Volume 4 17 March 2017 - castlehill-h.schools.nsw.gov.au

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Principal’s Message

Volume 4 17 March 2017

Special points of

interest:

International

Women’s Day

Library News

Photography of the

Month

P & C News

Night Work & Traffic

Update on

Showground Rd

Calendar


Telephone: 96344199 Facsimile: 9899 6527 Email: [email protected] Website: www.castlehill-h.schools.nsw.edu.au

The Hawkesbury-Hills Leadership Program provides students from our local area with a unique opportunity to develop skills for their careers, work in their community and develop resilience and perseverance through challenge. Two students selected from our school to participate in this program are Honore Anderson and Andre Leiva, both in Year 12. Established now for a third year, the program has been a tremendous success and would not be possible without support from the broader community and schools. The brainchild of The Hon Dominic Perrottet – the new treasurer and Minister for Industrial Relations and member for Hawkesbury – began with a Kokoda Track experience for participating students and last year saw students travelling to Nyangatjatjara and Kaltulkatjara in the Northern Territory, spending

time in classrooms with Indigenous students refurbishing classrooms. This year’s program will continue this partnership and deepen growing relationships with nearby Uluru communities. In addition to these wonderful experiences, participating students receive mentoring from a range of prominent business and political leaders. The launch of the program will be a

dinner at Clarendon on March 30

where the Premier of NSW The Hon

Gladys Berejiklian and keynote

speaker and patron Sir Angus

Houston former Chief of Defence will

address students and guests,

including parents. Ms Jennifer Dane

and I have pleasure in also attending

to support our students and this

program’s outstanding possibilities.

Hawkesbury-Hills Student Leadership Program

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The annual school athletics carnival will take place on Friday March 24 at the International Sports Park at Rooty Hill. Students will be bussed to and from the venue – and this will apply to all students. This is a terrific venue with professional facilities worthy of international meets. Students love compet-ing on such well - resourced tracks and fields. With enormous support from our student Sports Council, and plenty of sporting prowess from our best

athletes, it is anticipated that the day will be as we have come to expect: one filled with great school

spirit.

Athletics Carnival

International Women’s Day address

I had the great pleasure of being the keynote speaker at this year’s Department of Education International Women’s Day celebration, held at the education building in Bridge Street Sydney. I’ve included my address for those who might be interested. Julia is gone. So is Hillary. I suppose there’s still Angela, Theresa and Beyonce. Though, there is of course Pussy Riot, Pauline and Kim. But there are as well the Leighs, the Anastacias, Michelle of course, Gladys, Rosie. So much gutsy, bold “femaleness” with all of these women.

In 2017 should we be grateful? For, the many female icons of our time – leaders and warriors, the bold and beautiful – have paved the way and are, if nothing else, symbolic representations of change. It’s true that if we were to scratch the surface of any modern-day country, organisation, business, corporation or cultural group, you would find plenty of females sort-of at the top, kind-of at the helm, managing and leading. You’ll find provocateurs, role models, bankers, lawyers, pollies, those with influence and strength sufficient to take your breath away.

And further, if we teleported ourselves back 40 years ago when I first started teaching – when some of you started your careers or, for others perhaps, you were just born – the landscape would have looked very different, would have seemed very different; it was different. It would have been impossible then to imagine 40 years hence that female prime ministers, premiers of states, presidents, CEOs, judges, newsreaders (women’s voices were not “authoritative enough” 40 years ago), rugby league commentators, no less, would have been in such abundance. We know , for example, in education, our field, that the gender divide has narrowed in leadership positions: nearly 44% of secondary principals are female today whereas 10 years ago just 33% were. And encouragingly, 54% of public service senior executive are female, but 10 years ago females were at 35%. That’s a surprise.

I’m fondly reminded that when I was first appointed principal, 17 years ago I was the only female in my cluster of about 15 principals. (Mind you, 12 years prior to that my principal of that school was the only female secondary principal in the region, Metropolitan West as it was known, accounting for hundreds of schools. Miss Ramon was legendary. She scared the living daylights out of the blokeiest of men - and took no prisoners.)

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Athletics Carnival So here we are in 2017. Grateful I am that there has been a change to the gender landscape, but satisfied? Not really. For there is so much more to be done. Without any kind of rancour, cynicism or negativity, I believe that women in the world, in the workforce, in the community – their achievements and voices of and for change – are but mere lights on the Christmas tree. The roots, the trunk, the branches of that tree are very much of the male DNA. When the lights on the tree are inevitably turned off, that tree still stands, as it is, as it always has been. Without systemic, foundational and whole change things just stay the same.

I think the issues around gender equality are now significantly grounded in those things that are not apparent – like the roots of a tree, not seen and not evident. Often invisible, subtle, blindly accepted, deeply ingrained, they’re the tough issues to reform, ones that go to the heart of the matter. Let me explain with a couple of examples.

