Edition 4 Term 2, Week 5
On-going self-assessment, evaluation and reflection
Ongoing self-assessment and evaluation form a regular part of our school’s improvement journey. Every school activity is analysed, evaluated and reflected upon based on the evidence the school collects. Some evidence is empirical and other just observations.
Observations of our students in action tells me that our school is continuing to turn out community leaders. Recently I attended the Year 11 and Year 12 year assemblies. I can tell you, that watching the students respond to the demands of school and preparing to transition out of school gives me great confidence in our future. Our Year 7 and Year 9 students have approached the NAPLAN testing with a level of maturity and sense of purpose well beyond their years. Please congratulate your child on a difficult week at school if they have been involved in testing.
On a more quantitative note, you will have seen our students on the GWN news for the work that our Project-Based Learning Program does in repairing broken bikes for donation to those less fortunate. Well done to those involved in the program.
Year 8 student Zara Stuart recently won an art award in the local Art Trail 2021 through the Ferguson Valley and the Year 7 novice debating team, consisting of Michaela Williamson, Isabella Chalker and Belle Harris won the first round of the WA Debating League's South West competition. Last week our students competed in the interschool Athletics Carnival held at Hay Park Athletics Stadium and brought home the Champion School Shield. There were a number of standout performances, but none more noteworthy than Ruby Williams who broke the current record and took 3 seconds off the Year 10 girls 400m record and Gabe Dollan who took nearly a whole second off the 200m record set in 1970. These results certainly show that there are great opportunities for our students to succeed in more than just schoolwork and the classroom. We hope our students will have a school experience to build a profile that shows everything they have achieved in and out of the classroom.
Our three-year external review is on the horizon. This year we are looking even harder at our school’s performance. Attendance data, WACE results, OLNA results, the range of pathways for all students to succeed, the quality of teaching and learning, data-driven allocation of finances and other resources and our level of cultural responsiveness are all under the microscope to determine how well the school does its job.
While we have a supply of hard data on many of these things, others require the input that is received through our parent bodies like the School Board and the P&C Association. Soon we will have another community body to add value to our school in the newly formed Bunbury SHS Graduates Society – Alumni. These parent bodies have been instrumental in adding value to the school through the development of the 10 Year Building Plan and the new school sports shirts. In fact, we collect data from all parents annually through our parent survey. You can find the link to respond to our survey in the article below.
After a year at the school now, I have taken a moment to reflect on my own personal performance for the school. It has been a year of challenges; relocating, managing COVID-19 school processes, managing a building project and dealing with a fire in our heritage buildings to mention just a few. How I have responded to those challenges and how I can improve are a constant source of reflection for me. I hope that my actions tell the school community of the focus that I have on student success, pride in the school and demonstration of our school values. Our challenge always is to plan, act, assess to ensure our improvement continues.
En Avant
Mike Sinagra
Principal
The Board met on 18 March for the first meeting of 2021. We farewelled Julie Bain, Rebecca Reid, Warren Turner, Glenn Gates and Justine Brett at the expiration of their terms on the Board, as well as welcomed Inga McQueen, Julie Russell-Krebs as our new staff representatives, and Darcy Reid and Erin Lever as our incoming student representatives for this year. Nominations have been called and received to re-fill these roles and will be confirmed at the next meeting. I would like to thank everyone for their diligent participation in the Board activities and look forward to working with our new team.
The Board spent a considerable time reviewing our key performance data from the 2020 year against our Business Plan targets. The School’s median ATAR achievement was 77.3%, up on 2019 results and tracking towards our target of 80% or greater, OLNA achievement exceeded same or like schools with only three students not achieving OLNA - which has the absolute attention of the administration to support every student to meet this outcome, and our WACE achievement similarly exceeded like schools with 99% achievement rate by the cohort. NAPLAN and attendance goals were not evaluated for 2020 due to the COVID pandemic and restrictions that impacted these targets.
