Issue 6 – September 2019

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

It is amazing to think how quickly the term has gone - with only 2 weeks left to go until our Year 12 breakfast and final assembly. Our Class of 2019 are preparing for their farewells, exams and final celebrations. We wish them all the best for a strong and positive finish to their high school education.

We are currently in the selection process for our new Year 12 student leaders for 2020, and we will be announcing this in the next issue.

Father’s Day Breakfast

We recently held our annual Father’s Day breakfast in our cafeteria. It was a wonderful turn out of fathers and father figures, and our guest speaker Steven Rushforth from The Fathering Project shared many hints and tips about how to be a good support for your children. Thank you to Isabella Martignoli, Trinity Hewlett-Banning, Enya Matthews and Tahli Hodgson for providing the musical entertainment and Talia Hobson for her speech about what her dad means to her.

Athletics Carnival

After having to postpone our planned carnival on 30 August due to storms and wet weather, we were able to reschedule to the 13 September. I want to thank Mr Cameron and the PE staff for all his work in preparing this the smooth running of the carnival and I am sure we will have a super day with good weather forecast. I want to thank in advance our parents who will join us as spectators and our P&C for their support in running the sausage sizzle. The day always has a wonderful community feel and I am sure this year will be no different.

Gifted and Talented Visual Arts Success

Sarah Hoey’s artwork has been selected for inclusion in the Art Gallery of WA’s Lester Prize for portraiture (formerly known as the Black Swan Prize) – Youth Prize.

Write-a-book in a day

Congratulations to all our students involved in the Write-a-book in a day challenge and thank you to Sarah Adams and Orietta Stokes for supporting the students in this amazing activity. You can read more about their activities in this issue and we wish them well for the judging.

Causes to be proud

Congratulations to Year 7s Sean Paxman and Leah Kuckelkorn for their awards in the 2019 Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre Spooky Story Competition. You can read more about this later in this issue.

I want to congratulate Chloe Dickson on her amazing work in Materials - Metal this year. She has designed, engineering and produced this amazing nut cracker.

Welcomes

We welcome back Ms Archdall who has returned from the LSL. For continuity, Mr Stott will continue to take her classes to the end of term, and Ms Richards will continue on as Year 7 Coordinator, and Ms Archdall will assist in Student Services as acting Head of Middle School, while Mr Pettit acts as Associate Principal of Middle School.

We also welcome a number of students to our school who have enrolled since our last newsletter. They are Cooper Altmann and Grace Muriale and we hope that their time with us is successful and enjoyable.

I wish all our families and students a smooth finish to the end of Term 3.

Helen Deacon
Principal

Senior School Report

Term 3 is drawing to an end and so it is essential for all Year 12 students to put in every effort to finish all their courses and certificates and achieve the best results they can. There are still a couple of weeks left before the finishing post, so still time to take the necessary steps for a successful Year 12. Year 11 students still have a way to go, so there is every opportunity for them to put in their best efforts to get those grades moving in the right direction and be able to progress into Year 12. Having completed their course selections for next year, our Year 10 students are busy maintaining or improving their grades, enabling a smooth transition into 2020.

An information letter has been sent out detailing the procedures and events pertinent to the Year 12 students’ final weeks at Kalamunda Senior High School. Mock exam timetables have been sent out and are in the second week of the holidays. Good luck to all our Year 12’s sitting mock exams. A gentle reminder that the mock exams are a significant part of your Year 12 assessments and are great preparation for the WACE exams starting next term. WACE exam timetables will soon be available, so please find a safe place to put them, as they are your entrance ticket to the exam.

Preparation and preliminary plans have started for the 2020. Leavers Jackets are on track, consideration of style, colour and fabric are being done by our Year 11 Student leaders, hopefully arriving at the best result for all. With this in mind Year 11 students need to remain focused on this Year and finishing off well, in order to be eligible to move into Year 12.

Hopefully the last of the nasty viruses and weather will soon be over, so we can look forward to a great Term 4. Have a mini rest Year 10 and 11 students and come back prepared for the last term.

Sharon Andrews
Head of Senior School

Middle School Report

Attendance Update

If your child is away from school, and you don’t receive an SMS, can you please contact the school on 9293 6400 so we can update our records. When you are sent an SMS, we ask you to please reply, explaining why your child is absent or if you believe they are at school let us know so we can follow it up. Attendance is something that we need to work on together, and something we all need to take seriously. The Education Department recognises that any student who falls below 90% attendance, for whatever reason, is at academic risk (this works out as 1 day every 2 weeks, 1 week out of every term or 2 weeks each semester).

