21 April 2017

Newsletter Articles

Executive Principals Report

Dear Parents and Friends

It is hard to believe that we are now at the beginning of Term 2. Our staff and students certainly deserved a well-earned break after 10 weeks of hard work and dealing with the heat conditions. Our term came to an abrupt holt with the extreme weather conditions resulting in a few calendar changes for the start of this term. Thank you to all parents for your cooperation in the last two days and for responding so promptly to the school closure situation. This enabled us to have every student home before the conditions became more extreme.

Student Success

On Sunday 12 March, Mitchell May participated in the Regional Finals of the Lions Youth of the Year and was awarded the best speaker award. In our last newsletter we reported that Mitchell was awarded overall winner for the District competition, which qualified him to represent the district at the Regional Finals. We are very proud of Mitchell’s success and the way in which he presented against some very tough competition. Corinda shines and exceeded all expectations! What an achievement!

Year 7 Badge Ceremony

This year we introduced a new tradition. On the last Wednesday of Term 1, we held a special ceremony where we presented year 7 students with their school badge as an official welcome to high school. We also inducted year 7 leaders and form captains. This is the bookend of graduation and will give symbolic significance to the meaning of the badge and the wearing of it with their uniform. We are trying to make this a special event and all parents were invited to attend. Following this, Parents were invited to the students’ classrooms, where they shared their stories of their learning in year 7 to date.

Thank you to the parents who joined us for this very special ceremony.

Open Day – Corinda on show!

It certainly was a significant event for our school and our school presented very well in all areas. It was great to see our students and parents supporting us on the day by assisting with stalls and demonstrations. Great sense of community all round. Thank you!

Helen Jamieson
Executive Principal

Coming Events

Open Classrooms - Free tutoring

Every Monday to Thursday 3-4 pm in the air-conditioned comfort of the library. Expert help for assignments and assessment. Each day offers a different tutor for each subject area:

Deputy Principals Report

INSPIRING OUR FUTURE LEADERS

Late in 2016, Corinda SHS Principal Ms. Helen Jamieson was introduced to Laurus Consulting, a key influencer in the Queensland educational leadership landscape. After learning of Laurus’ success from nearly a decade of designing and developing leadership growth programs for current and aspiring school principals, school councils and boards, principals, executive leaders and students of all ages, Ms. Jamieson identified a unique opportunity for Corinda SHS.

Laurus has the capacity to adapt its leadership programs to be relevant at all levels of a school using a single leadership language. Corinda SHS has now engaged Laurus to work initially with the Executive Leadership Team and with all student leaders at all year levels in 2017. Late in February Laurus inspired our Year 12 student executive and prepared them to effectively engage all other student leaders in Years 11, 10, 9 and 8. Over two days, student leaders built connections across all year levels and opened the lines of communication to start the all-important leadership dialogue. Students engaged in fun and playful activities which helped to establish trust based relationships and, as a whole leadership team, they created a vision for Corinda SHS in 2017. The two days finished on a high note with all Year 12 student executive leaders making a personal commitment to leaving an extraordinary legacy for their eventual successors.

While Laurus will continue to work with the staff throughout the year, the Year 11 cohort will join Laurus for an action packed two-day student leadership conference that is guaranteed to inspire them to aspire to achieving extraordinary things in their own lives and for their school.

International Women’s Day 2017

Celebrated on 8 March each year, this year the theme for IWD was to #BeBoldForChange to help forge a better working world; a more inclusive, gender equal world. To this end we held a Celebrating Women’s Forum during break time and an excited group of young ladies and teachers listened to three highly accomplished and successful women share their stories. Rebecca Hardwood the Founding Partner of Event Management Solutions Australia organises many high profile events across Australia including the International Women’s Day Fun Run, Mother’s Day Classic Fun Run, the Brissie to the Bay Bike Ride and the Sunday Mail Bridge to Brisbane event. Two of our Queensland Firebirds also shared their stories; Gretel Tippett and Kate Shimmin. All three of the ladies talked about how they had persisted and worked hard to achieve their goals. They all stressed the importance of taking calculated risks and not being afraid of failure, and that setbacks are all part of the journey to success. How inspirational these women are!

Kathy Fortescue
Deputy Principal

Student Services News

Calling all 2016 Year 12 students

Throughout your high school career, you made have made use of the Roll Room’s stock of spare used uniforms for emergencies.

Now that you no longer require them, please give some thought to donating your old uniforms to the Roll room for other students to use.

We are especially requiring more sports shorts and boys formal shorts.

Your Digital File-Supporting Students to Drive their Future

Safety on the roads. Safety online.

Your Digital File is working with Corinda State High School, offering a community program Supporting Students to Drive their Future, providing students with access to a brand new vehicle and supervisor to increase their learner driving hours. Tuesday 7 March saw the start of the program and bookings are starting to come in.

Your Digital File is an easy to use, highly secure online file storage that will make you more productive.

• Store & access your files anywhere - desktop or mobile.
• Easily & securely, share your files.
• Effortless file security that you have control over.
• Send & receive files that can be signed with a single click.
• From $1 per month for personal accounts and $5 per month for business accounts.