Nonetheless, a fantastic result and congratulations to all students who finished 2020 with some form of currency from Bunbury SHS to help begin the next stage of their life and careers be it an ATAR ranking, a WACE certificate, or one of the 100 certificates achieved by our VET students.
More details on the key performance data have been released in the 2020 Annual Report.
You will no doubt have seen, or at least heard about, our fantastic new Cafeteria which has opened last term and already receiving rave reviews from the students. The school has received more funding as part of the Western Australian COVID Recovery Plan to be deployed toward the school gym. What this will mean is that we will be redeveloping and upgrading the change rooms, creating more teaching and office space and improved access to the gymnasium and the oval. More news to come in this area as plans become more finalised.
Tim O’Byrne
BSHS Board Chair
Welcome to Term 2. The Bunbury SHS P&C Executive meet Wednesday Week 3 of each term and then hold a general meeting on Wednesday Week 7 of each term at 6pm in the School Library, and is open to anybody to attend. It's a great opportunity to meet our Principal Mike Sinagra and see what the P&C is up to. One new exciting initiative this year will be supporting Mr Sinagra in bringing together government agencies for the redevelopment of the bus stop shelters.
The new menu from our Cafeteria has been a great success with turnover increasing up by 40% from the old Canteen. We welcome back Manager Deb McGinley from her time off and also welcome Eryn Cowcher to the Cafeteria team along with Louise Bruce-McGinn and Sharon Smigrodzki. If you like to cook and have some free time during school days, then we would love to have you volunteer at the Cafeteria.
The new sports shirts sold by our Uniform Shop were shown off at the sports carnival late last term and look absolutely great. All Year 7 & 8 students are now required to wear the sports shirts during Physical Education classes. We initially stocked 800 shirts so Year 9 & 10 students may be able to purchase them after Year 7 & 8 students have done so. We have started selling Country Week uniforms this term and are waiting for new winter jackets to arrive in the next month.
All the best for the term and please come to our next General Meeting in Week 7 Wednesday 2 June. You can contact us through our Facebook page for more information.
Geoff Ogden
P&C President
BSHS PARENT SURVEY 2021
Each year our school surveys its staff, parents and students about our service to the school community. We hope you will take 10 minutes to complete this survey for 2021.
The survey is anonymous. The data gives us valuable feedback that informs our planning for school improvement.
If you have any questions about the survey, you can contact our Deputy Principal, Kelly Anderson via email at kelly.anderson@education.wa.edu.au
The survey closes at midnight on Friday 4 June 2021.
BUS BAY REDEVELOPMENT PLAN
ATHLETICS RESULTS AND STUDENT AWARDS
During the first week of Term 2, we held a whole school assembly to recognise the hard work that our staff and students put into the Athletics Carnival held at the end of last term.
| Year 8 | Female |
Champion Runner Up |
Daisy Chance Daniella Schoeman |
| Year 8 | Male |
Champion Runner Up |
Wesley Higgins Connor Wright |
| Year 9 | Female |
Champion Runner Up |
Rhianna Di Giuseppe Daniella Adlam |
| Year 9 | Male |
Champion Runner Up |
Lucas Andrews Cobey Brown |
| Year 10 | Female |
Champion Runner Up |
Ruby Williams Bailey Old |
| Year 10 | Male |
Champion Runner Up |
Chayse Martinson Taiatini Huriwai-Brown |
| Senior School | Female |
Champion Runner Up |
Megan Bain Sienna Berry |
| Senior School | Male |
Champion Runner Up |
Kade Szyszka Gabriel Doolan |
Inspiring Self Belief Citizenship Awards.
Based on teacher nominations and recognises the key values of the school. One student in each year group is selected based on Term 1 performance and achievement. Award winners receive a JB HIFI voucher and citizenship pen.
Year 7 – Phaedrus Liddiard
Year 8 – Prisha Sherman
Year 9 – Scarlett Brown
Year 10 Courtney Vaughan
Year 11 – Angie Pelusey
Year 12 – Ebony Weeding
Attendance Awards
30 students have been randomly selected to receive a JB HI FI voucher for regular attendance in Term 1.
