12 December 2019

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Our Centenary year, 2019, has been a big exciting time of celebrations and events. We have seen the introduction of the new QCE system (ATAR replacing OP) and have had a busy time with scheduled School Improvement Unit (SIU) Review and financial audit.

This year has had additional complexity for our teaching staff in navigating the new curriculum and I would like to acknowledge the further work required of them, particularly if teaching composite classes or both year 11 and year 12 subjects in 2019.

While the year has been very eventful I am pleased to be able to report that we have successfully met these challenges and deadlines, and our students continue to perform very highly.

On 6th December 2019 the Courier-Mail and Bulletin carried a story of school performance in NAPLAN. Significantly, Rockhampton State High School has outperformed almost every other Rockhampton schools (including non-government Catholic and independent schools) for the past five years in terms of relative gain (years 7 to 9). Only the Lighthouse Christian School and St Brendan’s College had higher relative gain over this period. Following Rockhampton SHS, Emerald SHS and North Rockhampton SHS were the other top performers.

The two years from Year 7 to Year 9 are critical middle years of schooling and these results show that our students have gained more skills and knowledge in literacy and numeracy over this time compared with other schools. This is a fine achievement and testimony to the great work of our students, staff and parents.

Our SIU Review summary is available on the school website and includes a number of commendations. The reviewers reported very positively on our high expectations, well-established routines, partnerships, collegial engagement, curriculum and pedagogy.

Rockhampton SHS numbers continue to grow and we look forward to an exciting 2020 with over 230 year 6 students enrolled.

On behalf of our staff, we wish our school community a safe, fun and relaxing festive season and wonderful start to the new year!

Kind regards
Kirsten Dwyer

Important Dates

Clever Coders

Robots and coding: Year 7 students study coding using Python. Some outstanding projects were developed by students who had not previously experienced Python as a programming language. They analysed problems and worked on solutions through the development of flowcharts, pseudocode, coding with Python, testing and debugging.

They certainly appreciated the magnitude of coding for robots after developing their own code for a variety of scenarios and acknowledged that team effort is sometimes required. Computing and Programming can be studied again in Year 9, 10 and in senior. The future for coders looks promising and we will be seeing our students applying their coding skills in the workplace in the future.

Students can participate online in Hour of Code activities during the summer holidays.

Mrs S Buchholz
HOD Business & Digital Technologies

It’s been a massive year for the EXCEL Program at Rockhampton State High School! Over 130 students were part of the Program throughout 2019 and as you will see from reading their summaries below, it has been a busy year of learning with just a touch of fun!

7 EXCEL English

2019 has been a big year, with students starting their high school experience by analysing songs (and realising that certain songs would never sound the same again!). During the Motivational Speech unit, students had a week long debate to determine if Bindi Irwin had plagiarised Severn Suzuki, and these debate skills carried nicely into the Ned Kelly unit, where they determined if Ned Kelly was a hero or a villain. To wrap up their first year in high school, the 7s have been analysing advertisements – and realising just how manipulative they can be.

8 EXCEL English

This year 8 EXCEL English students completed a range of assessment tasks from creative Frankenstein Monologues to the analysis of novels and news media articles. This last unit has helped our students become more aware of the delivery of news and its credibility. We also enjoyed a reading program where students borrowed a library book every two weeks to encourage reading at home. Students became keen to discuss what they had read, and gave each other advice on what was a good book to read. It was great to see the students share their knowledge.

7 EXCEL Science

… AND THAT’S A WRAP!

What a privilege it has been to teach such a caring and intuitive group of future leaders. This year, 7 EXCEL science has jumped at every opportunity that has been presented to them. We have met with different scientists this year from a range of backgrounds such as astrophysicists, marine biologists, macro-invertebrate scientists and coral experts. We have conquered microscopes, questioned Newton’s laws when our parachutes went up instead of down and dabbled in some citizen science on North Keppel Island EEC surveying coral. What better way to reminisce about `the year that was’ than to hear from our students. – Mr Holloway

Eva Rout – “A memorable moment from this year’s science was the space dome in the sports centre. We were able to learn more about space and the moon landing, as well as the other incidents in space that are not as well known. Not only that, but we got to enter a giant dome, which projected the different constellations in space. The projections were in real time and perfectly captured the different stars. It was interesting, educational, and really memorable”.

