finley high school newsletter · school presentation by the stomp group. this was a powerful...

Tel: (03) 5883 1344 fax: (03) 5883 2396 Email: [email protected] www.finley-h.schools.nsw.edu.au

Harmony Day

3

28th March 2019

On Thursday the 21st March Finley High School celebrated Harmony Day. The SRC ran an assembly in the morning to educate the student body around multiculturalism and inclusiveness, the meaning of Harmony Day. The assembly also acknowledged The Close the Gap initiative which falls on the same day as Harmony Day. Throughout the day the group SRC ran activities such as skipping and hoola-hooping, sold orange spiders (the colour of Harmony Day), as well as students and staff painting a world mural using hand prints. Harmony day was a success and the message was accepted across the entire school cohort.

By Ben Ashley-Cooper, Emma Carey and Riley Dempster

Left: Mia Neessen and Meg Marshall

Below: Chelsea Gray putting her handprint on the mural.

Finley High School Newsletter

Principal: Mr J Ward Deputy Principal: Mrs P Jackson

KEY DATES March 29 Army Trades Day

April 1 School Photos

3 Secondary Girls Netball Trials

Breakfast Club

Homework Centre at Finley High School Library, 3:30pm to 4:30pm

Year Six to Year Seven 2020 Information Evening

5:30pm in the school hall.

5 School Photo catch up day

Years Seven and Ten Immunisations

8 ANZAC Story 11:30am in the school hall

8 - 10 State Swimming

10 Breakfast Club

Parent Teacher Evening 4pm to 7pm in the school hall. Bookings are essential.

11 Secondary Girls AFL Trials

12 Last day of Term 1

29 Staff Development Day

30 Students commence Term Two

Year Ten Careers Day Out

May 1 ANZAC Day Ceremony

mailto:[email protected]


Forensics Day

Year Six students from Berrigan, Finley, Jerilderie, Blighty, Tocumwal and Barooga attended a Forensics Day at Finley High School on Monday the 11th of March.

The students took part in a hands-on investigation, looking at and analysing evidence to solve a crime. They were then moved into smaller groups to work in the Science laboratories, under the guidance of Year Ten students from Finley High School. The Year Ten students helped the visiting students take fingerprints and to dust and lift fingerprints from an object. They also used some simple chemistry to identify an unknown powder.

Above: Chelsea Singelton, Rory Knight, Paige McKenzie and Brianna Doohan.

Left: Bryce Ware, Chase Barwick, Seth Lawrence and Jemma Coombs.

Below: Josie Hurd, Katelyn Wilkinson, Montana Aylett, Goerge Henderson-Cooper and Lachie O’Dwyer.

It was successful day that was made even more enjoyable by the exceptional behavior and manners displayed by the students from Year Six.

Michael O’Leary Head Teacher Science



Principal’s Report

Anti-Bullying No Way Day

On Friday the 15th March Finley High School celebrated World Anti-Bullying No Way Day? The day started with a whole school presentation by the STOMP group. This was a powerful presentation that set the tone for the day which was all about respectful and standing up to bullying behaviour. It was a timely remainder about the definition of bullying, what to do if bullied and the dangers of cyber bullying. There were events planned throughout the day culminating in our whole school photo with students and staff linking arms to spell out ‘No Way’. Please remember if you or a friend are being bullied please let someone know so it can be addressed immediately.

Primary school visits

On Monday the 18th March Miss Philpot and I took off on a road trip and visited all our local primary schools from Blighty to Jerilderie, Berrigan, Barooga, Tocumwal and back to Finley. We spoke at length to students in Years Five and Six and Miss Philpot being the 2020 year advisor was able to answer all the students questions. It was an extremely productive day and I would like to thank all the Principals and students for allowing us the opportunity to visit. We are currently organising a welcome parent and student night at the school which is scheduled for the 3rd April. We are also looking for opportunities to visit our local communities in the evening for those who cannot get to Finley. We welcome any families who would like a tour of the school or would like to meet with myself after hours to discuss all the great opportunities Finley High School has to offer.

Harmony Day

We celebrated Harmony Day on Thursday the 21st March and it was great to see so many students wearing orange and embracing the day. The day started with a presentation by the SRC, with activities run throughout the day. A mural was created with everyone's hand prints together embracing the meaning of harmony which is the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and celebrating all the wonderful people and cultures that have made Australia home. Thank you to all the staff and students who organised this great day.

