BSHS News - Into the Home Stretch

From the Principal

Some people think that the last term is a slide into the holidays, but I find it is a really busy time.  There are WACE exams, Year 12 farewells, SHEDWORKS graduation, Year 11 exams, teachers are writing reports, and there are reward and incentive excursions. Before you know it, there will be Year 6 orientation, and the cycle will start again.  PHEW!  And of course in amongst all this, we will be reviewing the year that has been to prepare for next year.

Many of the events I attend are my first experience of the traditions of Bunbury Senior High School.  I am continually amazed by the sense of community and place that permeates everything that happens here.  The term began with a farewell breakfast for the Year 12s, that was cooked for them by staff.  It was followed by their final farewell, with moving speeches by staff that showed genuine care and interest in the development of the students.  It was a fantastic event.  Many of those students are now finishing off their WACE exam schedule – and they too have dedicated time to visit staff and work on revising to put their best foot forward.  

I see this sense of community everywhere I look.  Recently, during the interviews for the School Captains, a number of the candidates referred to our community and the shared responsibility for student success, without any prompting.  Even our new student leaders know what separates us out from other secondary schools.  At our recent SHEDWORKS graduation, I watched one of our young men deliver the closing speech.  Ben Hardwick, who despite it being his first time speaking publicly, acknowledge the community that had been created that nurtured the program participants’ success.  What a wonderful place to be.

We live the values of our school. Our recent NAIDOC day was a wonderful event.  It was a genuine heartfelt celebration of the continuous habitation of Australia by the First Nation people and recognition of the knowledge and practices developed across the last 65 000 years.

While in schools, at times, it feels like COVID-19 is a distant memory.  The rubber has really hit the road any time that we hold events that involve the public.  Our presentation ceremony is planned to be in the amphitheatre this year.  Even still, there are unfortunate restrictions on us to keep the ceremony COVID safe. However, I’m sure that once again at the presentation ceremony, our values and community will be on display.

Although it has been a difficult year, I see courage and resilience in the way our students grasp at every opportunity.  This term we have students who have competed in the Robo Cup, a student who has won a national scholarship for the Young Indigenous Women’s STEM Academy run through the CSIRO, we have athletes achieving national and state recognition in the Hammer throw and Archery.  Everywhere I look, I see the support and range of opportunity for our students to go forward. 

The school continues to advance some really important agendas.  Of course, the new Cafeteria has now been defrocked of scaffolding and is an impressive sight as you drive along the Upper Esplanade.  What is unseen is the rate of progress being made in the central courtyard.  It is a beautifully landscaped area with garden beds, paving and shaded seating areas—the perfect complement to the cafeteria.  The design for the new sports shirt, available in 2021, is getting closer each day to being finalised. It now includes an indigenous design created explicitly for our school to reflect the land.  Accompanying the sports shirt next year will also be a winter jacket.  Students and a small committee have been working very hard to decide upon a softshell jacket.  All items will be available, transport pending, in 2021. 

En Avant. 
Mike Sinagra
Principal

Staff Farewell - Mr Gary Walker

36 years at Bunbury Senior High School and 41 years with the Department of Education.

What an amazing contribution to education.

Gary has made a significant difference to the lives of so many students in his time as a teacher, as a Year Coordinator, as a Senior School Manager and as an HOLA and VET Coordinator.

A young moustachioed Gary started in the Phys Ed department in 1985. The Principal then was David Rourke.  Would you believe it, the school was undergoing renovations?  Surely not!  The gymnasium and the industrial arts workshops were being constructed, and the principal said: “Sandy wastelands, builders’ rubble and cavernous trenches will eventually disappear.” That year the school put on the Dracula Spectacula production, launched the school newspaper, the Koombana Kampus and the school population was at 1250.  It was a demountable city!

I guess some things change and some things stay the same – a bit like Gary himself!

Gary has stayed at Bunbury High, but his role in the school has evolved, and he did shave the mo off at some point.  He is leaving us as one of the well-respected leaders in our school.

Gary moved from Physical Education into the Vocational Education, and Training (VET) Coordinator role not long after VET became a thing.  He took this role over from Trevor Davis when Trevor took up the mantle of everything technological. Gary soon learned the ropes, and he was responsible for developing our VET programs here and in gaining RTO status for the school. He was instrumental in building up the relationships with the local TAFE and Trade Training Centre, as well as other institutions and industry to help our kids access the pathways they wanted and needed.

