DIARY DATES Thursday 7th November Last Day for Second-hand Uniform to be handed in Applications close for Carry On (Victoria) Education Grants

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1 FRIDAY, 1st NOVEMBER, No 16 DIARY DATES Thursday 7th November Last Day for Second-hand Uniform to be handed in Applications close for Carry On (Victoria) Education Grants Friday 8th November Entries close for The Simpson Prize Ballarat Show Day Holiday Monday 11th November Year 11 Exams Begin Tuesday 12th November Boat Club Meeting Boat Shed 7.30pm Wednesday 13th November 2014 Year 7 Preparation Evening Robinson Centre 6.30pm Friday 15th November 2014 Year 11 Orientation Day Monday 18th November 2014 Year 12 Orientation Begins 2 Weeks Year 10 Revision Day Year 10 s are not required at school Tuesday 19th November Year 10 Exams Begin Monday 25th November Chaplaincy Committee Meeting 5.30pm Conference Room -All Welcome Wednesday 27th November Ancient Civilisation Evening 6.00pm 7.00pm Friday 29th November Final Day for Year 11 and Year 10 Dear Parents / Guardians / Students PARENT CONTRIBUTIONS FOR 2014 We are pleased to announce that the Ballarat High School Council has established the Parent Contributions for Ballarat High School Council is firmly committed to providing the best possible opportunities for all our students. Parent Contributions make it possible to maintain its high standards of education and provide all students with many items and services not supported by Government funding and/or generally funded by parents. We request that all parents/guardians pay all charges applicable to the programs selected for Programs such as Instrumental Music, Specialist Sport, Rowing and VET are optional extras to the standard program; accordingly, student placement in these programs will be subject to review, if payment or an appropriate arrangement for payment has not been made. Curriculum and Service Charge 2014 $320 Years 7-12 ARCH Magazine $15 Instrumental Music Subject Levy $100 Instrument Hire $160 Specialist Sport varies by year level $ Rowing varies by crew $80-$260 VET varies by subject $70-$395 Other camps, excursions, sport etc various In relation to the Curriculum and Service Charge, the School is able to offer a $15 discount if this is paid prior to the end of Discounts for families with two or more students at the School are also available. Payment options include cash, cheque, VISA, MasterCard, EFTPOS, Bpay, Centrepay and EMA. A brochure outlining our Parent Contributions in more detail is available on request, and will be provided to all families in early GARY PALMER Principal LESLEY THORPE Business Manager 1

2 Congratulations Hallo Australien! Wir sind zurück! We are back! What an amazing and eye opening experience it was travelling with such a fantastic group of students and teachers to our sister school in Germany. We climbed and walked up mountains and around old cities. We attended school and learned how to get up early for a 7.45 am start. We shopped until our last Euro was spent. We ate a tremendous amount of yummy food. We learned a lot of German words some we can use in the class room and others not! We fell in love with our host families and cried our eyes out as we had to leave. I want to personally thank each of the 24 students who made this trip a memorable experience because you cared and took care of each other. You were outstanding ambassadors for our school and made us very proud of you. Thank you to Dani Bjelanovic and Tom Arnold for all their support, hard work and humour. Vielen Dank meine Lieben! Ideen Aghdassi, Tiarney Aiesi, Sarah Barclay, Sioned Bentley, Kayla Martelli, Hannah Boord, Phoebe Bradshaw, Hannah Cameron, Sam Carr, Emma Day, Lachlan Dawson, Ruby Donald, Montana King, Jedd Linke-Nagel, Ben Nicholls, Alex Pennell, Emily Rawlings, Jordan Ribbink, Jareth Smart, Lachlan Smith, Hayley Stevens, Jessica Stewart, David Williamson and Holly Young. 2

