RevelationsThe fortnightly newsletter for Pre-K to Year 12 families of St Paul’s

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 1

Issue No. 43 2nd August 2019

From the PrincipalI would like to encourage you to book for the upcoming Spring Trivia Night on Saturday, 7th September, which is being organised by the Friends of St Paul’s. This will be an opportunity for us to come together as a community, have some fun and raise some funds to assist in the building of our new Mathematics building - the Innovation Learning Centre. There will be lots of impressive trivia, fun activities and some great auction items to bid on. Get a group together and book in via trybooking.

We are very blessed at St Paul’s with a wonderful staff who care for our students. One aspect of this care is looking after the medical needs of each student. Brenda Bennet, our school nurse, does a wonderful job of overseeing this aspect of the school. In the next school holidays, a new clinic will be installed connected to the uniform shop which will centralise the medical care of our students. This is a great new development and will assist in caring for our students.

Last week, staff at St Paul's participated in a staff development day. We had an excellent guest speaker from The Centre for Public Christianity – Dr Natasha Moore. We had two focus areas for the day, the themes of which are outlined on the right.

The Christian school community occupies a unique place in relation to the church on the one hand and the public on the other. Many people who are otherwise sceptical about Christianity value what faith-based schools have to offer, and entrust you with a significant role in the formation of their children. How do you cultivate and sustain a distinctive Christian ethos in a way that best honours that trust?

Drawing on the Centre for Public Christianity’s decade of experience in “dropping the drawbridge” and walking into a public square that is sometimes hostile to, and often naive about, Christian faith, this session explored how Christians can engage constructively with what is often thought of as a “post-Christian” culture. Whether in media or in education, a posture of generous confidence helps Christians to contribute meaningfully to human flourishing, and to the common good.

Everything around us – the TV we watch, the music we hear, what we see other people doing and not doing, the advertising that bombards us, the ways we use social media (or let it use us) – orients us towards a particular vision of what human life is for, and what happiness and human flourishing look like. Whether or not it’s something we’ve chosen or even thought much about, in the words of James K. A. Smith, “we are what we love”.

What does that mean for education, and in particular for Christian education? What cultural forces are shaping students in 2019, with or without them realising it? And how can Christian educators present a richer, truer, more life-giving vision of the good life that might stay with students for years to come?

Touching on things like social media, loneliness, commitment, sexual freedom, graduate attributes, and New Year’s resolutions, this talk encouraged staff to think carefully about what makes us who we are, and the contribution that education – in all its facets – can make to that process.

Public Christianity for a “post-Christian” world

What is the good life?

CRICOS 02267A

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 2

From the Principal Continues

"I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness;

I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High."Psalm 7:17 New International Version (NIV)

It was a wonderful opportunity for all school staff to consider these important topics together and think about the implications of these for our school. We are so very blessed at St Paul’s to be able to consider how a Christian Worldview influences the fabric and nature of our school community.

Ian Wake Principal

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 3

From the Head of Junior School

Welcome to Term 3I always enjoy welcoming students and their families back to school after the holidays and I trust you all had an enjoyable and relaxing break, ready for another busy term!

New StudentsI would like to give a special welcome to some new students who commenced at St Paul’s this term. I hope they settle in quickly and enjoy meeting some new friends.

Staffing NewsMrs Day is enjoying five weeks of well-deserved Long Service Leave. She will return on Monday, 26th August 2019. Any queries regarding curriculum or other matters can be directed to Mrs Jamieson Newton or myself.

Mrs Seckold has indicated she will be leaving her role as Pre-Kindergarten teacher due to personal reasons. She has been a dedicated and passionate educator at St Paul’s for the last 7 ½ years. Mrs Jo Young will be taking the class from Monday, 5th August 2019.

WELCOME!

William – Pre-K

Simon – Year 3

Alia – Year 3

Mia – Year 3

Dion – Year 6

Gala DayI would like to thank the Year 6 students along with Mrs Wotherspoon and Mr Abela for all their hard work with Gala Day last term.It was a wonderful day, enjoyed by all who attended and a great way to end the term! Congratulations on a fantastic effort.

