BNSHS Newsletter 17th August 2022

From the Principal's Office

Thank you to the wonderful Jacky Burtt and P&C members and the helpers who organised and conducted our P&C Cent Sale at the Spotted Dog on Saturday 13th August. It was a fully booked event and we were excited to have raised just over $2800 for the afternoon. We thank all those who supported the afternoon. Money raised will be going toward purchasing marquees for shade at carnivals. Congratulations to the organising committee and helpers.

Since our last newsletter we have conducted student progress conferences to discuss semester one reports. Thank you to the parents, teachers and students who attended the conferences. Remember you are able to contact teachers throughout the term if needed. Progress conferences provide an opportunity for face to face contact and time for discussion.

You will have no doubt read in the media about the concern with teacher shortages nationwide. We are experiencing difficulty with this at present. With staff absences and the COVID isolation guidelines, it has not always been possible to source enough replacement teachers. Some smaller classes are being merged and others have replacement teachers conducting classes to ensure that at all times students are receiving instruction and supervision. We expect that students continue to observe the classroom and school expectations and work with us as we aim to provide the best solution. Teacher shortage is an Australian wide challenge at present and we will continue to do our best to provide the best educational opportunities for the students at North.

Robyn Kent, Principal

Friday 5 registration - Term 3

Friday 5 - Students remaining at school until 3pm Term 3, 2022

The Watson Report

RECOGNITION OF POSITIVE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Last week on parade we recognised the amazing achievements of our students on their semester one reports. Reach for the Sky awards were given to 130 students for achieving at least four ‘excellent’ results for behaviour and effort. North Star is a new award recognising student academic excellence. Students that received all A or B results and outstanding behaviour and effort, received this award. Congratulations to the sixty students that received a North Star certificate from Miss Kent. All students who received an award should be proud of their efforts.

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STUDENT NOMINATIONS REMINDER

Presentation Night is Thursday 13 October 2022. At Bundaberg North SHS we have a Presentation Parade in the  morning and Presentation Night ceremony in the evening. An Award Committee has been formed to consider students’ achievements and involvement in extra-curricular activities. There are many awards across year 7 to 12. Some of these awards are determined by academic results, others consider representation of the school or extra-curricular activities. For this reason, students are asked to nominate for awards, so the Award Committee has as much information as possible before making decisions. Now is the time for students to nominate for the following awards:

· Year 12 Major Awards

· Sport Awards including: Green and Gold, Maroon Award, Full Colour, Half Colour, Wide Bay Certificate, Sporting Certificate

· Service and Cultural Awards including: Green and Gold, Maroon Award, Full Colour, Half Colour, Wide Bay Certificate, Service or Cultural Certificate.

To nominate, a student collects the appropriate form from the office or can access it through SharePoint, then returns the completed nomination form to the office by Friday 19 August. For more information students can watch a Power Point on Share Point or enquire at the office.

GOTCHA UPDATE

Students receive Gotchas for demonstrating the school values of respect, responsibility and safety. New rewards are coming! Students have been collecting Gotchas in anticipation of new ‘cash in’ vouchers and have given their feedback to the North Rewards team. New Gotcha colour and Gotcha style coming too! When students hand in their Gotchas they contribute to their RAS House totals and also go in the draw for tuckshop vouchers. Keep up the great work students!

YEAR 10 STUDENTS SHINE AT CQU EXPERIENCE DAY

Last Thursday our year 10 students attended the CQU Experience Day to ‘try out’ various careers and options at the Central Queensland University. The students displayed exemplary behaviour and from speaking with them learnt about many possibilities for their future. Thank you, Miss Crust for organising this excursion for our students

STUDENT SPORTING ACHIEVEMENT

An amazing achievement by K’Larni Wilson, year 9, being selected in the first ever First Nations team to play at the Vicky Wilson state netball competition held in early August. K’Larni represented her team, her mob and our school with pride.  Well done K’Larni!

Mrs Watson, Deputy Principal

Spirit of North Day

Last week we celebrated our first "Spirit of North Day". We would like to thank everyone who was involved in the preparation and execution of this event. It began as an idea, a way that we could celebrate the different aspects of our school that make it so unique and awesome. We hope that everyone was able to enjoy one of the days activites that we organised and celebrated the aspects that make our school an amazing place. Whether it be cheering on the Year 12’s and teachers at the netball, holding back tears while Ms Labenski reads a beautiful story, or enjoying a delicious milkshake or coffee from the Coffee Shop. A mural will be revealed next week to commemorate the day, and we hope that this symbol will inspire future school leaders to carry "The North Spirit" into the future.