Tara Moss – so smart, sassy, such a physical presence radiating internal and external beauty – writes about the Bechdel Test, created by American cartoonist and graphic novelist, Alison Bechdel. To pass the test, a movie simply needs to have at least two female characters who talk to each other in some part of the film about anything other than a man. A remarkable number of films fail the test. Moss cites last year’s Best Picture at the Oscars, for example. Out of 9 films nominated for the award, two films only passed the Bechdel Test. The point made by Moss is that gender bias is often unconscious (invisible!) and in the case of the Bechdel test, highlights the fact that the majority of films are still made from the male perspective with male characters telling stories about men’s lives. The Cates, the Meryls, the Nicoles – all high profile and important – are still on the screen but delivering stories driven by men, consciously and unconsciously. Women in the film business are front and centre – but they don’t create the agenda. It stands to reason then that in the Met in London, 97% of artists in the modern art section are male, but 83% of the nudes are female. So it’s not surprising that men’s stories, perspectives – their agenda – reigns.

That’s the issue: for women to get hold of the agenda!

As concerning as this bias is, recent disclosures of what had been hidden for generations is more confronting. It took a female prime minister in this country to finally call a royal commission into the abuse of children in churches and other prominent institutions. This had been deliberately managed - hidden - for so long. What was found, as we now know, was criminal and shocking: hierarchical abuse perpetrated, orchestrated and covered up by men. Did this really happen? Now? By men who were trusted? By people who had a special status? It’s still hard to digest that this did happen and that this was covered up. Just as important as that which is hidden and invisible are two elephants in the room. The first is that eternal chestnut: women and their children. How long have we been bleating on about this one? According to Annabel Crabb, in her book “The Wife Drought” the lack of women determining the agenda and the numbers of women in the higher echelons of elite professions rests more than anything on one simple fact: men have wives or partners who work part time or not at all and take care of the children; women don’t. Having a wife, Crabb argues, is an extraordinary advantage. Is it any wonder that 40% of female MPs are childless? 60% of families with children have a fulltime working father and part - time or stay - at - home mother, while only 3% have the reverse, which means the overwhelming majority of those disadvantaged in this way are women. Well we did know that. Crabb rightly argues that “We’ll remain stuck” unless men step up as participants rather than observers in the struggle to combine parenthood and paid work. And we knew that too.

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But the real shocker, the one that’s in our faces, is the gobsmacking reality – the second elephant in the room– that men’s violence, in particular against women, is still at alarmingly unimaginable rates. Men are 400% more likely to commit an offence intended to cause injury than females. 400%. Further, about 90% of homicides are committed by men and 80% of domestic homicides involve a male perpe-trator and a female victim. We know that a woman is murdered by her partner or ex - partner every week in Australia. And if we think this is shocking, just consider developing nations around the world where the plot is thicker, deeper and darker. 50% of East Timorese women, for example, in a recent survey expected to encounter domestic violence with their partner.

All this, just at the same time as the now president of “the free world” publically referring to a female journalist as “a dog” and privately asserting that grabbing a woman by her genitals was funny, cause for bragging and acceptable. Is it any wonder that nothing really changes with men’s attitudes to women if influential men – and the president of the United States of America is certainly that – say these things?

There is hope. Hope, mind you, won’t change things but it will provide a rallying cry and motivation for our younger women, our Millennials and Gen Ys. Indeed, it is the grandest and most important aspect of the movement; that despite the odds and the barriers, you can feel the momentum for change.

The hope is grounded not in boldness but in patience, something women have in spades. It’s because we’ve juggled many roles through the eons – we’re sharers, nurturers, doers, thinkers, problem solvers, strategists – and we’ve trained ourselves to wait. Patience isn’t sexy. Patience is a blunt instrument. But it provides a platform for wholehearted, deep, lasting satisfaction when achievements are reached. This is why we’re tough and resilient.

There is so much to be optimistic about. I am utterly buoyed by the tech - savvy women who are flocking to astro -physics – not enough

yet, but you can see the difference and feel the energy in this exciting field. And many of them are leading the research;

I am excited by the fact that the majority of graduates in medicine are women and have been for a few years. Many would argue that this is a rightful place for females. (There are some in the room who will remember that you could never find a female doctor!);

I am mesmerized by the freedoms and boldness of so many young women who travel at will, alone, taking on adventures with such abandon, confidence and boldness. That’s freedom for you.

I am encouraged, and not surprised, that our Aboriginal sisters are taking the lead in finding prac-tical ways to counter the many stark, difficult issues around their peo-ple’s lives and futures. These women are not just providing hope - they are providing solutions, necessarily taking up the reins with wisdom and sensitivity;

I like the fact that so many young men – my son included – call them-selves feminists because they want a future for women that is different from the past, one where gender equity is just an ordinary occurrence

I am fascinated by Susan Greenfield’s speculation in her book “Tomorrow’s People” that 100 years from now men will carry and bear children and that both sexes will have an equal role in child raising and the lives of children. I urge you to read her seemingly implausible ideas for the future!

