18 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

In recent weeks, our Roadshow team has been visiting the State schools in our school catchment area and introducing the students in Year 6 to the quality programs and opportunities available at Mackay State High School. I also detailed to students the Core Values and high expectations that staff and parents have of our students. Every student received an Enrolment pack and those interested in our Sporting Academies received applications. We also advised of the Information Evening for parents and our 2018 Year 7 students that was held on Wednesday 16th August. Students and their parents were able to book interview times for enrolment interviews to be held after school from 21-24th August. Any parents seeking to enrol their child for Year 7 in 2018, should urgently contact the office to arrange an appointment.

Sincere thanks to our Senior Buddies and Junior Secondary Leaders who gave their time to assist the new students and their parents to navigate around the faculty displays and to make their appointments. Many parents took advantage of the discount offered for uniform sales on the evening.

Each year our P&C Association offers eight Scholarships for our Year 7 high performing students in Year 7 in 2018. These positions were highly sought after this year, with over 60 applications being received. The quality of these applications was very positive with many very high performing students missing the cut this year. Congratulations to the following recipients, who receive a $500 boost to commence High School.

School Opinion Surveys have been distributed to all families with children at Mackay State High School, sent in envelopes through the students. I hope that the responses are completed to give us substantial feedback from the over 850 surveys distributed. Surveys have been distributed to all staff and students in Year 8 and Year 11 have been surveyed for responses.

Mackay SHS has nominated as a trial school for NAPLAN Online in 2018. As part of a School Readiness Test, all of our Year 8 students will be given the opportunity to do two tests online as a check of the school’s ability to undertake the testing program, checking our ability to resource the test and have the staff and bandwidth of IT to manage the requirements. The students will be able to be exposed to the skills required to complete the test online rather than paper based, however in the trial, student results will not be reported after the tests.

Week 6 is Science Week and Mackay State High has been recognised as a leader In the Sciences by being selected to host a special CSIRO webinar with several noted scientists presenting to a group of students. Our Academic Academy students in Year 7/8/9 will attend the Auditorium and then undertake some experiments later in the afternoon. The Regional finals of the RACI Titrations competition will be held in our school on Friday and we look forward to the results.

Our first School Fair for over 10 years, was a wonderful success both socially and financially. Thanks to the many staff who prepared the stalls and during the evening supervised the activities supporting the Show rides / activities that were well supported throughout the evening.

Optiminds 2017 is being hosted at our great school on Sunday 27th August and we will have over 50 teams gather on our grounds to participate in various challenges and perform their presentations. This will give our school community to opportunity to showcase our great facility, our excellent Instrumental Music students as well as the teams who compete in the competitions. Our outstanding musicians were awarded 4 Silver awards and a Gold Award for our Concert Band at MOB (Mackay Orchestra and Bands) last weekend. This was an excellent weekend for the students and especially our Music staff.

Mr Steve Paulger
Principal

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL REPORT

HAVE YOUR SAY!

Last week, we sent every parent home a note and instructions regarding completing the school opinion survey. I encourage all parents to take the time to complete the survey. If you require internet access to complete the survey, please contact the school to arrange a time to come in. If your child has not given you the survey letter please check in the bottom of their bag!

Ms Lisa Veney
Deputy Principal

JUNIOR SECONDARY NEWS

General News

Wednesday night was our annual Information Evening for potential incoming 2018 year 7 students. A big thank you to all families who attended and to staff for presenting faculty displays for parents and students to see. It was very well attended and I was happy so many students said hello to myself, Miss Nutt, Mr Paulger and Ms Drinkwater after our Roadshow visits last week. A big thank you also to our buddies, student council and Junior Secondary leaders who helped run the sausage sizzle and show parents around.

What's On Soon

Enrolment interviews will be running between 2:30pm and 5:45 pm next week, Monday 21st to Thursday August. ALL students intending to enrol at Mackay High MUST have an enrolment interview. The student and at least one parent must be present for this. Please bring your enrolment packs with you and arrive at least 10 minutes before your scheduled interview so you can check over paperwork we supply at the interview. If you cannot attend enrolment interviews next week, we will offer a second round in term 4, but do not accept enrolment interviews at other times.

