10 March 2017

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal’s Desk

A great start to 2017

Term one reached the half way mark very quickly this year. That is an indication that we are working hard and time is flying by. A very warm welcome was extended to all of our new students and a special welcome to the 175 new Year 7s who started with a flourish, enjoying a terrific induction program in week one and many engaging in the camp in week two. Enormous thanks are extended to Nadira Naidoo, Year 7/8 Coordinator and the many staff who supported both of these ventures.

Achievements from 2016

Our Year 12 achievement data from 2016 was sound with some exceptional results. Kent Street was formally recognised for its results in ATAR Health and Aviation in the Western Australian newspaper. We had three students gain certificates of distinction from the School Curriculum & Standards Authority and another ten gain certificates of merit. Our ATAR dux as a result of the external exam scores was Shivangi Sharma with a score of 98 out of a possible 99.95 and our VET dux was Isobel Price. Many of our students are commencing university studies this year. Of course, not everyone aspires to do this and we equally commend those who have pursued pathways at other institutes of further education, traineeships and apprenticeships or entered the world of paid employment. I am certain that the good grounding they gained at Kent Street will support them in their chosen endeavours.

Welcome to new staff

We have gained quite a few new staff this year with most of them being formally appointed before the end of 2016. Two new additions that can now be announced include our new Deputy Principal, Phil Hulbert, and a Humanities and English teacher in Andrew Ware.

Both Mr Hulbert and Mr Ware live locally and are enjoying the opportunity to work in the Victoria Park area – the place they call home. Mr Hulbert joins us from Cecil Andrews SHS and he is a very welcome addition to the executive team at Kent Street. He is overseeing Years 7-9 and looks forward to meeting the Kent Street community.

Acknowledging fine service

We took the opportunity to nominate Mr Bill Prince, the Kentian Society President and Trustee of the Kentian Scholarship Foundation, for a Town of Victoria Park Australia Day Award this year. Pictured here is Mr Prince with our Mayor, Mr Trevor Vaughan. Mr Prince serves the school in many ways including actively promoting Kent Street, overseeing the archive management, supporting reunions, inducting Year 7s into the history of our lovely school with the support of other Kentians, securing funds for scholarships with the other trustees and much, much more. Whilst he was not the winner on the day, the fact that he was shortlisted to win shows that he was very worthy of consideration. The dedication to our school displayed by Bill Prince is greatly appreciated.

Kentian Society President, Mr Bill Prince and Town of Victoria Park Major, Mr Trevor Vaugha

I wish everyone a very successful 2017. Please remember that you are highly valued as partners in your child’s education and that we invite you to contact the school if you have any concerns or information to share that will ensure that your child meets with success.

Mrs Kath Ward
Principal

From the Manager of Corporate Services

Payment of Contributions and Charges

Thank you to those families who have paid their 2017 Voluntary Contributions and Charges.

Families who have paid their Voluntary Contributions and Charges by the end of Term 1 will go in the draw to win one of six $100 OfficeMax vouchers.

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.

Please be advised that the school uses a debt collection agency for collection of unpaid compulsory charges at the end of each year. A final notice has been sent to relevant families to give them the opportunity to either pay the outstanding charges or arrange a payment plan by 3 March 2017.

The 2017 contributions and charges have now been applied to student accounts. Statements were sent 20 February 2017. If your child has changed subjects, this may not be reflected on the statement.

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 – Julianne Vaitekenas on 9262 0500.

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.

Secondary Assistance Scheme

Parents and Caregivers who hold a health care card are encouraged to call at the school to complete a Secondary Assistance Scheme application. See flyer for further details. Applications close 7 April 2017.

From our new Deputy – Phil Hulbert

I would like to welcome all the new students who have started with us this year including the 175 year 7’s. The student services team have put a lot of time into planning a range of activities on the camp and orientation days, which ensured a successful, smooth and exciting transition into high school.

Year 7 – 9 Report Night

On Wednesday 5 April 2017 from 1-6pm we will be having a report night for years 7-9. This will be an opportunity to meet your child’s teachers and find out how they have been going in their classes. A letter with instructions on how to book in times for the report night has been sent out to you via email or given to your child. Students will be finishing at 12:30pm on this day so please ensure you have made the appropriate arrangements for this.

How a rock and a teacher changed Denzyl Moncrieff’s life

A young Denzyl Moncrieff thought teachers were the enemy, and his experience of school was far from positive. But a natural curiosity in nature and one special teacher would change everything.

Please follow link to view Kent Street graduate Denzyl and CoRE teacher Suzy Urbaniak on SBS Insight.

