PRINCIPAL: Mrs Leesa Daly
DEPUTY PRINCIPAL: Mr Christopher Payne
Term 3 is done and dusted.
Congratulations are extended to our 45 Year 12 Students who have officially completed their last teaching and learning day at Cootamundra High School today, Friday 23rd September. It was lovely to be able to celebrate this important milestone with you and your families at your Farewell Assembly and luncheon. Thanks, is extended to Yvette Newman, Raleigh Hoey and Mr Speering’s Year 11 Hospitality class for planning, preparing and serving the well-received lunch. Much appreciated.
We wish Year 12 all the best has they spend the next couple of weeks preparing for the final HSC examinations which commence on Wednesday 12th October (Week 1, Term 4). We look forward to celebrating the conclusion of their secondary studies at their Formal on Wednesday 9th November (Week 5, Term 4).
A special thank you is extended to Ms McTavish and Mrs O’Loughlin who organised an awesome end of Year 12 excursion to Canberra in week 10. By all accounts, the students who participated, had a wonderful time. It has also been lovely to see the staff and Year 12 students involved in a number of rival sporting activities over the past couple of weeks. From my observations, I am pretty sure staff were the overall winners in both the Netball and Volleyball clashes!!!
It is with a great deal of pleasure that I announce our recently elected, new School Captains, who will take up their roles immediately. They will be formally inducted early in 2023: School Captains are Kyle Collins and Jen Newing with the Vice-Captain being, Will Ellis. Congratulations to you all. I look forward to working alongside you in the coming months.
The SRC have recently hosted a number of fabulous whole school events starting with R U Ok day. I had the pleasure of cooking breakfast bacon and egg rolls for students and staff with the SRC running some great activities during recess and lunchtime. SRC have hosted a Footy Colours Day raising funds to support kids and families living with cancer. They raised $182.50. They also conducted a fundraising event for kids in foster care with a wear your Pyjama’s Day. They raised $156. Well done to the SRC and thank you to all the students who got involved and contributed to the gold coin donations.
CHS staff cannot believe the enormous and almost instantaneous positive effect that the Yondr Pouches have had on our student’s engagement in the classrooms and the positive social skills that are so evident in our playground now. Student feedback has been mostly, incredibly positive as well. Our success has been recognised across the Riverina with a number of schools contacting us for support as they too look to implement change regarding mobile phone usage in their schools.
It is nice to have students being able to reengage with our outside organisations again. Miss Longmore and Ms Boatswain have enjoyed taking their dance troupe and visual art students over to the Cootamundra Residential Aged Care facility in recent weeks to connect with our older folk. The benefits for all parties involved is significant. Students have also had the opportunity to participate in a number of programs this term to support their Mental Health and Wellbeing including the Police Boxing and Breakfast program, Project Rocket and Life Choices. Murray Izzard is doing an amazing job conducting weekly digeridoo workshops with a number of our students while Aunty Elaine Lomas is honing the vocal skills of our GCoS students in preparation for our Proud and Deadly Award assembly in term 4.
Mr Perry and Miss Jenkins braved the cold, wet conditions to take a bus load of enthusiastic Outdoor Education students on a 3-day, 2-night hike of the Hume and Hovell Track. Under challenging conditions, the students worked together to ensure that the whole team successfully completed the hike. Tired, smelly, but totally engaged kids returned safely home. All enjoyed the experience and were grateful to be able to have hot showers and warm beds to sleep in when they got home. This is another example of my staff going above and beyond for our kids.
It was lovely to see some familiar and new faces at our Community Breakfast in week 9. Thank you to Ms Lonnen and her team for cooking up a storm on the day. Food and coffee were excellent, the sun was shining and people and students were happy. Great work.
Thank you to parents for returning the new junior shirt order forms in such a timely manner.
Have a well-deserved term break everyone. See you all back on deck on Monday 10th October (week A on your timetable).
With Regards
Mrs Leesa Daly