A reminder that we will hold an information evening for BYOx on Wednesday 4th October. This will be a very important session to help families prepare for a computer purchase for high school. Please remember, we do NOT supply computers for student use. Our current bank of emergency computers is dwindling. Students cannot access the full diversity of curriculum opportunities without a computer. We will promote this evening more formally closer to the holidays.

Good News Stories

I have been fortunate to attend the year 7 geography excursions this week. There will be a separate article on this later, but again I'd like to state how Mackay High ALWAYS demonstrates such a great attitude when we are in the public arena. Over MANY years, I have always had great feedback from people as to our behaviour, attitude and commitment.

Our year 7 students visited a number of sites and had lunch at "Maccas" as a treat (treat for school time anyway). Some staff were joking in the bus that the kilojoules consumed by 46 kids on our bus during lunch at Maccas would have powered the school for a week.

Student News

Student Council is progressing well. We are working on gaining permission to run three student projects in the school over the course of the remainder of the year. I hope to be able to report successfully on this very soon.

We are also stating to recruit new student council members to build our capability in 2018, and replace our year 12 students who have shown great dedication and enthusiasm this year helping to develop our structure.

Thought of the Newsletter

The only way to have a friend is to be one - Ralph Waldo Emerson

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist - Indira Gandhi (The first and only female Prime Minster of India).

Mr Matt Skinner
HOD Junior Secondary

SPORT REPORT

Mackay District Athletics Carnival

On Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th of ths month our Physical Education Department convened the Mackay District Athletics Carnival. Mackay State High School athletes competed against students from twelve surrounding high schools. This level of competition allowed our top placing athletes compete against the best in the district. Our team consisted of seventy four athletes across the two days, this was an outstanding effort and something our department would like to replicate in the future. Some competitors were involved in multiple events while others specialised in one in particular. All students contributed equally to the team cohesion by representing our school to the best of their ability. A special congratulation must be made to Jacob Scott, who was named the aged champion for the U16 boys. This is an exceptional achievement that he should be very proud of and likewise we are as a school. Furthermore, twenty three students were invited to travel to Emerald to represent the region at Capricornia Athletics to be held on the 21st and 22nd of this month. Through this pride and commitment by all athletes, Mackay State High School won the overall interschool trophy for the carnival and the senior aggregate shield. This level of achievement has not been accomplished in many years. The final point distribution is listed below.

We would also like to recognise the amazing efforts from the Business, ICT and Home Economic departments. All departments worked together to create an excellent showcase of our school over the two day carnival. Many hours were spent creating documents, spreadsheets that calculated points and age champions, updating power points that included the photo finishes and the range of food on offer at the canteen. A great team of behind the scenes people who worked together to provide the district with a successful carnival, so thank you all very much.

Capricornia Touch Football

From the 1st to the 6th of June, I played in the Capricornia Under 18’s Touch Football team at the Queensland State Schools 16 - 18 years Touch State Championship. This competition was held at Bundaberg and hosted by Wide Bay School Sports. It was a great challenge and also a great experience to play alongside and against some of the best players in the state. Our team went really well by going through the competition undefeated state champions. It was great playing against the southern teams and seeing the different style of touch being played. We had a few large scoring games with our team coming away with a 17 to 1 win against Met North. Our final against South Coast was definitely our hardest game with the end score being 11 to 8 to Capricornia. It was by far my favorite carnival compared to other years, as this was my last year being able to play for this great team. A huge thanks has to go out to the coaching staff, Daniel Chapman and Graham Leeson. All the boys played great and it was a great way to finish for some of us, being our last year. Good luck to the boys who are lucky enough to be able to do it all over again next year.