Mackenzie Whatuira – “A memorable moment in this year’s unit of science with Mr Holloway that I remember fondly was our excursion to the Kershaw Gardens. It was extremely engaging and exciting to learn and discuss the macroinvertebrates that were right at out fingertips. It was amazing to imagine an entire ecosystem that was not visible to us. I thoroughly enjoyed identifying the different organisms in the river’s water sample that our guides collected for us. It was delightful to learn about how the variety of organisms can determine the quality of water. Another thing I enjoyed was, of course, the pizza. Thank you again for providing that for us Mr Holloway and thank you for making this year’s science both fun and insightful. I appreciate it greatly”.

Alexander Nouwens – “From tiny parachutes, to marshmallow catapults, there have been plenty of interesting things we have made and done to improve our learning in the year 7 science EXCEL class. One of the most recent opportunities we took advantage of was going to a nearby creek to talk to a water bug expert. Due to water bugs having a key role in the ecosystem, it helped us gain a higher knowledge of ecosystems and food webs, which was what our assessment was about”.

8 EXCEL Science

The Year 8 class has had an amazing year together – from guest speakers to excursions, immersions and camps – they have had a big year! If there was to be a favourite concept to study it would probably be a tie between studying energy through making solar ovens (and eating the outcomes!) and investigating cells and organ placement in mammals.

9 EXCEL Science

The year 9 EXCEL class has been presented with a number of engaging and extension opportunities. Everything from designing sustainable housing, making volcanoes, coming up with their own innovative vaccine development and conducting a number of dissections linking to their body systems unit. As their final avenue of study, the students have been designing, modifying and conducting an experiment to determine the most suitable chemical reaction for a `Heat and Eat’ meal.

10 EXCEL Science

This year’s Yr 10 extension science class took part in a wide range of activities to complement their learning in class. Activities provided by organisations external to the school included Questacon, Surfing Scientist and a field trip to the Capricorn Caves.

Students also undertook a range of activities in class such as:

• investigating Newton’s laws of motion with design and testing of parachutes and catapults
• conducting numerous experiments investigating the properties of chemicals and chemical reactions
• extracting DNA from a variety of fruits.

Almost all students improved their academic achievement in Science from last year. Students now have a good working knowledge of the three disciplines of Science – Biology, Chemistry and Physics and should be well prepared for Year 11 as they commence their senior studies in Science.

7 EXCEL Mathematics

Year 7 EXCEL Math have been an engaged and enthusiastic group of students who have had opportunities to engage with both extra-curricular and extension activities. Selected students were invited to participate in the annual Math Team Challenge competition where they faced off against increasingly complex problem-solving questions. Students also completed the ICAS competition, with special mention to Nate and Jack for receiving a Credit in this. Throughout the year, students have been challenged to improve the speed of their mental math and have learnt to solve more complex algebra questions.

9 EXCEL Mathematics

The class produced various 3-D prisms from nets (Measurement) and then used scale to increase the sizes of these 3-D prisms. It gave these students a better perspective of visualising any given net and volume and capacity calculations. They also produced a Clinometer (Trig) from everyday items such as a pen, eraser, string and protractor. They then tested their accuracy against the commercially produced clinometer.

The class used the Mathspace program for Diagnostic Testing, Revision and Homework setting for a duration of 5 days for the entire year, which was very interactive and highly successful in terms of completion.

7 EXCEL Humanities

What a journey! Semester One went from debating the relevance of the Australian preamble, to discovering what life was like for Australian Megabeasts. These giants who once roamed the earth were captured by group dioramas. Ancient Egypt in Semester Two was a class favourite, as a (once frozen) chicken was mummified to recapture the ancient Egyptian practise. The following unit, Geography, had the class on an excursion to Emu Park, where locals were interviewed to determine liveability. To wrap it all up, Water in the World has allowed students to better understand the importance of availability to fresh water.

