WEEK 3, TERM 1, 10 FEBRUARY 2023
PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
Welcome back to another exciting year at Hornsby Girls. The school staff had professional learning activities Friday and Monday with the students returning to school on Tuesday 31 January. Our first school assembly was held on Wednesday 1 February where students were welcomed back and all Year 7 students and new students in Years 8 - 11 were then given a special welcome to the school. This week our HSC Class of 2022 returned for an informal morning tea where the Year 12 students were able to share their academic successes, university choice of course, their university placement (mainly UNSW, Sydney, Macquarie or UTS) with a number moving interstate to commence their tertiary studies. Congratulations to all our HSC students and teachers for the outstanding HSC results. In particular I would like to acknowledge the following four students who placed in the top 5 students across the state in particular subjects - German Continuers, Nixie Nassar 5th in state thank you to her teacher Ms Arch, French Beginners, Maya Weiss 1st in State thank you to her teacher Ms Stuart, Japanese Continuers, Teresa Li 1st in State thank you to her teacher Mrs Lawson, Software Design and Development, Rosemary Ai 2nd in State thank you to her teacher Mrs McClure. Again well done students and thank you to all HSC teachers for their efforts.
It is always great to meet our new teachers at the beginning of the year and also raise awareness of the new roles that current teachers are doing.
Ms Hoogerwerf (PDHPE) is the Relieving Head Teacher Student Wellbeing while Mrs Wallwork is on leave.
Ms Boden is the Relieving Head Teacher HSIE while Mrs Gilmore is Relieving Deputy Principal.
Ms Sholl is the Relieving Head Teacher CAPA for Ms Pozzolungo while Ms Pozzolungo is seconded to the DoE HSC Strategy Taskforce.
Ms Tutty (HSIE Faculty) is Year Adviser for Year 11 while Mr Truong is on leave until May.
Mr Blake (Mathematics Faculty) is our new Prefect Coordinator.
While they were here last year we can officially welcome Ms McLean and Ms Bloomfield as our new TAS teachers and also welcome back Mrs McClure who is teaching TAS this year.
In CAPA our new Visual Arts teacher is Ms Zuffrey.
In HSIE as our Legal Studies and Society and Culture teacher is Ms Harkin.
In HSIE as our Modern History and Geography teacher is Mr Atkin.
In Maths we welcome as our new permanent Maths teacher Ms Mylan,
In English we welcome as our new permanent English teacher Ms Sylvester.
And also in English we congratulate the former Ms Koumoundouros who was married over the holidays and now would like to be known as Mrs Kostopoulos.
Next week we have our school photos on Friday 17 February. Thank you to Ms Diaz (Head Teacher Languages and TAS) for coordinating our school photographs. Please see the notice in this edition for further details.
As previously mentioned we have changed our uniform supplier from Lowes to School Locker. The transition has been less than smooth but we hope that as we continue to work with the new supplier some of these issues will be sorted very quickly. They now supply all new items, at school we now only have small quantities of secondhand uniforms. We are planning to have Pop-Up Shops at the change of seasons and we will notify families once we have these dates. Please see the information from our website https://hornsbygir-h.schools.nsw.gov.au/about-our-school/uniform.html
On Wednesday 22 February we will hold our first P and C Meeting for 2023. The focus for the meeting will be an opportunity for Year 7 parents to meet their daughter's teachers. The evening will commence at 6pm with Year 7 students introducing their parents to their teachers. This will take place outside the school hall. At 7pm the Year 7 students will then move to allocated classrooms with their Year 10 mentors to continue to develop their friendships with their year group using wellbeing activities developed by our wellbeing team including the Year Advisers Ms Hoang and Ms Davenport and the Relieving Head Teacher Wellbeing Mrs Hoogerwerf. At this time parents will move to the Hall to meet the P and C members. The Principal and the P and C will talk about how we can build a strong learning community through the support of our parents, particularly through the activities of the P and C. The Year 7 students will return to the Hall at 8pm and the meeting will conclude at that time. I look forward to seeing our Year 7 parents at this meeting.
Kind regards
Dr Justin Briggs - Principal
YEAR 7 TRANSITION PROGRAM
On the first three days of school (31st January- 2nd February), all students in the Year 7 Cohort of 2023 participated in the Transition Program. This is a Project Based Learning Program recommended by Dr Tracy Worthington (2018) who suggested that spending more time building a community of practice at the start of the year would allow new students to feel welcome and supported from the ‘culture shock’ of the move to high school.
