PENRITH SELECTIVE HIGH SCHOOL

Dear Parents,

I hope this holiday update finds you well and ideally rested after a long weekend.

Thank you for your patience whilst we have been working through the steps of fitting over 600 students in blazers. It is a very significant change for our school and ensuring the best possible price was essential for every family.

As you would know through these emailed updates, P&C meetings, our parent forums and likely your son/daughter, a number of staff have been spending significant hours to ensure that we balanced quality, price and delivery time for such a large, bulk purchase.

I’m delighted to share with you, that after negotiating the price from the normal sale price of around $150 and then to $110, that by using another supplier the final cost per blazer will be $88 including GST.

The supplier is a highly reputable company, but different from our regular uniform supplier. We tried to find a better price, but our current supplier was unable to offer us a lower price. The delivery time has also been reduced from at least 20 weeks, to 12 weeks and this was an important factor.

As such, we will use school staff to fit and complete orders for all students 7-10 and those students in years 11 and 12 who would like to purchase a blazer at this price.

To assist parents, we are going to open the school for fittings on the following dates as many parents have indicated that they would like to be present when their child is determining the correct size.

Our fitting times will be:

Thursday 20th April 8:30-11:30am (School Holidays)

Monday 24th April 2:30-5pm (School Development Day)

Wednesday 26th April 2:30- 4:30pm (Student's First Day Back)

Students will also be able to try on and order blazers when they return on Wednesday before school and recess.

Our final order needs to be with the supplier by Thursday evening (next week) and this will give us time to finalise the numbers and sizes. The samples used by students for fitting will be boxed and sent to the manufacturer so that they are comparable.

Payment can be made by EFTPOS at the school or by using the online POP system through the school website. If you use POP, please include the word “Blazer” next to the payment amount so that it can be found in the system. Please bring or ask your child to bring a copy of the POP receipt and we will attach this to the order. Using POP is our preferred option and it will save parents or students from queuing to gain access to the machine. Cash cannot be accepted until students return to school and this too, is likely to mean waiting in a long queue. Please follow the signs in the school foyer to find the fitting area on each of the days. (We need to work around the painting that has been happening over the holidays)

Thank you again for your patience whilst we have finalised this price. I am very, very pleased that we have been able to secure such an outstanding price for all families, in addition to a much improved delivery time. I would note that I would not expect that we will be able to offer blazers at such a low cost again, simply because of the buying power over 500 blazers gives us. The P&C have indicated that they will work to set up a buy and sell program so familes can exchange blazers when students grow or leave school. Details of how this will work will come later in the year.

You will find some other updates in the email below about the upcoming term. Term 2 is traditionally very intense with a number of assessments and events scheduled plus reports being written. I look forward to seeing many of you in the coming few months.

Warm regards,

Mark Long

Principal

As you would be aware Susie Grice, Year 8 Adviser will start maternity leave this term and Rochelle Young’s appointment as HT Mathematics at Nepean led to a vacancy with Year 9.

Dr Anju Katyal did an outstanding job filling in for Year 9 last term and has the Duke of Ed camp ready to go, but she always intended to return to oversee the Mathematics enrichment program that will grow from 2 before school classes to 9 this term. I thank Anju for all of her work and am equally happy to share that Carol Wallace (Science) will relieve as Year 8 Adviser until Susie’s return, late in Term 4 and Tom Hoekstra (Social Science) will take the Year 9 role permanently.

Both staff members are very experienced and joined us at the beginning of the year after the merit selection process in Term 4. Carol joined Penrith from Jamieson HS and Tom was previously at Fort St HS.

Our Deputies, Tracey Cunningham and Brian Ferguson (Relieving) will continue to line manage years 7, 9 & 11 and 8, 10 & 12 respectively.

I am working closely with staffing to fill the vacancy left after Rochelle’s promotion.

Please remember to use both the school calendar (On Sentral) and the Assessment gantt chart that was emailed to 7-10 parents in the final week of Term 1. (Year 11 and 12 are in assessment blocks and as a result those dates are fixed and preceeded by a 2 week buffer period)

Some events change on the calendar and these are reflected on the Sentral calendar. If an assessment has to move, Head Teachers will work with the DP Curriculum- Tracey Cunningham and she will email students to advise of the official change. Please contact Tracey is you have any questions about this.

A brief summary of some key dates are below, but please check Sentral for all activities.

Week 1 (Week A)

Wednesday 26/4- Students Return

Thursday 27/4- Cross Country (Half Day)

Saturday and Sunday 29-30/ 4 Relay for Life

Week 2 (Week B) School Spirit Week- Disney Theme (SRC Led)

Thursday and Friday 4- 5/ 5 (Athletics Carnival)

Week 3 (Week A)

Tuesday- Thursday 9-11/5 NAPLAN (Year 7-9)

Tuesday 9/5 P&C Meeting 7pm (Staff Common Room)

Week 4 (Week B)

Wednesday 17-19/5 – Year 9 Camp (Bronze Duke of Ed- Sommerset)

Year 12 reports issued

Week 5 (Week A)

Monday/ Tuesday 22-23/5 Year 11 Camp (Collaroy)

Wednesday 24/5- Year 12 Buffer Period Starts

Students were emailed (To their school accounts @education) their codes during the final week of term 1. These must be completed before school returns. Coordinating sport for over 900 students is a huge undertaking and your support by checking that your child has done this would be greatly appreciated. If your child needs support to complete this process, they can email the Sports Organiser, Mr Grant Newell. His email contact is in your child’s email account.

Students have also been emailed instructions on how to direct their school emails to a personal account to save them accessing multiple accounts. Your help in checking this would be greatly appreciated because almost all communication and opportunities are sent using this process and some students continue to miss out.

Our 2017 Curriculum Committee will meet for the first meeting on Thursday next week.

The meeting will start at 8am and has students (SRC), staff and parents (P&C) represented. There are still vacancies for parents to join this group. The committee will look at the following areas to start and will meet at least twice this term:

- Establishing possible Timetable Models for 2018 (Number of Periods/ Roll Call/ Recess and Lunch breaks)

- HSC Acceleration Options in Stage 5

- Discussion of consistent entry requirements into 2018 Extension HSC courses (Eng/ Maths/ Science/ History/ Music/ Languages)

- Reviewing the process used for faculties to propose courses for inclusion as elective options 8 into 9 and 10 into 11.

If you are interested, please contact the P&C via their email. pncpenrith@gmail.com

Email: Penrith-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au
Website: http://www.penrith-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/
Location: Penrith High School, 158-240 High St, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia
Phone: 02 4721 0529
Facebook: facebook.com/penrtihseletivehghschool