3 BEST FEET FORWARD: Gail Elsey, whose daughter Fiona passed away from a rare bone cancer, takes a stroll with students Michaela Ingwersen, Violet Gibson, Agnes Benjamin, Kelsey Cook and Natasha Sims as part of Fiona s Walk on the 16th October around Lake Wendouree. PICTURE: Justin Whitelock supplied by Ballarat Courier. PICTURE: JUSTIN WHITELOCK SUPPLIED BY BALLARAT COURIER On October the 16th despite the strong winds, over 2000 primary and secondary students arrived at Lake Wendouree to take part in the Annual Fiona s Walk on Wednesday 16 th October. The walk, organised by the Year 12 VCAL students, in conjunction with the Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute was attended by students in Years 7, 8 and 9 from Ballarat High School. The walk is in honour of Ballarat High School past student, Fiona Elsey, who tragically lost her battle with cancer in Fiona s Walk has the growing support of students from schools around the region, with a shared vision of raising funds and awareness for the Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute. The money raised from this event helps to provide medical equipment to aid researchers continue their vital work. ATTENTION EMPLOYERS JOBS NEEDED We have students seeking part time, full time and casual employment for If your business is looking for staff please contact the MIPs office to advertise. The MIPs office advertise positions to students on a job board published each week. Our job seekers include: 15 year olds looking for their first casual jobs VCAL students looking for full time or school based apprenticeships VCAL students looking for one day per week placements Year 12 school leavers looking for full time employment and future careers Year 12 school leavers looking for part time employment whilst they pursue university Year 12 school leavers looking for a full time 12 month position whilst they defer their studies. To contact us about any employment opportunities please contact Deneale Skewes or Andrew Wallace in the MIPs office. Ph: or wallace.andrew.j@edumail.vic.gov.au 3

4 Lions Youth of the Year Quest On Wednesday 25 th October Remi Bilson of Year 11 participated in the Lions Youth of the Year Quest. After completing a very detailed application process, Remi then undertook the judging process. There are two stages to the judging process. The first stage is a private judging, where the contestant meets, in private, with the judges. At this stage, the judges were looking to confirm the information in Remi s application form. Remi was asked some questions to determine her level of general knowledge, and to assess her attitude and philosophies on life. Legacy Junior Public Speaking Competition State Final Dannielle performed her five minute prepared and a two minute impromptu speech among fierce competition from twelve other state finalists. Dannielle's presentation was spirited, energetic and captivated, as always. As Legatee Spence said on numerous occasions throughout the competition: "You are all winners". All spoke with confidence and conviction. Well done Dannielle. The second stage is the public judging. In this section, Remi was required to answer 2 two minute impromptu questions on topics chosen for you and one five minute prepared speech on a topic of your choice. Contestants were judged on: Leadership, Sporting & Cultural, Citizenship & Community, Personality, General Knowledge, Academic, Public Speaking, Impromptu and Prepared Speech Diction. Remi prepared and competed extremely well and placed second, by one point in the Ballarat Region. She is to be congratulated on her participation and performance, what an excellent representative of Ballarat High School. Well done Remi! Dannielle Lowson at the presentation of the State Finals of the Legacy Junior Public Speaking Competition held at the ABC Centre on Friday 18th October. The others in the photograph are Legatee Chris Spence, the immediate past president of Legacy and Alyce Crosbie from Oxford University Press. The Simpson Prize The Simpson Prize is a national competition for Year 9 and 10 students. One winner and one runner-up from each state and territory will attend a briefing program in Canberra in early In an opportunity of a lifetime, the winning students of the 2014 Simpson Prize then travel to Turkey or the Western Front for two weeks in April 2014 and attend ANZAC Day services. ENTRIES CLOSE Friday 8 November All students need to do is respond to the question: How well does the Anzac Legend tell the story of individual Australian soldiers during World War One? Students may either write an essay of words or prepare an audio visual presentation of not more than 10 minutes (accompanied by an explanation of no more than 400 words). Speak to Mr Richardson if you are interested. 4