Throughout the three days, Year 7 students participated in a range of group activities fostering critical and creative thinking. All activities required collaborative work where students found themselves meeting and talking to their classmates for the first time. After scavenger hunts, amazing race challenges and peer support sessions around the school values, students developed their confidence to form an inquiry-based question around ‘What makes a good society/world/country?’. In groups of five, students were asked to develop a proposal and pitch it to an audience talking about the ideas they had for their imaginative and speculative worlds. The proposals presented on the last day were amazing as they were comprehensive and engaging, filled with different ideas of how their imaginative society/world/country looked like (e.g. making recycling mandatory in the household, increasing the alcohol age to 25 years, and making education free of charge).
A special thanks to the Year 10 Student Wellbeing Leaders who are also the Peer Support Leaders to the Year 7 Cohort. All students assisted throughout the Transition Program and are to be congratulated for their tremendous efforts helping not only the new students settle in to high school life, but also helping the teachers where needed.
Below are some photos taken throughout the Year 7 Transition Program.
Ms Hoang and Ms Davenport -Year 7 Advisors
SCHOOL PHOTOS
EARLY DISMISSAL ON FRIDAY 17 FEBRUARY
Dear Parents and Carers.
On Friday 17th students in Years 8 to 12 will be dismissed at 2.15pm.
Friday 17th is School Photograph Day and on this day all staff will also be completing mandatory face to face anaphylaxis and CPR Training from 2:15pm - 4pm.
To enable this staff training across the school, the day will finish early for Year 8-12 students, at 2.15pm.
Periods 1-3 will run to their regular lesson times with period 4 shortened.
Year 7s will have their photographs taken during period 4. Year 7 students will be dismissed once their photographs are complete which will likely be around 2.45pm.
Dr S Green - Deputy Principal
NATIONAL COMPUTER SCIENCE SCHOOL (NCSS)
From 4 January to 13 January, Rosemary Ai, Hea Singh, Katie Yu (Year 12) attended a ten-day summer school, NCSS, for an intensive course in programming and cybersecurity, organised by Grok Academy and hosted by UNSW. Alongside 60 other outstanding Year 11 and 12 high school students across Australia, we stayed in an on-campus accommodation, attended university-style lectures by Professor Richard Buckland and participated in case studies and labs in groups led by our amazing volunteer tutors.
The lectures were primarily on cyber security, focusing on adopting an attacker mindset, spotting vulnerabilities in existing systems, cryptography, hashing and encoding passwords, and OSInt (open source intelligence). We also learnt to program a microprocessor with machine code, and perform memory exploits in C.
We especially enjoyed Professor Buckland’s anecdotes and sense of humour. In particular, we loved his iconic quote, “When you get an error message don’t be depressed just go HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
Our evenings were spent partaking in fun group activities such as paper tower building, trivia night and a scavenger hunt that led us all around the UNSW campus (there were so many stairs… we felt right at home). We competed against each other and the NCSS students in Melbourne to crack codes and solve Pokémon-themed coding problems with the support of industry mentors. One evening we were given a presentation on how to hack into wifi, and how to hack your friends (with their consent!), and another evening we were tasked to phish one of the organisers. We also participated in a lockpicking workshop, adding to our ever-growing list of criminal activities.
Later in the camp, we had the opportunity to visit the offices of some of our sponsors to experience part of their company culture and see what it would be like to work there. A formal dinner was held the same night to let us have a chat with some industry representatives and form connections. We also had the chance to sit a mock job interview with HR and software engineering representatives from Atlassian, WiseTech Global, Macquarie Bank, Google, and Optiver.
On the ninth day we had the opportunity to apply all our newfound knowledge in a series of activities called The Wargames that lasted from 9am that went past midnight. It was a fierce battle ‘til the end but everyone had lots of fun with the challenges we were issued, which included decrypting ciphers, writing funky programs in C, making a team theme song on a microprocessor synthesiser (one of which sounded suspiciously like ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’) and piecing together a shredded document. After 15+ hours of hard work, we celebrated with midnight pizza and a bedtime story read by none other than BROOSE (Bruce Fuda, Chief Education Officer at Grok).
