22 November 2021

Newsletter Articles

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From the Principal

Dear Helensvale State High School Community

During this term we have hosted many events celebrating the wonderful achievements of our students. Such achievements demonstrate how we, together as One Community, are committed to achieving our vision for each and every student to achieve. I would like to share with you some of this year’s major highlights.

Once the school receives the written report from ASAA, I will share with you the commendations, affirmations and recommendations. Thank you to all involved, particularly those parents who were contacted by ASAA reviewers, who sought the voice of students, staff, families and the broader community.

Student voice continues to be strengthened through our leadership program and establishment of our Student Council, broadening the leadership opportunities for our students. I am so proud of our current and our new leaders and their commitment to making our school the great place it is.

Our partnership with the IMPACT Centre Aspiring Thinkers network and the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project continues to expand, broadening the professional learning of staff to teach our students to be critical and creative thinkers. This partnership was strengthened by the school’s engagement in a research project which provided us with feedback on the effective teaching of thinking in our classrooms. The accolade from both of these learning partners is that Helensvale State High School is a lighthouse school in leading teaching for thinking across the state. What an honour.

Also in partnership with the IMPACT Centre and University of Queensland, a group of our year 11 Honours students are involved in a Youth InQueensland writers project – Helensvale State High School students were the first students to be published journalists of the InQueensland Media Academy. An outstanding achievement.

Our school has just been accepted to partner in a space collaboration project with Griffith University and Gilmour Space Technologies that will see Low Earth Orbit (LEO) prototype satellites developed locally and deployed for launch in 2023. Driven by Professor Paulo de Souza, who has worked with NASA on the Mars rover projects, our students and teachers will have exclusive access to a Space Tech Lab to work collaboratively. What an opportunity for our students.

Our partnerships with our tertiary sector continue to provide our students with so many opportunities to challenge themselves and advance their learning. Fourteen of our high achieving students have received a STAR Platinum Packaged offer giving them guaranteed entry into any degree they choose via Southern Cross University. Another 24 students have received early offers to attend this university into their desired courses. Further direct entries and scholarships into other tertiary institutions are still to be advised.

Given the uncertainty and restrictions of COVID, the school was determined to continue to provide real-life learning through competitions, excursions and events. We delivered over 200 co and extra-curricular events this year, with some amazing outcomes.

For instance, Australian Business Week is once again proving to be extremely successful, with our future leaders and entrepreneurs working collaboratively with the wider community to simulate the running of a business.

Students entered the Griffith University interstate Legal Studies Essay competition, which involved writing a 2000 word report on a current legal issue. Congratulations to Emma who was named the overall competition winner with her essay on the human rights abuses in our prison system.

1169 students competed in the Education Perfect Maths Championships this year answering 14758 questions and scoring 9905 points. Special mention to Connor for achieving a credit in the competition.

Year 7 & 8 Excite Maths students participated in the Australasian Problem-Solving Mathematical Olympiads. Over 5000 students from some of the best secondary schools across Australia, New Zealand and Asia participated in this problem-solving competition. We achieved excellent results, including Mariya, Kain and Oscar achieving in the top 10%. What an extraordinary effort.

We triumphed again this year in the Arts. Instrumental music had 3 students involved in the Musically Outstanding Students program (Arnav, Abby and Anthony). A large number of our students were invited to be in the State Honours Ensemble program and a further 2, Edison and Arnav, participated in the Australian Honours Ensemble program.

A Very Highly Commended and a 3rd place was awarded to our string students in the virtual Gold Coast Eisteddfod. 11 students were selected to represent our school in the drumline for the Creative Generation – State Schools Onstage and a further 4 students were selected as featured musicians in the same show.

Our year 9 academy drama students were awarded the best devised play award at the drama festival and our choir were regional finalists in Fanfare, being awarded a silver. We have had two year 12 students, Matilda and Amaya, who have had their artwork included as part of the Energies exhibition here at HOTA. Dance competed in the Starbound Eisteddfod and received one 1st place, one 2nd place, three 3rd places and three Very Highly Commended placings across the two nights of the competition.

With sport, we had a swimming carnival, a cross-country and an athletics carnival. We managed to compete in a number of sporting competitions, with many outstanding achievements by our students, who were recognised at our recent Sports Awards night. Yes, this year, our Sports Awards night returned!

So many opportunities; so many great achievements. It is certainly an honour and a privilege to be the Principal of such a great school.

Yours truly
Karen Lindsay
Executive Principal
Helensvale State High School

JAPANESE TEA CLUB EVENT

On Thursday 11th November, our Japanese Tea Club hosted their first official tea ceremony with members of staff as guests. Thank you to our guests Mrs Costan, Ms Moore and Mrs Wright. Our Tea Club students performed extremely well. We look forward to hosting more events over the coming weeks.

