25 June 2019

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Learning: Partnerships for Success

At Wynnum State High School we ‘proudly build futures together’. This partnership and commitment to providing pathways to success for all of our students has proudly been on display this term as students, teachers and the broader community have worked together to engage our students in some wonderful learning experiences. These include student participation in our highly successful Arts Showcase nights allowing our students to showcase their talents in music, dance and drama over two full nights in our very own Star Theatre; our inquisitive chemistry students engaging in quantitative chemical analysis in the regional titration competition; student and staff participation in the Premier’s Reading Challenge, and our school leaders representing Wynnum SHS at the annual Chaplaincy Dinner are to name but a few. Such partnerships in learning are supporting our students to remain engaged and active learners equipping them with the skills and capabilities to thrive as global citizens.

Our Strategic Priorities

We are currently in the final year of our current Strategic Plan which has an emphasis upon:

• High Expectations – Positive Behaviour for Learning and PROUD behaviours
• Quality Teaching and Learning- Coaching and the quality assured delivery of the Australian and New Queensland Senior Curriculum
• Tracking Students for Success – Targeted data analysis through data walls and multi-tiered student case management

The school leadership team is currently reviewing our progress in relation to these focus areas and seeking community and stakeholder engagement in this process of review and visioning for the future. Your feedback can be provided via:

• Visioning wall at Parent Teacher Interviews
• Survey monkey - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/S39NWLN

We look forward to your thoughts and perspectives as we continue to foster a dynamic and responsive learning community for the Wynnum community.

We are PROUD – PBL

Our School-wide Positive Behaviour program underpins our focus to ensure all members of our school demonstrate appropriate behaviours. As a school we model our PROUD behaviours, being positive, respectful, on task, unified and determined. In recognition of students engaging in such PROUD behaviours we have a rewards program, which has been extended in yYears 10-12 to include students from each class being awarded a PROUD golden token. This token places students in the draw to receive:

Year 10 - ticket to the Year 10 Dinner Dance
Year 11 - senior jersey
Year 12 - 50% discount on their formal ticket

Please note, students must also have met all PROUD expectations to receive their prize.

Attendance

It is vital that students are getting the very best of their education and as such “It is the Wynnum Way to turn up every day, on time and ready to learn. Proud to be part of the team!” To highlight the importance we place on attendance at Wynnum High, we have prominently displayed around the school four attendance monitoring boards that track both our House and whole school attendance rate. This data is updated at our weekly Wednesday assemblies with rewards being presented to our best attending House and house group. Our school wide goal is 90% attendance. Although we have proudly made a nearly 2% improvement in overall school attendance this term, our current actual attendance rate remains at approximately 87%.

Each week, we review the attendance rate of every child and communicate with you via text messages, letters and phone calls in regards to your child’s attendance and we appreciate your continued feedback and communication around this.

Reporting and Parent Teacher Interviews

Academic reports for Semester One will be e-mailed to parents at the end of the first week of Term 3. Parents are invited to discuss their student’s progress at the Parent Teacher Interview evenings hosted from 3:30 to 7:30 pm in the school library.

• Junior Secondary (Years 7, 8 & 9) - Wednesday 31 July
• Senior Secondary (Years 10, 11 & 12) - Wednesday 7 August

We encourage all parents to attend so that we may continue to partner together to support success for every child.

Uniform

As part of our PROUD behaviours at Wynnum SHS, students are expected to wear the appropriate uniform and as we enter into cooler weather, it’s important to note that students must wear the school jumper. There are plenty of warm jumpers that cater to a range of styles in stock in the uniform shop. It is not acceptable to wear a non-uniform jumper. If families are having difficulty in purchasing the full school uniform, please contact a member of the administration or our school Business Services Manager to make arrangements to support you in having your student provided with the correct clothes for school.

Term Three

School resumes for all students on Monday 15 July. I trust all students and families have a wonderful mid-year holiday.

P&C

The next P&C meeting is Thursday 18th July, commencing at 6.00 pm in the school Library. All are welcome.