Year 7 – Thomas Boyens, Samara Cocking, Charley Cotten, Belle Harris, Reese Tarrant and Lauren Veale.
Year 8 – Nate Cooper, Lily Finlay, Sunny Green, Angus Holzhauser, Gabriel Portilla and Armeen Zahid.
Year 9 – Jaiden Brindley, Oisin Carrigan, Hadar Eyal, Arbriel Margraf, Neria Morgan Harvey and Patrick Scott
Year 10 – Isabella Damiani, Frederick Depillo, Jake Gardiner, Tyler James, Theo Miragliotta and Taleena Watts
Year 11 – Will Cates, Gemma Hill and Aaron Tan.
Year 12 – Sky Burgess, Harry Lang and Mark Sunga.
Have Sum Fun Competition
An exciting mathematics initiative that uses a quiz-night format. Teams of six students race against the clock to solve four rounds of eight challenging problems.
One of our teams placed third out of 26 teams. These students were: Annabelle Behan, Kirralee Butt, Elise Fry, Mex Brown, Isabella Chalker and Hinata Hoshi.
WORLD'S GREATEST SHAVE AT BSHS
Our Prefect group held a World's Greatest Shave event on Thursday 6 May. Students and staff shaved, cut and coloured their hair with donations going to the Leukemia Foundation.
The brave Jasmin Buckley-Smith (Science) and Mr Platt (English) shaved their heads. We also had a number of courageous students and staff shaving, cutting and colouring their hair on the day. Well done to all.
A big thank you to Leo from Leo's Men's Hairdressers Bunbury who volunteered his time during lunch 1 to shave heads, and to Mrs Barbetti who cut and shaved hair during lunch 2.
Bunbury SHS raised just under $1200 which will be donated along with all the hair which was cut to the Leukemia Foundation for cancer research and to support families battling cancer.
You can still donate online to our fundraising efforts here: https://bit.ly/32NXMdW
ANZAC DAY COMMEMORATION
Towards the start of this term, staff and students took part in our annual Anzac Day commemoration located in our magnificent amphitheatre.
The whole school listened in solemn silence to musical numbers performed by our talented Senior Band, to Year 11 Megan Foster who sang the National Anthem and Lest We Forget Hymn and to Year 11 Jonah Golds who performed the Last Post and Reveille. Our School Captains Kade and Lexie laid a wreath and Prefects read the School Prayer, Anzac Requiem and The Ode.
Lest We Forget.
MATHS CLUB
Maths Club is in full swing this term with fantastic numbers attending at the beginning of term. Maths Club runs on Friday mornings from 7:30 - 8:30am in Room 2 (in the Kingia Building). It is an opportunity to get one-on-one help from a teacher or to work quietly with peers.
Senior School ATAR examinations are fast approaching and Maths Club is a great way to seek support with Mathematics preparation.
We hope to see you there!
Mrs Mason and Mr Mulligan
WAYJO VISIT
On Monday 3 May, the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra visited our school.
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS
We want to get to know our students and school community better and hear all about your life out of school. If you have been kicking goals out in the community - whether you've had sporting success, are volunteering somewhere fun, or have an interesting or unusual hobby we want to know about it. Please fill in the online form using the link below and you might be featured on our Facebook page or in our newsletter in the near future.
SCHOOLZINE APP
We understand that now more than ever, it’s essential for our school to have effective and efficient communication channels available to our school community - accessible anywhere, anytime. Our new communication platform "Schoolzine" offers that and more! We encourage you to download the SZapp so that you have access to the latest news and events as well as important links in one convenient app.
Please follow the instructions below to install.
SCHOOLTV - RAISING GIRLS
Raising girls in today’s modern world can be a difficult path for parents and carers to navigate. These days, girls are transitioning to puberty a lot earlier than they used to and the physical, psychological and emotional changes they experience are challenging. As a result, by mid-adolescence, girls are twice as likely to develop mood disorders more so than boys.
