2017, with most programs running approximately six months depending on the individual sport. The skills program follows a structured approach concen-trating on a range of individual skills and development.

Fitness sessions focusing on the impor-tance of building core strength to improve balance and technique, tailored specifi-cally for each sport.

Guest coaches ensure that the pro-gram remains fresh and motivating where athletes are presented with new ideas and different perspectives to encourage their development.

For more information on NIAS 2018 sporting programs, please visit www.nias.org.au or phone 6766 2526.

2018 NIAS PROGRAM APPLICATIONS CLOSING SOON

Throughout the year our on-site Namoi Valley Trade Training Centre has been extensively used by Gunnedah High School students.

The centre is utilised to deliver VET Metals & Engineering, Industrial Technol-ogy Metals and Technology Mandatory classes.

Students have had the opportunity to use a range of metalworking equipment and many students have gained employ-ment through the completion of the metal qualifications offered at Gunnedah High School.

Students see real value in using equip-ment similar to industry and immerse themselves in an authentic learning environment.

Both our current Metalwork teach-ers, Mr Vaughan and Mr Fletcher, have trade backgrounds in this field and have found the facilities beneficial to the skills required for industry.

DEVELOPING TRADE SKILLS

The P&C is currently seeking donations for their annual

Christmas RaffleNon-perishable items, Christmas decorations, lollies, toys... any items would be appreciated

Items can be left at the Front Office or in the Canteen with Gai.

The raffle will be drawn during the last week of school.

donations NEEDED

The newly formed boys program looks to encourage self determination and man-agement in students.

It has a set of expecta-tions that if not met, results in students missing out on a

development activity for one week only, allowing students to self correct in the future.

The program was designed to establish positive inter-actions between students, teachers and learning.

Josh from Crossfit Gunne-dah has contributed his expe-rience in coaching and training without charge as he thinks the program is excel-lent and should be encour-aged.

Josh has also started an out of school CrossFit teens and children's training pro-gram and anyone interested should look at www.crossfit-gunnedah.com/crossfit-kids-teens

YEAR 9 BOYS PROGRAM UP AND RUNNING

Congratulations to Zoe Fleming on winning an awesome drone that was offered as a prize by Australian Mobile Dental Care (AMDC). AMDC’s mo-bile dental program offers a state-of-the-art, on-site oral health care ser-vices, including check-ups and basic dental care. The van is at Gunnedah High during Week 3. Zoe is pictured with AMDC's Sanya Markovic.

CONGRATULATIONS ZOE!

Gunnedah High School promoted the awareness of mental health with a visit from public speaker Matt Purcell.

Mr Purcell said the message of mental health was vitally important to young people.

“It’s important to get the message of self image and self-responsibility across,” he said.

“The number one concern for teenagers in Australia is anxiety and it requires everyone in the community to get together and break down assump-tions and stigmas.

“The biggest needs for Australians right now is not traditional needs, it’s emotional needs and Gunnedah is quite lucky to have so many resources to help with emotional needs.”

Mr Purcell said he had enjoyed his time in Gunnedah.

“Gunnedah is awesome,” he said.

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS VITALLY IMPORTANT

Dan Hunt, former NRL Dragons player, dropped into Gunnedah High during Men-tal Health Month to share his story.

Dan runs his own company Mental Health Movement which is dedicated to educating and developing a more resilient individual through the power of story and life experience that strives to be the best version of themselves.

Gunnedah High School said farewell to our Physics teacher Mr Pat Twining at the end of Term 3. Mr Twining has accepted a position at Oak Flats High School in Wollongong. He started teaching at our school in 2012.

Staff dressed up in honour of Mr Twin-ing's love of Hawaiian shirts and prizes

were awarded for the best (or is that the worst?) outfits 😁

We are also saying goodbye to Pat's wife, Lyndsay, who was appointed in 2014 after completing her prac at GHS during 2013. She is currently on maternity leave.

Gunnedah High School wishes their family the very best.

Gunnedah High's Science Head Teacher, Mrs Karen Cull, married Mr Lars Kruse on Friday, October 6 in Wangi Wan-gi on Lake Macquarie. They will be honeymooning next year in Vietnam. Pictured with the happy couple are GHS Science staff, past and present. Congratulations to Mr and Mrs Kruse!

FAREWELL MR TWINING

Wedding bells in the holidaysORDER UNIFORMS FOR YEAR 7 2018 NOW

If your child is starting Year 7 at Gunnedah High School next year please order their uniform require-ments by Thursday, Novem-ber 30 so that the Uniform Shop can have orders prepared and ready before the start of Term 1, 2018.

Most schools have had try-on days so the students at these schools (Gunnedah South Public, Boggabri Public, Carroll Public) have had their sizes noted by our staff (students should have sizes too).

Contact the Uniform Shop on 6742 6939 so they can check sizes and start your order process.

Parents are also encour-aged to book an appoint-ment for a fitting if needed.

Lay-by and credit card are available.

Opening hours:

Tuesday 8.30am - 10.30am

Thursday 1pm - 3pm

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Y E A R 8 E X C U R S I O N

Y E A R 8 E X C U R S I O N

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R I D I N G F O R T H E D I S A B L E D

R I D I N G F O R T H E D I S A B L E D

R I D I N G F O R T H E D I S A B L E D

FOOD STALLSNOVELTY EVENTS DUNKING MACHINEJUMPING CASTLEFACE PAINTINGWHITE ELEPHANT STALLJUST DANCE COMPETITIONDANCE, MUSIC + DRAMA PERFORMANCES

ALL WELCOME

5pm-9.30pm, ‘Harry Ward Oval’ at Gunnedah High

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3

TWILIGHT MOVIE SCREENING ‘ THE BOSS BABY’

GUNNEDAH HIGH SCHOOL

CommunityFair 2017

THANKS TO

FOOD STALLSNOVELTY EVENTS DUNKING MACHINEJUMPING CASTLEFACE PAINTINGWHITE ELEPHANT STALLJUST DANCE COMPETITIONDANCE, MUSIC + DRAMA PERFORMANCES

ALL WELCOME

5pm-9.30pm, ‘Harry Ward Oval’ at Gunnedah High

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3

TWILIGHT MOVIE SCREENING ‘ THE BOSS BABY’

GUNNEDAH HIGH SCHOOL

CommunityFair 2017

THANKS TO