N a r r a n d e r a H i g h S c h o o l

Issue 1 Week 5 Term 1 Tuesday 27th February 2018

Calendar TERM 1 Week 5 Tues 27th February -Open Boys

Cricket Knockout @ Narrandera Wed 28th February - Yr 7

Scripture Week 6 Mon 5th March - Canberra

Leadership Camp Tues 6th March - Regional

Swimming Carnival Leeton Wed 7th March - Big Day In CSU

Wagga Tues 13th March - P & C AGM

Meeting 7.30pm Fri 16th March - Yrs 7, 10 and

11 Immunisations Week 7 Wed 14th March - Open Boys

Basketball - Leeton Thurs 15th March - Formal

Assembly Week 8 Mon 19th - Wed 21st March - Yr

7/8 Batemans Bay Excursion Wed 21st March - Open Girls

Basketball - Narrandera

PRINCIPALS REPORT

Welcome back to all of our students and families to the 2018 school year. It has been an extremely busy start to the year with plenty of learning and extra-curricular activities on offer for our students. Swimming Carnival This year our swimming carnival was held on another warm Thursday night. I was

devastated that it was the first swimming carnival I have missed since arriving in Narrandera but I was able to keep updated throughout the night from Mrs Milne. Congratulations to Uroly again for giving it their best and taking away the trophy. Welcome to NHS BBQ This year, for the first year, we decided to hold a Welcome BBQ for our Year 7 par-ents as well as parents of students who are new to Narrandera High School. It was a fantastic night for parents and teachers to connect socially and begin to build a relationship. We had the pleasure of being able to get around to most parents on the night and it was fantastic to hear about the positive start our Year 7 students have had thus far. CESE We recently received news from our Director, Russell Graham, that Narrandera High has been selected by the Centre for Educational Statistics and Evaluation (CESE) as a high value add school. A very small number of high growth schools were selected using a statistical analysis that assesses the contribution a school

makes to growth in student achievement. CESE will now work with us to prepare a report that will include the successful practices that have been used at our school that have led to this outstanding growth. Deputy Principal, Mrs Milne will be our executive representative on the ‘Teacher Success Profile Project’ which aims to showcase best practice to other NSW Schools. This is a wonderful achievement for our school. SMS System This term we have been trialling a new SMS system to notify parents of a student

absence and give you an opportunity to respond with an explanation. Parent feed-back thus far has been very positive with parents enjoying the ease of being able to text back with a response, rather than having to send a letter of explanation in with the student. Being a new system, we may encounter some issues. Please contact us if you feel a mistake has been made and thank you for being patient during this time. Library Furniture

For those of you that follow our school on Facebook, you may have seen photos of our fantastic new library furniture. Over time, we are aiming to make our library a

contemporary and flexible learning space for students and staff.

Again, we have had a very positive start to 2018 and we look forward to opportuni-ties to continue working to improve our school this year.

Regards, Kyle Bryant

NARRANDERA’S HIGH ACHIEVERS

As the 2018 school year gets off to a flying start, Narrandera High School is also celebrating the success of former students who have begun their post school life. Students from the 2017 HSC class have moved on to a range of post school options, including life as apprentice trades-people, small business owners and university students. Today the Argus is profiling three of Narrandera High School’s top academic achievers, and how they have turned success at school and community support into a positive individual opportunity.

Jack Langley: Jack received the highest ATAR from NHS in 2017 achieving a score of 92.10, which has been high enough to secure university offers for

Medicine and Law. In 2018, Jack is taking gap year in Narrandera, undertaking a Legal Business Traineeship with Farrell Goode Law Firm and he will pursue studies in either Law or Medicine in 2019.

Sophie Little: Achieved excellent results across all 6 of her HSC subjects and also secured a strong ATAR score at 90.55. Although she is taking a gap

year in 2018, she has received multiple university offers and cur-rently intends to pursue studies in Law and Journalism at University of Wollongong in 2019.

Rachel Beer: Rachel’s consistently high results have contributed to her ATAR score 87.8.

Rachel was awarded the Lil Mills Tertiary Scholarship from the Rotary Club. She has been accepted into a Bachelor of Agriculture Business Management at CSU in Wagga and has recently commenced study in this degree.

2018 Narrandera High School Swimming Carnival The Narrandera High School Twilight Swimming Carnival was held on Thursday 8th February.

The day started with a presentation from each house at the morning assembly. Whilst all of the houses

put together a creative feature, the Berembed House slant on current events was deemed the winner

and they started the day from in front with a bonus 50 points for their presentation.

The students then marched from the High School down to the pool at 1:00pm in their house

groups. After a short stopover at Narrandera East Infants to play with the students and involve them in

the day, the students continued on with Midgeon House taking the points from Lake Talbot Pool man-

agement for the most impressive entry into the pool complex.