Some parents and carers may feel uncertain about how best to support their daughter through the ups and downs of adolescence and how to keep the lines of communication open. With the rise of social media and technology, mental health difficulties in girls are increasing as often they are faced with online images that make it difficult to see themselves as acceptable. Ensuring a daughter’s opinions are heard and her views listened to, will go a long way towards making her feel loved and supported as she tries to establish her own identity.
In this edition of SchoolTV, adult carers will attain a clearer picture of what girls are wanting from their adult carers and how best to support them through adolescence. We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this month’s edition, and we always welcome your feedback.
If you do have any concerns about the wellbeing of your child, please contact the school for further information or seek medical or professional help.
Here is the link to this month's edition https://bunburyshs.wa.schooltv.me/newsletter/raising-girls
SPORTS UNIFORM
It's been great to see so many students wearing their new PE shirt to class.
A reminder to all parents that these shirts are part of the school uniform for Physical Education, and it is compulsory for students in Years 7, 8 and 9 to be wearing these shirts to their Physical Education classes.
REGULAR UNIFORM SHOP OPENING TIMES (during school terms):
MONDAY 10.30am - 11.30am
WEDNESDAY 1.00pm - 2.00pm
Or contact the uniform shop manager, Marianne on 0417 982 387 for further enquiries.
FLYING HIGH
In Science, Year 7 students have been learning about the force of air resistance. The students created their own papers helicopters and tested which paper helicopters took the longest to fall from the verandah.By using different lengths for the wings, they were able to determine how air resistance affected the flight of the paper helicopters.
There were some beautiful flights from some of the creations, with one even managing to hover (thanks to a breeze) before continuing its flight to the ground.
YEAR 7 GAT EXCURSION
The group visit Busselton Jetty and went on a tour of the Underwater Observatory, which included riding on the Stocker Preston Express train!
Students descended eight metres below the ocean’s surface and saw the natural wonders that lie beneath the jetty where its piles create Australia’s greatest artificial reef host to an awe-inspiring forest of vividly coloured tropical and sub-tropical corals, sponges, fish, and invertebrates.
They also explored the amazing shipwreck at the base of the jetty before heading to Forest Adventures South West for some team building activities. The students worked collaboratively to solve problems. It was great to see students' demonstrating our school values of collaboration and courage in the local community.
A big thank you to staff members involved - Mr Bourne for driving the bus and Mrs Mason, Ms James and Mrs Ashbury for supervising.
OPEN NIGHT FOR YEAR 7 2022
On Thursday 6 May, we welcomed families from across Bunbury into our school to view our magnificent grounds and learn a little bit more about Bunbury SHS.
Year 6 students and their parents were guided on a tour of our grounds and then filled our library to gain an insight into Bunbury Senior High School. They learnt about our history, specialist programs, staff, schooling, learning opportunities and much more.
We hope to see many of the Year 6 students back towards the end of the year for their orientation day to get a taste of what Year 7 might be like.
WA Schools Think Tank Challenge
On 13 May a selected group of Year 10 Gifted and Talented students competed in the 2021 Schools Think Tank Challenge.
The challenge, hosted by the Water Corporation and the Innovation Institute, challenged teams of Year 9 and 10 students from schools in Perth and the South West to develop an innovative solution to inspire people to stay waterwise in the face of climate change.
Bunbury SHS’s team chose the problem of water consumption in the fast fashion industry and developed an innovative idea for water purification. Students then presented a 5-minute pitch.
Our team was one of two teams selected from the South West to battle it out against other schools in the final. The students will present their idea to a panel of water industry experts and have sent in their pitch via video.
Well done to Year 11 student Darcy Reid who was featured in the Wednesday 21 April edition of the Bunbury Mail.
Last year, Darcy was selected to attend the Premier's Anzac Student Tour, and after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the tour was delayed to April this year. Darcy has a personal connection to the Anzac legacy that inspired him to apply after his great-great-grandfather fought on the Western Front as a Battery Sergeant Major in the third Australian Medium Trench Mortar Battery.
Applications for our specialist Visual Arts (VASP) and Elite Sports (BEST) programs are still open to 28 May 2021! To apply, click the link below
Welcome to our new staff members which have started in Term 2!
