PRINCIPAL: Mrs Leesa Daly
REL. DEPUTY PRINCIPAL: Mr Alasdair Sides
It is great to be back having spent 2023 travelling around our big, beautiful country.
I extend a warm welcome to our new students, particularly Year 7, and their families. It was lovely to meet our mums and dads and carers at our recent Year 7 BBQ. Thank you to Year Advisor, Mrs Callaghan and her team of helpers for hosting this event.
We welcome a number of new staff to the school this year including: Mrs Sharon Cattle (Provisional School Psychologist), Mrs Debbie Roxbourgh (TAS), Mrs Rebecca Glover (Inclusive Education), Miss Rebecca Burns (Science), Mr Luke Dowel (IT Technician), Mr Mark Forsyth (Music), Trysta Willoughby (Music) and Miss Libby Hartshorn (Inclusive Education). We appreciate the expertise that each of these staff members bring to our team and the wonderful learning opportunities they are providing to or students.
Our school congratulates Mrs Heather Beddie (English) and Mrs Amanda Mugridge (SAM-School Administration Manager) on receiving their 20 Year Service Certificates at the beginning of the year. The depth and breadth of knowledge they bring to their chosen fields is awesome and the positive impacts on student learning and smooth school operations is appreciated.
We are very excited to have two of our staff members, Mrs Donna Watson (School Administration Officer) and Mrs Sam O’Loughlin (School Learning Support Officer) successfully apply for and be accepted into the Grow Your Own – Teacher Training Program. The school will support them with their university studies and on the job training in the classrooms. When they complete their studies, we will have a new Science Teacher and TAS teacher.
Our students have had some fabulous opportunities to participate in some amazing school and community events already this year including our super whole school swimming carnival, the combined schools Beach Volleyball competition, University of Wollongong Discovery Day excursion and numerous extra curricula sport excursions. I am grateful to the staff who go above and beyond to provide these opportunities to our students.
I am enjoying seeing our students dressed so smartly in the new junior every day and sport school uniforms. I am aware that an issue in the production of the everyday shirts occurred resulting in the collars fading. The company has sent new shirts to replace all previous shirts. Front office ladies will be in contact with our families to organise an exchange of these shirts in the coming weeks.
It has been a pleasure walking around the school and observing the learning and engagement that is occurring in our classrooms. Our senior Hospitality students are ensuring staff wellbeing is high with them providing lovely coffee and freshly baked goodies to staff every Wednesday; Mrs Roxborough and Ms Willougby’s Food Technology classes continue to have our taste buds salivating with the smells of Quiche Lorraine filling the corridors. Great to hear the tunes coming out of our music room and the considered conversations that are taking place in classrooms across all KLA’s.
Youth Outreach Worker, Mr Alex Tobin, continues to host the CHS Radio Breakfast show every morning with song request filling the airways whilst students and staff enjoy the scrumptious food being served up by our fabulous Breakfast Club team. Wellbeing is front at centre at CHS with Wotz On weekly guides to fun and wellbeing opportunities being visible to all around the school.
The Resilience Project (TRP) continues to be a wellbeing focus at the school, modelling Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness. Explicit instruction is being provided to our students 3 times a week and is having a powerful and positive influence on the way our students are behaving and interacting with one another. We hope to see many parents/carers accessing the online TRP in Action session which is being hosted at 6:30pm next Wednesday 13th March. See our Facebook page and Parent Portal for registration details.
We have several students heading off to Sydney for a Youth Leadership Conference soon and a Variety Night is in the early stages of planning which is very exciting. We look forward to continuing the strong relationship with the Cootamundra AECG with awesome plans for our Reconciliation Walk starting to come together.
Our wonderful P&C are hosting a fundraising event at this weekend’s town Bingo Night. Hope to see plenty of students, staff and families supporting this event on Saturday 9th March-eyes down at 7pm. Thanks to Adam Randall and his team for all their efforts. P&C also ran a food stall at the recent combined schools Beach Volleyball carnival. Well done team. The P&C AGM will be held in the school library on Wednesday 27th March at 6pm straight after Teacher/Parent interviews. It would be great to see more parents and carers getting involved with the P&C team. We have short, structured and very positive meetings and we only do a couple of fundraising events a year.
So much to be grateful for.
With Kind Regards
Leesa Daly