Class Captain Induction Assembly Class Captains for Term 3 will be inducted at an assembly on Monday, 5th August 2019. The assembly will be held in the Junior School Hall commencing at 8.40am. All parents are welcome to attend.

Book Week Save the DateReading is My Superpower Book Week is happening this term! On Monday, 26th August 2019 we will be holding our annual Book Week Parade at 8.40am in the Junior School Hall. This is always a favourite event enjoyed by the whole school community.

This year the theme is “Reading is My Super Power" and students are encouraged to dress as any character from a favourite book.

I hope this gives you plenty of time to organise a costume and generate excitement with your children.

Ian Brooker Head of Junior School

Mrs Seckold Mrs Day

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 4

Junior School Gala DayGallery

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 5

From the Director of Learning Services

School Staffing Changes for Term 3A number of staff changes have occurred at the beginning of Term 3. They are as follows:

Mrs Stacker, who held numerous senior positions in the Secondary School has left St Paul’s, moving to a promotion position in the United Kingdom. Miss Paragalli takes over as Head of MYP Core from Mrs Stacker and relinquishes a Year 8 Humanities class to Mr David Peddar who has academic qualifications in and a passion for the classics and medieval history.

At the same time, Mr Smith has moved from the role of Head of Mathematics to a new role as Assistant Director to the Office of Learning Services. Mr Smith will assist the office in data and systems analysis. As a result we have appointed a new Head of Mathematics, Mr Michael Said, who comes to St Paul’s with significant mathematical teaching experience from Patrician Brothers, Blacktown.

Mrs Cullimore has been appointed as the Head of Castlereagh and Mrs Miriam Bennett, an experienced Dance teacher from William Carey Christian School, has been employed part-time to take some of Mrs Cullimore’s Dance teaching load. Mrs Cullimore had been Head of Claremont for one day a week and as she relinquishes this role to take on Head of Castlereagh, Mr Peter Horan has taken up Head of Claremont for one day of the week and senior tutor. Mrs Miriam Bennett has been employed part-time to teach Dance, allowing Mrs Cullimore to take up her new role.

Elective Subject Choices for Year 11 2020Year 10 students continue their journey to senior Secondary School, having completed subject selection forms online allowing us to develop a timetable of subjects to meet their choices. As in previous years, a full range of subjects is available to students in both the HSC and the IB Diploma courses.

St Paul’s offers a much larger range of subjects than most schools and develops the timetable around students' individual preferences (many other schools have pre-set subjects and lines that students must follow).

Senior classes are sometimes quite small to meet student choices to ensure that a full subject range is available. In the HSC, Vocational Education and Training (VET) classes are available at St Paul’s in Hospitality and at partner schools in other VET courses, further enhancing the range of subjects on offer to our students.

In some cases, if student choice cannot be met within the timetable, we meet with students and families to explore other options such as online delivery of courses (we currently have a small number of students studying a course online) or external providers.

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 6

From the Director of Learning Services Continued

Year 12 Trial Examinations and Year 11 Yearly Examinations

Year 12 HSC students commence their Trial Examinations on Monday, 5th August 2019 in the Secondary School Hall. These examinations run for just over two weeks. A detailed examination timetable is available on my.stpauls. The examination format and conduct mimics the final HSC examinations which commence on Thursday, 17th October. The HSC Trial examinations are significant final assessment tasks for students contributing to their final HSC assessment marks as well as providing preparation for the final exams.

Year 12 IB Diploma students commence their Trial Examinations on Monday, 26th August. Year 11 IB Diploma students will commence their yearly exams at the same time. Year 11 HSC students will commence their yearly examinations on Monday, 2nd September. A detailed examination timetable will be available on my.stpauls two weeks prior to examinations starting. Year 11 and 12 IB Diploma examinations do not directly contribute towards final assessment but are indicative of student performance in their subjects and are used to provide semester grades, which are predictive of the students’ expected final grades in subjects.

School Recommendation Scheme (SRS) for Year 12 Students

The School Recommendation Scheme (SRS) is available to all Year 12 students and allows students considering some, but not all universities, to be considered by more than their ATAR. This takes into consideration if a stduent has been a consistent worker at school, but may not have received marks that indicate their application or ability. Some offers are conditional. Some are unconditional. We recommend that all students looking at university study apply using the SRS. Any student can apply for the SRS.

