As a school we continue to have new enrolments weekly and the school maintains positive enrolment numbers. We have 205 Year 7’s for 2024. This is evidence of the strong curriculum program and transition activities which ensure students feel welcome to the secondary school.

I want to give a special mention to all the staff and students in the school production of Urinetown. 5 sold out shows. It was just amazing. Being new this year it was great to see the talent on display and all the hard work that staff and students put in to make this a great production. Thanks to Ms Tessa Kirk for her outstanding work and the difference she makes. Well done, Tessa.

At the start of the Term all the staff were focused on ensuring all students are in the correct uniform. While we have 95% of students doing the correct thing there is 1 or 2 who are not following the dress code. I remind parents that Rugby jumpers are now available and that the uniform is being strictly enforced across the school.

On staffing news, we wish Ms Kelly Montano all the best in her new position as Assistant Principal at Newcomb Secondary. Kelly has been a great teacher and staff member and we will miss her greatly, but this is an amazing opportunity for her. As a school we are very lucky compared to many schools in the state, in that all our classes are covered and that we have teachers in place, and we are not experiencing any staff shortages at present. We welcome several new staff this term. Ms Kate Lee who is our Mental Health Practioner, Ms April Hoskin in Art, Ms Ellece Febey in Science, Mr Alex Seaman in Maths and Ms Kaitlyn Segrave in Reception and returning from leave is Ms Rebecca Breed in Humanities.

This term has already been a very busy one with students in Year 8, 9, 10 and 11 selecting courses for 2024. Thanks to Ms Cameron, Ms Gee and Ms Garcia for organising all of this and how smoothly this runs.

A number of parents will have been sent our Parent Survey. I encourage those parents who have been randomly selected to complete this survey. It is anonymous and provides the school with areas we can improve upon.

Just a reminder for the school community our next Pupil Free Day is the Thursday 31^st of August.

Congratulations to 2022 Year 12 student Chloe Hamann who has received a Premier's VCE Award for excellence in Laboratory Skills (VCE VET). Premier's Awards are presented to students in recognition of their excellent results in their VCE VET study. Students who receive this award have achieved the highest result in their study score for their subject. Geelong High School is very proud of Chloe's achievement. We wish her well in her university studies at Swinburne University where she is studying a Bachelor of Science with a major in Chemistry. We are sure the future is bright for Chloe.

In Week Six of this term, we will be celebrating Science Week at GHS. The science team have been working hard to put together a week full of fun, science-based activities that we hope will promote and celebrate SCIENCE!

Here is an outline of the activities that will take place during Science Week 14^th-18^th August.

Monday:
Solid fuel rocket launch (On the Back Oval - Lunch time)

Tuesday:
HOUSE COMPETITION: Escape Room Challenge (Hall - Homegroup)

Wednesday:
Science Movie (Lightyear) Part 1 (Atrium Lunch – rated PG)

Thursday:
Science Movie (Lightyear) Part 2 (Atrium Lunch – rated PG)

Friday:
Year Nine performance AI Academy (Hall - Period 1 and 2)
AI is the future of STEM!
It’s never been more important to be knowledgeable on what makes AI accessible to us all, from coding to innovation to technology. The more we know about how powerful AI can be, the more we can solve problems in everyday life. Becoming familiar with AI innovation in industry and science, as well as its (sometimes unintended) consequences, will make students better prepared for the advances in technology, and the ways in which STEM is leading our future study and career pathways. AI Academy celebrates the 2023 National Science Week school theme Innovation: Powering Future Industries. Student audience and volunteers become part of the action and are encouraged to offer suggestions that the actor will incorporate. The result is that students get to have input in the show, while watching and learning!

Science Fair (Hall - Lunch time) activities include:

• Science photobooth
• Hold a snake (Xander) experience & photo
• Guess how many cells in the picture
• Mr Brown’s pendulum experiment
• Make your own Science badge
• Guess what’s under the microscope

Our biggest year yet, with 56 students joining the production in 2023, I certainly had my work cut out for me in negotiating how I would get everybody onto the stage. But we did it!! Production camp went ahead again this year and is becoming quite a tradition as the students come together for a two-day rehearsal intensive. I also got to work alongside two amazing teachers this year, Jamie Long (music/vocal director) and Lauren Albrecht (choreography) who brought a whole new skill set and energy to the rehearsal process.

