7 December 2021

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Dear Parent/Guardian,

Welcome to the last newsletter for the 2021 school year – a year of great achievement at Coolum State High School.

This year, we celebrate many achievements in both academic and extra-curricular pursuits. Almost four years ago, we set our sights on becoming the “premier benchmark” in education on the Sunshine Coast. With the progress we have made since then, we believe we have travelled a long way towards achieving this goal.

Coolum State High School has achieved outstanding results across the curriculum, in all faculty areas, in both the junior and senior schools. We are especially proud of our year 12 leavers who have performed remarkably in their last year of school, and are anxiously awaiting ATAR scores for eligible students that will be released on 17 December. We have seen a large number of students enter apprenticeships and traineeships in a buoyant economy, while Coolum High students are filling TAFE colleges and some will be entering direct employment.

In extra-curricular activities we have excelled. Basketball Academy students made the state final; Cheerleading Academy students have won state and national competitions; Surfing Academy programs have performed with great distinction at local, regional and state level; Chess Academy students WON the Sunshine Coast tournament and we are now the region’s number one ranked school; AFL and Netball Development Academy students performed with distinction; Robotics Development Academy students won their competition at their first attempt. Music has become a celebrated feature of our school, from the magnificent Wind Symphony to the broad range of performances we see each week at our assemblies across a variety of genres. We have seen that Coolum High students can perform on any stage at any time.

This year has seen a hive of activity, and announcements, on our building program. This year has seen the re-roofing of the Performing Arts building and, as we speak, the air-conditioning of almost all classrooms in the school. A security fence was erected around our school, while the Sunshine Coast council built a wonderful carpark at the front of the school. Soon, work will begin to construct five more classrooms under the Wandama Centre, followed by an extension of our Admin building. After this, a signature 20-classroom building will be added to the back of the school, along with brand new basketball courts. While we aren’t there yet, our campaign to have a Performance Hall at Coolum High is in full swing and we will get there eventually.

The community has made a special contribution to Coolum High this year, with our P&C building a financially strong canteen that services hundreds of students each day. The P&C have made several valuable additions, including cold water bubblers and a beautiful mural on the wall of the canteen that celebrates our indigenous heritage, natural environment and the journey of our school.

At the end of each year we farewell some key staff and welcome new ones. Mr Keven Nix, a much-loved and long-term member of Coolum High’s staff will be moving closer to home at Nambour State College. Keven has made an untold contribution to our school as a calm, stable and humble guide to generations of Coolum High students. In the Executive Management Team, we will be farewelling Ms Nicola Worthington, who returns to Meridan State College after a year helping us to improve our school. Mr. Lee Merrett will be returning to his Deputy Principal role after a year working with the Queensland Teachers’ Union.

A new year invariably brings about change. I would like to draw your attention to one major change being introduced to Coolum SHS for 2022:

The biggest change to Coolum High in 2022 will be the introduction of the YONDR program, to create a phone-free space while students are on school grounds. This process began months ago, and was introduced to the school community recently, with the vast majority of parents acknowledging the benefits. Deputy Principal, Mr. Anthony Swan, has been instrumental in the implementation of the program and you can read in detail more information in his newsletter article below. Mr Swan has demonstrated strong and determined leadership with this initiative and I am looking forward to seeing this process roll out in the new year.

With holidays upon us very soon, now is the time to relax and enjoy time with friends and family over the summer break. I would like to thank all parents and guardians for your support of our school, and wish you a wonderful time over the festive season. We are looking forward to our holidays, and to a productive 2022. Have a great break!

Troy Ascott
Principal

Deputy Principal - Junior Secondary Year 7

Earlier this year we embarked on an extensive consultation process with our community and staff in regards to mobile phones at school. More than 90 percent of responders preferred that students did not have access to their mobile phone at school. We then consulted with a large number of schools across Queensland and were encouraged that many schools, including neighbouring high schools were moving to an off and out of sight policy for mobile phones. Many schools made this move years ago as phones became more prevalent and corresponding issues arose. The iPhone was first released back in 2007 and it along with other subsequent smart phones has become an intricate part of our life. However, there is a large amount of research that strongly supports young people gaining great mental health benefits from having a significant break from their phones each day.

Through our consultation with other schools we have gained knowledge from their experience as to what policy is most effective and accepted by students.

Our next step is to consult with our P&C Association as we are proposing that our school is a phone-free space to improve teaching, learning and lunchtime socialisation! We would be using a system called Yondr to achieve this goal. Yondr has been used across the world in over 1,000 schools, as well as at concerts, comedy shows, and special events of all kinds. The goal is to encourage students to engage with each other and their surroundings.

Though mobile phones can be a great utility. Research shows that learning and social behaviour improve drastically when students are fully engaged with their teachers and classmates.