Your School Captains, Byron and Vanessa

The English Faculty

“Chapter 1: Something to write home about…”

Nathan Williams (Acting HOD – English)

Resilience. Now THIS is something to write home about... Each week, I aim to highlight and celebrate the excellent work happening in our classrooms by students and teachers. This week’s episode is brought to you by Year 7 Reading with Miss Page.

All the great literature and cinematography from the days of Chaucer through to the thrills of the currently screening Thor or Top Gun have a common thread about people who are resilient and overcome adversity. On Monday 8 August, I had the lucky privilege to be invited into Miss Page’s bright & colourful classroom to witness the students’ discussions and visual representations of resilience. Students were exploring ways to overcome challenges in the classroom and their own everyday life; I particularly enjoyed snapping this little beauty of a students’ intricately detailed poster, almost akin to an infographic, about how she overcomes difficulties when her plans don’t work out the first time.

At Bundaberg North State High School, students engage in a regular reading program, structured around the Sheena Cameron Reading Strategies, as well as structured reading classes for students who thrive with extra practise.

How does studying English really help my child?

In English and other subject areas, children do already learn the basics of writing a resume, how to apply for a job interview, and workplace communication. As parents, you are often bombarded with so much information in the workplace and world around us. Our challenge is to discern truth from popular myth – just because a lot of people believe something is true does not make it so – and to be able to pull out information that is useful for making decisions. English teaches children real-world practical skills, and then builds upon them to open the doors of opportunity. We want our children to be informed and self-aware. Illustrated short story writing is more to do with practising the skills of planning, forethought, anticipating what people might find predictable or suspenseful, rather than the contents of the story itself, just as a task asking students to analyse literature is often about understanding deeper concepts such as why people and behaviours are shown in certain ways, and persuading people to agree or disagree with us. Anyone who says teenagers aren’t able to plan, negotiate, persuade, and argue their case with evidence, have never raised a family of teenagers.

Next Newsletter: Chapter 2

Thank-you to Miss Page and the delightful Year 7s for inviting me into their space. Whilst it is not possible to share every class, join me on this adventure next newsletter as we explore “Chapter 2: The writing is on the wall”.

Imaginative Writing Awards

National Science Week

Every week is science week at North but this particular week is special as we celebrate National Science week. Our theme for this year revolved around ‘Glass’ and to mark this occasion a glass display has been created in the school library. The display depicts some of the many pieces of glassware that science classes at North use on a daily bases. Additionally the staff and students were granted special access to amazing images of the sun, captured via a telescope (using lenses and mirrors made of glass) positioned to indirectly obverse the sun at 1^st lunch each day of the week. The students and staff were able to see sunspots, flares and other unique features of the sun that are normally un-observable.

James Peach, Acting Head of Department, Science

Year 10 CQU Experience Day

Thursday 11 August — 62 students and 5 amazing teachers attended the CQU Bundaberg campus to participate in the Campus Connect program. This enjoyable day saw students gain insight into courses available at University as well as TAFE with interactive sessions linked to a variety of career opportunities; Automated systems, Aviation, Digital Media, Engineering and Medical Pathways, just to name a few. We learnt new skills, asked a million questions and had tonnes of fun, thanks to the amazing staff at CQU.

Medical Pathways— ‘Seeing other people’s heart rates and rhythms was pretty cool. Some of the outcomes were pretty interesting.’

Digital Media— ‘I got to act out a scene with my friends, I really like acting and drama’

‘I recorded a face to face news report’

Aviation— ‘It interests me and was a fascinating session’

‘I flew a plane in a simulation and won a hat for landing it without crashing’

2022 BDSSS Athletics Results

The 2022 BDSSS Athletics Carnival was well represented by North students. Many of the team competed in multiple events and showed true ‘North Spirit’, giving it their best effort, never giving up and great sportsmanship. As a team North finished 5^th out of the 10 schools in the district. We had some fantastic individual results, with most of these students competing in nearly every event such as Leonardo Rayer and Bridie Parker.