This was an unforgettable experience overall and we made so many good friends we still keep in contact with, fostered connections with people in the tech industry, and learnt tons of interesting things about computer science, university life, and our future careers.
Inspired by the fabulous people and activities at NCSS, we are creating Hornsby’s own Coding Club! More information is available on Sentral.
Rosemary Ai, Hea Singh, Katie Yu (Year 12)
Sydney North Blue
Year 12 student Alexandra Lawrence has been awarded a Sydney North Blue from the Sydney North Schools Sports Association and the Sydney North Premier’s Sporting Challenge Scholarship.
A Sydney North Blue is the highest award presented for sporting excellence within the Sydney North School Sports Association. Recipients have performed with distinction in their chosen sport and exhibited exemplary sportsmanship, leadership, team commitment and behaviour, both on and off the sporting field.
The Sydney North Premier’s Sporting Challenge Scholarship is awarded to only two athletes a year across the Sydney North network of 200 schools and is a very prestigious award.
Alexandra was the 17 years age champion at the 2022 Sydney North Swimming Championship, competing in six individual events and in two school relay teams. At the NSW Combined High Schools Swimming Championships, she won the silver medal in the 400m individual medley and finished with top ten placings in six individual events. She went on to win three medals at the NSW All Schools Championship - silver in 400m individual medley and bronze in the 200m backstroke and 400m freestyle. Alexandra gained selection in the NSW team to compete at the School Sport Australia Championship where she swam three individual events achieving top ten results in the 400m individual medley and 200m breaststroke.
In addition to her swimming endeavours Alexandra has also competed at zone level and at Sydney North in Athletics and Cross Country.
Congratulations Alex.
Mrs Jane Hall - PDHPE
Healthy Lunchbox Week
Did you know children consume around 30% of their daily food intake at school?
Healthy Lunchbox Week starts on the 5th-11th February, 2023. Healthy Lunchbox Week is an initiative of Nutrition Australia that aims to inspire Australian families to create healthy and enjoyable lunchboxes. What children eat during the day at school plays a crucial role in their learning and development.
Healthy Lunchbox Week helps families prepare healthy lunchboxes by:
· inspiring healthy lunchbox ideas and recipes
· ensuring a healthy lunchbox balance across core food groups
· awareness of lunchbox food hygiene and safety.
Please see the slideshow below which will be shown to all Year 7 students as part of their Nutrition-based topic in PDHPE. The presentation will also be posted on the schools Daily Notices throughout week 3.
Link of Healthy Lunchbox week presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WaielNISW8GITI-VdPhynO7Ismh8-qmLlYzpBzRCWX8/edit?usp=sharing
Ms Hoang - PDHPE Teacher
School DEVELOPMENT DAY
wellbeing report
Wellbeing Report
Welcome back to the 2023 school year. Special welcome to our new students and to Year 7. They appear to be transitioning well and we are so proud to see them approaching their new school with such a positive mindset.
A little insight into Wellbeing at HGHS in the first 3 weeks of 2023
Year 7 Transition Program
Year 8 and 10 Butterfly Foundation presentation
Year 12 Urban Challenge
Year 12 2022 Morning tea.
Week 3 – Healthy lunchbox week.
Please visit the school Wellbeing Portal where there are links for both parents/guardians and students across a variety of topics.
Students can access a QR code on the student portal link to refer to the Student Support Office (Mel Court Gold). Learning Support (Mrs Kontos) or our School Counsellors (Beatrijs Dewulf and Jess Cheok)
https://sites.google.com/education.nsw.gov.au/hghs-wellbeing/home
Wishing you and your families a wonderful 2023.
Michelle Hoogerwerf (Relieving Head Teacher Student Wellbeing)
EXTRA CURRICULAR DANCE 2023
This year we are excited to be offering dance classes for Years 7-12 for Aerobics, Hip Hop, Jazz and a combined class of Ballet/Lyrical on campus with an external dance school provider. There are opportunities with the dance school to enter competitions throughout the year. Students selected to join the team will need to join the Harriman Dance School.
If you wish to be selected for the 2023 team, auditions are being held week 3 aerobics and hip hop February 9 and Jazz, Ballet/Lyrical February 10 at lunchtime in the school gym.
Upon selection classes are commencing week 6 February 28, and the 2022 Aerobics team commencing week 3, February 7 at 7am.