Julie Strong
Acting Principal

Senior School News

What a busy term our senior students have had! Amongst learning and assessment, they have also participated in university days, workshops, showcases and gone on some valuable excursions to enhance their knowledge and skills.

Year 10

Year 10 students have started creating their SET (Senior Education and Training) Plans in Tuesday’s Access lessons. They are setting goals for their future and looking into further education and career paths.

This week sees a number of Year 10 students out on work experience. Careers range from retail assistant, teaching, veterinarian, air traffic controller, optometrist, book curator and engineers. We would like to thank all of those wonderful employers for their continuous support in providing our students an insight into working life.

Year 11

Camp information letters and activity consent forms have been emailed home to parents and carers and a hard copy given to Year 11 students. If you would like to go to camp, please return the activity consent form to Student Services by Friday 16th August. Once camp numbers have been determined, invoices will be generated.

Year 12

What a busy few weeks it has been for our Year 12 students! Exam block finishes on Wednesday and then QCS students will be completing practice tests that mirror the actual QCS test procedures over Thursday and Friday. Congratulations to you all for making it through such a busy (slightly stressful!) time. Please see emails sent by Tenielle Lumsdale and Marina Williams for further information.

Year 11 Legal Studies Excursion

On Friday June 14 the Year 11 Legal Studies classes went for an excursion to the District and Supreme Courts in the city. They spent time with His Honour Judge Jones, an ex-Wynnum SHS student and local Manly resident, and peppered him with questions about his viewpoints on Mandatory Sentencing, the death penalty and the best and worst aspects of his job. The students then had the opportunity to spend time sitting in the public gallery witnessing the court proceedings.

Our students were able to experience for themselves common court procedures such as witnesses being questioned, sentencing, appeals and cross examination. We saw a range of cases including a Facebook defamation case, fraud, sentencing appeals and a cold case murder trial. Most students returned to school with more questions than answers so it’s given us plenty of new aspects to learn about as we continue to investigate civil trial procedures.

Thanks to Justice Jones, Kirsten and the courts for having us and to all of the students for their exemplary behaviour as they represented Wynnum SHS.

Katherine Wall
Legal Studies Teacher

Creative Arts News

Queensland Youth Music Awards

Congratulations to the Symphonic Band and Concert Band with their great results from Queensland Youth Music Awards

100 WSHS Instrumental Music students, over two nights of competition, performed for adjudicators in a spectacular fashion. It was a fantastic experience for the band to play in a wonderful venue, receive a professional adjudication and hear other fabulous bands from other schools.

A big vote of thanks goes to Mrs Anderson. We couldn’t do what we do without her!

SHEP

We have two Instrumental Music students who were accepted into the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University State Honours Ensemble Program Queensland (Brisbane) 2019.

Mikeylee Murray on Trumpet and Hannah Ottaviano on voice. Congratulations girls. Well done.

Unplugged

This was an evening for our Senior Students (Yrs 10, 11 and 12) to perform in an intimate space.

Their challenge was to present an acoustic performance. It was a very eclectic evening featuring music by Beethoven, Bach, Radio Head, Carl Orff, Saint-Seans and Freddie Mercury.

Dance and Drama Showcase

On Tuesday 11 June the Dance and Drama students from Years 7 – 12 performed to a packed auditorium of parents and friends presenting work they had been rehearsing and choreographing throughout the term.

There was wonderful to see so many talented students performing. They obviously loved what they were doing.

This evening also saw the Inaugural performance of the Kapa Haka dance group. It was terrific to see this homegrown cultural group participate at Showcase.

A great job was done by all the students and many thanks to Mrs Michael and Ms Straker who worked with the students to develop and present this wonderful Showcase.

Music Showcase

Music Showcase this semester featured students from Year 7 through to Year 12. It was a wonderful evening with the students having the “best time ever” performing for their family and friends. It was like a party out there on stage, with wonderful energy emanating from the students and warmth and support from the audience. 89 students performed on the night along with Ms Loone and the WSHS Vocal Group.