For more information regarding Your Digital File and the community program visit:

IT & BYOD News

As a reminder, all students need to have a laptop at school every day from 1 March 2017. As of this date, teachers will be recording and following up with students and families in the same way as if they did not have a pen or book available for class. We ask that students:

• Make sure they save their work in multiple places to avoid losing work.
• If you save everything on your device, you run this risk of losing your work if your computer crashes, it needs to be wiped, you lose your device or you leave it at home.
• Use a USBs and external hard drives as an additional backup device.
• Use two hands and watch where you are going when you are walking with your laptop from one place to another - it is very easy to drop your computer
• Keep your bag with you always when travelling on public transport

Thanks for your ongoing support of the program.

Humanities News

Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council

Hi, my name is Anna Guevarra- Adams, and I am the 2017 Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council (LMYAC) representative for the Oxley and Corinda community. My role as LMYAC is to talk about ways that we can connect people with Brisbane city, even if it is infrastructures, transport, events, and facilities. The LMYAC is a program that helps young people develop their leadership skills, and lets students take part in making decisions for the city together.

Our first introductory workshop was amazing. At first, I was quite shy to make friends and it was a bit awkward, but then a nice girl named Brooke came over to introduce herself and her friend Abi. Gradually my friendships with just that one person grew bigger and bigger. After mingling with everyone, we all started to talk about ‘How we could improve the city and how to make people connect with the city’. There were so many ideas flowing into my head. Everyone’s ideas where very unique and would be every useful in the future when we learn more about the city. As we got to the middle of the day Rachel from High Resolves came in to talk to us about effective leadership, I remembered High resolves because I participated in the program in year 8 and 9. Therefore, I had a pretty good idea what I was in for. In groups we would separately go to one side of the room and look at a picture, that picture would be a small part of the full object. Each team member would then have to go back to the group describe and draw what we saw. Then with all of the objects drawn we would decide as a team what the full object was.

I felt like my team went very well in that activity, because we all communicated and I thought that we worked as a successful team. I am really excited for our next meeting, which is at City Hall with the Lord Mayor. The next meeting we are talking about the transport because not only do I see my friends again, but also to also talk about more connection people can have with the city.

Legal Studies – National Convention

Congratulations to year 12 student Didi Mulligan who last term represented Queensland at the National Schools Constitutional Convention in Canberra. Didi was one of 120 students from across the nation who assembled to discuss recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution. Didi won this all-expenses-paid trip after placing 1st at last year’s Queensland convention.

While in Canberra, Didi visited Parliament House, the High Court, Government House and the National Archives. She met with representatives of all the branches of government and international embassies. We are sure that these amazing experiences will be of great benefit to her as she continues to succeed in Legal Studies.

Languages News

Chinese Classes for Primary Students

WHAT: “Chinese Language and Culture” is a new and exciting course being offered to primary school students. The course will focus on introductory Chinese language but will have culture embedded in the lessons.
WHO: Open to any interested Year 5 and 6 students
WHEN: Terms 2, 3 and 4 (Weeks 2-9 inclusive) 2017 Wednesday Afternoons 3.30 – 4.30
WHERE: Corinda State High School Room G05
COST: $60 for 3 terms (a small snack will be provided each afternoon)
CONTACT: Erin Clare, Gifted and Talented Coordinator,
Corinda State High School
Email: echud0@eq.edu.au
Ph: 07 3379 0225

Junior Science News

Year 8 Science and Mathematics Excellence Class

On 16 March, approximately 30 students from the Year 8 Science and Mathematics Excellence Class had the inspiring opportunity to work with a scientist from the real world. Julian Long from Origin Energy kindly gave up some of his time to work with students in refining an investigation question to test in the laboratory.

We are very fortunate to have world-class engagement opportunities with scientists and researchers as part of the Scientists-in-Schools Program.

Thanks must go to Mr Andrew Grevell who does a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure that these students have access to exceptional opportunities such as this.

The students learnt that there is lots to consider when embarking on an experimental investigation. There are often a number of variables to consider, risks to be aware of and manage and research to be done beforehand so the experimental method can be valid and reliable.

I cannot wait to hear about some of the investigations that students choose to explore as a result of this opportunity.

A truly influential and encouraging experience!

Amy Scott-Preimonas
Heads of Department – Junior Secondary Science

Gifted and Talented News

On Wednesday the 8th of March, Corinda SHS hosted another brilliant Golden Opportunity Learning Day for primary school students from our feeder schools. Tracey Hall, Samantha Kratzmann, Ben Parr and Jess Pearce led 14 students from eight different primary schools as they participated in a whole day workshop focussing on Humanities skills. Students completed an Archaeological dig, participated in a field walk, visited our farm, tested local water sources for Turbidity and Conductivity using state of the art testing equipment, and collated data they collected using Scribble Maps.

These fantastic kids worked very hard all day and loved being part of high school for the day.

We also wish to acknowledge the Corinda SHS students who welcomed and assisted these students on the day – thank you for showing our wider community that you, our students, are by far our greatest asset.

If you have little ones in Year 4 / 5 or 6, keep an eye out in this newsletter or contact Erin Clare for details of our next event.

Erin Clare
Gifted and Talented Program Coordinator
email: echudo@eq.edu.au

Parent Teacher Interviews

A reminder that Parent / Teacher / Student interviews are scheduled for next week, Wednesday 26 April, held in the Assembly Hall.

Classes will end at 1:00 pm and interviews will commence at 2:00 pm. The Resource Centre will be open to students who need to wait at school to meet parents or are not able to make alternate arrangements to get home. Buses will run as usual after 3:00 pm.

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