15 October 2021

Newsletter Articles

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Dear Parents / Guardians / Caregivers,

Welcome to Term 4. The year is certainly going by quickly and within a week, we will see our Year 12 students commence External Assessment. Our students have received outstanding results so far across all General and Applied subjects. Four students, Pushti Shah (Legal Studies), Dan Asuncion (Legal Studies), Summer Jones (English) and Erin Westcott (English) have achieved 75 out of a possible 75 marks so far (100%) on their internal assessments, leading into external exams. A truly outstanding achievement!

Our students have also had every single result confirmed with no changes at the recent QCAA Confirmation Event, where external teachers all over the state of Queensland mark our student work. On average, schools in QLD have approximately 70% of student results agreed too, so, to have 100% of our student work agreed too, is a testament to the high level of understanding from our teachers.

On behalf of the entire school community, I would like to wish our Year 12s (and their families, who I know are in the background supporting), all the very best leading into their external assessment period, which commences next Friday.

Introductions:

At the end of term 3, we farewelled Mr Young (our Deputy Principal) who returned to Victoria to be with family. Mr Grieger has joined our team this term and will continue to support our Year 9 and 10 students. Ms Veney has returned to our school for 4 weeks as an additional Deputy Principal this term. We also welcome Mrs Sarel Wallace as our new Youth Support Coordinator, Terence Newman, who is joining our Clontarf Academy team and Mrs Forsyth, who has joined our Home Economics team for the term. Our students will see lots of new faces in classrooms over the coming weeks, with our school taking on 18 pre-service teachers from CQ University.

Inaugural Pride Cup Winners:

This Friday, our inaugural PRIDE CUP champions, Denniss House are celebrating their success over the year. During the year, students have gained points for their Houses by demonstrating our core values, being rewarded with Blueys, participating in Pride Cup faculty challenges and carnivals. It was a great competition and before our year 12s finish, Denniss House is celebrating with water slides, ten pin bowling and a Denniss House family lunch. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Denniss House Prefect, Emma Keeler and House Masters, Miss Nixon and Mr Pozza.

2022 Student Leadership Positions:

We have commenced the process to appoint our 2022 student leaders. Year 11 students have gone through an application process, interview, speech and staff and student vote, with the upcoming announcement of Prefects and School Captains to the community to be made at our Academic Awards Evening. This week, Mr Skinner and Mrs Barnard opened up leadership applications to students in years 7-10 to be representatives in a range of portfolios – Academic, Arts, Cultural, Sports and Houses. Student application packs are available from Mr Skinner and Mrs Barnard for any student who may have missed this information on Wednesday.

Date Claimers for this term:

It is a busy term with many celebration events scheduled. Please refer to the Term 4 calendar for key upcoming dates.

We Believe … We Achieve

Yours in Education

Felicity Roberts - Principal
#mackayhighpride

ENGLISH

Somerset National Poetry Competition

The purpose of the Somerset National Poetry Prize is to encourage a love of writing poetry amongst secondary school students, to affirm it as a worthwhile literary pursuit, and to stimulate excellence in writing. It also aims to inspire and enrich youth literature.

Please see the following link for more details.

Our Story | Somerset Storyfest

MATHS

ITALIAN

Fai con calma! is a frequently used Italian expression that usually translates as Take your time!

It is made up of the following components:

• Fai >> The second person singular imperative form of fare (to do / make).
• Con >> An Italian preposition that means with or by in English.
• Calma >> The Italian word for calm, calmness or tranquillity.

An example of the phrase used in a sentence is:

Fai con calma, non c’è nessuna fretta!

Take your time, there’s no rush!

Some other Italian expressions that mean more or less the same thing as fai con calma are:

• Prenditi il tuo tempo. = Quite literally, ‘take your time’.
• Prenditi il tempo che ti serve. = Literally ‘take the time that you need’.
• Vai tranquillo. = Literally ‘go calm’.

Indeed fai con calma is good advice to anybody learning another language. Take your time and enjoy the learning experience. By making time to listen, read, speak and write just a few words a day, you will be amazed how quickly you will achieve an A1 level of functional fluency.

Interested to learn more?

A presto!

SENIOR SCHOOLING

Designer Cadet / Student Engineer

Aurecon is a global engineering, design and advisory company with an office located here in Mackay.

We are excited to offer an ambitious and enthusiastic student a full time, 5 days a week position as a Designer Cadet or a Student Engineer to join our team in January 2022.

This great opportunity will kick start and develop a career path of a current Year 12 student nearing completion of their high school studies.

To apply for this position the student is required to be on track to successfully complete Year 12.

Designer Cadet →You will need to be eligible to enrol in an Associate Degree of Engineering (Civil) → (ATAR score of 62.70 (adjusted) or 57.75 (unadjusted)).

Student Engineer →You will need to be eligible to enrol in a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) → (ATAR score of 74.15 (adjusted) or 65.60 (unadjusted)).

Applications are now open if you are keen to forge a pathway in engineering or design.

For more information contact mackay@aurecongroup.com or 07 4977 5200.

To apply please Click here

MACKAY STATE HIGH SCHOOL P & C

The next P & C meeting is on Monday 25th October 5pm.

TUCKSHOP

How can I get involved?

Volunteering is time willingly given for the common good and without financial gain.

The parents and citizens’ association at Mackay State High School appreciate any volunteer contribution that you can make. Can you help at tuckshop? Do you like planning or assisting at functions and special events? There are so many ways in which you can help our P&C email pandc@mackayshs.eq.edu.au for more information

COMMUNITY NOTICES

Preparing today’s learners for uncertainty – a webinar for parents

'Uncertainty tolerance' (UT), or how we process and respond to unknown or complex situations, is increasingly recognised as an essential workplace skill. Uncertainties in the workplace are ever-present and we’ve seen shared, global experiences of this with the uncertainties surrounding work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday 9 November Associate Professor Michelle Lazarus will discuss the impacts of UT on students, and outline some strategies to help parents to support their children to improve their UT to prepare them for their futures in further education and work. Register via this link: