We thought we had seen the last of COVID-19 in 2020, but the arrival of the Delta strain saw the College return to online learning for the entirety of Term 3, followed by a staggered return of students in Term 4. I would like to thank all parents who, under difficult circumstances, provided their sons with a home environment suitable for remote learning.
Evidence-based strategies were put in place to ensure a smooth transition when students returned to campus earlier this Term. There was no doubting the importance of routine and maintaining our high expectations.
The College reinforced uniform (including haircuts), behaviour to and from College, as well as in the classroom and attendance, from the moment students returned to campus. Students responded outstandingly well. Again, I thank all parents who supported the College in terms of these expectations. These are expectations that we all signed up for, that are the same on day one of the year, through until the final day. We do not believe in lowering our standards because there ‘are only a few weeks to go’.
Students can expect the same high expectations when they return to the College in January 2022.
I thank all staff, students and parents, who have worked together through this challenging year. The College cannot stress enough the importance of the partnership between these three groups. This three-way partnership has the largest impact on the wellbeing of each student, and their ability to achieve their full potential at the College.
I thank the parents who took time out from their busy schedules, to attend our parent sessions on building resilience with Greg Mitchell in Term 1, and drug and alcohol use with Paul Dillon in Term 4.
Next year, we will host three parent evenings. The first is a combined event for all secondary schools in the eastern suburbs covering consent. Later in the year, Maree Crabbe will investigate the effects of pornography on young people, and finally, Arne Rubinstein will look at adolescent boys’ rites of passage. It would be wonderful if we could further build on the parent involvement at these events. We will also hold our annual parent/mentor meetings early in Term 1.
It would be a pity to come to the end of this year, that has been so incredible in so many ways, and not take the time to truly reflect. If we hasten too quickly to the end of 2021 to declare it ‘a wrap’, we may lose the opportunity for learning and growth.
Our Wellbeing Framework and Teaching & Learning Framework direct us to inform ourselves by accessing knowledge and experience, to transform through the deep learning of heart and mind, and to become empowered through the deliberate actions to have a growth mindset. It is through such intentional actions that we seek to live and love more fully.
Students have demonstrated so much tenacity this year; there have been moments of discomfort and difficulty, and immense growth in self-awareness and perspective. They have enjoyed opportunities to nurture family and friends, and have discovered much about what matters to them in how they learn.
I conclude by farewelling Head of Brennan House, Mr James Horrocks, and Quinn House, Ms Olivia Kite, and thank them for their work in the Wellbeing team as they depart for other challenges in their careers.
Farewell to Head of Brennan House, Mr James Horrocks
Farewell to Head of Quinn House, Ms Olivia Kite
At the same time, we welcome in 2022, Ms Kaitlyn Downey as Head of Brennan House and Ms Rebecca Gair, Head of Quinn House.
Grace is the greatest gift that humanity was given on that blessed day when our Lord was born.
Merry Christmas to all.
Mr Patrick Brennan
Deputy Principal (Staff and Student Wellbeing)
E: pbrennan@waverley.nsw.edu.au
At the beginning of the Term, our four College Captains, House Captain and Prefects were announced for 2022. At Monday’s Year 11 Assembly, we were able to present the leaders with their badges. Once again, congratulations to these students:
Principal, Mr Graham Leddie, addresses the Year 11 Leadership Assembly
House Captain – Alejandro Zanapalis
House Prefect – Leo Astridge
House Prefect – Benjamin Finegan
House Prefect – James Kort
House Prefect – Daniel Di Paola
House Captain – William Dodd
House Prefect – Brandon Reid
House Prefect – Charles Alexander
House Prefect – Xavier Scally
House Captain – Max Barber
House Prefect – Jay Palm
House Prefect – Cuba Kanakis
House Prefect – Thomas Martin
House Prefect – Jared Garwood
House Captain – AJ Preketes
House Prefect – Daniel Smith
House Prefect – Hugo Pizzol
House Prefect – James Byrd
House Prefect – Ian Vuk
House Captain – Michael Richmond
House Prefect – Owen Punch
House Prefect – Jimmy Ashbridge
House Prefect – Conor Cahill
House Captain – Thomas Wilkins
House Prefect – Jonathan Booy
House Prefect – Patrick Healy
House Prefect – Max Leedham
House Prefect – Alex Morris
House Captain – Angus Anthony
House Prefect – Jasper Doyle
House Prefect – Bryn Siltala
House Prefect – Jackson Cunningham
House Captain – Jack Rigg
House Prefect – Sachiel Bass
House Prefect – Daniel Di Francesco
House Prefect – Hugo Roles
House Prefect – Cooper Stynes
Ms Sue Walsh
Director of Identity & Student Formation
E: swalsh@waverley.nsw.edu.au
Just a reminder that all our online resources will be available to students for any of their information/reading needs over the summer holidays.