8 EXCEL Humanities

This year in 8 Humanities EXCEL, students had many group competitions that allowed them to explore challenging concepts in History and Geography. For instance, constructing geographical landforms such as volcanoes and in History they explored The Black Death and built replica castles with working parts. Excursions to Yeppoon and Roslyn Bay also gave the students real life experiences as Geographers in the field.

9 EXCEL Humanities

The Year 9 EXCEL History class has spent Semester Two investigating the Industrial Revolution and World War One. Students have extended their historical knowledge & skills through web quests on significant inventions that change the industrial world, mini inquiry task that examined working conditions of children, and a scavenger hunt at the Central Queensland Military Museum.

Thank you to the teachers of the EXCEL Program for their passion for teaching and providing our students with opportunities for success through challenging activities.

Mrs Sinnamon
EXCEL Coordinator

Term 4 Work Experience

Students at Rockhampton State High School had the opportunity to participate in work experience in Week 8 of Term 4. Students undertook a variety of placements in areas such as hospitality, education, health care, veterinary surgery, animal care, rural and various trades.

One of our students, Taylor Hook, participated in work experience at a veterinary clinic in Tamworth, New South Wales. Tamworth High School was the nearest host school and they were more than happy to support Taylor’s placement.

Piper Street Veterinary Clinic is a successful, organised, professional and well-respected business in Tamworth. They gave Taylor the opportunity to experience the day-to-day role as a veterinarian. Taylor observed several different surgeries involving cats and dogs. She has also assisted with the laundry, washing up of utensils and cleaning out animal cages.

Tamworth High School visited the work placement and reported that Taylor was a great student who represented Rockhampton State High School very well. Piper Street Vets were very impressed with Taylor’s strong work ethic.

Rockhampton State High School would like to thank the following businesses for their generous support of our work experience program in Term 4:

Blue Care Gracemere
Brown & Hurley
Browns Express
Glenlands Stud
Hastings Deering
Headspace.
Piper St Vet Clinic
Renny’s Café
Rockhampton Zoo
Rosenberg Motorcycles
St Joseph’s School Wandal
The Crazy Joker
VCV Rockhampton

Congratulations must also go to the students who took up this opportunity. The feedback from all host employers was very positive.

For further information about work experience or if your business is able to host a student, please don’t hesitate to contact the FEET First program staff on 49 204 391.

Dale Fouracre
FEET First Work Experience Coordinator

Maths matters

Year 10 Paper rockets

The year 10s enjoyed designing, making and testing paper rockets in their Maths class this week. The students had to use limited resources (1 piece of A4 paper) and some creativity to create a paper rocket. The objective was to design a rocket that would fly a maximum horizontal distance. The photos below show the design and testing phase. This culminating activity demonstrated how the Maths learnt throughout the year could be applied in a real life context as students have learnt about parabolic flight paths in term 2. A Video Physics app allowed the videos of flight paths to be analysed and modelled mathematically.

ICAS – Mathematics assessment

The Excel Mathematics classes had the opportunity this year to participate in the ICAS online maths assessment designed to recognise and reward academic excellence. The students who achieved awards are listed below:

Year 7

Credit- Jack Corino & Nate McQuillan

Year 8

Merit - Lachlan Honnery, Shakira Brownlie & Sophie Anderson

Year 9

Merit-Ben Taylor
Distinction- (top 10%) Nhi Nguyen

Jane Taylor-Thompson
HOD Mathematics

Important information about Measles

Measles remains a concern, with cases originating from overseas travellers. The Pacific region (including NZ) is particularly affected, along with many other countries.

With the holiday travel season upon us, please make sure you are fully vaccinated against measles before travelling. The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is free through your doctor or immunisation provider for anyone born during or since 1966 who has not already had two doses. Babies travelling to affected countries can receive MMR vaccine from 6 months of age; however, they still require a dose of measles-containing vaccine at 12 months and another dose at 18 months of age.

For more information visit the Queensland Health website or call 13HEALTH. #vaccinationmatters

Loretta Green
School Based Youth Health Nurse

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