2021 TEA CLUB MEMBERS
Year 11: Kirraley McDonald
Year 9: Lauren McDonald, Jessica Morrison, Caitlyn Rachow, Sinead Ryan & Ella Gill

Year 10 Media Academy

Our Y10 Media Academy students recently had an opportunity to workshop their news story pitches with Craig Johnstone, Editor for In Qld, the online news outlet. This project is a partnership between our school, InQld, the IMPACT Centre and the University of Queensland and Ms Brown coordinates it. The session involved the students sharing their news story angles in order to receive industry standard feedback. In addition to honing their writing skills, the major drawcard for our students is the fact they can potentially have their work published on the site- a decent accomplishment by any standards. An advantage of the project’s approach is that the students have autonomy over the topic of their news articles, an effective tool of intrinsic engagement. We are certainly impressed at their foci: youth perspectives in politics, changes to the Australian Curriculum, the link between learning music and academic improvement, a resurgence of literature for young readers and the overconsumption of energy drinks by teens to name a few. What Ms Brown is most proud of however, is the way our students support, and critically challenge each other’s thinking around their story concepts and angles. Keep your eye out for their stories later this year and early 2022. They will appear under the Media Academy tab on the website.

GIPSA 2022

Swimming Carnival 2022

News from Industry Pathways:

School based traineeships available:

Below are some new exciting traineeship opportunities available for Year 10/11 students.

Get paid while gaining a qualification when doing a school-based traineeship and earn up to 8 QCE points!!

• Chempro – Oxenford
• Degani Café – Hope Island
• Dominos Pizza – Helensvale & Coomera
• Guzman Y Gomez – Griffith Uni & Harbourtown
• Helensvale Aquatic Centre - Helensvale
• Hungry Jacks – Ormeau
• Jet Boat Extreme – Surfers Paradise
• KFC – various locations
• Newsxpress – Runaway Bay
• Pacific Pines Newsagency – Pacific Pines
• Quay Street Café & Bar – Sanctuary Cove
• Shaker Maker Coffee – Arundel
• Subway – various locations
• The Club at Parkwood Village – Parkwood
• Third Base Coffee – Arundel
• Three Kings Pizza – Parkwood
• Zarraffas Coffee – Helensvale, Oxenford, Runaway Bay

School based vacancies links:

Ignite Education: https://www.ignite.edu.au/job-vacancies/

Aurora Training Institute: http://www.aurora.edu.au/schools-program/

Prestige Staffing Solution vacancies: https://prestigestaffingsolutions.org.au/job-board/

Year 12 School Leavers should check the following links for full time employment opportunities:

Looking for a Trade?

Tracy from Gold Coast Trades college has many opportunities available for school leavers looking for a trade eg: metal roofer, painting/decorating, carpentry, tiling, Automotive & plastering. Please email your resume and industry of interest to Tracey Egan tracy@peopleperformance.com.au

HSHS Academic Awards:

Congratulations to Year 12 School Based Trainee Katelyn Scott for winning our School Based Trainee of the Year Award. Katelyn completed a Certificate III in Hospitality and is employed at Club Helensvale. She did so well to complete her 750 required hours of work, even when Covid closed the club down for a period of time. Katelyn is a well-deserved winner of this award. Below is a photo of Katelyn and her trainer Sharon Wilson from Aurora.

Casual Work:

If any students are seeking casual work please contact me by email as I have quite a few employers contacting me regularly looking for staff. Also check your emails regularly as I email these to students/parents.

Current Year 10/11 students – TAFE etc:

If you would like to enrol into an external course for next year please let me know ASAP. Some TAFE courses are already full and you don’t want to be disappointed if you cannot get into the course you were hoping to.

Year 10 Trade Taster Course - TAFE

A very lucky group of Year 10 students were approved to attend a Trade Taster course every Friday for Term 4 at Ashmore TAFE. This course covers various areas of the construction industry including landscaping, construction, engineering etc. The students have excelled in this course and their teacher Ray has been extremely impressed with how well they are progressing. Congratulations to these students for representing our school so positively: Jett, Daniel, Matthew, Dean, Dylan L, Quintyn, Dylan M, Gabriel, Kye, Presley, Nikolas, Tyler, Lewis, Sam, Zar and Jaylan.

I would like to congratulate all of the Year 12 students that completed a School Based Traineeship or External Course. I am very proud of how committed and hardworking you all are to get through your senior schooling years whilst undertaking an external program. Good luck and all the best for the future.

Ms Bellamy
Industry Liaison Officer

Teens and Anxiety Webinar

Feedback for the Teens and Anxiety webinar has been extremely positive, with some HSHS parents describing the webinar as ‘Wonderful, Amazing and Excellent!’

The webinar is available until the end of the term!