Guest Speakers

We have had a couple of recent visitors to the school to talk with our Middle School students about a range of topics. Adam and ’Marksman’ from Armed For Life came and spoke to the Year 9 cohort about choices. We also had Starrs Productions come and present their play ‘Technobully’ to the Year 7 cohort on issues to do with Cyber bullying. These are annual events and their messages are really clear and relevant. If you know of any Guest Speakers or would like to suggest some topics for Guest Speakers, then please contact any of our Year Coordinators with your suggestions.

End of Year Reward Days

At the end of next term our Year 7 students will experience a ‘Big Day In’, the Year 8 students will be having an evening that Ashley Meaden is currently working on which will be something that is very different, and the Year 9 students will have their annual River Cruise night. Participation in these excursions will be based on students having their Good Standing and also on feedback from classroom teachers. More details will be released next term.

Thank You

Can I just quickly say a huge thank you to our amazing Year Coordinators who have helped out immensely this term covering a whole range of tasks and still providing fantastic support for our students. Lea Richards has taken on the role of Year 7 Coordinator this term and is doing an amazing job. Susan Archdall has returned and she has taken on the role of Head of Middle School until the end of term. Ashley Meaden and Laura Morris are doing an amazing job and are keeping the Middle School running.

Subject Selections

Student subject selections for our Year 9 students going into Year 10 has already happened and the information for our Year 8 cohort will soon be distributed. The process is done online so you will need log in details and these will be sent out from the school. If you have problems logging in, then please contact the school so we can assist you and your student in getting their subject selections in so they do not miss out on their choices for next year.

Mark Pettit
Head of Middle School

Student Services Report

Attendance at Secondary School – Information for Parents

Amanda Morton
Manager Student Services

HOPE Department

Year 9 Outdoor Adventure

In Week 5, the Year 9 Outdoor Adventure class embarked on a two day mountain bike expedition. The group left from school Thursday morning and rode through local trails and the Munda Bidi Trail to Carinyah hut. Here, they used trangias to cook their own meals for dinner and camped the night. First thing in the morning the group set off on the Munda Bidi trail, this ride saw some challenging downhill sections followed by some gruelling uphill climbs. The group persevered and made it back to school through some heavy rain.

Alice Hall
Health and Physical Education Teacher

English

Write A Book In A Day

During our annual Book Week celebrations, a large group of students participated in Write a Book In A Day, a collaborative writing challenge that supports The Kids’ Cancer Project. Under the supervision of Ms Stokes and Mrs Adams, twenty-eight students spent twelve hours in the school library creating original stories for children in hospital. This year we had three teams of students from across Year 7, 8 and 9 who arrived very early in the morning ready to write. Our students were challenged to collaboratively create stories over 4000 words in length that were not only engaging and exciting tales, but fully illustrated and edited publications before 8pm. In 2019, 1132 teams undertook the Write a Book In A Day Challenge and our students have contributed towards over $450,000 raised for children living with cancer. Our three teams, Orchestra, School Down Under and The French Ferrets proved to be very dedicated and worked very effectively together. We are very proud of the way they rose to the challenge and wish them luck for the judging process. Shortlisted entries will be announced in October.

Shakespeare Incursion

Year 10 students are studying ‘The Classics’ in Term 3 and have started with Shakespearean poetry and plays. To support student learning, players from Bell Shakespeare attended the school and presented "Shakespeare: The Human Experience". This incursion presented us with an insight into the way Shakespeare’s plays captures authentic emotion and holds a mirror up to our society despite his plays being more than 400 years old. Students from ATAR Literature in Year 11 and 12, as well as our Year 9 Academic Excellence class, also attended the presentation to support their understanding of The Bard. It was wonderful to see students actively asking questions of the Bell Shakespeare players about the works of Shakespeare and the way different plays convey different emotions for audiences.

WordMania 2019

Earlier this term, our Year 8 students competed in the Literacy Planet WordMania competition. This program is designed to assist students in developing English literacy skills while offering an engaging game-based learning activity. Students are challenged to build words, as many words as possible, from 15 letters in just three minutes. By participating in the Word Mania challenge, students consolidate their existing knowledge of phonemes, morphemes, prefixes and suffixes, as well as their understanding of vocabulary and their skill in spelling.

