Missing Link 2014 EXCELLENCE ASSEMBLY EDITION
PRINCIPAL’S EXCELLENCE ASSEMBLY ADDRESS Thank you to Jay for the acknowledgement of country and, like him may I extend my respects as Principal to the elders of our Aboriginal community and to Aboriginal people here today.
begin the next 50 years with new and fresh ways of thinking about our work. As a result, our key value for 2013 was the “I” in PERSIST – Innovation & Creativity.
When the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer died in 1860 he left behind many books and quotes that are still used Can I also welcome the members of the official party, the award winners, staff and widely today. He said: parents? Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Over the course of this assembly you will genius hits a target no one else can see. see the continuing achievements of the school. We will hear more today as nearly Today we are recognising talent in a 200 individual awards and 150 team range of areas. Our award winners member awards are presented. The achieved targets no one else in the school continued involvement of our students in achieved in 2013. They represent our the academic, performance, citizenship best. and sporting life of the school underpins However, in 2013, the school faced the much of the ongoing success and challenge of finding genius – hitting reputation of this school in the local and targets no one else could see. wider community. Can I take a moment to thank our teachers and acknowledge their When we wrote our school plan for 2012 determination to be the best they can be? – 2014 we had an overall purpose – to lift expectations, capacity and achievements After the success of the 50th anniversary for students, staff, parents and the year in 2012, we decided that we should community. To do this in 2013, we could continued on page 2
RECOGNISING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT FROM 2013
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not do the same things we always had – they were successful but, after years of analysing our performance, we realised we had to be a lot more innovative and creative than we had been before. We had to find new targets to which to aim and new ways of working to lift the learning curve for students. We had to find our strengths and build on them – t e a m w o r k , c o m m i t m e n t , e n e r g y, enthusiasm, willingness to try new things, support of each other, good systems, great teachers, a respectful and positive culture – were all mentioned as strengths of the school. We believed that, if we could build on those strengths and take some risks, we could become more innovative. As a result, the school plan was refined to stop wasting time on things that no longer worked. Our purpose was to lift expectations, capacity and achievement by focusing on implementing those things that would change the “learning trajectory” of students. I could speak for many hours and tell many stories of our school in 2013. Given the time, I want to share just three stories about how we found our “inner genius” and went for targets others had not seen. This is the first story. We were already working on the new school plan when the school received over $400000 for the Improving Literacy & Numeracy National Partnership in Term 2 last year. With two years to use the money to make a difference, we decided to focus on reading with Year 7 in 2013. Imagine our delight when, after taking two terms to trial some specific reading strategies led by a National Partnership Literacy Mentor in each faculty, we then asked Year 9 students to volunteer to be peer literacy tutors for a special program for Year 7 in Term 4. Just over 100 students (more than half of Year 9) volunteered and, over the next six weeks they worked every day with Year 7 students. The “We Are Readers” and CAFÉ Reading programs resulted in 60% of Year 7 students lifting their reading by at least whole year in under 6 months. One student improved her reading by three whole years and we are recognising her with an award today. There is still a long way to go but 2
our willingness to learn together and read together saw a great lift in the learning trajectory of almost every student in Year 7. We found that by focusing on progressive improvement and learning trajectories we could lift the expectations, capacity and achievements of staff and students in reading. In 2014, we are looking at some new work on how to teach subject based literacy in Years 8 – 12 with a strong focus on writing and critical and creative thinking. This is the second story. Three years ago we were asked to establish the regional Confucius Classroom as part of our plan to be an exemplary 21st century school. In 2013 this became a reality and in 2013 the Chinese government appointed a volunteer teacher to work in our school in addition to our languages teachers. This meant that, in 2013 we were able to offer an Outreach program to the three partner primary schools and we also had our first Chinese language class in Year 11. We ran a special program for talented Year 8 students and in September, Ms. M a t t i m o r e a n d M r. M e n g l e d a delegation from our school to China to visit our sister schools. (There is a great display of photos on the wall outside Ms. Mattimore’s office.) Like reading, there is still a long way to go in our Chinese language and cultural programs and it is our hope that, one day, every student leaving this school will speak Chinese and have a much deeper understanding of Asian culture. This is the third story. Over many years the school has worked hard to be a great place for young teachers to start their careers. As early as 2009, we published work about developing teacher leadership and since that time we have tried a number of ways to increase our teacher expertise. In 2013, Australia introduced new national standards for teachers and, at our school, we created a Professional Practice mentor position in each faculty. We published some new work on classroom observations using the work of Charlotte Danielson, John Hattie and Bill Louden. Not much of this will make sense to all our students but it is critical
to the innovations we are putting in place in professional practice. The result of this work was, that in 2013, the school was recognised by Social Ventures Australia as one of three Powerhouse Schools in NSW and the school was chosen by DEC for a visit by the Global Educational Leaders Program as one of its three most innovative schools in Sydney. In 2014 the school will be using its grant from SVA to pursue new strategies for school planning, improvement, innovation and change. By focusing again for 2013, in lifting the expectations and capacity of our teams as well as individuals the school has demonstrated that there are better, smarter and more creative ways for us to work together. Our achievements did not just happen – they are increasingly planned, implemented and evaluated to ensure we hit our targets and also that we find targets that others did not see. In 2014, we return to the core value of Excellence – which we define as doing a personal best. We plan to implement many of the innovative programs and projects that we designed in 2013 and to keep striving to be the best we can be. How will we know? We will know because we will ask ourselves three questions each day – how much have we done? How well have we done it? Have we made any difference?