I am so proud to be a teacher and director here at Geelong High School. The students make a semester-long commitment that is like no other and rise to every challenge I set for them. While you get to witness the magic of our show, it is only the students that know the hard work involved in getting it to this point. They should be so incredibly proud of where they have been able to take this show.

This year, the production choice was bold, with many turning their heads at the strange title. I wanted the students to explore a different kind of musical this year and get a taste of the different ways Theatre can be presented to an audience. While it is always a form of entertainment, it can also challenge, provoke and get audiences thinking.

Urinetown is a hilarious musical satire of the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, environmental collapse, privatisation of natural resources, bureaucracy, municipal politics, and musical theatre itself! Hilariously funny and touchingly honest, Urinetown provides a fresh perspective on one of America’s greatest art forms.

Congratulations to all involved.

To support their learning of Statistics in Mathematics, our Year 7 students were provided with a FitBit activity tracker from BioLab. Students wore their tracker for most of the school day and BioLab provided each student with a personalised summary of their activity data which included the number of steps taken and their heart rate. Students were then required to interpret their data using the knowledge and skills they had learned throughout the topic of statistics and collated their findings into a poster.

This activity provided students with the opportunity to reflect on how data can be used to represent change over time, such as the change in steps or heart rate during the day. Students were able to identify their most active time of day from reading the information presented in the line graphs and could interpret the visual representation of data in the pie graph to understand what proportion of their time was spent active or inactive. Understanding and interpreting data is an important skill that we help students to develop as we prepare students for life (Vitae Nos Parat). Thank you to Paige McQueen, Marli Vardy and Ivory Sansom for sharing their FitBit posters and thank you to BioLab for providing the activity trackers. Engaging activities such as these develop strong numeracy skills and support our students in understanding the many ways in which mathematics can be used outside of the classroom.

Did you know all our Year 11 and Year 12 VCE Vocational Major students complete a Work Placement every Tuesday? Students learn in class how to find and approach potential employers for their Structured Workplace Learning Work Placements, which includes how to make a phone call, leave a voice message, go in person as well as email.

Whilst on their SWL placements, they put the skills learnt in VET to practice on their placements where they build confidence and how to work safely. This year we again have a wide range of industries represented by our students in areas such as diesel mechanic, community services, child care and early learning, carpentry and animal care. Well done to all our student's efforts so far this year.

The Year 11 Outdoor Environmental Studies class trekked the 11kms around the Currawong Falls Circuit, near Aireys Inlet. The perfect hiking weather made up for the trickle of water down some rocks on arrival at Currawong Falls. The flora continued to change throughout the circuit with different large patches of natives grouped together, thriving in the ideal environment.

The awesome, energetic group students had time for a brief visit to the Aireys Inlet lighthouse before a snooze was enjoyed by most on the way back to school.

As part of their study of Statistics, the Year 10 Core and Advanced Maths students attended the Inner Sanctum program at BioLab in Belmont. Inner Sanctum demonstrates the various techniques used by sports psychologists to train athletes and the materials used to monitor and improve stress responses, such as Batak, FitLights and FitBits.

Once students completed the various BioLab tasks, they organised, analysed and represented their own quantitative data. This was a great hands-on experience which our skilled maths teachers were able to relate to their studies in the classroom. Mr. Allitt, Mr. D’Offay, Mr. Kearney, Mr. Kilfoyle and Mr. Timmers assisted students in collating class data with the use of technology and taught students how to use excel to create boxplots, stem and leaf plots, scatterplots and back-to-back column graphs. Students were able to draw conclusions and make generalisations supported by their data displays.

These rich learning experiences expose students to the relevance of mathematics outside of the classroom and we thank BioLab for providing us with the opportunity to engage students with real-world experiences which prepare them for life (Vitae Nos Parat).

Our Year 11 and 12 VCE VM students are out all week on a Geelong Tech School program called AgriTech to learn about social enterprise businesses, agriculture, and use new technology to create solutions.

It is going to be a fun and educational week!

If you are concerned about your child’s attendance or behaviour, please contact us on 5225 4100 or geelong.hs@education.vic.gov.au

Children’s Book week designs are already up and bright in the library. This year’s theme is 'Read, Grow, Inspire,' and it promises to be a week filled with joy, inspiration, and boundless imagination.

The theme, beautifully brought to life by the talented illustrator Matt Ottley, features a striking flying hero seahorse carrying young readers through a limitless, sunlit space, symbolising the endless possibilities that come with reading and exploring the world of books.

The library will be hosting a variety of activities during lunch time, make sure to pop in to read, grow and inspire other.

