What a surreal week!  What with the Year 3 to 6 Outdoor Education Camps and also the Senior Swimming Carnival coinciding the campus at times was eerily quiet.  This quiet at the campus hid the business of all that was happening and in such heat.  While the Year 3 to 6 Outdoor Education Camps faced some difficult challenges, including a 39°C plus day, I must commend the students and staff for the way they dealt with the challenges.

The Year 3 to 12 sequential Outdoor Education Programme is such a fundamental part to a Macarthur education.  It is in times such as these where challenges, in well managed and controlled circumstances, develop resilience, allow for creative and critical thinking and promote teamwork.  At Speech and Awards Night last year I spoke about the importance for contemporary education to develop these so called ‘soft skills’ in order to prepare the students for a dynamic and ever changing work life.  While that seems a long way of for many, developing these skills early is fundamental to ongoing success.

Again, well done to all.

I am delighted to inform you all that in 2016 Macarthur will be producing as scheduled a Junior Musical.  This year the Musical is The Little Mermaid Jnr.  I am sure it is going to be a great success.  I am delighted that Mrs Rachel Freestone has accepted my offer to direct the Musical.  Knowing her talents on stage as a student and having seen her produce a wonderful T-2 Christmas Concert last year, I am confident that Mrs Freestone will do justice to a great show.  More information will be forthcoming in the next few weeks.

This is a very busy time of year for the Agricultural Show Team.  I continue to be impressed by their successes and delighted at the number of first time participants who engage with Agriculture as a co-curricular activity in the School.  Mr Baker and Mr McCarthy do a truly wonderful job in preparing and training the students for their various responsibilities.  I wish all the students well as they continue to prepare for the Camden Show and then the Royal Easter Show.

David Nockles

Dads and Daughters Weekend Away 18-20 March

I am looking forward to the Dads and Daughters weekend away 18-20 March.

Year 3-7 girls and their dads have a fun filled weekend with an opportunity to reflect on and build their relationship.  We go to Telford, Port Hacking, and enjoy a range of activities (dragon boats, archery, pool rafting, billy cart making, giant waterslide) and an outing where each dad takes his daughter out for a meal.  We have so much positive feedback from both dads and daughters.  Numbers are limited, so book in via flexischools $395, by 10 March and return the two forms in the booklet to Accounts.

(Please see the booklet your Year 3-7 daughters brought home or contact me on 46296225 if you have any questions).

We were honoured and thrilled to have the Indonesian Consul General, Bapak Yayan, and his wife, Bu Irene, along with Michael Kramer and Paul Murphy from the Australia Indonesia Association, visit our school’s Commencement Service on 10 February.

The visit was arranged in order to present Ellen House with the Australia Indonesia Association’s Lottie Maramis Prize for attaining first place in NSW in the Extension Indonesian HSC examination last year.  In addition, Bapak Yayan also presented Ellen and Robert Archer with certificates recognising their outstanding achievements in the Continuers Indonesian HSC, with Robert attaining second place and Ellen third place.  To our surprise, Bapak Yayan then presented our school with the Consul General’s Trophy for producing two Top Achievers in Indonesian.

The Consul General addressed the students, talking about the importance of the friendship between our two countries.  Afterwards, Bapak Yayan and Ibu Irene made an impromptu visit, mingling with students in the playground.  Our students couldn’t believe that such important people wanted to chat to them and they all wanted to try out their Indonesian.

Bapak Yayan, Ibu Irene and Michael then visited Year 5, Year 7 and Year 11 Indonesian classes and taught them speaking skills.  Our students are still talking about their visit.  We are very appreciative of the support of the Consulate for Indonesian teaching in our school and particularly for Bapak Yayan, Ibu Irene and Michael being so generous with their time.

In early March, the Consul has also arranged for an Angklung Maestro to teach our students how to play these traditional instruments. We are so fortunate!

Joanne Fenton - Faculty Head of Foreign Languages

Show time is upon us and the show team has been to both the Kangaroo Valley Show, a Sheep and Wool Judging Day at Frensham School and this weekend will be competing at the Royal Canberra Show.

At Kangaroo Valley fourteen students and six steers left Macarthur and achieved some wonderful results.

In the Steer Classes Clancy came second and Bandicoot came third from nineteen steers in the Middle Weight class while in the Heavy Weight Jester achieved second from twelve steers.

In the Junior Judging Tareva-Chine Atkin-Zaldivar came second from 34 students in the Junior class.  In the Intermediate class Merryn Bowman came third and Stephanie Hennings second from forty-five students with Stephanie also being named a Reserve for Sydney Royal Easter Show representing Zone 5.

Our team in the Paraders also did the School proud with Grace Jansen coming third in the Under 14’s, Emily Nieuwenhuis a finalist in the 15-16s, Brooke Baker came first and Jordyn Snape came second in their age classes.

Richard Cartwright, Stephanie Hennings and Abbie Jenkins will all be representing Zone 5 at the Sydney Royal with Jordyn Snape and Brooke Baker as reserves.  Adam Ebeling also did well to be a finalist.

Winter Holiday Sports Development Programme

Racing in boardercross

Training in Boardercross

Halfpipe training

Halfpipe training on the trampoline

Transition students are learning about class rules, playing nicely together and following instructions. They are beginning to work in groups and they love to listen to stories and sing songs.

Katharine Morse - Transition Teacher

While Year 5 explored units of length recently, they were inspired by the 2015 hit movie, ‘Paper Planes’.  The students decided to design the most efficient paper aeroplane that would fly the furthest.

Some designs resembled the classic ‘Concord’ style with angled wings and a sharp nose.  Others focussed more on the dynamics of wing area and the balancing nose weight.  It would seem the latter was most successful with this design achieving a distance of nearly 20 metres.  Not quite the Australian championship qualifying distance of 25 metres, that was a feature of the ‘Paper Planes’, but impressive all the same!

Andrew Wood - Year 5 Teacher

This term our science topic focusses on developing an understanding of our place in Space.  Year 5 has shown great interest in reading, researching, painting and writing about the planets and moons in our solar system and learning about our neighbouring galaxies.

Kirsten Hey - Year 5 Teacher

Macarthur subscribes to MHSCAREERS - a careers information service for students, parents and careers advisors.  MHSCAREERS aims to provide accurate and up-to-date information on a full range of careers related subjects.

Each week Macarthur receives a newsletter with a range of information from MHSCAREERS and from this week a copy of this newsletter will be placed on the Senior School Portal (Moodle Page) under the heading Careers News.  Students can access this through the schools Intranet.

For further information please contact the Head of Senior School, Mr Scott Bedingfield.