Jake Jones Year 12

EALD CONFERENCE

On the weekend of 12th and 13th August, a joint QATESO/QCAL conference was held in P Block. 60 teachers from across the state, plus Victoria and Western Australia attended to hear presenters discuss topics ranging from “Reading to learn for Secondary EALD Learners” , “An interactive workshop of kinaesthetic activities for pronunciation practice”, “Hands- on numeracy strategies for the EALD Learner” and “Dictation, Did I hear you say dictation?”

Many thanks to Mr Paulger for the use of the school facilities, ICT Department for support, and the school Canteen for scrummy morning tea and lunches.

Conference feedback was that Mackay is a great place to visit and that many will return for holidays!

Catriona McGuire
EALD Coordinator

ACCESS CENTRE

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU... STARCUT FLOWERS!

Students in Work Ed (The Ugly Duckling café) have started visiting Starcut Flowers at Fourways to experience coffee making/serving and flower arranging. Shawna Starrett at Starcut worked her magic and made our students feel welcome in her business. Over the next 5 weeks, every Monday's class will be serving and making coffees, arranging flowers and learning how a business is run. I am sure the mum's were very happy to receive their flower arrangement made by their child.

Fair

Also a huge thank you to the Access centre staff and students who helped at the school fair. The Ugly Duckling Café raised money by making coffee's and our new milkshakes to the crowds! Students worked hard and tirelessly at giving quality service to the public. I am very proud of all the volunteer students and parents that gave up their time. Money raised will go to the Ugly Duckling Café, we will keep you posted.

NDIS

Parents of Student with a Disability - Free Information sessions in regards the NDIS , Pre Planning and Implementation of Plans. These sessions go for an hour and a half. They are open to anyone wanting information or further clarification.

When: Tuesday 15th August 11am Pre Planning and Thursday 17th August 11am Implementation of your plan
Where: Feros Mackay Office 74 Wood Street (in between Cocoa Cabana and the Coffee Club opposite the Day Spa)

Majella Hoffman
HOSES – Access Centre

F1 CARS

F1 in Schools Regional Final

F1 in schools is a competition organised by Re-engineering Australia (REA) and sponsored by the Australian defence force. Students are tasked to design and manufacture model F1 cars using Computer Aided Drawing (CAD) and manufactured using Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM). The cars are then raced down a 20 metre track, powered by a CO2 canister which can reach speeds of up to 80km/hour.

On Friday the 11th of August the F1 in schools regional final was held at St Patrick’s College. As part of the Advanced Manufacturing and Design subject Mackay SHS had eleven teams, three Year 8 teams and eight Year 9 teams entered in the Cadet class. The day started with each team having two races where the cars are started automatically to see how fast they can go and then two races where the team members manually started their cars testing the reaction speed of the team members. Once all the formal racing was over it was time for some fun Sudden Death races.

In what was the largest regional final in the country with over 90 teams entered from five different schools in the region. Mackay SHS had one of the teams selected to move forward to go to the State Finals in Brisbane. Congratulations to team Speed Shift, Rudolf Kriz and Benjamin Dodd for being selected to go the state finals. Overall, it was a very worthwhile day where the students learned a lot and had fun.

Speed Shift team members Rudolf Kris and Ben Dodd

TOURISM EXCURSION

On Wednesday 16th of August Grade 11 and 12 Senior Tourism Studies students attended an excursion to the Mackay Airport, IBIS Hotel, Harrup Park and the Mackay Tourism office. It was a great day and an invaluable experience for the students who are studying Tourism industry careers. The day started with a grand tour of the airport facility, including going through security screening. At the IBIS students were split into groups and shown the workings of the front of house, bar and coffee shop (even being shown how to make a café latte from an experienced barista and then having a go themselves!). Housekeeping giving a tour of the rooms and an insight into the work of a cleaner was particularly interesting. Students then moved on to Harrup Park for lunch, followed-up with a tour of the facility, including the functions rooms and sporting fields. The day culminated at the Mackay Tourism office with a talk from respected Tourism business operator and Mackay Tourism Director Luana Royle. It was obvious to the teachers, Mr Baxter, Mr Nelson, Ms Wood and Mr Pozza that the students got a lot from the experience and we are happy to report their conduct was a credit to the school. Mackay SHS Tourism Studies sincerely thanks Mackay Airport Corporation, IBIS Hotel Mackay, Harrup Park and Mackay Tourism for generously hosting the students on the day and looks forward to working with them in the future.