BUILDING UPDATES
Students and parents will have returned to school to find that there have been some important building works occurring while they were on summer holidays.
The new multi-purpose court was completed and signed off for student use. This is an excellent piece of sporting infrastructure which will allow games of volleyball and futsal to be played both during sport and at recess and lunch times. Students have already begun to play on the courts, and we look forward to developing some champion volleyball and futsal players!
Roofing upgrades also occurred to the History/Science block and the Music/Languages block. The eaves and guttering were also replaced. This should address any leaks that occur during high rainfall periods. The DoE advises that they are planning future works on the library roof, hall and front office building.
A heritage officer visited the school this week this week and assessed other potential work including upgrading student toilets; gym showering and changing facilities; and rectification of ceilings in A block.
Mrs Vanessa Gilmore (Relieving Deputy Principal)
school canteen
This term we have secured a canteen operator to provide lunches on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of each week. Orders can be made by going to this email address: https://flexischools.com.au/ . Parents and or students can set up an account, select Hornsby Girls High School and order from the menu. There is also an easy-to-use app available for mobile phones.
Orders are only available online and can be submitted up to 9 am on the day of the lunch order. Students can collect their order from the canteen at lunch. There is a good range of healthy lunches, snacks and drinks available.
BUTTERFLY FOUNDATION presentations
This week Years 8 and 10 received highly valuable presentations from the Butterfly Foundation. The presenter started discussions about diet culture, critical media literacy and promoting positive relationships with food and exercise.
Students were encouraged to build a ‘Feel Good Toolkit’ that D.O.E.S stuff. They provided an example for the students, as shown below. We encourage you to discuss your child’s toolkit with them at home.
D (dopamine) – For happy feelings - Finish something you started, Do something fun, Fuel your body, Pat yourself on the back
O (oxytocin) – To feel more love - Play with a pet, Give a non-appearance-based compliment, Be kind to someone
E (endorphins) – To reduce pain, discomfort, and stress - Find a way to laugh out loud -Gently move your body
S (serotonin) – To improve your mood - Do a mindfulness activity, Sit in the sun or in nature, Physical activity
The Butterfly Foundation also offer free services to parents to continue promoting these concepts at home. Please see the flyer below for more information if you are interested.
Ms Mackenzie Carroll (Year 10 Adviser) and Ms Melina Kostopoulos (Year 8 Adviser)
P and C Information Night Wednesday 22 February 6pm – 8pm - meet the teachers
A community evening for our new Year 7 Parents and Students to meet the Year 7 Teachers
6pm parents and Year 7 students arrive outside the hall in the Central Quad. Year 7 students introduce their parents to their teachers.
7pm students move to allocated classrooms to continue to work with their Year 10 mentors and then parents move to the Hall to meet the P and C members
8pm students complete their activities and the P and C meeting concludes
Come along and meet the teachers, other parents and get to know the P and C
OnSTAGE Showcase
On Tuesday evening senior Drama students attended the OnSTAGE Showcase to see exemplary performances and projects from the 2022 HSC. Students were excited to see the costume designs by Alaina Fang, class of 2022 at Hornsby Girls.
Ms Mackenzie Carroll - Drama Teacher
CCMP Regional Tour December 2022
The CCMP 2022 Regional tour to the Blue Mountains was an incredibly rewarding and fun experience, full of musical and social opportunities for the 59 incredibly lucky students who went. It solidified many cross-grade friendships and created the foundations for others, helped us to collectively share our love for music with primary schoolers all over the Blue Mountains, and make new friendships with students from Winmalee High!
My favourite part was definitely how interactive the performances were, between HGHS students and the schools we were playing and the absolute joy we all had while playing, as well as bringing smiles to everyone watching. I also loved the games night (where my team absolutely dominated winning almost every game), the morning workouts nobody wanted to do, making a recorder/kazoo ensemble, and every single one of our (strangely out of tune) bus karaoke sessions! Thank you so much to Mrs Sholl, Mrs Sutcliffe, Ms McCarthy, and Dr Green for accompanying us and planning this incredible opportunity!