Discovery Day

On Friday the 22nd March students in Year Six from our local primary schools came to Finley High School to start the transitioning process. This, along with our Forensics Day and school visits on the 18th, are important strategies in making the transition to high school a smooth one. Students had a full day of classes, peer support activities, a free lunch and opportunities to mix with their new class mates in 2020. From the feedback I received it was a fabulous day for all. Thank you to all staff involved and the parents and schools who participated in making the day a success.

Formal Assembly

The school held its term one formal assembly on Monday the 25th March. We celebrated our new SRC and acknowledged the efforts of all the students who have worked to the highest standards thus far this year. Can I thank all our performers and presenters, it was a fantastic celebration of student achievement.

SRC

Congratulations to our 2019 SRC who were awarded with their badges at the recent formal assembly. I look forward to working with the SRC and their coordinator, Miss Geeves, in ensuring we continue to make a difference at Finley High School.



State Swimming

I would like to wish our swimmers who head to Sydney for the state titles in week 11 all the best. Our efforts as a school starting with our carnival in Finley, the zone carnival in Deniliquin to the regional carnival in Leeton have been exceptional. Mr Tooke is to be congratulated on his efforts in ensuring all the students are given every opportunity to succeed and compete in the spirit of competition.

The following students will be travelling to Sydney:

Erin Chesworth, Dakota Pyle, Morgan Evans, Charlotte, Sascha Jones and Elle Rochford in the all age relay.

Erin Chesworth will be competing in the 12yrs 100m breaststroke

Sascha Jones is in the 16yrs 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, backstroke and butterfly.

Congratulations Miss Philpot

I would like to congratulate Miss Philpot who was recently given permanency with the Department of Education at Finley High School. This is a wonderful recognition of her commitment to students and Public Education and we wish her many more wonderful years in the teaching profession. I recently congratulated Miss Philpot whose work was published in the NSW History Teacher’s Association quarterly journal, Teaching History.

Farewell Ms Bouton

Ms Terry Bouton, our fantastic Art teacher, will be leaving us at the end of the term. Terry leaves with a heavy heart to deal with a personal matter that may require some time and in fairness to the school she needs to relinquish her position. Terry has been a wonderful addition to our school and to the Art Department and we will be sorry to see her go. We are busy trying to recruit a new Art teacher and are putting in additional support for our HSC students. We wish Terry all the best and thank her for all that she has done at Finley High School.

Mr Jeff Ward Principal

Parent Teacher Interviews Years 7 - 11

Parent Teacher interviews for Years 7 – 11 will be held in the Finley High School Hall on Wednesday 10th April from 4pm to 7pm.

Students have received a booking sheet which they can take around to their teachers to make appointments during 2nd half of lunch each day. Please note teachers can only take bookings if these sheets have been signed by a parent/carer. Unfortunately, due to other commitments there may be some teachers who will be unavailable on the night. If you would like to speak to a teacher who is unavailable or are unable to make the evening yourself and still wish to speak with some of your child’s teachers, please feel free to contact the school to arrange an alternative time to meet. At the moment, due to the recent move from our Millennium administration to Sentral, we are unable to run online bookings. Hopefully this is something we will have functioning again next round.

Mrs Deb White Parent Teacher Co-ordinator



2019 SRC

It was a pleasure to see the 2019 SRC representatives inducted and receive their badges at our recent formal assembly. This term already, this group of enthusiastic, young leaders have held activities on Harmony Day, ran an Amazing Race for Year Six Discovery Day and manned the BBQ at the election on Saturday. I look forward to working with this group on many other initiatives throughout the year.

The students joining Captains Emma Carey and Riley Dempster and Vice Captains Georgia Webb and Benjamin Ashley-Cooper are:

Year Seven: Stevie Bateman Josie Coombes Kohan Joseph Erica Nicholls Riley Sutton

Year Eight: Lenny Dattoli Meg Marshall Armarlee Dakota Pyle Jacob

Year Nine: Isabella Kelly Phoebe Kennedy Thomas Loomes Eli Sutton

Year Ten: Jasmine Ackers Abbey Marshall Zander

Year Eleven: Nicola Denny Georgia Lunn Meg Marsden Niamh Mason Elle Rochford

Year Twelve: Tiarna Burke Duncan Clarke Keeley Coates

Congratulations 2019 SRC. Miss Geeves SRC Coordinator

Reminder

School Immunisation for Years Seven and Ten

Years Seven and Ten Immunisation consent cards are now overdue and need to be returned to the front office as soon as possible.

Immunisation day is Friday 5th April 2019.

Immunisations given at school are free of charge. Privately organised immunisations attract a consulation fee from your doctor.