5 A MESSAGE FROM THE MIPS TEAM Managed Individual Pathways The Managed Individual Pathways (MIPs) program helps all students aged 15 and over from compulsory schooling into further education, training and employment. We are located next to the library and are available from 8:30am 4:30pm daily. Work Experience Feedback: We would like to thank all students, parents and teachers for your support with our work experience program. So far this year we have been able to coordinate over 210 work experience placements. We have also received a large amount of feedback from parents and will list some answers to the most common questions we have received: Why is my child unable to change or swap their work experience week? Ballarat High School participates in negotiations with all local secondary schools to come up with the Ballarat Schools Work Experience Calendar which allows all schools to have their own designated work experience weeks. The benefit of this arrangement is that competition for work placements is limited and that schools do not have to compete for placements with major employers. The calendar is used primarily to organise the placements for our Year 10 students. Students are unable to organise placements unless approved by the MIPs team to ensure we follow this agreement. To minimise competition for placements among our own students, Ballarat High School has two consecutive weeks designated for work experience during Term 3 with half of the Year 10 cohort attending a placement each week with the weeks being assigned by English class. This means that during the students designated week their entire English class is absent and the class does not run. For this reason students are unable to swap their work experience week as this means that they will miss a week of classes (which they otherwise would not). Can my child do more than one week of work experience? Absolutely! We encourage students to do as much work experience as they can to assist with their career research. When can my child do more work experience? All students are able to complete work experience during school holidays (except the January holidays). All students (excluding VCE Students) are also able to negotiate additional weeks during the school term with the MIPs office and their Team Leader if they are up to date with their work. MIP s staff can notify students of the additional weeks later in the year which are listed on the Ballarat Schools Work Experience Calendar. Can the work experience program be expanded to include other year levels? We encourage all students aged over 15 to participate in work experience. Year 10 is the only cohort that has a compulsory work experience week during the school term. Work experience is an opportunity which we offer to all students aged over 15 years however we do not designate a compulsory week for other year levels because some Year 9 students do not meet the age requirements and VCE students are unable to miss classes during the school term due to VCAA requirements. Year 9 students have an optional week that is set aside in October. VCE students are able to organise placements during the school holidays and after their exams in November and December. Years 9,11 & 12 students only need to visit the MIPs office to organise a placement. 5

6 My child did not get to do placement in the industry they had hoped. This is a very common issue as many placements are competitive when there are more students than employers. Students who organise their placements at the last minute are more likely to have difficulty in finding a placement. Students can always try again by organising an additional work experience placement later in the year when there is less competition for placements. In some instances placements are not a possibility in the industry the student would like to try because of legal restrictions. My child does not want to do work experience. Do they have to? Work experience for Year 10 students is compulsory and is part of the Year 10 curriculum program and is organised during English classes. Additional to this, work experience is a fantastic opportunity for students to involve themselves in the workplace, to assist in their pathway planning and to sample a potential career. In our experience students who do not participate in the work experience program in year 10 are more likely to be the students in Year 12 who lack career direction and have no post school pathways or employment. Year 12 Pathways: If your child is in Year 12 and is not planning to go to university they are required to meet with the MIPs staff to organise their pathway for Ballarat High School is committed to assisting students to find employment however students need to seek assistance early. Each year the job market is flooded with new school leavers hoping to find employment making positions highly competitive. School leavers can spend up to 6-12 months in unemployment if they do not have a position secured before they finish school. Our experience shows that students who actively seek employment in the months before Christmas are more likely to be employed. MIPs staff are able to assist with resume writing, cover letters, letters of reference and work experience Scholarships: Year 12 students wishing to apply for scholarships additional to VTAC scholarships should regularly check the MIPs newsletter and student bulletin for updates about scholarships. There have been many scholarships already advertised this year including many which are available specifically to Ballarat High School students. Andrew & Deneale Managed Individual Pathways REMINDER FROM THE UNIFORM SHOP Orientation Week will soon be upon us and I need GOOD, washed, second-hand uniforms to be handed in before Thursday 7 th November, Please remember all skirts/blazers are to be dry-cleaned. I will not accept Boys and Girls Jumpers and old style P.E. Polos and Navy Shorts and Boys Short-sleeved Shirts. The Uniform Shop will be open on Thursdays and Fridays until Friday 22nd November, 2013 between noon and 3pm. After this date, the Uniform Shop will be CLOSED until Orientation Week. Margie Egan Second-hand Sales 6