Gary also lead our Career and Vocational Education programs at school, working closely with the CAVE teachers to provide a useful curriculum for our students, to complement the work they were doing offsite.

Gary worked closely with Liz Chambers, to ensure that our students could access workplace learning, and with Paul McKenzie and his predecessors, to ensure that our engagement program at the Shed offered what those kids needed.

Gary has had a profound impact on our school, and we will notice his absence.

I would like to personally thank Gary for the support and guidance he has offered me since I started here in 2000.  Gary, we all wish you the best for your retirement. 

May you hit many holes in one!

Kelly Anderson
Deputy Principal

"After 36 years, this is the last of 7000+ days working at Bunbury Senior High. It has been a privilege to work at such a great school with such wonderful people. My retirement plans include lots of golf, fishing, riding my bikes and as much travel as we are allowed to do.

Farewell and En Avant"

- Mr Gary Walker

Gifted and Talented Program Parent Information Night

Come along to the parent information night on Wednesday the 25^th November at Bunbury Senior High School to find out more about the program and the application process.  Walk the halls where your child will study and hear more about the opportunities that await your child in the Bunbury Senior High School Gifted and Talented Program.  You can find Specific information about the program on the Bunbury Senior High School website.  Register for the information night here.

School Captains

Bunbury Senior High School has called their student Leaders School Captain and Senior Girl from 1924 to 1987. For a brief period, they were called Senior Boy and Senior Girl, before being called Head Boy and Head Girl. In a nice honour to tradition and removal of gender from the title of the role, 2021’s student leaders will again be called School Captains.

After a comprehensive selection process that involved the students doing a presentation in front of a panel, we are happy to announce the 2021 School Captains will be Lexie Edwards and Kade Szyszka. Both were very impressive in their interviews. Please congratulate them when you see them. They will formally receive their title at the first whole school assembly in 2021.

Notice of Open School Board Meeting

Year 11 and 10 Examinations

Year 11 ATAR Exams – Week 5

Year 11 Exams begin on Monday 9 November until Friday 13 November. These are the final exams for Year 11 and will give students and parents a very good idea about the likelihood of success in Year 12 in their chosen courses.  Many students will, on at least one day, have two exams. This is challenging, but there is every chance it will occur in their final WACE exams in Year 12, so experience working through this challenge will be valuable. We wish all students the best during this period. It is important to understand that performance in Year 11 is a very good guide as to how a student will perform in Year 12. Many students and parents believe (or hope) that there will be a significant improvement in Year 12 results because the students will work harder.

Year 10 Exams – Week 7

Current Year 10 students on an ATAR pathway in Senior School will sit examinations in Mathematics, English, Science and Humanities from Monday, 23 November through until Friday, 27 November (Week 7). The examinations are an important event in the Year 10 calendar for several reasons:

• They will provide students with an opportunity to demonstrate the depth of knowledge and understandings that they have attained this semester;
• They will give students further information about their capacity to manage the examination process;
• Examination and end of year results will confirm the appropriateness of the ATAR pathway selected for 2021

I encourage students to discuss any subject-specific issues with their teacher or the Head of Learning Area. I also recognise that examinations might be particularly stressful for some students. If students feel anxious and need support or advice, please make contact with Student Services. However, by preparing well, stress is reduced.

“Working hard overcomes a lot of obstacles. You can have unbelievable intelligence. You can have connections. You can have opportunities fall out of the sky. But in the end, hard work is the true, enduring characteristic of successful people.” (Marsha Evans).

Once again, I wish you the very best.

Kylie Ward
Manager of Education Services

Visions Art Award

Bunbury Senior High School students were represented in the Iluka Visions Art Exhibition at Bunbury Regional Art Gallery.

Artworks from Years 8 – 12 were selected in this prestigious exhibition. The annual exhibition is a showcase of the best student artwork that South West high schools have to offer and reflects the diversity of artwork being produced by students in the region.

