HouseNews

The first face to face Mother/Child Time and Space evening was greatly enjoyed and appreciated last week for our Year 7 cohort. Our mothers and female mentors used this program and opportunity to take time from their busy lives to be with their child in a facilitated way; with our Year 11 leaders supporting the event too.

And congratulations to our teams who have made semi finals this past week; there were particularly strong results in netball in the Peninsula Cup, to complement continuing netball success at the Saturday competition. And whilst on the topic of sport, it was wonderful to welcome Cameron Peupion back on Campus last week for a brief visit. As you will recall, Cam left us, and Australia, in the middle of 2020 to take up his professional soccer career in the UK with Brighton Hove Albion. Cam was making a brief visit to his family and was joined on the visit by his classmates, Ethan Rogers and Ben Herz who stopped by the Trophy Cabinet to view their pride and joy… the large Peninsula Cup for their 2020 Soccer victory; the culmination for their tight team over six years at Pittwater House. 

Reports will be posted online in the coming days. Whilst families in Years 7 to 10 have been kept up to date through a continuous reporting structure, it is time for all students across our School to take on board the grades, attitudes and comments provided by our Staff. These should form a starting point for families to discuss what has taken place across the semester, and with your child, discuss goals for Semester 2. In turn, these goals will form part of the conversations students will have with their teachers at the start of Term 3. Whilst there are wonderful comments and many fine results, it is always vital that students reset for all that Semester 2 will offer, and challenge.

And now as we cast our minds to the three-week vacation before us, there will be time for deep interactions that the busyness of term time does not allow. For our Junior School parents, let your children pursue their own activities, and ask them lots of questions if they come to you seeking quick responses, let your child do the answering. I would hope there will be time for reading together and of course, lots of outdoors activities. Importantly though, for all students, it is about downtime, a change in the routine and keeping off screens for as long as possible. Being actively engaged with hobbies and pursuing passions, is key. For our Year 12 students, these weeks allow for focus on the forthcoming trials, sustained work on those subjects with portfolios and major works to complete, and for many of you, undertaking extra revision classes. Every Year 12 student must return to School with solid work having been completed.

When students return on Tuesday 12 July, we will be celebrating our 60th birthday in special separate Assemblies for both the Junior School and the Secondary School. And of course, no celebration of our Foundation would be complete without the lauded Foundation Day Relay. Parents are warmly invited to view this event from the Hall Balcony. The Races will begin at 12.15pm.

And I wish our large contingent of skiers heading to Thredbo every success for the competition. Thank you to our Staff who are accompanying the group.

Staff News

I know you will join me in extending gratitude to three members of Staff leaving us at Term’s end.

In the Junior School, Mrs Francis is concluding her contract prior to her family’s move to Queensland. Ms Visser is making an overseas move with her husband and Mr Berecry is returning to his alma mater.

We thank each of these staff members for enriching the lives of their students in their time with us, and wish them every success and happiness.

Reminder Regarding: Edumate Details - Parent Updates

As we move towards migrating to an integrated system early in Term 3, we need to commence work on some areas of data within Edumate.

As of Thursday 17 June, at 3:00pm you will no longer be able to update your details in Edumate until the release of the new system in Term 3.

Semester 1 Academic Reports will be viewable on Edumate as usual.  A Skoolbag notification will be posted when they have been uploaded. We thank you in advance for your assistance and look forward to sharing the new platform with you soon.

The ECC Prepares for Evacuating offsite

Last week the ECC, with the invaluable support of a Safety Team, held an external evacuation rehearsal. Once the Safety Team was in place, the alarm was raised and then it was all systems go! The children were amazingly calm getting to the internal meeting point and then quickly took their place on the guide rope (the staff were perhaps a little more nervous). The gate was opened, we were greeted by our Safety Team and then we were off!  With the support of the ECC Staff, the children then proceeded to the assembly point via Parkes Road and Westmoreland Avenue. It was an incredibly big adventure for everyone and a really great opportunity to discuss what might cause an emergency as well as some road safety ideas.

The ECC Hold a Community Open Day

On Saturday 5 June, the ECC opened its doors for a community open day. It was an incredibly busy morning seeing many families come through the Centre. There were plenty of opportunities for families to have discussions with the educators while the children enjoyed the many activities that were on offer. By far the most popular activity was the Kindifarm with the local fire truck from Dee Why and the sausage sizzle coming in a close 2nd and 3rd. 

