27 May 2016

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal’s Desk

Term two is flying by at a rate of knots with NAPLAN behind us and a wide range of extra-curricular events taking place or being prepared for. Of course, semester one exams will be upon us every soon. Senior students are encouraged to have a quality revision program in place.

We have a team of cricketers headed to Malaysia on 25 June and an Aviation group headed to Europe and the UK on 2 July. I am attending the Aviation tour and will be blogging on the ‘Kent Street Aviation’ Facebook page every day so I invite anyone who is interested to ‘like’ the page.

Perimeter fencing and student hosts

The new fencing and gates are now in place. They look very smart and are not too intrusive but we have experienced a few teething problems with how the gate locking will be managed. This is being addressed and we expect it to all be smooth sailing very soon. One way to support the gate locking is to re-establish a student host system. Parents of Year 7 have received a letter asking them to confirm that they support the idea of their child acting as a host for one day of the school year. The host will erect the flags, lock and unlock the gates, deliver packages, escort guests to the school and generally be a good ambassador for Kent Street. We hope to commence this initiative next week so encourage parents to send the signed letters in. We will offer this opportunity to Year 8s later in the year.

Promoting Kent Street

My deputies and I have been visiting local primary schools over the last few weeks to actively promote our school. Kent Street has a great deal to offer to young people and we get a lot of interest, especially in our Approved Specialist Programs of Aviation, Cricket and Fashion & Design as well as our new select entry program – CoRE. When visitors come for a tour of the school they are impressed by the positive atmosphere throughout the school, the focus on learning evident in the classrooms that we enter and the great uptake of school uniform and bring your own device. However, the occasional student in leggings rather than skirt or shorts and rubbish left on the ground doesn’t serve us so well on the public image front. Appropriate dress is essential and leggings are not school uniform. With respect to the rubbish, I appreciate that our issue with the crows means that the rubbish has not always been placed there by students but I don’t walk past rubbish without picking it up because I have pride in my school. It is an attitude I encourage our students to share. At the end of the day, increased student numbers means more funds to do more for your child’s education. My ultimate goal is to reach the 1100 mark with enrolments – large enough to offer a full range of programs that cater for every need but small enough to maintain that awesome atmosphere and level of care for every student. Remembering that we are all ambassadors for our school, both on site and in the public, will help to ensure that our reputation matches our reality of being a terrific place to learn and work.

Raising boys

Our School Nurse shared a link to an article by Maggie Dent and, being a parent of teenage boys myself, I thought that many of you would appreciate it. Maggie Dent is a published author well known for her common sense approach to parenting and fostering resilience in young people. In the article, Maggie highlights what is relatively new information about how the brain works and the fact that teenage brains do a lot of pruning back in preparation for adulthood. This results in them suddenly not being able to do what they could most certainly do when they were eleven and it can be a very frustrating time for families indeed. I hope that you can find the time to read the article.

Mrs Kath Ward
Principal

From the Manager of Corporate Services

Payment of Contributions and Charges

Thank you to those families who have paid their 2016 Voluntary Contributions and Charges.

The school offered an incentive prize draw for families who paid their contributions and charges by 8 April 2016 – a signed basketball by the Perth Wildcats. This was won by Kristof Kovacs.

We are offering more incentives to pay your contributions and charges. Everyone who has paid by 10 June 2016 will go in the draw to win family movie tickets (2 adults/ 2 children) to the Cygnet Theatre Como. Our thanks go to Alan Stiles of grand Cinemas for his kind sponsorship.

School Contributions enable the school to purchase essential resources to assist in the best possible educational outcomes for our students.

Statements were sent out to families in February and reminders were sent out last week. If your child has changed subjects and it is not reflected on the statement, please contact the school office.

Senior School Charges (Year 11 and 12), Specialist Program Charges (Year 7 to 12) and Elective Charges (Year 9 and 10) are compulsory as per Department of Education Policy.

The school offers a variety of payment options:

Cash, cheque, EFTPOS including credit card facilities (credit card payments are also able to be phoned through).