All parents and carers were sent the link to the webinar on the 18th October. If you can’t locate the link please contact Elaine Sears esear13@eq.edu.au .

Save the Date

Helensvale SHS Farmers Markets

Don’t forget to support our local farmers.

Every Day Counts!

Helensvale Fundraising

Support Helensvale State High School and unlock your free upgrade:

Cyberbullying Help

What would you do if your child was being cyberbullied?

According to research by the eSafety Commissioner , 1 in 5 young people experience cyberbullying and online abuse and 55% seek help from their parents/carers.

Our free training is available online and has been designed to be completed on a range of internet ready devices, including smart phones.

Student Health and Wellbeing

In line with Helensvale State High School’s philosophy of ‘One Student, One Community, Many Futures’, we partner together with the community to improve student learning and wellbeing. As the use of vaping is becoming a growing concern, not only in our school, but in our broader community, it is our collective responsibility to educate and support our students whilst maintaining high standards of behaviour.

E-cigarettes, more commonly known as vapes, are increasing in popularity in our society and disturbingly among our youth. Resembling a USB, ‘e-cigs’ are battery-powered devices that deliver liquid nicotine and other substances (such as propylene glycol and flavourings) as an aerosol that is then inhaled.

Under Australian Law, Nicotine is considered a Schedule 7 poison and therefore it is illegal to: buy, possess or use liquid nicotine for vaping; for children under 18 years to purchase cigarettes and e-cigarettes; and to smoke on school grounds at any time.

Helensvale State High School has a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for the possession and use of all illicit substances including e-cigarettes, with all matters dealt in accordance with our Student Code of Conduct which states: “Inappropriate use, possession, supply of intoxicating substances and/or utensils (including but not limited to illegal drugs or illegal drug implements, alcohol, vape pens, paint, glue, prescription medicine etc) may result in permanent exclusion from Helensvale State High School.”

One proactive measure we are making is to educate our students, providing them with the information so that they can weigh up the pros and cons of certain behaviours, allowing them to make an informed decision.

We are currently negotiating with the Queensland Police Service to provide an educational assembly to students around the legal implication of vaping.

Here is what we know so far:

• Nicotine is highly addictive and can impair adolescent brain development.
• Liquid nicotine solutions vary in concentrations (from 2%-10%). It is rapidly absorbed through the skin, and fatal toxicity can occur from exposure to just one teaspoon.
• Harmful chemicals are found in over 75% of flavoured refill liquids.
• Propylene Glycol is a solvent that reacts with many flavours, specifically vanilla, cherry and cinnamon, to create entirely new chemicals that lead to inflammation, cell death and irreversible lung damage.
• Additional information can be found here: https://www.qld.gov.au/health/staying-healthy/atods/smoking/devices

It’s important to remember that young people may turn to substance use for many different reasons (e.g. stress, family conflict, financial concerns, relationship issues, etc.). We encourage our students to access support if they are going through a challenging time, and some of these support options may include:

• Guidance Officers
• Deputy Principals
• Chaplains
• School Based Youth Health Nurses
• Deans
• Adis (24/7 Alcohol and Drug Support) – 1800 177 833
• Kids Helpline – 1800 55 1800

To support the health and wellbeing of all the Helensvale State High School community we ask you to discuss the health and legal implications of vaping with your child.

Thank you for your anticipated support with this and together, let’s continue to prioritise the health and wellbeing of your child.

Humanities Tutorials and Homework Help Club

Do you have an assignment or exam coming up and need a little extra help to understand the content?

Have you been away and would like to catch up on what you missed?

Would you would like to improve your skills in analysing sources or constructing a clear paragraph?

Open to all students who are studying Humanities in year 7 & 8 or History and Geography in year 9 to 12. Our amazing Humanities staff will be available to help and give you extra support.

Come find us in DG33.

Maths Tutorials

Science Tutorials

Chat n Chill

Support Staff

As part of our Learning and Well-being framework, we have created a Well-being Hub for students and parents, which can be accessed through the Helensvale State High School webpage. The hub includes links to other websites and apps which can help to support student well-being, as well as provide information on career pathways. To access these ‘well-being hubs’ click on the icons below or go to the HSHS website (https://helensvaleshs.eq.edu.au/), scroll down the page and click on the relevant icon.

Acknowledgment of Country

Helensvale State High School as one community, acknowledges the Kombumerri Peoples, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which our school is built. We respect their long history, ancestry and culture. We pay our respects to the Elders, past, present and emerging for they carry the memories and traditions of past times.

We would also like to extend our acknowledgment to other First Nations Peoples: those hailing from the Torres Strait Islands and those belonging to other Aboriginal Language Groups.

We acknowledge the strength and resilience of Kombumerri peoples. We respect their enduring connection to the local wetlands and the cultural responsibility they uphold to preserve wildlife. Together, we go forward, learning in the spirit of these values.