Friday June 25th, 2010
The Musical - This year's musical is an outstanding mix of music and comedy. The "Spelling Bee" is about something that might be one of the USA's favourite past-times; contests . The cast is a delightful mix of experience and "fresh faces". The music makes you want to tap your feet without actually having to know many of the songs. Added to this is the sly humour that is forever present. Congratulations to the cast which numbers 9 for the princiapls and 33 members of the chorus and 4 dancers. Congratulations also to the directors, production managers, musical directors and the back stage crew and light and sound. As always, it is a great series of performances that are well worth seeing. A very special thanks to Steve White, Jane Sala, Angela Morosin, Quentin Bamford, Caroline Freitag and Matthew Campbell for their work outside school hours and during the holidays. Productions such as this one cannot be adequately staged without the help from our school community. Liz Dowhaluk and Karen Lamb have gone out of their way to help the staff and students. We thank you very much for your work.
Head Teacher Meetings - our Head Teachers have been part of a program to form a collegial group with Head Teachers from Rouse Hill, Model Farms and Greystanes High Schools. The Head Teachers meet twice per term to exchange ideas and processes. This is an outstanding initiative between the schools. It fills a gap in professional learning in our region for these dedicated people. I believe Head Teachers are one of the most important group of leaders in our schools. I know our Head Teachers not only look after their faculty areas but also contribute across the school in many different ways. I value all of them for their work.
Transition to high School - we have recieved some funding from the DET to help promote the linkages and transition programs the school and its primary partner schools organise. We are currently putting together a plan that we can share with the primary partner school to promote the smooth transition from the public schools to us at Crestwood High School. Hopefully it will involve all our faculties working with the primary schools to share teaching resources and strategies. We will be asking students to come to the high school and we will have some faculties doing an outreach type series of lessons to the primary schools. We work very closely with Crestwood and Kings Langley Public Schools. We are also developing linkages with Matthew Pearce, Vardey's Road and Seven Hills North.
P&C Funds - the great work by the Canteen will be seen at the beginning of Term 3. We will have new air-conditioers installed around the school.As well the school is benefitting by being able to purchase a new mower for our grounds. I hope you have noticed the improved look of the grounds this year. We have a team working hard to revitalise manyof the gardens around the school. We hope to be able to provide a list of education items to the P&C for their approval. They will include new signage and another Interactive White board (for the Library). The cost of these items is substantial but such is the work of the canteen we can rely on this amount of money being made available each year.