We are very proud of our Year 8 students and their outstanding performance during the competition. They proved a force to be reckoned with, taking out first place in the Perth South District throughout the competition. As a result of their fantastic efforts they advanced to the Australian and New Zealand finals where they placed seventh in the competition and second for Western Australian schools. Congratulations to all Year 8 students who participated!

Reading Challenge Library Display

Academic Excellence students in Year 7, 8 and 9 continue to challenge themselves in the 2019 Reading Challenge. Over the course of the year students are asked to broaden their reading experience by tackling 24 different categories of books and to review them for an audience of their peers. In celebration of Book Week, a large number of reviews were displayed in the library to reflect the 2019 theme ‘Reading is My Super Power’. The Year 7 class remains in the lead – narrowly! Just two books currently separate Ms Stoke’s 7AE groups with Mrs Adams and Ms Laird’s Year 8 classes hot on their tails. The Reading Challenge only has eight weeks remaining so we look forward to seeing which students manage to successfully complete the challenge.

Sarah Adams
English Teacher

Spotlight on Sustainability

On Kalamunda Day the Sustainability Committee organised two activities for students to enjoy; a Smart Rider Raffle and a Sustainability Scavenger Hunt. In response to our survey earlier in the year it was clear that many students at our school rely on the bus services to and from school. The raffle was organised to encourage students to keep their Smart Riders with them to make their travel as easy as possible. Students were asked to answer a question based on the Hands Up Survey Results from Term One for a chance to win prizes thanks to the Your Move program run by the Department of Transport. It was fantastic to see dozens of students make their way to the T-Block on Kalamunda Day for their chance to win. The lucky students were Lotus Patrick who won a $50 Rebel Sports Voucher and Dj Beronja who won a Your Move drink bottle prize pack including a Kalamunda SHS canteen voucher.

Students were also given the opportunity to work in teams and tackle the Kalamunda Day Sustainability Scavenger Hunt. Armed with a camera and some cryptic clues, students were asked to explore the school looking for evidence of sustainable practice around the grounds. Teams had to identify and photograph a range of items including drink fountains, solar panels and our water-wise gardens. Continuing with our focus on sustainable travel, students also had to locate areas such as the bike racks and could earn bonus points if group members could mime an active method of travel. We had a huge number of students involved and some fierce competition between teams. Congratulations to Jess McKeon, Siobhan Sudholz, Xavier Clark, Ethan Ozanne and Chaz Gordan who tied for first place and also to Grace Boyd, Aiva Giovinazzo, Alyse Todd, Mackenzie Coupland, Jade DiMattina and Lilly Franklyn who placed second.

Sustainability Committee

Science Week

Thank you to all students and staff who participated in this year’s Science Week activities and events. We typically focus on this as part of Kalamunda Day, with this year’s offerings including the ever-popular Escape Room Challenge and Human Reaction Time Testing.

Also worth a visit was the outstanding visual display of all things Science down in the Library, including our floating astronaut (courtesy of Beth Weldon and Sandee Chanrasekara from Laboratory Preparation World) who is shown here recovering from the effort of defying gravity for so long.

Lindsay Pound
Science Teacher

Academic Excellence Program – Activity Days

I have had the pleasure of coordinating the Academic Excellence Program this term whilst Robyn Stewart is on leave. I have met with many of the students and parents in Years 7-10, as well as the Primary School AESP students and parents, having fruitful discussions extending and challenging our most academically able students. I look forward to continuing to oversee and develop the program at KSHS over the next 18 months.

This year has been a very busy term, with a number of the AE classes engaging in Activity Days supporting curricula in a range of Learning Areas and engaging the General Capabilities. The Year 7AE class attended an excursion to Scitech with their teachers Jyoti Sharma and Scott Henry, engaging in open-ended design and engineering problems, chemical experiments and viewing presentations about sustainability.

The Year 8AE class participated in a number of drama workshops with tutors from Australian Theatre for Young People (atyp), developing their skills in teamwork, Improvisation and providing a taster for Greek Theatre and Australian Drama to develop their skills for Literature. The Year 10AES students journeyed to Curtin University with Bozena Sturmer and Nicolee Laird to engage in a series of activities developing their capacity for the study of Psychology.

There are a number of upcoming activities booked with the Year 10 Symposium on Tuesday 24 September (Week 10) and Year 7 and 9 Activity Days planned for Term 4. I have added these events, as well as upcoming events and links relevant to AE students on our newly created AEP 2019 class Connect page as a way of communicating regularly with all AEP students and parents. Please let me know if you require assistance accessing this page.