The Yondr Program employs a simple, lockable pouch that stores a cell phone. Every student would secure their phone in a personally assigned Yondr pouch when they arrive at school. Students will maintain possession of their phones and will not be able to use them until their pouches are opened at the end of the school day. Students would be required to bring their Yondr pouch to and from school each day, regardless if they do not own a phone, and are responsible for their pouch at all times.

Coolum SHS is encouraged by the effects of this system in learning institutions and the positive feedback we received from students and staff at Corinda SHS in Brisbane. Yondr surveyed over 900 school partners to measure the effects of creating phone-free educational environments. These schools achieved notable progress in multiple areas:

• 65% of schools saw an improvement in academic performance
• 74% of schools saw an improvement in student behaviour
• 83% of schools saw an improvement in student engagement in the classroom

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the school directly at admin@coolumshs.eq.edu.au.

Anthony Swan
Deputy Principal Junior Secondary Year 7

Business Services News

Statement of Accounts

Statements are issued multiple times throughout the school term. It is important to note that if your statement has a negative amount, it is an indication that you are in credit. Credits can be applied to any future invoice that you are issued. If you receive your statement and you are unsure of anything that is on it, please email admin@coolumshs.eq.edu.au

Student Resource Scheme

Thank you to all the families that have and continue to support Coolum State High School. Without your support we would not be able to continue to provide the quality resources to support the learning environment, providing necessary textbooks and associated learning materials at considerable savings to parents, through the school’s bulk purchasing processes.

All families have now received the 2022 SRS invoice that is due by 1 April 2022. Payment can be made in full, via 3 instalments of $100 each, with the first due by 1 April 2022, second payment due 24 June 2022 and the third and final payment due 16 September 2022.

Thank you again for your support.

Year 11 2022 Subject Fees

As outlined during the recent SET Plan Interviews, in order to maintain your child’s place in any fee-paying subjects for 2022, outstanding subject fees are now payable. Thank you to the families that have already made payment, it is appreciated.

Financial Difficulty

If you are experiencing any difficulty in making payment now, the following options are available to assist you:

• BPOINT - allows for automatic payments to the school from your nominated bank account over 30 payments
• Centrepay Plan - allows deductions from any Centrelink payments (if eligible) or
• A negotiated payment plan with the school, where you are responsible for ensuring payments are made as per the negotiated plan.

If you would like to discuss financial support options or have any other enquiries around this, please do contact me on 5471 5333 as soon as possible.

Qparents Finance Portal

To keep up to date with invoices and payments, we recommend that you register for a QParents account, if you have not already done so. QParents is a secure online parent portal where you may access your child’s student information and stay connected with our school. The QParents web and mobile app provides a more convenient way for parents to interact with the school.

Following registration, parents can access:

• Attendance and absence details, as well as the ability to notify the school of any absence
• Academic report cards
• Class timetables
• Viewing unpaid invoice details, payment history and making payments online
• Viewing and updating personal student details, including medical conditions and address
• Enrolment details.

Should you require any assistance when registering for QParents, please do not hesitate to email admin@coolumshs.eq.edu.au or visit the link below.

Thank you for your support of our school.

Sharyn O’Brian
Business Manager

Junior Secondary

Year 6 into 7 Orientation day

It is unbelievable how quickly we are making our way through term 4 and before we know it, we welcomed Year 6 students from a range of different Primary Schools to our Year 6 into 7 Orientation day! This day provided students with a wonderful opportunity to get acquainted with Coolum State High School before they arrive for Day 1 in 2022.

Students had the opportunity to attend four 70-minute lessons, just like the rest of the student body. They also enjoyed break times in the Year 7 area, accessed the oval or took part in some of the CAST activities on offer. It was a very exciting and fun day and we hope it reassured all our Year 6 visitors that High School really isn’t that scary!

As noted above, we had a wonderful day and we look forward to welcoming all of the Year 6 students next year!

Alex van Dorsselaer
Head of Junior Secondary

The Word on the Street

Hello Coolum High Community!! As English teachers we have been very proud of our students this year. Their achievement has been outstanding from Year 7-12 and it continues to improve every term.

We have 96 students starting Literature next year in Year 11. This is one of the biggest cohorts of Literature in Queensland and we are very proud of students choosing to challenge themselves in Senior Schooling in English.

Write that Essay is a program we are accessing with our students to improve their writing. This is a program which is having phenomenal results around the state, improving student work particularly in sentence styles. Ask your child to show you the program on their laptop.

Speaking of laptops… We will be using them a lot more in English and we’d love your support in reminding students to take laptops to class - it would allow more productivity during drafting time and during our fortnightly writing on demand program.

In further good news for English, we have just started doing Extension English in Year 12. This has allowed students with a passion for the subject to really extend their understanding in a really challenging and supportive way with Ms. Weston.

Finally, Mahalia Johnson in Year 7 did us very proud when she came third in the Mooloolaba Rotary Writing competition for her story, ‘I Should have Waited’. Well done Mahalia and keep it up!!