Year 9 and 10 girls proudly represented the school at the Western Metro Finals today at Keilor Park. Although we didn’t make it through to the next round, all the players put in a great effort and demonstrated terrific teamwork and positivity.

Our Year 9s had a great day out at the Term 3 BE BOLD BE HEARD Girls Forum at GMHBA stadium yesterday. We were excited to welcome some new Year 9 students to our team who embraced this amazing opportunity!

Such a great day of collaboration, inspirational presentations, and learning how to develop and build our voice, agency and leadership! Keep an eye out for what they have organised for later in Term 3, with a staff & students, House v House netball tournament!

James Elliot and Harry Jones were invited to take part in the Geelong ‘Come Together’ Songwriters Seminar presented by APRA and Freeza. Selected to represent Geelong High School, these students spent two days working with some of Australia’s finest producers to write, produce and record a brand new song.

Joined by other schools Harry and James proved to be a hugely popular duo and left the mentors truly impressed with their ability both to write music and also their professionalism. The boys were even asked to assist in the production of another schools song. This was a fantastic activity for two of our school leaders and they should be congratulated on the way that they represented Geelong High School.

As a part of the program James and Harry will perform at the upcoming ‘Come Together’ music concert in Queenscliff on Sept 10th. Some tickets will be available closer to the date and if successful this performance could also lead to a gig at the upcoming Queensliff Music Festival.

Nine of our excellent students joined students from schools across Geelong to take part in the Scholar’s Cup, an international competition that combines intellectual achievement and a good sense of fun. This was held on Monday, August 7, and Tuesday, August 8, at Kardinia International College.

Working in three teams, they took part in a group writing project, three separate debates, and an extensive multiple-choice activity. Thanks, and well done to Matt Aidt, Madi Burns, Arthur Dahlstrom, Abbey Davies, Sandy Khun, Annabelle Lane, Nita-Lee Makai, Charlie Maskell and Ben Ross for being terrific examples of our wonderful students.

Our library is a place where our students come to read, relax, dream, grow and socialise.

Join us every Wednesday lunch time as we make use engage in different crafts.

🏐🏆 Big Congratulations to our incredible Year 7 Mixed Volleyball team! 🎉🥇 They've smashed it and brought home the Geelong Schools Year 7 Boys Division Title 🏅✨.

A massive shoutout to each player for their outstanding teamwork and dedication. 🤝👏 You've showcased exceptional sportsmanship and truly deserved this victory. Let's celebrate their hard work and unity on the court! 🙌🎉

We had 3 students who took part in the trials for the Victorian Cross Country Team! Congratulations to the three boys that ran - Archie Harper, Leo Strazadala and Angus Baker.
All boys ran very well, with Angus making the state team. This is a fantastic achievement and he needs to very proud of his results.

Coming up in the next few weeks we have Year 7 and 8 team sports. We wish them all the best!

A big thank you to Greg and the team at East Fruit Market for their ongoing donation of fresh fruit to GHS students.

We are grateful for your ongoing support and community focus.

Three of our wonderful students - Isabelle Ambrose, Amalaini Nacagilevu, and Ruby Barker faced off against their undefeated opponents from Geelong Grammar on Thursday. Our star performers were arguing against the proposition that children should be banned from being influencers.

Both sides put in a stunning performance, however sadly, we lost to our opponents. Both Amalaini and Isabelle have made dramatic improvements in their debating performance this year, and Ruby made a stunning debut in her first-ever debate. The adjudicator commented that if she had an award for best monologue, she would have presented it to Isabelle for her performance.

While there will not be any more inter-school debates for us until 2024, students who are interested in getting debating experience should contact Mr O’Meara. There will be opportunity to debate in-school and not in front of an audience, too.

This year the library will be participating in the Premier’s Reading Challenge, the challenge is open to year levels 7 to 10. They must read a total of 15 books. We have some titles in easy read and dyslexic fonts. The challenge promotes and improves literacy levels, language skills and enhances imagination and creativity among students. Additionally, the program offers rewards and incentives for participants, (certificates and medals) to recognise their reading achievements and motivate them to keep reading. It’s not too late to join in, we have 14 students already signed in and enjoying the challenge.

The library also provides access to online databases such as Britannica schools, The Age and Echo. These can be accessed from the LRC’s page.

Performing works by Bach, Gustave Holst, John Williams, Hans Zimmer and more.

4^th September 2023

7pm - Love Hall

Gold coin donation at the door