We do have courage. And risks have been taken – hallmarks of boldness, certainly. But it is our abiding patience which has sown the seeds and provides the platform for women to share the world ultimately with men, on an equal footing, without any sense of entitlement or equivocation. Humility is grand. It is an utterly appealing world, one I want to see. Who knows?

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News from the Library

Games Club, Wednesday Lunchtimes

Every Wednesday lunch, up to 40 students meet for Games Club, a place to play classic board and

card games. Students can choose from Chess, Scrabble, Cluedo, Bananagrams (word game), Cards,

Uno, Connect 4 or Battleships.

If you have games that you no longer play at home, please donate them to the Library.

We will accept games that can be played and finished in no more than 30 minutes…so

no Monopoly please. We especially like classic games.

BYOB (Bring Your Own Book) Reading Club

We continue to meet every Friday at lunch in the Cave for BYOB Reading Club. We have

a core group of about 10 students who bring their books and read in the relative peace

of The Cave. Once a term we meet to chat about our books and to recommend books to

each other.

Oliver: My Library

Students can access all of our online resources including e-books, World Book

Online, ANZ Reference Centre, Infobase Science, Infobase History and Infocbase

Health, and much more. All of these resources are accessed via the Oliver Home

page. Most of their research needs can be met in this one place. Students access

Oliver via the Student Portal search tab.

Calling for Games Donations!

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Congratulations to our two winners for Photography of the month. Rachel Postil and

Georgia Flanders of Year 10 both displayed a distinctive and imaginative perspective

when photographing their local environment. Their close inspection of interesting man-

made shapes and patterns in the environment are portrayed in their inspired images.

“Barbed Sky”

Georgia Flanders Year 10

“Barbed Sky” by Georgia Flanders is an

intriguing photograph of barbed wire

loops that seemingly stretch out to cap-

ture patches of sky. The desaturated

tones deliver a strange abstract ambi-

ance to the scene. The oddity of the

wire loops adds elements of curiosity to

this appealing image.

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“Stairs 1” by Rachel Postil is a crea-

tive representation of stairs vertically

positioned with forceful diagonal rail-

ings cutting across the scene. The tex-

tures are rough and gritty with small

smooth areas to add tension. High

contrast is achieved through the use of

natural strong light reflecting off the

metal surfaces. The dynamic compo-

sition of this photograph together with

the unusual perspective creates a visu-

ally vibrant image.

“Stairs 1”

Rachel Postil Year 10

Semester 1 Theme

Something Old, Something New, Something Bold Through and Through

The 2017 Semester 1 competition is open to all students and staff of Castle Hill High

School. Join in the fun and take lots of photographs, think of contrasts in nature such as

new blossoms next to decaying vegetation; an old terrace next to a skyscraper; a rusty

doorhandle and a shiny key; the circle of life…. Brainstorm with your friends and get

photographing!

Entries due: Term 2, Week 5. May 26.

All entries to be A4 size, printed on photo paper, and submitted to Mrs Jones.

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Traffic updates from 6th March on Showground Road

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CALENDAR

Week 8A Monday 20 March Tuesday 21 March Harmony Day Art Express Excursion Wednesday 22 March Assembly Years 7-10 School Fundraising (Band) Year 11 Biology Excursion Mufti Day Thursday 23 March Year 11 Biology Excursion Year 10 Scripture Seminar Friday 24 March Athletics Carnival Week 9B Monday 27 March Year 12 Half Yearly Exams Year 11 Ancient History Excursion - Museum of Ancient Cultures Tuesday 28 March Year 12 Half Yearly Exams

Wednesday 29 March Year 12 Half Yearly Exams Quad Rock 2 Celebration Assembly Years 7-12 Thursday 30 March Year 12 Half Yearly Exams Friday 31 March Year 12 Half Yearly Exams School Photo Day - Years 7-11 Week 10A Monday 3 April Year 12 Half Yearly Exams Year 11 Hospitality Work Placement CHS Swimming Concert Band - Primary School Tour Tuesday 4 April Year 12 Half Yearly Exams

Year 11 Hospitality Work Placement CHS Swimming

Wednesday 5 April Year 12 Half Yearly Exams

Year 11 Hospitality Work Placement CHS Swimming Celebration Assembly Years 7-10

Year 11 Biology Excursion Thursday 6 April Year 12 Half Yearly Exams

Year 11 Hospitality Work Placement

Year 11 Biology Year 10 Scripture Seminar Friday 7 April Year 12 Half Yearly Exams

Year 11 Hospitality Work Placement Year 9 PASS Bronze Medallion Last day of Term 1


Volume 4 17 March 2017 - castlehill-h.schools.nsw.gov.au

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