From the School Psychologist – Morrison McQueen

Hi, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Morrison McQueen, your School Psychologist for 2017. As part of the team at Kent Street Senior High I will be supporting the students, parents, the administration team, and class teachers this year. My interests in Psychology are centred around the areas of Mindfulness, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, and Metacognitive therapy, though I really perk up when engaged in conversations around road cycling, Crossfit, and Ashtanga yoga!

I am very happy to be taking over the position from Emma, who has helped set up a great student support system at Kent Street. It is fantastic to see and be able to walk into such a ‘text book’ student support team at a senior high school. I would like to share with parents some of what I can offer and the procedures for accessing the Psychology service.

I am a ‘Positive Parenting Program’ (TripleP) provider and am available to consult on issues such as setting up plans for challenging behaviours, friendship issues, and teens developing positive connections to their communities and the wider world. As a psychologist I can support students around the areas of mental health and concerns regarding your teen’s social and emotional development.

As a ‘first port of call’, many parents will naturally raise any concerns (academic, developmental, behavioural, social etc etc) with the class teacher, year coordinator, or deputy principals. These key people have insight into your teen’s social situation, and how they present during their 7 hours at school. They can often offer great ideas and a different perspective regarding any concerns you may have. They may then refer onto the student services team where we consult to see who is the best person or agency to help in any specific case. That may be myself, the chaplain or counsellor, the pastoral care coordinator, or an outside agency.

I look forward to being of service to the students, parents, and whole school community this year.

P.S My top website tip of the month:

My top APP of the month: ‘Headspace’. Available for both iPhones and Android devices.

Regards
Morrison McQueen

Japan Study Tour 2016

During Term 4 2016, Kent Street Senior High School students and staff, Mrs Tateishi and Dr Bradfield travelled to Japan to visit our sister school, in Tokyo. The first stop was Tokyo including sightseeing and a visit to Meiji Shrine in Harajuku. Next the group headed to Shizouka to do some snow sports, followed by Mt Fuji sightseeing. We then headed to Kyoto to see the traditional side of Japan, the Golden Temple and Nijo Castle - a world heritage site. The tour was a huge success and the students were inspired by the culture, language and long lasting friendships they made with the Japanese students.

Ruth Tateishi
Japanese Teacher

The 2016 Fashion Showcase

The 2016 Fashion Showcase was held on Wednesday 23 November with the doors opening at 6.30pm for the annual rush of proud parents and anxious students.

It was the culmination and exciting end to the Fashion journey of 2016 that had it highs and lows – those highs were finished garments and fabulous camps and the lows, UNPICKING!

The theme was “Rio” inspired by the Olympic Games and so there were leaf fans, foliage, feathers, gathers and colour incorporated into the garments.

After rehearsals during the day finally the lights shone bright and the music played for each class to parade on the catwalk and showcase their work. A fabulous night was had by all and then, it was over too quickly for most. The smiles on all of the girls’ faces were priceless and their feedback valuable!

The 2017 Fashion journey has just begun and again just as there is a fashion cycle – who knows what is in store as the year unfolds! The theme is “close to home” allowing us to explore our local environment with a feature fabric of denim…...we can’t wait to share more stories as our journey evolves.

Specialist Assembly

Friday 3 March 2017 saw all of our Approved Specialist Program students in Aviation, Cricket, CORE and Fashion and Design recognised for gaining acceptance into their respective program. Captain Glenn Fuge, ex-student at Kent Street and now Manager of Flying Operations for the Fokker and Airbus fleet at Virgin Australia, presented the certificates to our new Aviation students.

Chris Sunley is pictured here with the members of the Minister’s Aviation Scholarship panel.

The Minister for Education, the Honourable Peter Collier, attended to present Chris Sunley of Year 12 with the Minister’s Aviation Scholarship. The award is worth $3000 to be spent on flying lessons and aviation education.

Second hand uniforms

All donations of second hand school uniforms are much appreciated. Please drop at front office or student services. Thank you.

Antarctica – once in a lifetime opportunity

It was the 26th of January- Australia Day. As many of them would be looking forward to the fun of a public holiday, we, 18 of the Kent Street Senior High School students were looking forward to the most amazing, one in a lifetime opportunity to experience a 12-hour round trip from Perth to the South Magnetic Pole. Yes, Antarctica, the 7th continent in the world! Of course, the appreciation and the grateful wishes would be commended to Ms Suzy Urbaniak, geoscientist and an enthusiastic Kent Street Senior High School teacher, who also won a 2016 Prime Minister’s prize of Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary School.