Anti-Bullying Day

Grass Greener What if grass is greener on the other side, Because it’s always raining there, Where the ones who never fail to give, Hardly have enough to spare, Where the people with the broadest smiles, Have pillows filled with tears, And the bravest ones you’ve ever known, Are crippled by their fears, It’s filled with lonely people, But they’re never seen alone, Where those that lack real shelter, Make you feel the most at home, Maybe their grass looks greener, Because they’ve painted on its hue, Just remember from the other side, Your grass looks greener too.

~e.h



Big Day In IT

On the 13th of March, a group of students from Finley High School including Jai Armstrong, Cooper Burke, Shirsho Roy, Jacob Gow, Shannon Neilson, Alex Patu, Maddie Kleinschmidt, Riley Kleinschmidt, Cate Turley and Izabelle Mumford travelled to CSU Wagga Wagga to participate in the Big day in IT. At the big day in IT, students listened to a variety of presentations and learned about careers and opportunities that are available in the Information Technology industry. Presentations were made by major companies such as Adobe, Buzzy games, the Defence Force, Department of Human Services and Price Waterhouse and there were many great things that came out of the day. During the breaks students visited the stallholders displaying the careers and technology they had on display. Students gathered an idea of what careers in IT they could pursue in the future, they learned about IT apprenticeships that are available in many areas that you might not expect to have a career in IT and, most importantly, Mrs Close won a Microsoft Mug. Thanks to Mrs Renee Burke and Mrs Close for driving the students up and back for the day.

Above: speaker from Adobe. Above: Tim Klapdor, producer of Kelpie App.

STEMShare Community

STEMShare Community is an initiative that empowers schools with technology tools that enable students to develop essential future focused STEM skills, support teachers to successfully integrate STEM concepts within their classroom and build a community that encourages and supports the use of STEM-focused technologies in education. Finley High school has been lucky enough to have the secondary VR kit on loan for the semester. Students in Year 9/10 Information and Software Technology have been exploring the use of VR devices and how they could be applied to our future technology and they plan to create their own VR tours in the coming weeks. Students and staff througout the school will have an opportunity to explore this equipment throughout the next term.

Pictured right: Jai Armstrong and Jake Taylor.



The best player is the one having the most fun

On Friday 8th March, I had the pleasure of driving a lovely bunch of young gentlemen out to Deniliquin to play in the Open Boys Basketball Competition. Being the teacher on the excursion, the boys and comp officials referred to me as the “coach”, but there wasn’t much coaching happening on my behalf. It simply wasn’t necessary, as the boys were maturely and responsibly able to manage themselves quite carefully and casually throughout the day. I merely stood back and became the one man cheer squad, which I was perfectly fine with.

Deni High was the team to beat, going undefeated on the day. They had the homeground advantage as well as probably the most experienced team, which showed in their consecutive three-point shots and team set-plays. We lost to them in the first match, but I think by this point the boys had only just started to wake up.

Barham looked very strong from the get go. Their exciting match against Hay revved up the crowd and got us pumped for our match against Hay, which we just managed to win by three points: 11 -8.

Fuelled up by some Subway footlongs and some friendly team banter over lunch, our boys took to the court again for what we assumed would be our hardest rival, Barham.

We smashed ‘em!

Rising to the occasion both literally and figuratively, Finley won each of their defensive rebounds and most of the offensive ones too, which put Barham on the back foot. Their best player couldn’t weave his way through our solid defense as his frustration

n grew as quickly as our points on the scoreboard, which, in this humble “coach’s” opinion, accurately reflected our dominance: 20 - 8.

Even though we won all of our games after being defeated by Deni first up, I have to say that my highlight for the day was our match against Tooleybuc. I can’t speak for the other teams, but our goal for the day was not so much about scoring goals, or winning for that matter, it was about having fun, which is what sport should be about.

Tooleybuc didn’t have enough senior players to front a full team so they had included some junior boys on their team – some looking like year 8’s or even year 7’s. After pushing our skills to the limits in our previous game it was obvious to see how much the boys were holding back, and it wasn’t because they were tired. This became even more obvious when I noticed the boys allowing some of the smaller, younger kids past them in order to let them have a shot on goal, and cheering for them if they got close or scored. Nick “the stick” Burns even helped one young bloke to his feet after smearing him across the court like tomato sauce on a meat-pie, much to his teammates astonishment. This was an extremely impressive display of respectful sportsmanship and at that moment I was very proud to be a Finley teacher, community member, and “coach”…

After all of our games were completed we decided to go and cheer on the girls team in their last match, seeing as it was International Women’s Day and everything. I can’t comment on how well the girls played, but I think I can safely assume that just like our boys, they would have had the most fun.