The students represented this year were:

• Tilly Wallam, Year 8
• Kasey Jarvis Year 9 VASP
• Jessica Xie Moulton Year 9 VASP
• Samuel Emmett, Brandon Buszan and Molly McKenna, Year 10 VASP
• Saoirse Torr, Year 12 ATAR Visual Arts/former VASP

It was exciting to see that all of the VASP and ATAR representative students who were selected received awards for their work. This is an exceptionally high percentage of prize winners for one school.

Congratulations to the following award winners:

• Saoirse Torr "A Plague for all Ages" - Year 12 Highly Commended 
• Jessica Xie Moulton "Portfolio during Lockdown" - Year 9 Highly Commended
• Samuel Emmet, Brandon Buszan, Molly Mckenna "For Lease" - Year 9 Highly Commended
• Kasey Jarvis "Quarantine Sketchbook Prompts" - Year 9 Winner

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Physical Education Awards Stacking Up

Interschool Cross Country Competition

After missing out on a lot of opportunities in Semester One, it has been great to see our students again competing in interschool sport, and Bunbury SHS continues to dominate other schools in the South West.

Early in Term 3, our cross-country team competed in a challenging course that included lots of mud, hay bales, and many farmland obstacles. It was a very successful day for all competitors, with outstanding performances across the team resulting in Bunbury SHS being crowned champion school for 2020. We also won all the time trial relays they held for lower school students, which is an outstanding effort.

Special mentions to:

Connor Wright – Yr 7 boys champion

Jessie Hollins – Yr 8 boys champion

Imogen Soulas – Yr 8 girls runner up

Hamish Melvin – Yr 9 boys runner up

Lexie Edwards – Senior School girls champion

Megan Bain – Senior School girls runner up

Kade Szyszka – Senior School boys champion

South West Interschool Surfing Competition

On what was a cold and windy day, our team performed exceptionally well to be again crowned as the Champion School.

Special mentions to:

Izaac Slater & Angus Oddy – Junior Boys Surfing champions

Koby Tanner & Jai Martindale – Junior boys bodyboarding champions

Brooke Edwards & Darcy Wallace – junior girls bodyboarding champions

Lily Gray & Lexie Edwards – Senior girls runners up

Zac Trigwell & Will Allan – Senior boys runners up

South West High Schools Winter Carnival

Our Year 9 and 10 students had the opportunity to participate in the South West High Schools Winter Carnival. Again it was a fantastic day with some brilliant performances from of our respective teams.

Congratulations to:

Mixed Touch – who finished 1st prize

AFL (boys) - 2nd prize 

Hockey (girls) - 2nd prize

Soccer (girls) – 2nd prize

Basketball (girls) – 3rd prize

Soccer (boys) - 4th prize

AFL (girls) - 4th prize

Volleyball (girls) – 4th prize

Volleyball (boys) – 5th place

Netball - 6th place

Basketball (boys) – 6th place

Despite individual team results not falling our way, our school culture and values shone through. With so many teams finishing towards the top of their competition, Bunbury SHS was again crowned Champion School for 2020. Which makes it 8 wins from the last 9 years. An outstanding effort!

Year 12s Roll Up Their Sleeves

Year 12 Student Support Officer, Danelle Field, gathered four of our 18+ students to the Bunbury's Red Cross Blood Donation Centre to donate whole blood for the first time.

One donation of whole blood can potentially save up to 3 lives. It can be made into 22 different medical treatments, including people suffering from cancer, blood diseases, heart, stomach and kidney disease, anaemia, trauma from accidents, orthopaedic fractures and joint replacements, burns as well as new mothers and children. You will give around 8% of your blood volume. The body replaces this volume within 24 to 48 hours and replenishes red blood cells in 10 to 12 weeks. Mrs Field has been doing this for a number of years now and said:

"I hope this inspires the students to continue donating throughout their lives".

Well done and thank you to Darcy Healey, Emma Tinley, Meg Roberts, Vasiliki Stavrou and Mrs Field. Bunbury SHS is proud of you all.

Bands Tour Primary School

The Junior Wind Orchestra played their first Primary Schools tour performing at Bunbury Primary School, Picton Primary School and Boyanup Primary School. And the Senior Bands continued the Primary Schools Tour performing at South Bunbury Primary School, Dardanup Primary School and Cooinda Primary School. 