Although, six in the morning was a very early time, all of us aroused and arrived to the airport with the same amount of excitement and curiousness. The atmosphere in the airport was overwhelming and positive, especially in gate 12 where we had a chance to capture pictures with the penguin (a mascot of course) and breathe the same air as many other passengers of the Qantas Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, headed to Antarctica. Yes, I boarded the Qantas Boeing 747 Jumbo jet with 383 passengers on board, an amazing experience.

It was only a 12-hour flight, but it was the most amazing flight I’ve experienced in my life perhaps, the best I would say. I was also lucky enough to be sitting next to both UWA PhD candidates, Sarah Bruzzere, such an enthusiastic young woman and David Gozzard, a highly knowledgeable young gentleman. We had a great educational experience about the Earth’s magnetic field and by using a compass and a dip circle (a compass needle mounted sideways so that it could point downwards) we saw how the direction and strength of the Earth’s magnetic field changed as we neared the pole. They also acknowledged that the south magnetic pole lies off the coast of Antarctica, roughly in line with Adelaide, and more than 2,800 km north of the geographic pole. It lies outside the Antarctic circle, which is fortunate, because we flew right past the magnetic pole as we headed to the coast of Antarctica.

Over the four hours it took us to get to Antarctica, these two amazing young adults demonstrated and explained experiments for groups of students and other interested passengers. The jumbo descended so we could get a better view of what was below, and the excitement on board was immense when the first iceberg was sighted. The air was crystal clear and gave us brilliant views of stark white icebergs floating in the deep blue of the ocean. The number and density of icebergs grew quickly and within minutes we were over the sea ice. A few minutes later, we crossed the coast at Casey station, Australia’s main Antarctic research station. The station staff had just started their traditional Australia Day game of cricket out in the snow. They broke off to wave as the jumbo banked overhead. It was a real, visual learning and a great opportunity to expose myself to breathtaking sceneries and #THEREALCLASSROOM. I would love to take this opportunity to thank Ms Urbaniak for this amazing opportunity and a great learning experience.

Vino Daarshini
Year 11 student

Cert II in Engineering

Cert II in Engineering students visited BGC in Kewdale to view industry practices, obtain career information and apply for a work placement. Two students subsequently undertook a work placement and Kyle Kjellgren was offered and accepted a fulltime apprenticeship with BGC in Cert III in Engineering. BGC has kindly donated steel resources to the school and committed to providing ongoing support to our students.

CORE - Year 12 Yilgarn Craton Field Trip - Long Weekend March

#therealclassroom is best experienced, appreciated and realised through field trips. A whole course can be undertaken in a 4 day period. Concepts and processes are visualised, integrated, connected and understood. Last week a convoy of 3, 4WDs transporting 12 year 12 students traveled some 2000 km’s around the Yilgarn Craton to understand their Earth and Environmental Science Course. Here are some their summations (4 students away doing their surf life saving):

1. Going out in to the field like this really helps to compound what we have learned and put it into context. Chris Sunley
2. The field trip was an educational DREAM. It contained a large visual array of information which helped convert key syllabus dot points and concepts into a real life scenario. Jayden Jones
3. Positive learning experience which connects and interlinks weeks of theory learnt during class time. 2 terms of class work all comes together in 4 days of field trip. Edward Fox
4. The field trip into the Yilgarn Craton was a great learning experience that took us out of the class environment and the old fashion textbook rote learning and allowed us to experience and apply our knowledge for the real life environment. Ada ‘Diamond’ Guzman
5. Awesome experience! Hands on field work, insight to the industry through mine tours and a hell of a lot of ‘sponties’. The trip was a lot of fun and allows us to apply our theory to the real world. Amy P
6. A completely epic adventure which allows us to fully experience the world and appreciate all that it includes and apply what we learned and continue our learning in a practical manner. Amazing. Emma A
7. Loved being able to be a real SCIENTIST in the field. Not only were the rocks amazing but also the quality time spent with friends. Alex A
8. It was such a great experience, to be able to do the entire course in 4 days and to apply everything we have learnt to the REAL WORLD. It was also a great camp to spend time with friends. Josephine I

This learning experience further validates the importance of STEAM education as implemented in our CoRE Program at Kent Street. We are innovating and our students are getting prepared for 21st Century employment opportunities.

Year 10 student Lachlan Mason

Congratulations to year 10 student Lachlan Mason for his amazing result and achievements in BorderCross USA. Lachlan achieved a bronze and silver medal. He is ranked no 18 in the whole of the USA for his age group.