Direct deposit to our bank account: BSB: 066128 A/C No: 00900195

(Please ensure that the following format is adhered to, this will ensure the correct account is credited: (EG: If you are paying contributions & charges please enter Joe Smith Yr 8 CC)

BPay: Code and reference are listed on account statements

Arrange a payment plan

If you have any queries or would like to set up a payment plan, please contact the Finance Officer – Bev Davis on 9262 0500.

New phone App for Payment of Excursions and Camps

Great news! Kent Street now has Qkr set up. Parents can pay for excursions using the mobile phone app (payment by credit card) and sign the consent note online.

Simply download the Qkr app from App Store or Play Store. There is a functioning demo school that you can play with, without fear of accidentally making a payment. Search for Kent Street Senior High School. All future excursions and camps will be loaded into Qkr.

Spotlight on Media – Year 12 Media Film Camp

The bi-annual Media film camp took place on Thursday 5 May through to Saturday 7 May and despite the forecast for bad weather the rain held off until we had completed shooting.

Year 12 Media students enjoyed the beautiful surrounds of Fairbridge Village in Pinjarra and used this as the set for their short film productions to be completed as their major assessment for their current unit of study. They were able to utilise interiors of the buildings as well as the exteriors to enhance the sense of realism in their films. The camp affords students the opportunity to shoot both day and night scenes and learn to shoot in different lighting and sound conditions.

Students were fortunate enough to have the expertise of ex Kent Street student, Loren Johnson, to assist with ideas and skills development whilst on camp. Loren, who teaches acting classes and is a film maker, has been working with Year 12 Media students in class in preparation for the camp and gave of his time to assist the shoots each day on camp. We are grateful for this. Thanks also to Mr Ken Lindsay for driving the bus, assisting with shoots, his photographic documentation of the camp and keeping us all entertained with his singing!!

Students will now work on the post production editing and should have a finished product to share with audiences at this year’s Variety Show!!

Marisa Green
Media Studies teacher

P&C Fundraising – Entertainment Book

The Kent Street P&C are fundraising to support shade structures in the Year 7/8 area and they would like your support.

The Entertainment Book comes both in hard copy and an electronic version for $65.00. I bought the electronic version last year and loved it so much that I have bought two this year.

The electronic version gets updates throughout the year with new offers, you can track your savings on the app and it links to Google maps to direct you to the place if you don’t know how to get there. Also, having it on your phone means that you nearly always have the Entertainment Book at your fingertips! I should work for the company – I like it so much!

To order please follow this link.

Pre-loved Uniforms

Martin the Chaplain and the Team from the Library are asking the whole school community if they have any reasonable quality school uniforms that do not fit any more and would they mind donating them back to the school for a worthwhile cause.

We plan to collect them and resell them to our students at a greatly discounted price.

The monies collected will be put back into the school community into such projects as the breakfast club and other worthwhile projects.

The school library will become the collection point.

From the School Nurse

Healthy growth and body image

Tips for helping your child have healthy growth and body image

• Encourage healthy eating and physical activity;
• Organise fun, family activities which encourage everyone to be active;
• Help children to see ‘treat’ foods, such as lollies, biscuits, chips, cakes and ice cream, as food which should be eaten only occasionally – not every day.
• Provide healthy meals and snacks every day;
• Be a positive role model for healthy eating and physical activity – children notice what their parents do. Parents are the most important teachers when it comes to healthy lifestyle.
• Help your children to understand that there is no such thing as an ideal body shape and that ‘healthy’ people come in many shapes and sizes.
• Help your children feel special about themselves. Provide rewards and treats which are not food.
• Teach children that a person’s value is not determined by how they look.
• Avoid making comments about body weight. Focus on growth, not on scales.
• Don’t focus on weight and food restriction – focus on improved health, fitness and having fun.

For more information visit

Makerspace at Kent Street Library

We had our very first makerspace project in the library recently!

Students created some fabulous pockets by reusing, recycling and upcycling card, magazines, disposed books and an array of everyday items that would usually be thrown away.