We wish the year 2022 HSC students well as they continue with their HSC studies over the summer.
Students in all years can come in and loan resources as well, up until Sunday, 12 December, via visiting the Senior Library or visiting Book Hire on campus.
Access to our resources are available via:
OR
OR
Mr Bill Roberts
Head of Library Services
E: wroberts@waverley.nsw.edu.au
A big thank you to all parents who have generously donated their sons’ outgrown uniforms to the Secondhand Clothing Pool. We are slowly rebuilding stock levels, and are so pleased to be able to offer some more items for sale. This will provide someone else with the opportunity to purchase a secondhand uniform well below the new price, whilst at the same time, raising funds for the College through the Parents’ Association.
The Secondhand Clothing Pool will gladly accept the donation of all clean and wearable current uniform items for resale. There is a $30 ‘buy back scheme’ for the donation of Blazers and All Weather Jackets in excellent condition.
Due to current restrictions for parents, we are still working mostly through email contact (clothingpool@waverley.n
In addition, we have for sale:
At the Senior School campus reception in the special BLUE Secondhand Clothing Pool donation box (courtesy of our fabulous Campus Maintenance Team)
For more information or to make an appointment, you can contact the Secondhand Clothing Pool by:
P: (02) 9369 0703 — please leave a voicemail, and one of our volunteers will get back to you
Once parents are permitted back into the Centenary Building, enter via the Senior School campus reception, and take the lift to Level 3 — the Secondhand Clothing Pool is next door to the Uniform Shop
Level 3, Centenary Building, Senior School Campus
131 Birrell Street, Waverley
Donate today!
It has certainly been a challenging year for everyone and with less than two weeks to go, the boys are looking forward to their respective summer holidays. Please encourage your son to enjoy his last days of schooling for 2021 and finish in good spirits. There is value and important lessons learnt in finishing a job well, and hanging in there until the very end.
I am certainly grateful for the way our community has supported each other throughout the year. I am also grateful to frontline workers who have kept our society as safe as possible, and able to operate as best it can during these difficult circumstances, including putting their own health at greater risk. Thank you to all of our police, first responders, health workers, nurses, doctors, and hospital workers.
When you further unpack what roles are important to keep our society operational and safe, you realise that so many industries play an integral part — education, food and agriculture, manufacturing, corrections workers, postal service workers, public transit workers, grocery store workers, transportation and logistics, food service, shelter and housing, finance, information technology and communication, energy, media, legal, engineers, water and wastewater workers etc.
In a large community where social distancing is nigh impossible, a multi-layered approach is our best option in reducing risks, which is why we continue to strongly encourage vaccination, for all staff and students who are eligible, against COVID-19. The staff at Waverley College are all proudly vaccinated. Vaccination is one of the most effective ways in minimising the spread of COVID-19. These vaccines will protect you from getting severely ill if you get COVID-19.
If your son has been vaccinated against COVID-19, could you please send us their COVID-19 Certificate or Immunisation History Statement in the form of a PDF to email address healthcentre@waverley.nsw.edu.au
This will be stored confidentially on your son’s medical records. Thank you to all of those parents, carers and students who have already sent these through to us. It is fantastic to see the continually rising numbers of fully vaccinated students across the College.
Congratulations to the students who entered the Woollahra Photographic and Short Film Prize for 2021. The competition calls all young photographers or film makers to submit work within a range of categories. This year, the competition introduced a new section showcasing ‘inclusivity.’ Special congratulations to Luke White in Year 10, who on Wednesday night, won First Prize in the Mayor’s choice awards for his entry ‘Street Mirror.’
Congratulations to the following Year 9 students who represented the College in the Ethics Olympiad today. They had a variety of tasks and decisions to grapple with, and performed very well — Lachlan Miranda, Campbell Porteus, Declan McAuliffe, James Medland, James Birbas and Oliver Malzard.
Congratulations to Old Boy Ned Wieland (2019), on his remarkable achievement last weekend in breaking the record for most number of laps swum of Bondi Beach. Ned completed 62 laps, some 48km, and was in the water for just under 12 hours. An amazing effort on the back of only seven weeks of training! Ned also raised over $24,000 for charity RU OK? which is close to his heart.
Inspirational Old Boy Ned Wieland (far right)
Old Boy Geordan Bates (2017), is approaching the end of his university studies in media and psychology at UNSW. With two friends from Cranbrook, they had the idea to make a short documentary on the Australian icon, Don Ritchie. Ritchie lived near The Gap at Watsons Bay, and was responsible for saving 160+ people from suicide. He made it his life’s mission to dissuade as many people as possible from suicide, by offering them his calm words and a warm cup of tea in his nearby home.
The documentary concept has received positive feedback on the script from Hugh Jackman and Emile Sherman (Academy-award winning producer), and Hugo Weaving has agreed to come onboard as the voice of Don. The group has partnered with mental health charity, Gotcha 4Life and are seeking to raise $50,000 over the next two months to complete the project. All donations are tax-deductible through the Australian Cultural Fund (ACF) website.
I commend the group as this project has the potential to impact lives far beyond our local community. The expected completion date is in September 2022. You may like to support this cause or know a corporate sponsor that would be interested.
Unfortunately, the rain caused us to postpone our Year 12 (2022 cohort) leadership assembly today, that was going to be live-streamed to parents. It will now be held on Monday, 22 November at 11:50am, and a link will be emailed by Ms Walsh.
The College would like to extend an invitation to our Presentation Day events on Wednesday, 1 December to help us celebrate our successes in 2021 as a College Community.
Presentation Day is a compulsory event for all students to attend and attendance rolls will be taken.
There will be two presentations:
Warm regards,
Mr Patrick Brennan
Deputy Principal – Staff & Student Wellbeing
E: pbrennan@waverley.nsw.edu.au
The Campus Team are currently looking to recruit a summer casual to work with the Team to help manage all aspects of school operations.
Ideally, you would be an Old Boy who knows the layout of the school site, and can commit to an immediate start. You would then remain on staff until the end of February, 2022. Working hours are 7:30am–3:30pm, Monday to Friday.
The types of tasks you would be involved in would be gardening and grounds maintenance, classroom and event setups, furniture moving and general maintenance of both the Senior and Junior Campuses.
You will need a current WWCC number to be eligible to work at the College.
If you are interested, and would like more information, please contact campus@waverley.nsw.edu.au
Mr Simon Potter
Director of ICT, Campus & Innovation
E: spotter@waverley.nsw.edu.au
From Sunday, 5 December 2021, Transport for NSW (TfNSW) will be making changes to the South East bus network. These changes will affect some bus routes that operate into the Inner West, southern and the Lower North Shore areas.
The changes include adjustments to routes 303, 320, 348, 370, 418 and 420, and a number of State Transit’s bus routes operating in the South East.
Additionally, there will be changes to bus stops in the CBD for routes currently operating along Castlereagh and King streets.
The TfNSW Trip Planner will be updated with the new changes by Sunday, 21 November.
We recommend all students plan ahead on Trip Planner before travelling.
To ensure dedicated school services appear as a travel option for students, click ‘refine’ and select the school bus option.
Students are also reminded to tap on and off with their Opal card on all trips.
It is difficult to remember a time when you couldn’t ‘Google’ anything you wanted to know. Students can’t remember a time without it, but in fact there were decades (even centuries), when it didn’t exist.
Below are some possible ‘treasure hunts’ for your sons to undertake over the holidays.
Look into the history of search engines (e.g. Lycos was a search engine that started in 1994 with 54,000 items available!!)
Check out:
Ms Sue Bognar
Teacher Librarian
E: sbognar@waverley.nsw.edu.au
The TYE program is a series of structured workshops for high school students, where students learn how to come up with a good business idea and build a plan around it. Participants are mentored in teams by TIE Charter Members, culminating in a formal presentation of their idea and plan, to a panel of experienced entrepreneurs. The winning team gets to pitch at the global TYE finale.
Four course sessions and one workshop of three to five hours, with four online mentoring sessions in between.
Session and Workshop Dates
There will be online mentoring sessions on subsequent Tuesdays/Wednesdays, with mentor and group to decide.
Pitching competition and presentation
Venue
Who Can Apply?
When Do Applications for the 2022 Program Close?
If you are interested in participating, please see Ms Stephanie Boyce.
Ms Stephanie Boyce
Academic Enrichment Coordinator
E: sboyce@waverley.nsw.edu.au
‘Delivering Hope’ is an upcoming fundraising appeal for The Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick. It will be held on Wednesday, 24 November at The Royal, where for one day only, every dollar donated will be doubled.
We are excited to be supporting this local hospital that impacts the lives of so many. The Royal is calling on schools and families to get behind this fundraiser, as 2021 has been the busiest year in The Royal’s 150-year history.
Additional resources are needed now more than ever, to ensure the staff can continue to deliver exceptional care and treatment to women and newborns when they need it most.
Donations are open now.
With thanks to the generosity of matched donors, whatever we are able to raise, will be doubled!
Ms Michelle Dodd
South Eastern Sydney LHD
E: michelle@royalwomen.org.au
To commemorate Remembrance Day this year and the 103rd anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended the First World War in 1918, the College Community paused to remember all those who have died in war. The College joined via livestream for the Ceremony of Commemoration of the Fallen.
Members of the College Cadet Unit provided the Flag Party as well as an armed Guard around the College Cenotaph, which is inscribed with the names of all of our ‘Old Boys’ who paid the supreme sacrifice in the two World Wars. Congratulations to our Cadets — please see further details later in the newsletter.
I joined this week the Jewish community’s annual ceremony commemorating Kristallnacht, which was held online. Kristallnacht, the the night of broken glass, was a violent rampage against Jewish people and their homes, shops, buildings and synagogues carried out by the Nazi Party along with civilians on the 9 and 10 of November 1938. Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution (code name for the murder of all Jews by the Nazis), and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
This year’s commemoration celebrated the life of Eddie Jaku OAM, who died recently. Edward Jaku OAM, was a survivor of several German concentration camps during World War II, who wrote of his wartime experiences after emigrating to Australia. This memoir is called The Happiest Man on Earth and was published when he was 100 years old. Having narrowly survived, he moved to Australia during the 1950s, where he dedicated his life to teaching others about the dangers of intolerance.
His message was: as long as I live, I’ll teach not to hate. Mr Jaku said he was the “happiest man” despite the horrors he witnessed in the concentration camps. “Life is what you want it to be, life is in your hands,” he said.