Year 7AEP – Spooky Stories

At the end of last term, the Year 7AEP class studied the bildungsroman and gothic horror narrative genres in order to create bloodcurdling characters who undergo a significant transformation in 500 words or less. The students then submitted their writing into the 2019 Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Writers’ Centre Spooky Story Competition. This year’s competition theme was change.

All students are to be commended on their spine-chilling efforts; however, creepy congratulations to Sean Paxman (“Mirrors”) and Leah Kuckelkorn (“Imagination or Reality”) who were invited to read their stories aloud at the Spooky Stories Night held on Saturday 24 August and were awarded a Commendation and second place in the WA Youth category respectively.

Orietta Stokes
Academic Excellence Coordinator

Library & English Collaboration

2019 Book Week – ‘Living Books’ Year 9 Historical Narratives Incursion

The Inaugural Year 9 ‘Living Books’ Incursion to celebrate Book Week was an outstanding success. The library was transformed into a mini festival space where the Kalamunda community (Author, RSL, Historical Society, Lions & Provincial Real Estate, Local Historian) were invited to share their stories and artefacts.

Inspired by the ‘Living Books’ movement, where the definition of ‘books’ is extended to consider people, their life stories and oral storytelling as texts, the incursion aimed to engage students with ‘live’ books, stories of famous ‘living books’ and local oral histories. The collaboration had a direct connection to the current Year 9 Historical Narrative study.

We hope to make this initiative an event due to the extraordinary positive feedback. Next year being the 60th Anniversary of KSHS our plans are to invite past school community to share their stories.

If you are interested in contributing to our Book Week (August, 2020) ‘Living Books’ event, please call Jorje on 9293 6425.

Jorje Raphael – Teacher librarian
Orietta Stokes – Senior Teacher (English) / Academic Excellence Coordinator

Music News

The last few weeks have been an exciting flurry of activity for our young musicians. The annual Aboda, strings, choir and guitar festivals are held in various locations across Perth and are open to all schools, community groups and university level groups. I am proud to say that KSHS has been represented in the broader community with pride achieving accolades of excellence and outstanding. The comments from assessors have been very positive and our program certainly stands strong across the Perth music community. I would like to thank all of our IMSS music teachers for all of their extra time and hard work in providing the opportunities for our students to be involved. Just as an indication, all of the students that went on music camp (plus a few extras) have participated in the festivals which is well over 100 music students.

On Monday 2 September Musikal had a meeting and reflected on the various events that we had been planning including music camp, performances and began planning for our upcoming Twilight Concert. This year the concert will be on Wednesday 23 October so save the date!! This year we will once again have two stage performance spaces, food stalls, coffee vans, sausage sizzle and more to be announced- a real festival atmosphere! We have something very special planned for our grand finale with every single music student performing at once…

As the event draws closer more details will be available but all music parents and students should keep an eye out for Musikal emails with updates.

Marcus Roberts
Director of Music

Year 12 Geography Excursion

Year 10 and Year 12 Photography and Media Excursion

The Year 10 Media students and Year 12 photography students had a fantastic excursion to the Perth Zoo. It was an opportunity for the Year 10 students to film footage for their documentaries and the Year 12 students to work on their final photographic piece.

We had a great day exploring the Zoo and looking at the animals, and the images that the students took were fantastic.

The students all need to be commended for their outstanding behaviour with even staff at the Zoo commenting on what a polite, friendly and well behaved group they were.

Emma Dunstan
Media

Father’s Day Breakfast

This year we were again privileged to have a large number of students bring their fathers, grandfathers and uncles to breakfast at school. It is great to see the commitment these students make in getting up early to come and share breakfast at school with their fathers. The student leadership team and staff were kept busy cooking, preparing and serving bacon and egg muffins, fruit, tea and coffee.

Our guest speaker this year was Steven Rushforth, from The Fathering Project, who provided some great tips about being a father or male role model. One of the main tips was for fathers to have ‘dad dates’ with their child. This means one on one time with each child individually, with no phones, newspapers or other interference. Steve also showed us a very moving video clip and provided some salient information about being a father. Tahlia Hobson spoke to the group on what her father means to her – a very entertaining talk. This year our music was provided by 4 very talented musicians: Enya Matthews, Tahli Hodgson, Isabella Martignoli and Trinity Banning.

Overall, the morning was a great way to share this special occasion and help our students let their fathers know the important role they play in their lives. I would like to thank those students and staff involved in making the morning a success.