Students who placed 1^st or 2^nd have gained selection into the Bundaberg team and will now be competing at the Wide Bay trials, 25^th, 26^th August.

Congratulations students!

School result Overall: 5^th

Angus: 4th 800m, 3^rd 1500m

Lara: 2^nd Discus, 2^nd Shot Put,

Jayne: 1^st Javelin

Rama: 3^rd 200m

Aleara: 3^rd Shot Put

Talitha: 4^th 100m, 4^th Long Jump

Paige: 3^rd 1500m, 4^th 800

Kacey: 3^rd Long Jump

Samantha: 3^rd Long Jump

Ruby: 3^rd Shot Put

Mark: 1^st 100m, 2^nd 200m

Edric: 4^th Discus

Volleyball Seniors School Cup

Recently our Open Boys’ Volleyball team travelled down to the Gold Coast for Seniors School Cup. The boys played a total of 6 games over 3 days, versing teams from across the state. The boys finished the competition on a high, winning their last game and finishing 12^th in Division 2. Special mention to Byron Lerch and Noah Gunning on being voted joint Player’s Player and Noah Todd on receiving the Coach’s Award.

“Being able to put a team together for this tournament was truly amazing. It was an honour to play alongside such a dedicated group of young men. The team has grown so much since we started training, and it has been awesome to see each player personally improve and learn to work with each other. I genuinely hope that the strong school spirit found in this team can continue into the coming years. Thank you so much to Miss Gardiner, Mr Moore, Bridget Naumann, Stroud Homes & Bundaberg Rotary Club for all they have done to make this opportunity available for us.”

• Byron Lerch (Captain)

A special mention to Miss Gardiner who dedicated the past 12 months to this team with after school trainings and organising games to prepare the boys for this competition. This was the first time Bundaberg North SHS has been represented at Seniors School Cup since 2011 so this was a big effort to undertake.

Lastly, we would like to thank our sponsors, Stroud Homes Bundaberg and Bundaberg Rotary Club for their support.

Mr Moore

Inter-House Athletics Carnival

Students recently competed in our annual athletics carnival which is held over two days. The carnival is always a great success with many happy faces at the end of each day. Four teams, lots of points to be won and a wide range of competition between houses, fellow students and even teachers! The theme was ‘Disney’ based and had many students coming with as characters in very creative costumes. There were Disney princess’s, Stitch and even moana cruising around the athletics grounds! The competition was tight with everyone putting in 100% effort, but at the end of the day there could only be one winner. The house that took out the trophy for 2021 Athletics Carnival was … TIRROAN once again with a massive lead receiving 1549 points.

Congratulations to all age champion winners

The house captains would like to thank all the students, teachers and volunteers that put in the hard work behind the scenes to make the carnival a success.

House points:

TIRROAN 1549

MONDURAN 1398

MABBRO 1129

WALLA 1068

Age Champions

12yrs - ANDREW, LACEY 

13yrs - ANGUS, ELLA 

14yrs - RAMA, BRIDIE 

15yrs - LEONARDO, SARAH 

16yrs - SAM, KACEY 

17yrs - JESSE, SAMANTHA 

Celebrating Chaplaincy in Schools

On Thursday August 11, over 400 people attended the annual Mayoral Chaplaincy breakfast – a fundraising event for School Chaplains.   This year the guest speaker was Darius Boyd.  Money raised helps schools in engaging Chaplains to support students.  Thank you to our Chaplain Chappy Kelly who is a wonderful support to our students at North.  Her warm, kind and nurturing nature has brought smiles to many students and assisted them in times of need.  If you would like to donate to the Chaplaincy program please contact the office for details.  All donations go toward more schools across Bundaberg  being able to access a Chaplaincy service. 

GP bookings now open!

Appointments are now available to visit the GP each Tuesday at North High.  Students can make bookings by scanning the QR code above, which takes them to the school webpage, where they click on the MAKE A BOOKING box.  Alternatively appointments can be made simply by emailing GP@bundabergnorthshs.eq.edu.au.  

Bookings are completely confidential, as are all emails sent to this address.  So, if you would like to provide feedback you can also do this by emailing GP@bundabergnorthshs.eq.edu.au

Important dates

Support for families & community