Kristy Zhang, Year 12
The CCMP tour to Katoomba was such an enjoyable experience, we all made so many new friends, saw a different side to the teachers along the way, all the while learning so much more about music! The night activities we did were definitely very entertaining, especially the games night where we played the ‘Captain's Coming’ game and the massive trek (The Night Lit Walk) we took back to the cabins where Mrs Sholl scared the living daylights out of Summer and I. Walking down and back up a mountain and looking down at everyone else still at the bottom, a group taking an alternate route and fun times at Scenic World were definitely also highlights! The performances, though, were definitely the best part, despite the many struggles during the set-up (including the painful timpani). It was so fun and we were able to perform so much great repertoire like the Bluey Theme Song! Overall, this experience was so, so fun, and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to go.
Ziqi Zhang, Year 7
EXTRA CURRICULAR SPORT
Extra-Curricular - Sport Term 1 2023
The following extra-curricular sports will be offered in Term 1:
Mondays - Taekwondo @ HGHS Yrs 7-12
Tuesdays - Volleyball @ HGHS Yrs 8 - 9
Wednesdays - Tennis @ Kim Warwick Tennis Academy Yrs 8 -12
Thursday - Volleyball @ HGHS Yrs 8 - 12
All activities commence in week 4, the week beginning 13 February and conclude in week 11.
Taekwondo will be held on Mondays from 3.15pm-4.30pm in the school gym and is open to all students. The students participating will learn respect, self-discipline and self-defense skills. The sessions will be run by Jason Park. The cost for this activity is $120.
Volleyball at HGHS is open to students in Years 8 - 9 on Tuesdays and students from Years 8 – 12 on Thursdays from 3.15pm - 4.15pm on the volleyball courts at HGHS. During the term students will participate in drills and weekly games to improve their skill level, match play, general fitness and have fun playing volleyball. The sessions will be run by coaches from ProVolley Academy. The cost for this activity is $50.
Tennis is open to all students at the Kim Warwick Tennis Academy (next door to HGHS). These sessions will teach students how to hit the ball effectively, how to efficiently move around the court, tennis tactics appropriate to students' ability and experience and mastering the ability to control the ball and respond to an opponent. Tennis will be held after school on Wednesday from 2:50pm - 3.50pm. Students will be expected to make their own way to the venue after school. The sessions will be run by KWTA staff. The cost for this activity is $160.
Permission notes and payment links have now been emailed to those registered in the above activities. Payment is now due and can be completed by clicking on the link provided in the email.
Extracurricular sport opportunities will open to Year 7 from next Term.
Any queries should be directed to Ms Davenport in the PDHPE faculty.
Mrs S Davenport - PDHPE Teacher
CAReERS INFORMATION
NSW and ACT universities take sector leading steps to strengthen early offer admissions
The New South Wales Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (NSWVCC), the peak body for universities in NSW and the ACT, has initiated a sector-leading approach to introduce a new set of underlying principles for early offer admissions in 2024.
Convener of the NSWVCC, Professor Barney Glover AO, said “We acknowledge the views and feedback of the NSW Education Standards Authority, and some school principals around early offer programs. Protecting the integrity of the HSC is critical and early offer programs must be justifiable and transparent”.
“We also agree that student wellbeing should be a major consideration when providing early offer programs. The development of a set of principles is the first step to addressing current underlying concerns whilst maintaining benefits that accrue to students from these programs”.
The five-key principles endorsed by the NSWVCC are:
1. That universities, as self-accrediting institutions, are responsible for their admission policies and procedures, consistent with the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards)
2. That university admissions practices should be cognisant of the needs of students and ensure that those students admitted are capable of succeeding with appropriate support
3. That admission practices should be evidence-based, transparent and publicly defensible
4. That admission practices should respect and support the integrity of the HSC and are conditional on the completion of the HSC
5. That early offers for 2024 (with one agreed and unavoidable exception) will not be issued before September 2023.
These principles will apply to early offers made to students completing the HSC in 2023 for admission to university in 2024. In supporting the integrity of the HSC, the principles will require that all early offers be conditional on the completion of the HSC.
“Alongside early offer programs, the NSWVCC continues to support the ATAR which provides a consistent starting point for tertiary entry across all states and territories, no matter where a student completes their senior secondary study.”
“NSW and ACT universities are committed to upholding the integrity and standards of all admission programs and through the NSWVCC, and in collaboration with other key stakeholders, will continue to monitor and assess the impact of early offer programs in 2023.
“We look forward to welcoming students into their chosen courses” said Professor Glover.
Dr D Turner - Careers Advisor
https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/pd-2020-047