Catholic Schools NSW has been working closely with NSW Health to lessen the impact of long periods of isolation for students who have been deemed a close contact. Rapid Antigen Testing (RAHT) is being assessed as an additional safety measure in many schools, as an option for families to return their children to school after 7 days of isolation instead of 14.
There are many considerations and RAHT may not be an option in every case; Catholic Schools NSW in consultation with NSW Health will identify when this option will work in a school community. Rapid antigen testing does not replace the PCR test that is still required when students are identified as close contacts. The objective is to keep as many schools open without compromising community safety.
This week we were notified that a small number of Waverley College students have been deemed close contacts of a confirmed COVID-19 case. The majority of the students are in Year 7 and one Year 11 student. They attended a small party on the weekend in which the person who was a confirmed COVID-19 case, also attended from another school.
With this in mind, it is a timely reminder of the importance of remaining hyper-vigilant about some measures that should be taken, in order to reduce the risk of transmission.
1) Get your son vaccinated
2) Face Masks
Please remember that it is not only a Waverley College policy to be wearing a face mask at all times, but this has also been advised by NSW Health, AIS, CSNSW, and the majority of health professionals as part of a multi-layered approach for schools.
3) Hand Hygiene
It is vital to make sure you are regularly washing your hands, using hand sanitiser, and also wiping down the surfaces you work on, before and after you use them. Our Health Centre is providing hand sanitiser and surface wipes for each classroom.
4) Staying at home when you are sick/sending sick students to the Health Centre
If you have cold or flu-like symptoms, such as a cough, fever, sore throat, shortness of breath or runny nose, even if these are mild, you should get tested for COVID-19 as soon as possible. People with mild symptoms can still spread the virus. To help stop the spread of COVID-19, anyone with cold or flu-like symptoms should get tested.
Students commenced the HSC examinations well and there was a tangible sense of “let’s get things done”, determination and calmness within the group. Attendance was excellent and their feedback was that both English papers were fair and straightforward. May that be their experience for the rest of their examinations.
I wish them well after experiencing a most frustrating journey and we are proud of the way they have resolutely set themselves to do their best and complete their Higher School Certificate Examinations.
Mr Brennan and Ms Walsh have written to all parents regarding the postponement of the Graduation ceremony to February next year, which will ensure the most parents, grandparents and students can celebrate this significant achievement.
On behalf of the College, I would like to thank all parents who have been involved in the work carried out by the Parents’ Association throughout 2021. Particular thanks to the tireless work of the Year level representatives, past parents representatives, clothing pool representatives, tuckshop volunteers and the executive for all of their organisation, support and efforts in organising events and communicating across our community.
Special thanks to the 2021 Executive: Ms Jade Stapleton (President), Ms Lisa Sullivan-Smith (Vice President), Ms Lamya Sadi (Vice President), Ms Stephanie Van Dam (Secretary) and Ms Deb Johnston (Treasurer). Despite all the challenges of 2021, the Parents’ Association has still been able to contribute significantly to the overall success of the College.
From the recent AGM, I would like to congratulate the following parents on their elections to the Parents’ Association Executive for 2022, and I look forward to working with them in the new year.
Parent Executive
Parent Representatives
In 2017, Ned became the youngest male to swim the English Channel and raised significant funds for the charity RU OK? This Sunday, 14 November, Ned will be attempting to break the record of 60 laps of Bondi Beach — good luck Ned! You can view the full Nurrunga article in the ‘Old Boys Upcoming Events and News’ section, to learn how you can support Ned and RU OK? charity.
Your son would have received an email survey from the Advocate for Children and Young People NSW this week. They are seeking feedback from school-age students so that they can share their views with decision makers across Government. Governments and schools have been trying to embrace ‘student voice’ more and more in their planning. I therefore encourage your son to find a couple of minutes to fill this out and share their perspectives.
We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation who are the traditional Custodians of the land on which Waverley College is located. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We are committed to honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ unique cultural and spiritual connections to the land, waters, seas and sky and their rich contribution to society.
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