SCIENCE WEEK

Queensland Museum in Mackay

Sunday 20 August - 10am-4pm MECC Plenary Halls

Join experts and scientists to celebrate National Science Week on Sunday 20 August.

Discover hands-on activities, meet Palaeontologists, and come face-to-face with lost creatures of the past from a real fossil dig at BMC South Walker Creek.

Entry is free, and the event features expert talks, performances, interactive digital tech demos and tips on how to jump in to an exciting future career in Science.

It’s a mini museum right in the heart of Mackay.

Get down to the Mackay Entertainment Centre this Sunday the 20th of August from 10am - 4pm. Presented by BHP.

WORLD MATHS TEACHERS’ DAY

To celebrate World Maths Teachers Day last Friday, quite a few of the maths faculty dressed up as maths teachers from ‘back in the day’. For the older ones it brought back quite a few memories (remember the men who wore short shorts and long socks??) and the younger ones appreciated the chance to be a little daggy for the day. To start off the day, the crew met early at their favourite coffee haunt, garnering quite a lot of (amused!) attention from fellow coffee connoisseurs. To end the day, pizza at P Block was enjoyed. Thank you, Mr Campbell, for winning a pizza voucher at the MSHS trivia night, and sharing it with us.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work that our maths teachers and supporting staff members put in every day. Thank you for the tireless contribution you make for the students, for this faculty, for this school and for the community.

Jim Laidlaw
Head of Department - Mathematics

MATHS TUTORING

ENGLISH TUTORING

CHAMPION YOUR CHAPPY

Becoming a Chappy Champion is simple and easy!

• Visit fundraise.suqld.org.au
• Enter your local school’s name into the search field Mackay State High School
• Click More Details Champion Your Chappy
• Click Donate Now
• Choose to set up a recurring gift or a one-time investment
• Enjoy knowing that you are making a difference in your local community.

All funds raised will go directly to supporting Chappy Phil at Mackay State High School

Thank you for your valuable time and for considering this vital investment in our children’s future.

Philip Hall
(Chaplain Mackay State High School)

UNIFORM SHOP

TUCKSHOP

WE NEED YOU!

Retail Assistant – Casual – Tuckshop

Mackay State High School P&C are active participants in the school community and are seeking a customer focussed, Retail Assistant. This position will be responsible to the Retail Manager and guided by the policies and directions of the P&C Association.

The successful applicant will be keen to interact with other staff and students, have money handling skills and show initiative when working in a team. Well-developed communication and presentation skills are priority. Hours will be school days

The award is Parents and Citizens Associations Award - State 2016 Retail Assistant – casual. Successful applicant must hold or have applied for a current Blue Card (Working with Children Check).

Key responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Assisting in the preparation of menu items and following food safety procedure. Baking, cooking, cutting
• Be aware of and take whatever action is necessary to ensure the hygiene, health and safety at all times.
• Assist the Retail Manager to conduct a full stock-take of the tuckshop stock at the end of each month or as otherwise requested by the P&C.
• Treat all customers, colleagues, community members and other stakeholders with respect and dignity at all times.
• Uphold a high ethical and professional standard and represent the P&C Association positively at all times.

Hours of engagement will usually be between 7.30am and 2.30pm week days during school terms.

P & C COMMITTEE

We currently have vacancies within the P & C Executive and there is always space for more members on our team. Were you involved with your child’s P & C at Primary School? Are you interested in being involved but not sure what is required or how to join?

P & C Meetings are held on the 4th Monday of each month in the staff common room in the Administration Block commencing at 6pm.

If you would like some additional information please contact us via email

pandc@mackayshs.eq.edu.au

COMMUNITY NOTICES