Ms Chan will be showing us a new skill with mixed media each week on Tuesdays from 3pm to 4pm in the Library. These items would make great gifts for friends and family.

Thanks for coming guys and huge thanks to Ms Chan for her fabulous instruction.

It will be on again next week for any interested Kent Street students to come along and join in. I can't wait.

Mrs MacCue
Library Officer

Proposed Hollywood Tour – April 2017

Any student who is interested in a tour to Hollywood, USA next year……

There are still a few spots left!

If your child is interested in and has a passion for the Arts, especially Media, Music, Art & Design, Photography, Dance we would love them to join us. Parents/carers welcome!

The tour will include return flights to LA via New Zealand where we will visit the “Lord of the Rings” set. In Los Angeles, it is planned to:

• Attend the live taping of a TV show as studio audience,
• Visit Universal Studios backlot and possibly Warner Bros Studios,
• The home of the Oscars “Dolby Theatre”
• The TCL Chinese Theatre
• The Hollywood Museum, Madam Tussaud’s
• Santa Monica Pier and other movie locations
• The Walk of Fame
• Beverly Hills
• Griffith Observatory
• Disneyland and California Adventure Park
• The Grammy Museum and others
• There is also an opportunity for students who are interested in acting to visit the Stella Adler Acting School.

Interested students are invited to contact Marisa Green (Media teacher) for more information and get an Expression of Interest form.

Marisa.green@education.wa.edu.au

Trenton Lyons - Former Student 2015

Trenton has recently graduated from the Police Cadet Academy and has these few words to share.

I thought you would like to see our graduation photo on the final day of academy training in March 2016. From here on out all of the new cadets of 2016 will be employed across the whole of WA to undertake the various roles and responsibilities of a Police Cadet. On Monday 14 March 2016 I began work at Cannington Police Station with two other cadets, one from my squad and another from last year. Training at the Joondalup Police Academy has been an amazing experience, from my induction by the Superintendent to joining the recruits for PT, I find myself constantly pinching my arm to see if it's all real because I really am living my dream.

Though, I have to say the last two weeks of academy training were the most tiring of my life, but in no way have they been disheartening or made me think twice about the path I've chosen. Waking up at 05:00 instead of 11:00 is a dramatic lifestyle change and the amount of homework is a million-times more than anything I was subject to at Kent Street but I couldn't be more motivated to begin what will be a long and exciting career with the WA Police.

Trenton Lyons (third from left second row) and former Kent Street student Bradley Taylor (second from right second row) also graduated in the same class. Well done to both boys!

Like us on Facebook!

Kent Street has recently created a Facebook page – Kent Street Senior High School.

We anticipate the page to be a good source of upcoming events for parents and a platform for staff to share information.

Please “Like” us !

Profile of Former Kent Street Student – Matthew Irwin 2005

Matthew completed his degree in Physiotherapy at the well respected Curtin University in 2009. Matthew has been with Precision Physiotherapy since graduating and has demonstrated a particular interest in musculoskeletal conditions and a keen mind for assessing, diagnosing and treating biomechanical problems. Matthew is efficient at treating both general and sporting conditions at the Brentwood clinic.

Matthew went to Kent Street, under the Approved Specialist Cricket Program. During this time he captained and played with the First XI team across Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore. He also managed to be Dux of his year 2005, the only cricket student in the history of the school to achieve this. Outside of school he captained his junior local and WACA teams, where he was club champion on multiple occasions and was in the Under 17 state cricket squad. In the winters he played football (AFL). Matthew continues to be involved in social cricket and enjoys staying fit.

Matthew treating a client.

Chaplain’s Chat

A very heartfelt Hi! To all the Kent Street community.

Well I am now in my second year as the Chaplain at Kent Street and I am still feeling very privileged to be part of this awesome school community. The students, staff and parents have all welcomed me into this amazing community and have made me feel part of something that is very special.