Mr Sinagra received an email from South Bunbury Primary School Principal praising the students: 

OzKids National Art Awards

Bunbury SHS art students did exceptionally well to have 3 students as finalists in the recent OzKids National Art Awards. Organisers were impressed by the high calibre standard of our entries as a whole and were outstanding from over 2000 national entries that the judges assessed. There were a lot of Eastern States competitors, and it was highlighted to us that it is rare for one school to have taken out three of the finalist categories.

Congratulations to the following award winners:

• Saoirse Torr "Social Distancing" - Winning the Painting Senior category
• Allie Bourke "Nightingale" - Winning the Computer Art Middle category
• Jessica Macquarie "Jessasaurus" - Winning the Elise Hart Art Award

The work of ATAR and ex-VASP student Saoirse Torr, in particular, attracted a lot of praise. She put hundreds of hours into creating the artwork, and it is a topical commentary about the state of the world in 2020.

Cafeteria Update

The new cafeteria building is nearing completion!

You may notice the exterior is slowly being unveiled with the removal of the scaffolding. And internally, the kitchen tiles are up, flooring has been laid, and the Autex acoustic ceiling panels have been installed.

Student Interview

Jessica Xie Moulton was spending time with her grandparents in China over the Christmas break when a state-imposed lockdown descended on Hubei province to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Meaning Jessica was unable to leave the two-bedroom apartment for months. 

How long were you in lockdown? I went to China in November of 2019, but we didn't go into lockdown until late January. I was in lockdown for 4 months and in China for 6.

What was the process like getting out of China?

What was it like reuniting with your family in Australia?

What did you do while you were in lockdown?

I did actually get enrolled into SIDE (School of Isolation and Distant Education) for a short period and I was doing my learning online with them. Online school was something that I did not enjoy at all, and would not recommend. But I needed to catch up on all the work I missed, and that was the only thing that was available.

On the days where I felt a little happier, I created art. I did everything I could: acrylic painting, watercolour, digital, pencil, whatever art mediums were available to me, I used. I created so many pieces and they were all hung up on the walls of my grandparent's apartment. My art was a way of adding colour to our lives that were pretty grey at the time.

At the beginning of lockdown when things were just starting to get bad, I wanted to do something to help. So I started a fundraiser to draw people in order to raise money for a local hospital that was being bombarded with new COVID-19 patients every day. After about two weeks, I raised a total of ¥10,000 RMB ($2,000 AUD). 

How did art help you through the isolation?

I definitely feel my skills have improved a lot after lockdown, too. If you were to look at my art before I went to China and compare them to my artwork now, you wouldn't even know they were the same person.

Your artwork is currently displayed at the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery as part of the Iluka Visions exhibition, however, you were also asked to speak at the awards night. What was that like? 

Year 12 Important Information

Spotlight on the School Board

Sharna Mason

How long have you have been a member of the school board?

This will be my 5^th year on the school board. In 2016 and 2017 I was a causal member and then in 2018 I was appointed as the staff representative for 3 years.

Are you a former student, current parent?

I am a staff representative.

Current employment, career background?

I am the Program Coordinator of Mathematics at Bunbury SHS.

What is your reason for being a school board member?

I was interested in having an opportunity in working with board members, both community and parent representatives, in the strategic planning for the school.

Paul Lever

Hi Everyone, I was fortunate to be voted onto the BSHS Board in the most recent round of parent elections in July 2020; so have only just commenced my 3 year tenure. My wife (Shona) and I moved to Bunbury in 2002 so I could commence working for what was then known as Millennium Chemicals. I am still there today, as a Senior Scientist, though we are now known as Tronox Pigment Bunbury.  As a parent of two children attending Bunbury Senior High (Erin Y10 and Kai Y7) I wanted to join the board to not only get a better understanding of the running of an Independent High School but also to ensure that the programs that the school is renowned for BEST, VASP and GAT are enhanced. As a scientist I also have a keen interest in the STEM programs.  

Outside of work I love cooking/experimenting in the kitchen but the bulk of my time is taken up with my passion for Track and Field (athletics). I have been President of Bunbury & Districts Little Athletics Centre for the past 6 seasons and when not administrating I am out on the track coaching the next generation of athletes or officiating at local, State and National events.

Communicating with the School

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.