Jenny Edmonds
School Psychologist

A message from the Community Health Nurse

Spring is almost here and while for many this means a welcome reprieve from the chilly hills winter, for others it heralds the start of hayfever season and a barrage of asthma and allergy triggers.

National Asthma Week has just finished and Asthma WA used the opportunity to launch their new (and FREE) Asthma Emergency Guide; a quick and easy tool to help you identify the signs of an asthma emergency and how to give Asthma First Aid.

If you or someone close to you was hit with a severe asthma attack, would you know what to do?

Knowing Asthma First Aid is just as important as knowing CPR.

More than 40,000 people are hospitalised in Australia each year because of asthma. Many of these cases may have been avoided if people had a better understanding of Asthma First Aid.

You can order or download your asthma emergency guide from the link below.

Kalamunda Senior High School is a proud Asthma Friendly School.

Act Belong Commit

As the weather warms up staying physically healthy gets a little easier. The research show that there is a strong link between physical and mental health. Therefore, walks in the park or walking the dog are good for our mental health too.

Our tip to help us stay positively and mentally healthy is:

• Take a walk in nature
• Go for a picnic in the park or at the beach
• Try an activity like yoga which is great for your body and relaxing for your mind.

For more tips visit Act-Belong-Commit

Jenny Edmonds
School Psychologist

P&C News

Our last report was published back in May, just after the AGM, so we have a lot to cover!

Movie Night

Celebrating KSHS alumni & creativity: On 25 May over 70 people enjoyed our first movie night at the gym. We featured ‘Meal Tickets’ a documentary about Kalamunda High school students following their rock and roll dreams, directed by Mat de Koning and produced by Mat and Brooke Tia Silcox – both former students. Mat and Brooke held a Q & A after the event. ‘Meal Tickets’ is regarded as one of the top 10 Australian movie made this decade (see review in The Curb). Brooke has gone onto produce another documentary ‘Judas Collar’ which is in the running for an Oscar. It’s fantastic to support former students and their creative endeavours. Look out for more movie nights in the future.

Canteen

Nicole and her fabulous team are continuing to provide students with delicious and healthy food. The Canteen is run by the P & C and it is a difficult balancing act for the P & C to provide a service to the school community and to keep meal costs down whilst still having to cover the running costs. You can help – parents and grandparents – by volunteering at the Canteen. Times are flexible, training provided and no money handling is involved. Contact Nicole kalamundashs.pc.canteen@gmail.com or ring 9293 6400 and ask for Nicole in the canteen if you can help.

Sixty?

It’s true – Kalamunda Senior High School turns 60 in 2020. The P & C will be working with the school to celebrate this milestone. Ideas being discussed include a month long exhibition in Kalamunda, a literature and arts festival featuring alumni and a book. We would love to hear from you if you have any stories or memorabilia to share. Who was your favourite teacher? What was the end of year prank/fun activity in your final year of school? What interesting things have you and your classmates done? Send us an email at kshspc.secretary@gmail.com.

Lobbying for an Upgrade

Matthew Hughes, local member for Kalamunda, organised a forum with the Minister for Education for Monday 16 September at KPAC at 6.30pm. Representatives of the P & C were there to lobby for funding for our school. We are proud of what has been achieved by the great staff and students of the school since it was established in 1960 but education has significantly changed since then and the facilities required to support a modern curriculum have also changed. Our 1960’s building structure does not facilitate the degree of collaboration between staff and students that is a hallmark of modern education methods and courses.

Get Involved

Don’t be shy – get involved at the high school. Come to a P & C Meeting – Tuesday Week 3 and 7 of each term, starting at 6.30 in the Staff room. Kids into music? See MusiKal on Facebook or contact the MusiKal secretary at ajanda@iinet.net.au. Lend a hand at the Twilight concert on Wednesday 23 October. Kids into art? Join Artykal artyKal6076@gmail.com or come to the ArtyKal next meeting on Saturday 21 September at 9.15am in the Staff room. Don’t forget the End of year Art exhibition on Saturday 26 October 5pm – 7pm, Sunday 27 October 10am– 2pm. You can also link up with other parents on Facebook – KSHS Parents only.

Alumni

If you want to reconnect with old high school friends check out the Kalamunda SHS pages on Facebook. For those students who started school year 8 1975 – year 12 1979 there’s a 40 Year Reunion coming up on October 12. Contact kalashs1975@gmail.com for more details or see Facebook.

Construction Futures Centre

Open Day