The programmes I started up last year are still running extremely well and I would like to make special mention of our “Monday Morning Brekky Club” that is going from strength to strength. Jesse and the Team from Fusion regularly engage with students and cook pancakes for in excess of 200 students. It is so pleasing to see our students first thing on a Monday morning having fun, talking to one another about their weekends and generally having positive interactions. I think this is something we could all do with from time to time.

We have also had a few other special events this term and I would like to make mention of one or two of these.

As part of our driver education program we were lucky to once more get Andrew Fisher a V8 Racing Team driver to come and present to our Year 10 students his Life Choices Seminar that included topics such as Social Media, Speeding, Drugs and Alcohol. Also, as a wind down to the NAPLAN exams Blake Young and the Team from City Youth put on an awesome lunch time event for all interested students. We had giveaways, bouncy inflatables, Sumo Suits and Blake Young (an American rapper) entertaining us in his own unique style. We have also continued our association with Ed-Connect formerly the School Volunteer in teaming up trained mentors with some of our students who are finding school challenging.

I have also been looking at ways of actively engaging in our community to help support our school. As a result of this I have recently become a member of the Victoria Park branch of Rotary. I presented at a recent meeting to the South Perth and Victoria Park branches and talked about Kent Street and Chaplaincy. My first active engagement was assisting at the recent Anzac Day Celebrations. 700 sausages for the sausage sizzle! Not a bad effort.

Martin cooking the 700 sausages!

Another initiative I am supporting is our pre-loved uniform drive. Now winter is upon us we have some students who are struggling coming to school with the correct uniforms. Please if you have any decent quality uniforms that either do not fit or your child is leaving school we may have a needy child that can get some benefit from them.

If you have any ideas or initiatives of how we can better support you or the students please feel free to contact me. One of the ideas I have been toying around with is getting together with parents for a catch up – a coffee and chat? Once again, if this something that might interest you, please contact me through the school - I would love to hear from you.

I wish you all the best for the rest of the year:

Kind regards and God bless!

Martin Heffer.
School Chaplain 2016.

The Variety Show – No. VIII – Superheroes

Will take place on 31 August and 1 September 2016 in the Gym Theatre.

Entry off Kent Street. There is plenty of parking.

There are two performances per day:

Matinee - Curtain up at 11.30am
Evening - Curtain up at 6.30pm

The theme – ‘SUPERHEROES’ was chosen by the students at the end of last year and Art, Media, Music and Drama are working to bring you a showcase of our enthusiastic students’ work including volunteer crew, dancers, musicians, script writers, techies and actors.

Home Economics will provide refreshments for the evening performances.

All Things Theatre convert the Gym into a Theatre and we can seat approximately 250.

Prices: $10 adults, $7 concession adults, $5 under-18s, Smalls – Free.

Any class accompanied by their teacher, Gold Coin Donation. Family concession/group deals available at the door.

WELCOME TO ALL, support us and be entertained

News from Approved Specialist Aviation Program

Rohan Khanna, joint Dux of Aviation and Dux of school 2015, is now a RAAF cadet at ADFA and enjoying it tremendously. He recently visited Kent Street to talk to Aviation students about his experiences and to encourage people to work hard.

Rohan Khanna

Alexi Currie graduated from Kent Street in 2013 and has done her Diploma in Aviation to the Commercial Pilot level at University of South Australia. She has been awarded top Aviation student for two years running, and has recently finished her Multi-Engined Command Instrument Rating, which means she can now fly in day or night and any weather. She is now studying her Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence subjects for the rest of the year, and then she will be looking for work as a Commercial Pilot.

Alexi Currie

Year 8 Lightning Carnival

At the end of term one our year 8 cohort participated in various lightning carnivals against other schools in the South East metropolitan region. A variety of sports were on offer for students to choose including basketball, netball, soccer and AFL. Students trained with their team during Physical Education time in the lead up to the carnival in order to improve their skills and teamwork before taking on the other schools. The day produced some outstanding team performances, in particular, our boys soccer team who come away champions for the day remaining undefeated. Our basketball, netball and AFL teams showed great improvement considering they were challenged by lots of games with little rest time between fixtures. Well done year 8’s!

Amy Chinnery
Health and PE Teacher

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