Clair Johns - Student Services Officer
Hi, I’m Clair now happily working with the Student Services Team. I have been in the South West for five years after moving from the Wheatbelt where I worked as a Teacher. I have been with Disability Services in a Local Coordinator role, and most recently worked as a Participation Coordinator with the Warren Blackwood team across the Busselton and Manjimup areas. I live in Donnybrook with my husband, two kids and a taco terrier where I like to garden, go camping and watch the footy. Go Eagles!
Kristy Carriage - Aboriginal and Islander Education Officer
Kaya, I am a local Noongar woman and grew up here in Bunbury, (nee Narkle). I’m a previous Bunbury SHS student and Prefect, graduating way back in 1996.
After high school, I completed a traineeship then decided to travel! I lived and worked in Sydney, Wollongong and Ballina NSW for 12 years. I worked with NSW Fair Trading for 8 years, as a Community Liaison Officer and an Aboriginal Customer Service Officer which involved educating vulnerable community members about their consumer rights and responsibilities. I then switched careers and went to NSW Health and became the Aboriginal Case Manager in Community Health. I worked with high-risk clients who needed help navigating the health system and accessing information and funding they may not normally receive.
In 2011 I moved back to WA to be with my family. Coming home with a husband and a new baby. I went on to work for SWAMS and after my time there I went to work at WA Consumer Protection. I loved going back to dealing with consumer law and assisting the public with their rights and responsibilities.
I’m currently the part-time AIEO at Manea SC, so will be splitting my time between both schools.
I’m so excited now to be back at my old stomping ground as they say. I will be bringing some great experience and knowledge about working with Aboriginal communities and students, local Noongar contacts and assisting teaching staff to access information and resources to increase our understanding of Aboriginal culture.
I hope all students will feel comfortable approaching me to ask questions, gain information and have a yarn to create some open and respectful conversations.
On Tuesday 4 May, we welcomed a number of esteemed guests to our Cafeteria for the inaugural charter presentation of our newest club - the Kingia Z Club.
The Z Club program is one of Zonta International’s longest-running programs and helps high school, college and university students develop leadership skills, promote career exploration and encourage members to participate in community, school and international service projects.
District 23 Zonta Governor Sandra Burns, with the assistance of Area 3 Director Tyril Houghton installed the Kingia Z Club’s board, inducted members into the club and presented students with their Z Club pins.
Members from the Zonta Club of Bunbury, who have sponsored and supported the Kingia Z Club, were also there to welcome our students to the Zonta community.
Our very own Ms Brooke Cleggett, who is the Z Club‘s school advisor, helped initiate the club at Bunbury SHS assisted at the presentation also.
We look forward to seeing what interesting projects and ideas the Kingia Z Club come up with this year!
I hope you have been getting through the term well. I noticed it's starting to get busy again... Well done to the Prefects, staff and students who organized a lovely ANZAC Day service in our school amphitheatre. And well done to all the students who represented our school in the Interschool Athletics Carnival. Take care this term as the rainy season is about to start and please let me know if I can be a support to you or your children.
Also, I have registration forms for the SU Holiday Camps in the winter holidays if anyone is interested.
Deon Throne
BSHS Chaplain
Bunbury SHS Alumni
As mentioned in the Principal's article, the Bunbury SHS Graduates Society – Alumni will soon be launched.
We will have a regular section in our newsletter about what our alumni are doing now after high school. There will be further information about the Bunbury SHS Graduates Society in our next edition.
Recently, we held our Anzac commemoration. We remembered all those who had fallen and fought in wars across the world. We also remember the past Bunbury SHS students who fought in World War II who are listed on a plaque displayed in our administration foyer.
| Year 10 Parent Information Night | 20 & 21 May |
| Year 11 Workplace Learning | 7-21 May |
| Year 11/12 Exams | 24-31 May |
| Year 12 Workplace Learning | 24-28 May |
| BEST & VASP Applications Close | 28 May |