2017 in the Library

In 2017 Kent Street Senior High School Library is a much brighter and lighter place to be having undergone painting and new shelving in an updated lay-out.

Opening at 7.30 and being accessible every break time (apart from Friday recess), we are able to assist students with many requests including;

• research assistance
• locating resources
• ordering Smartrider / Student cards (providing students with legal photo id)
• student logins for school
• wifi access BYOD school
• where we are unable to solve problems, we escalate to our fulltime Network Support Officer.

Homework class is available – Mondays and Wednesdays between 3 – 4 pm and the take up by students (who are provided with a light snack and a drink) has been good.

Qualified teachers are on hand to help your child with any research/assignments they may have.

Mr Hossein Nabavi is an external tutor for our Specialist Maths students and is also available for individual/group maths tutoring. Please call 9262 0558 for further information.

Our library system, ‘Smart Library’ is now cloud-based, providing a wonderful opportunity for us to transition to more library resources and functions. In due course, this will be available to students online. For example, they’ll have links to databases that support video recordings, YouTube links and digital services as provided by teachers. In the near future overdue notices will be emailed to students.

Encyclopaedias such as World Book and Britannica can already be accessed with logon information provided at the library, together with information on how to get the best research results using these resources.

Recess in the library.

Past Student – Shae Flint

Shae Flint, student president 2011 is now doing an internship for the World Health Organisation representing them as an Occupational Therapist at World Hearing Loss Day this week in Geneva, Switzerland. Inspirational for all those students who like her did not know what they wanted to do at the beginning of year 12.

Just goes to show you never know what you can do until you give it a go!

CME Women in Resources Awards Breakfast & Inspiring Girl’s Initiative 2017

A small group of Year 10 CoRE and Year 11 Earth and Environmental female students were once again given the opportunity to attend this year’s CME (Chamber of Minerals) Women in Resources Awards breakfast and the associated Inspiring Girl’s initiative (in conjunction with Earth Science Western Australia). The group were hosted by two sponsor companies at the breakfast; NERA (National Energy Resources Australia) and Cliffs Natural Resources. Throughout the morning they heard from inspiring award winners in several categories and networked with various professionals from NESA, Cliffs, CORE Resources Innovation Hub (helping develop innovative solutions to challenges in industry) and Augmente (innovation, education and business strategy).

Following the awards breakfast, the girls were given further opportunity to talk with and learn about various other women’s journey through industry. From women that have transitioned from medical sales representatives to electricians and past primary school teachers that now work as chartered resource accountants, the experience was both inspiring and insightful.

• I found it very interesting and inspiring when I was seated with Cliffs Natural Resources, Sally-Anne and Erica. I was inspired when I was talking to these women about their career and to find out what they do, which was an eye opener to see that there is other opportunities to what University offers.

Ayesha Davison Year 10 CoRE

• I had the chance to talk with these women about their career paths including their current job. One of the main things I learnt from this inspiring experience was that no matter what career path you choose to start off with, you can always go in a different direction.

Emily Farr Year 10 CoRE

Opportunities for our students and invitations to events like this would not be possible without the strong industry connections that Kent Street maintains and strengthens through their involvement in the wider community.

Kathleen Booth
CoRE Teacher

Aviation Studies May Go Nationwide

Given the success of Aviation at Kent Street, combined with a significant number of graduating students gaining employment in the industry upon graduation, Kath Ward, Kevin Bennett and Allan Blagaich (CEO, School Curriculum and Standards Authority) contacted a number education agencies in Eastern Australia late in 2016 to discuss the possibility of presenting to interested parties, our innovative and successful program.

The concept was well received and we were subsequently invited to make presentations in both Canberra and Brisbane during early March, 2017. The first presentation in Canberra was to teachers and principals who were ‘experimenting’ with aviation education in their curriculum. The second was to Secondary Education Executive Officers from all the states and territories. All were impressed with the rigour of our course, associated resource materials and content covered in lower school. Most were utterly astounded that the school owned aircraft and students were given the opportunity to undertake flights during school hours.

The two presentations in Brisbane were conducted on Monday, March 6, 2017. The first was to representatives from all facets of aviation, including industry. The second was to a number of teachers, principals and education consultants. Both presentations were well received and a number of people spoke highly of the content and course structure.

Where to from now? Most of the Executive Officers will now discuss our proposal with their respective authorities. South Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand may introduce our curriculum in the near future.

2017 P & C Members

Thank you to the following members who have volunteered their time to the Kent Street P & C for 2017.

Upcoming Events

Top students

At the first full assembly the following students were recognised for their excellent achievement in Semester 2 of Year 11. Congratulations