In 2014 we will be working together to make a difference and to ensure that we deliver our moral contract with students and their families – to give every student the opportunity to do his or her best. CongratulaAons to all our award winners and all those whose work and persistence brought them here today. I am, as always, privileged to be giving this address as principal of this wonderful school. ChrisAne Cawsey 7 February 2014
Christine Cawsey
2013 EXCELLENCE ASSEMBLY MAJOR AWARD WINNERS BAND 6 HSC RESULTS Charity Dave - Information Processes & Technology ! Madison Nixon - English Extension1 Leinad Diaz - Information Processes & Technology ! Madison Nixon - Legal Studies Deepika Gounder - Biology ! Madison Nixon - Society & Culture & Visual Arts
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SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS LEADERSHIP FOR LEARNING AWARD
Mrs Kathryn Short
CHIFLEY SCHOOL SERVICE AWARD
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P&C ASSOC. AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION ! Ms YASODAI SELVAKUMARAN ! BETTY ANDERSEN MEMORIAL AWARD
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Leinad Diaz
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Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12
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Nicole Singh Harsha Kumar Brittany Menolotto Emily Powell Tiana Edwards Missy Tapaitau
REPRESENTATIVE TEAM OF THE YEAR !
Open Girls Volleyball Team
! SPORTS CHAMPIONS
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Junior Boy! ! Junior Girl! Senior Boy! ! Senior Girl!
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Jarred Wright Mirae Hemi Mark Torzar Charlotte Laurens
DUX YEAR 7 – 11 SCARF AWARD FOR SCHOOL SERVICE
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Siera Lamsam
JAN VAN DOORN PERSONAL BEST AWARD
CALTEX BEST ALL – ROUNDER
! Tori-Lee Rylewski ! AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCES LONG ! TAN LEADERSHIP & TEAMWORK AWARD ! ! Year 10 – Clare Da Silva ! ! Year 12 – Sharlisa Manuhuia
Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12
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Michaela Quinn Kiata Hemi Rachelle Rativo Bailey Phillips Burhan Uz Dana Warren
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Year 7 ! Year 8 Year 9 ! Year 10 Year 11
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Imico Pablico Lisa Vu Emma Jurd Megan Varley Caitlin Thick
DUX OF THE SCHOOL & STUDENT OF THE YEAR – Madison Nixon
DUX OF THE SCHOOL 2013 ADDRESS - Madison Nixon Good morning everyone and thank it all as my own. Today I am school, Miss Munzie. All of you have you for attending this award accepting this on behalf of all the gone out of your way to check up on ceremony today, it really means a people who consistently guided me me, to make sure everything ran lot that you are here supporting throughout my schooling-from that smoothly and ensure that I wasn’t Rooty Hill High School’s students first reality check, throughout all my being too misbehaved in classes. and celebrating their achievements. stressed breakdowns, all the way to That community sense of pride and this point. I owe so much to all the Now to all my wonderful teachers, enthusiasm for studies really helped staff within the school for helping throughout the years, and me to motivate myself throughout transform that gawky, uncaring and particularly during this last home the past year and-despite how much slightly rebellious child to this now, stretch; I honestly couldn’t have I complained about my parent’s loud self-proclaimed, ‘nerd’ with direction. done it without you. Miss Vuki, Miss embarrassing clapping-I really do Selva, Miss Pollard, Miss Wilkins appreciate that support. Now most of the teachers would tell and Mr Krawiarz. I learnt so much you, I’m prone to blabbering on for from all of you these past two years, Oh gosh, how weird to think that this too long, but I do have some people irrespective of what the results were could be my last time giving a in particular to thank. Starting with at the end of this year, you all played speech at Rooty hill High. It’s our wonderful Principal Ms Christine a major part in shaping my life, definitely been an adventure since I Cawsey who has been a close forging my passions and teaching first gawkily stumbled into high mentor of mine throughout the years me life lessons which I will forever school with a handful of fiction and whose guidance has been a hold dear. Even when I was difficult books to read in the breaks… and saving grave when I was faced with to work with you proved to me the during class time. I spent a lot of tough decisions. Miss, your value of time, effort and dedication time in the coming years stubbornly proactive role as a leader of in achieving goals. You put so much ignoring the advice of teachers as Western Sydney education has of yourselves and so much they threw around words like been a massive inspiration for enthusiasm into each class and I will “potential”, too busy socialising to myself. Thank you so much for all never be able to thank you enough worry about that distant and the time and effort you’ve invested for your contribution. seemingly unimportant “future”. in me. I loved my time at RHHS and am Eventually, though, these teachers’ I would also like to thank both our extremely proud of it. Although I’m dedication broke through to me. deputy principals, Miss Mattimore sure I won’t miss all the hard work, Well it turned out that the future and Mr Pesle who were a huge exams and assessments; I will miss wasn’t actually far away at all and I support system throughout the all the inspirational mentors and am honoured today to be receiving school. As well as my year advisor caring support that I discovered at this award. I cannot, however, claim Miss graham and head of the senior this school. 3
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