Thanks to Ms Loone and Mrs Black for all their hard work during the term to get the students ready for Showcase. It was a great evening.

Artist in Residence

The Senior Visual Arts students are all very excited to be participating in a three-day hands on workshop in the final week of Term 2, with practicing artist Jacqueline Scotcher. She will be sharing her art making practice with the students as well as guiding them through a variety of conceptual techniques and processes. We look forward to seeing the results.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC CALENDAR

HOLIDAYS

Premier’s Reading Challenge

The 2019 Premier’s Reading Challenge is well underway and students and teachers are embracing the challenge. A number of students received a tuckshop voucher for their awesome reading so far

We all know that reading for pleasure plays an important part in students’ lives during their school years and beyond. It allows children to actively engage their imagination and opens up a world of educational opportunities.

As shown in the graph below this year we are seeing more students reading and we hope that this will continue throughout the challenge. Please continue to encourage your students to read anything they find entertaining and fun as you never know when this might lead to loving reading.

Remember we are challenging our high school students to read the following number of books:

• Years 7 to 9 should read at least 15 books across the 15 weeks of the challenge
• Year 10 to 12 should read at least 7 books across the 15 weeks of the challenge.

The requirement for Year 7 through to Year 9 students to read 15 books acknowledges that older students are likely to select longer, more complex books that may take them longer to read. The aim for the 2019 challenge is to engage more students reading more books than ever before. The following literature forms can be counted towards the challenge:

• printed books
• e-books, virtual books and digital publications
• graphic novels and comic books
• audio and braille books
• newspapers, magazines and recipe books
• books in additional languages (other than English).

We have also been challenging the teachers to log what they are reading and post them around the school. Here is a selection of some we have seen in the last few weeks.

Mrs Redsell
Teacher Librarian
sreds8@eq.edu.au

Language Department News

Year 8 French Excursion

Eleven Year 8 French students went to Marist College Ashgrove on Thursday 20th June for an afternoon of Pétanque and Lemonade. The students teamed up with Marist boys to play the French version of Boules or Bocce, using their newfound skills to get closest to the “cochonnet” or, if they preferred a more direct tactic, knocking everyone else’s balls out of the way to claim the victory. Ben, Eive, Emily, Grace, Jakayla, Josh, Julia, Kynan, Laura, Matilda and Tahlia made many new friends and some even won prizes for their skills. Thank you to the Year 8 Marist French class and Madame Lockley for hosting!

Year 10 French Immersion

On Thursday 30th May, Madame Peters and four Year 10 students travelled to Stuartholme School in Toowong to participate in the Year 10 French Immersion Afternoon. Shivani, Katrielle, Jared and Josh participated in different workshops run by French teachers and met other Year 10 French students from all over Brisbane. They were required to speak French the whole time and everyone enjoyed playing French conjugation games, learning French slang, speed “dating” and other activities. They even got to explore New Caledonia through virtual reality thanks to Madame Boulard from James Cook University. The students enjoyed some French snacks and won prizes for their efforts. Félicitations à tous !

Japanese Inbound Tours and Japanese Day of Excellence

Next semester, WSHS will welcome three groups from Fukuoka Kaisei High School, Iwatsuki High School and Hiroshima Municipal High School in Japan. All three schools have visited us before and are looking forward to their experience of High School in Australia.

In Week Six of Term Two, there will be a Japanese Day of Excellence. All students of Japanese have been notified of this day and parents should have received communication via email with the details. Please have payments finalised for Bento Boxes by Friday, 28th June. Contact Leanne Kruysmulder (lkruy1@eq.edu.au) or Yoshiko Sadamoto (ysada1@eq.edu.au) with any enquiries.

“Japanese speaking assignment to the next level!

Year 10 Japanese class completed their speaking assessment where students created and presented a shopping skit applying various shopping vocabulary and grammar. Quite a few students brought in props and spiced up their amazing Japanese skits, but this group went above and beyond!

‘Sugoi’ to these girls for presenting not only an A quality Japanese skit but also for taking us to your Japanese department store.