Jeanette Samson
Head of English

Science

AIP Certificate of Excellence in Physics for Year 12 students

The Australian Institute of Physics (Qld Branch) recognises high achieving Queensland students with the 2021 AIP Certificate for Excellence in Physics. This certificate is awarded to students with a confirmed internal assessment result that is 90% or greater.

The Australian Institute of Physics is an organisation dedicated to promoting the role of Physics in research, education, industry and the community. Some of the ways that the AIP supports this goal is through promoting and supporting physics teaching and education in schools, colleges and universities; encouraging investment in government and industrial research; and recognising distinguished contributions to physics.

We congratulate Kai Weith and recognise his diligence, curiosity, enthusiasm and achievements and are very We are all very proud of Kai’s success. Well done!

Paul Olsen
Head of Department Science

Mr Moores awarding Kai with his certificate

Arts

Creative Generation – Excellence in Visual Art

Our senior visual Art teacher Ms. Kelly recently nominated work from several of our Year 12 Art students for the Creative Generation Excellence in Visual Art awards at the Butter Factory in Cooroy. This year three of our students (Leea Roberts, Aiden Gantschnigg and Chas May) were represented in the regional gallery with Aiden receiving a commendation for his work ‘Rook’. Thank you to Ms. Kelly for her work with the senior students this year and for her work hanging and delivering the works to the CGen team in Cooroy. The gallery photographs and media are available for viewing on from the CGen regional exhibitions website at this address:

School Website

As we plan for 2022, I ask that current and prospective parents, students and families remain up to date with our school website. Our music section in particular has undergone significant changes in its format and structure in 2021 and includes many of the details around our co-curricular music programs (including SongSpark, Vocal and Instrumental Music programs) as well as our Year 10 music immersion program. We will also be publishing our 2022 events calendar via our school website to assist families in planning for 2022.

Rohan Hardy
Head of Department The Arts

Alumni

Inspiring story of success

I started at Coolum State High School in 2010. Throughout High School I had a keen interest in biology and anatomy as well as loving sports and helping people so I decided I wanted to be a Physiotherapist. I graduated in 2014 but didn’t get the grades to get into Physiotherapy, so I completed a year of Bachelor of Arts at the University of Queensland. After that year I got into Physiotherapy and did my 4-year degree at Australian Catholic University. ACU had a fantastic course, very hands on and we got to do anatomy labs that included working on Cadavers (human body parts that have been donated to science) which I found really interesting. In our last year we just did placements for 12 months and I also completed research on care of newborn babies in intensive care units. After university, I was fortunate to gain a position in the New Graduate Program at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. I have been in this program for about two years and have worked through most areas of the hospital. I am currently working in the intensive care unit. My current role is to minimise complications such as muscle loss whilst people are unwell, maintain their function and look after people’s breathing muscles. I look after a range of patients including patients that are intubated and ventilated as well as those following complex cardiac surgery. I walk with people that are able to. Last week I walked someone that had a drain into their spinal cord that was draining cerebrospinal fluid, which I thought was crazy that we were able to do that. I do lots of breathing exercises and help facilitating deep breaths in patients that are awake and use machines to mimic deep breaths in sedated patients. I complete passive and active exercises including electrical muscle stimulation for patients that are not able to move because of sedation or attachments. I use bikes that people can use while they are lying in bed on their arms and their legs. It’s a really rewarding job, working to help improve the quality of people’s lives and knowing that you are making a difference for these people that can’t do a lot themselves. So that in a nutshell has been some of my education/work experience and my experience as a physiotherapist. For anyone thinking of becoming a physiotherapist, I would say go for it! It’s so much fun and a challenging and diverse career that can take you anywhere and it’s really easy to travel with (once travel starts again).

Dates for your Diary

Bus Pass Information 2021

Do you need to apply for a school bus pass?

The Queensland Government’s School Transport Assistance Scheme (STAS) provides assistance to enable eligible school students to attend education facilities.

There are two types of assistance available to students travelling on bus services to school:

• Distance based assistance
• Safety-net assistance

Apply for STAS online

Did you know that you can now apply online for STAS?

• One form
• Up to five children
• Any device

Need help with your application?

Email STASdigital.Helpdesk@tmr.qld.gov.au or call 1300 119 289 for technical assistance with your online application.

FAQs & handy tips to get you started

Once you are familiar with the application process and steps to get you started, you will find the ‘apply now’ button located towards the bottom of the STAS Apply for school transport assistance page.

After you’ve successfully lodged your application online, information will be generated by the Department of Transport and Main Roads to your local CDC office in Kunda Park, Sunshine Coast or Gladstone for processing.

Please note: it is Department of Transport and Main Roads policy that STAS applications for students placed under a Child Protection Order by the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services must be made using the  paper application form relevant to the transport assistance . This form can be found once you commence your application online.

Bus Routes

A list of bus routes servicing Coolum State High School can be viewed on this page:

Parents can also contact us by phone 07 847 666 22 or email info.sunshinecoast@cdcbus.com.au