SRS applications are completed online at: https://www.uac.edu.au/future-applicants/scholarships-and-schemes/schools-recommendation-schemes.

Mr Antony MayrhoferDirector of Learning ServicesE: antony.mayrhofer@stpauls.nsw.edu.auP: +61 2 4776 4705

Secondary School French Teacher Permanent Part-Time Position starting in 2020

Due to ongoing enrolment growth, St Paul’s is seeking a passionate, experienced and suitably qualified Secondary School French teacher to join our substantial languages faculty. The ability to teach an additional language at a beginner level would be an advantage.

Applications close 2pm Thursday 22 August, 2019 For an employment prospectus visit: www.stpauls.nsw.edu.au/employment

St Paul’s is an Independent Christian Grammar school teaching the International Baccalaureate (PYP, MYP & Diploma) and NESA programs from Pre K to Year 12.

St Paul’s Grammar School is committed to employing Christian staff who are innovative and engaging educators.

Employment screening is mandatory in accordance with legislative requirements

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 7

From the Director of Students and Family Services

Welcome Back to All Our Families for Term 3

The annual induction of our Senior Prefect Team was conducted on Wednesday, 24th July following their appointment at the conclusion of last term. It was great to be able to officially acknowledge our prefects before their families and the entire Secondary School at the ceremony. The induction is significantly more than an affirmation of our incoming leaders. It serves the purpose of ensuring our prefects make formal and earnest pledges about both what they are going to do and how they are going to do it, over the next twelve months. Such public promises are designed to ensure the accountability of our new leaders as they seek to serve those in our school community. Immediately following the induction ceremony, our leaders were whisked away to a three-day leadership camp at Katoomba where they, amongst other things, planned much of what they are seeking to do over the next year.

My congratulations to our outstanding young men and women on their appointment. I look forward to working with the following students over the next year:

CONGRATULATIONS

School CaptainsSophie Reeves and Keaton Daniels

Wilberforce House CaptainsKaris Statheos and Michaela Hoffman

School Vice-CaptainsPiper McElrea and Thomas Keane

Captain of the ArtsTeah Bell

Castlereagh House CaptainsLachlan Ming and Wilbur Luk

Captain of Christian FellowshipAlexandra Bishop

Claremont House CaptainsSophie Burr and Luke Zoglmeyer

Captains of International RelationsMay Cheng and Olivia Cooper

Cornwallis House CaptainsKeunwoo Song and Zali-Ane Humphreys

Captain of Outdoor Education and Service Learning Reese Robinson

Melville House CaptainsKaya Patel and Claira Jovanovski

Captain of School Culture and Student Wellbeing Mikayla Weber

Strathdon House CaptainsAlysha Pearson and Brendan Love

Captain of SportIsabella Podesta

Senior Prefect Team with Mr Heath (pictured left) and Mr Wake (pictured right)

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 8

From the Director of Students and Family Services

Continued

Combined House Day SuccessIn our final edition of Revelations for Term 2, I acknowledged the great work of our outgoing prefect team and mentioned that the Combined House Day would be the final event in which they would be involved. At this event the prefects join forces with our six heads of house, Mr Smith, Mrs Newton, Mr Linfoot, Mrs Tuting, Mr Jeffery and Mrs Stacker, to host a day of fun activities for our students that raises money for our school supported charity, Congo Aid.

I am extremely pleased to report that the day was a massive success. Not only did large numbers of our students enjoy all the activities, but they fully engaged with the fundraising side of the day, particularly the teacher slave auction. The end result of the day was that our community raised $7,926, which was an amazing achievement. When added to the money raised at our big day of sport held towards the end of last term, this means that our school was able to raise just under $10,000 for Congo Aid.

In doing so we greatly exceeding the $5,400 required to fund the construction of the fence around the orphanage. A huge thank you goes to our Heads of House and outgoing prefects for their leadership of the House Day and to you, the community, for your generous support of Congo Aid.

Philip Heath Director of Students and Familiy Services

Combined House Day

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 9

Welcome BackWeek 1 has started with a BANG!