Coach Smyth



University Outreach

On Friday the 15th of March, Finley High school was lucky enough to host Dr Jack Li who is a Nano Technology scientist completing a post Doctorate at the Australian National University. He presented three sessions on Nano Technology to students in years 8, 9 and 10. The students came away from the lessons with a greater understanding of NANO and some of the future applications and potential career options available. I would like to thank Jack for his time and the effort he took to come to our school to provide an opportunity that is usually only available to metropolitan schools.

Michael O’Leary Head Teacher Science

Pictured right: Mia Neessen, Cassidy Reynolds, Jonathan Shen, Lenny Dattoli and Meg Marshall.



Deniliquin Show

On the 2nd of March the Finley High School Cattle Team attended the Deniliquin Show. Everyone had a wonderful day.

Pictured right: Niamh Mason, Year 11 student and Show Team Captain. Niamh was announced as the Champion Parader this year. Niamh is parading Finley High School Lexie.

Above: The Cattle Team. Left to right we have (kneeling) Harry Haynes with ‘Finley High School Pamela’, and Jordan Gray with ‘Finley High School Pixie’. (standing) Niamh Mason with ‘Finley High School Lexie’, Ben Bauer with ‘Nullamanna Kate’ and Hugh Burton with Finley High School Nixon.

Above: Jordan Gray with ‘Finley High School Pixie’ and Ben Bauer with ‘Nullamanna Kate’. Judge Amanda Watkins awarded Kate the Reserve Champion Female ribbon on Saturday. Right: Harry Haynes with ‘Finley High School Pamela’, both enjoyed their day out at the Deni Show. Robyn O’Leary, Show Team Coordinator



In the Artroom

Year Seven have been looking at the works of Albert Namitijra and created small works in groups on the floor of the art room.

Above: Year Seven creating artworks. Year Ten participated in a life drawing session with Mrs O’Leary as a guest model. The group is learning about proportions of the head and body using ratios and kinesthetics activities to understand the effects of stance and weight shift in sculpture. Photography as a sport began this month. During the first session the students walked the town of Finley photographing the shops and patterns they found. They enjoyed visiting the 2nd hand shop and had a wonderful find picking up a mannequin that they delivered in pieces to the art room for use as a static model.

Above: Abi Litchfield, Harmonie Tidcombe and Nikita Willemsen Above: Caitlin Griffiths and Harmonie Tidcombe



Chess – Finley Vs Oaklands

On Monday (25th March), the chess team had the privilege of hosting a match against Oaklands Central School. The much younger opponents tried their best, however, were not a match for our more experienced team. Finley High came out 4 to 0 victors. It was great to see our students then go on to teach the other team some ways to improve their games and then try their hand at doubles, which caused much hilarity. Well done to Cooper, Shirsho, Edward and Brad.

Right: Edward Haynes making his move.

Above: Cooper Burke waiting patiently for his turn. Above: Shirsho Soumyajit thinking about his next move.

Media Consent

What an amazing start to the 2019 school year! We have had some awesome events, excursions, classroom work happening within Finley High School and we would love to share it with our wider schooling community.

Each year parents/guardians are required to complete a media permission form for their student. This allows the school to publish photos and/or names on social media, in local newspapers, our newsletters and our yearbook, the ‘Waterwhee’l. It also informs us of students that do not have consent for either, all, or some of our media avenues.

Please take the time to complete the form, which can be done via our Skoolbag app or in person at the front office. We would love to start show casing the amazing things happening at Finley High.

Thank you,

Jodi Brown Student Support Officer



Lost Property

As the cool weather sets in please make sure all jumpers, jackets etc are labelled with names.

Any lost property that is handed in, can be found in the photcopy room.

CANTEEN ROSTER Canteen Contact and Number Mrs Kaylene Dawe 5883 1105

….LADIES, please note 10am start….

April

1 C Moloney 2 T Doohan 3 S Cracknell 4 S Macleod 5

8 J Orro 9 W Daniel 10 J Blackmore 11 J Crowhurst 12

Finley High School P&C Meeting

Wednesday 10th April, 2019 at 7pm in the Staff Common Room

(admin building)

The P&C meet the second Wednesday of the month.

Everyone is welcome to attend.

[email protected]



finley high school newsletter · school presentation by the stomp group. this was a powerful...

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