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High Notes, Vol 27 No 23, August 07 2026

From the Principal

High Talent

Congratulations to Ian Huang (10T) who was invited to compete in the second round of the Junior Science Olympiad. At the Australian All Schools Volleyball Championships Joshua Chen (10E) was selected for the Australian U16 volleyball team – a great achievement! There were some strong fencing results from last Saturday. U19 Sabre - Ethan Li (12F) gold, Ryan Zhao (10E) and Oliver Xie (11R) bronze eq. In Under 16, Henry Yang (10T) earned a bronze. In U14 – Cam Traynor (8T) gold, Harold Jiang (9M) and Conan Li (8S) bronze eq. At the final NSWSFL Foil Teams Competition for the season, our U14 ‘A’ team – Morgan Yao (9E), Tony Zhou (9F) and Yuwei Chen (8T) won a bronze medal.

Prefect Elections

This week the ballot list for School Prefects was finalised after a previous Executive meeting discussed the qualifications of candidates. Some were vetoed due to not meeting the academic standard. For others, it was a lack of Student Awards Scheme points. For yet others, the issue was attendance or disciplinary matters. The rejected students who believed they had a case for reinstatement participated in the Appeals Process – involving the Principal. The final list of eligible candidates was published, along with their one paragraph election ‘manifestos’. The Prefect Election Ballot was held during this week for those allowed to put their names forward. The ballot closes on Friday. Results will be announced next week.

Education Week – what are we trying to achieve?

At High, we have reframed the moral commitment ‘to prepare young people for rewarding lives as engaged citizens in a complex and dynamic society’ in terms of enlargement of the individual.

We theorise that enlargement in the school’s IPEC model of educational practice. We seek to expand the IQ, PQ, EQ and CQ of every student. Our premise is that these intelligences are separate but often correlated abilities and that they develop with age. The four intelligences – intellectual ability, physical development, emotional intelligence and cultural awareness – are enlarged through challenging curriculum offerings, competitive sports participation and physical awareness, co-curricular and cooperative activities designed to maximise collaborative engagement with others, and interaction with communities around us, first at the level of the school and then with the local community and beyond. Nurturing the pursuit of excellence in a wide range of endeavours is our goal. In addition, to be at the forefront of educational practice, we need to contribute to the world as scholars, sportsmen, educators and leaders. We try to make every week at High, Education Week, by loading our calendar with activities and opportunities for students and staff as well as involving our wider school community.

Financial Responsibility and Accountability

Public Education expenditures are coming under increasing scrutiny. In response, financial oversight is becoming stronger. The Secretary changed some protocols this week, along with an exhortation for all financial managers ‘to be considered and disciplined in our spending, to maximise the educational benefits to our students’. The number of Pcards that we have issued has grown significantly in recent years. All transactions will now be limited to $10,000. Thereafter, the Director, Educational Leadership will need to approve expenditures. It will be necessary for us to manage our larger payments via purchase orders or Director approval. It is a code of conduct violation to split invoices to work around this limit.

As a policy imperative we need to ask ourselves, ‘Is this expenditure necessary to promote student wellbeing or learning?’ There is a culture of buying things late in the year in order to expend the entirety of a budget allocation. The implication is that if some of the budget remains unspent, the quantum will be lowered for the next year. This is not how budget allocations are decided. We allocate on the basis of need but do not punish financial managers because they overspent their budgets. Towards the end of Term 4, the school will impose a blanket ban on Pcard purchases without permission from the Principal. The rationale is, how can this expenditure benefit current students in this calendar year? We all will have to be a little more careful and frugal in our efforts to provide for our students. It is time to ‘trim the fat’.

Volunteer of the Year

As seen in the High Notes last week, Grace Guan received the Public-School Volunteer of the Year Award. She received this award from the Secretary of the Department of Education, Murat Dizdar, on Monday August 3, 2026, at Town Hall.
Dr K A Jaggar
Principal