On Friday, 26th July 2019 the Junior School Dance Company were invited to perform in the annual Independent Junior Schools Dance Festival, held at Ravenswood Girls School. The students love performing at the event, watching the other school groups perform and cheering each other on.

The Dance students returned bright and early on Saturday, 27th July for the 8:30am start of the Ultimate Dance Spectacular! All company students performed extremely well, in some very competitive sections, with the below results:

From the Dance Academy

Lauren Cullimore Coordinator of DanceE: lauren.cullimore@stpauls.nsw.edu.auP: +61 2 4776 4949

Important DatesFriday, 6th September 2019Independent School Dance Festival

Sunday, 15th September 2019Hills Dance Eisteddfod

Thursday, 14th and Friday, 15th November 2019Sojourn

Junior Dance Company1st Place

Senior Jazz Company3rd Place

MomentumHighly Commended

Intermediate Contemporary Company 2nd Place

Senior Contemporary Company3rd Place

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 10

Ensembles ProgrammeCongratulations to the Year 7-12 Choir; William O’Rourke; and Ziggy Benzko-Greig who performed at the Senior School Prefect Induction Assembly on Wednesday, 24th July 2019.

Congratulations also to our new student leaders on their induction.

Curriculum MusicThe Year 11 and Year 12 Recital, Circa III, will be held on Thursday, 22nd August 2019 and Friday, 23rd August 2019 in PA1 from 7pm.

The Music Academy would also like to farewell our VAPA assistant, Ms Charlene Peffer, who has recently completed her work at St Paul’s Grammar School to move interstate. Charlene’s skill and expertise will be greatly missed at St Paul’s and we wish her every success for the future.

We would like to warmly welcome Mrs Hayley Warner who will be assisting the VAPA department in Term 3.

Conservatorium ProgrammeTo continue profiling the SPGS Conservatorium Tutors, in this edition of Revelations, we take the opportunity to feature one of our guitar tutors, Jason Hill.

From the Music Academy

Music Academy TutorJason HillGuitarJason Hill (B.Mus.Hons - A.Dip.Mus.T) graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Honours in 1999. Jason has also performed in master classes with international guitarists such as Carlos Bonell (England), Marco Schmidt (Germany), Claudio Maccari and Paulo Pugliesie (Italy).

In 2005, Jason studied privately with the internationally renowned guitar composer Phillip Houghton.

Jason performed with the flautist Diana McIntosh in concerts, weddings and corporate functions, and has also performed with the Peter Christie Band, Candy Rock, Joe Cocker Tribute Show and East Coast Horns.

“My mission as a teacher is to provide students of all ages with the skills necessary to enjoy music for a lifetime.”

Registrations remain open for Music and Speech & Drama lessons for interested students and SPGS community adults. To register for the Conservatorium Program please visit the my.stpauls Music Academy page.

Scroll down to the registration box and click on the Conservatorium heading to complete the relevant registration.

Revelations - St Paul’s Fortnightly Newsletter. Issue No. 43 11

Co-Curricular and Extra-Curricular

Achievements

Magic Macy Takes 1st PlaceA talented performer, Year 7 student Macy, recently took part in the Australian Junior Championships of Magic in Melborne.

Crossing wands with magicians under the age of 18 from across Australia, she was awarded 1st place in a very competitive field.

This means Macy now has the title of "Australian Junior Champion of Stage Magic" for the next year.

The competition was judged by actor, magician and comedian Lawrence Leung; magician Simon Coronel; and organiser for the Melbourne Arts Centre, Emma Dodd.

Macy was also asked to perform in a magic gala show as part of the Melbourne Magic Festival.

Congratulations Macy!

Azure features in AMEB Online Orchestra 2019

Year 8 student, Azure, has been selected for inclusion in the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) Online Orchestra

2019.

AMEB have also selected Azure’s profile to promote their call for submissions this year.

Congratulations Azure!

Lauren performs strongly in Cross Country On Friday 26 July 2019, Lauren (Year 7) competed at NSW All Schools Cross Country, placing 19th out of 103!

This is a fantastic result from a highly competitive field.

Congratulations Lauren!