In Week 7, the Year 9 Elective History students visited the Police and Justice Museum as part of their unit on Australian Crime and Punishment. Students gained a hands-on experience of crime in early 20th century Sydney and in particular, the investigation and trial of the Pyjama Girl Murder. In 1934, the body of a young woman was discovered in a stormwater drain on the outskirts of the town of Albury, dressed only in her pyjamas. She had been brutally murdered. The case sparked enormous media interest around the world, yet the Pyjama Girl, as she became known, remained unidentified for 10 years. Pittwater House students examined the media coverage and the evidence from the case to try and uncover the killer. To get a real sense of just how much the media and social norms of the time impacted the investigation and trial, students re-enacted parts of the trial in the court room and were shocked to find out just how lightly the murderer was sentenced. 

On Monday 7 June 2021, as part of our school’s Chinese curriculum, students in Years 8-10 studying Mandarin participated in an inspirational and fun-filled cultural incursion. On this day, students enjoyed a variety of authentic activities and workshops such as calligraphy, paper-cutting and lion dance.

In the calligraphy workshop, students were introduced to the invention and elements of calligraphy and learnt to write with a traditional calligraphy brush. As part of the workshop, students wrote a Chinese character of their choice on traditional Doufang Paper. Chinese people often use these to decorate walls, windows and doors as they believe that it may bring good fortune.

During the paper-cutting workshop, students learnt to say the 4 seasons in Chinese and cut out a beautiful 3D-shape of the Chinese character “春 chūn”, which means “Spring”. This is a popular decoration that can be commonly seen during the Chinese Spring Festival.  

In the Lion Dance workshop, students learnt about the story behind the lion dance and were given a professional demonstration of the basic lion dance drum rudiments and dance moves. Students actively engaged in the activity by learning these movements and were given the opportunity to showcase what they had learnt during the session using the lion dance costumes.

The incursion was a great success with positive feedback from staff, parents and students. Following the incursion, many students demonstrated a deeper understanding of the cultural diversity that exists within our society.

During Week 7, Dr Randell Heyman from the Maths and Statistics Faculty at the University of New South Wales came in to give an interactive presentation to selected students in Years 7-10 on the topics of how GPS and encryption works. The idea was to inspire students to see how maths can be applied in everyday life. It was an engaging session which saw students collaborate to solve problems, and then share their ideas with the group. Students also had the opportunity for a question-and-answer session. We thank Dr. Heyman for sharing his valuable time and expertise with the students.

Additionally, 60 students from Years 7 and 8 competed in the Australian History Competition. There were a variety of questions, with the focus on skills and understanding. It provided an interesting, challenging, and rewarding experience for students studying History or Integrated Studies of Humanities. Students who gain the top results in each State will receive medallions. We wish our students good luck for the results!

We also held a virtual heat for the Kids Lit’ Quiz Competition which saw four Year 5 students, and four Year 6 students compete against other schools around Australia to demonstrate their knowledge of literature. There were 100 questions across 10 categories. It was a fun day where students collaborated to compete and share their love of books! The National Final will be held at the NSW State Library. We wish our students well!

At the beginning  of the year I had the pleasure of introducing you to the new members of the 2021 PHPA committee and since then it has been full steam ahead for us, planning events for the year and running our major initiative, the PHPA Clothing Pool.  As we end this first semester, we have already held a hugely successful Mothers' Day event and also achieved a record breaking Terms 1 and 2 in the Clothing Pool. This great momentum makes it easier to let you know that my family and I will be leaving for a new adventure overseas and it is with excitement for the future that I handover the reigns of the PHPA to this new team to build further on the great work that has been done previously, in both raising funds for our School and building a vibrant and thriving parent community that truly reflects the School values. Please continue to support Sheridan, Sam and Nicole as they move forward this year. There is a lot to be done and much to look forward to with the soon to re-open new and improved Clothing Pool, Father's Day Friday and the 60th anniversary celebrations at the end of the year. As always, an ever present reminder for anyone wishing to volunteer their time towards an event or to assist in the Clothing Pool, please email the committee at PHPAvolunteer@tphs.nsw.edu.au with details of your availability and area of interest. With warmest regards, Kate Parsons PHPA Co-President 

Recently in their library lesson, Year 8 Grammar boys were delighted to be given back their copies of ‘Mr Men’ books they had created when they were in Year 6 in the Junior School. The books have been held in the library for  Junior School students to read and enjoy over the last 3 years.

Book Returns

Please ensure that all library and English texts are returned before the end of term. Non-refundable charges will apply for outstanding items.