Once the swimming got underway it was a wave of yellow caps that kept appearing in the mar-

shalling area. After being knocked off their perch last year as swimming champions after fifteen consec-

utive wins, Uroly House seemed keen to put themselves back on top with numbers in races being the

key ingredient. This trend continued for most of the day and well into the evening. There were also

some outstanding individual results for the day. Three records were broken with Paige Godden break-

ing a record in the 50m Butterfly, Daneka Hatty broke her older sister’s record in the 50m Backstroke

while William Roffe broke his own record in the 50m Butterfly. The individual highlight of the evening

was the CHAMPION of CHAMPION’s race with the six fastest swimmers racing off against each other. In

the girls event it was a very tight affair with Katelyn Johnson taking the honours in a judge’s call finish.

In the boy’s event, William Roffe led from the start to hold off the rest of the field as they all tried to

finish over him at the end to no avail.

At the end of the evening the Age Champions were crowned with the girl’s champions being

CLAIRE INGRAM, KATELYN JOHNSON, LAUREN WICKES, ISABELLA BEAUMONT, DANEKA HATTY and IVY

LONGMIRE. The boy’s champions for 2018 were BRAYDEN STEWART, JASPAR BEAUMONT, HEATH

CHAPPELL, DYLAN JOHNSON, BRAD CUSSANS and WILLIAM ROFFE. The champion house for the even-

ing was also awarded the George Deep Trophy

and the NHS Swimming Champions trophy

with UROLY taking back the mantle as the

champion house from Berembed with 1062

points. Berembed was second with 777

points, followed by Midgeon with 704 and Gil-

lenbah on 698.

Swimming Carnival

This semester Year 9 studied Sustainable Biomes in Geography. As well as writing a report on their chosen biome, they created a diorama to display the plants and animals found in that biome. Their dioramas also explored how humans interact with different elements of the bi-

ome. The dioramas submitted were of an exceptional quality.

Staff , students and members of the community were invited to visit the Library and vote for their favourite diorama during Weeks 3 and 4. A

massive 300+ votes were cast.

Well done Year 9!

Student awards will be presented at the next Formal Assembly.

Year 9 and 10 Sports Studies and Marine Science have both been working toward achieving their Bronze Star, Bronze Medallion or Bronze Cross Awards as part of their studies this year. These courses require the students to not only work hard in the classroom to devel-op their theoretical knowledge but they also need to pass a variety of practical tests, along with developing life saving skills in resuscita-tion. The students in these classes recently participated in a full day practical training exercise where they practiced all of the skills re-quired to gain their qualifications. This meant they had to do things like 50m tow rescues (where they had to tow someone from the oth-er end of the pool fully clothed), 400-600m timed swims, underwa-ter search patterns and treating injured swimmers with spinal inju-ries. They also had to demonstrate defensive techniques and how to escape from someone who has hold of you in the water. The stu-dents had a lot of fun and were outstanding ambassadors for our School during their training as they learnt these lifelong skills.

SKILLSROAD SHOW VISIT

On Tuesday 15 February, Kristen and Dell from SkillsRoad Show

and Jemima from the Narrandera Shire Council visited Narrandera

High School to share their career stories with all students in Years

9, 10, 11 & 12. Students were informed about the multiple path-

ways and opportunities available to them to pursue their own

dream career. Workshops were also run to showcase the

SkillsRoad website and the many activities available to students to

make informed decisions when deciding on a career. A big

THANKS to Kristen, Dell and Jemima for giving us their time to

share their own journeys.

We are now running the Duke of Edinburgh In 2018 we are starting the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze and Silver Awards at NHS for year 9 and 10 stu-dents. This is a great opportunity for students to get involved in their community, learn new skills, boost their resume and have a great time. This is a voluntary extra-curricular activity for students which is self-paced and caters for all students. We highly recommend you have a look into the Duke of Edinburgh Award online and see if this is right for you through their website http://www.dukeofed.com.au/. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact the award coordinator via email at pe-

ter.davies59@det.nsw.edu.au

LIBRARY NEWS

The NHS Library has just acquired some lovely new furniture……helping to make it a

warm, positive and flexible learning space. The students and staff are enjoying the ‘new

look’!

We have welcomed all the new Year 7s with a Library lesson and they have borrowed

and investigated Finding Fiction.

We have been privileged to host the Yea 9 Biomes Diorama Display. Students and staff

alike have judged and voted for their favourite creative effort and the HSIE Department

will be giving out awards for these excellent interpretations of such wonderful habitats.

Thanks Year 9 Geography!

So…don’t forget to come up and enjoy some lunchtime chess, a quiet study and ‘catch

up’ on your home learning …or relax on our new lounges and read a great book!

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From the Deputy Principal – NAPLAN INFORMATION

The Minister for Education recently announced that Year 9 NAPLAN tests will no longer be

available as an early way for students to demonstrate the minimum standard of literacy and

numeracy needed to receive the HSC from 2020.

This change has been made to ensure NAPLAN remains focussed on its diagnostic purpose

and to reduce unnecessary stress on young people.

Students will show they meet the HSC minimum standard by passing online tests of basic

reading, writing and numeracy skills needed for everyday tasks, which are available for stu-

dents to sit when they are ready in Year 10, 11 and 12 and after the HSC.

Students in years 7 and 9 will be completing NAPLAN online at our school this year. These

tests will occur in May with practice tests being conducted later this term.

If you have any questions or concerns about NAPLAN, please don’t hesitate to contact me

through the school office.

Kind Regards,

Marni Milne