Welcome back to the start of the 2020 Xavier High School year. I hope you all had a great Christmas with your friends and family.
Our Opening School Mass and Assembly was held last Friday and was a wonderful way to commence our new school year. As is the custom, all our Year 7 students and our new students in other year levels were welcomed and introduced to our school. We also presented to the school our Dux of 2019 Joseph Burton. Joseph was our highest achieving ATAR student in 2019 and was awarded the Patricia Bradman Memorial Award in recognition of this. Joseph has been accepted to student Medicine at the University of New South Wales and we wish him all the very best in his future endeavours.
Our Year 12 2019 cohort received the best Higher School Certificate results since 2008. Our students received Band 6 results in a broad range of subjects including: Studies of Religion I and II, Biology, Ancient History, Visual Arts, General Mathematics, Mathematics, Music I, CAFS, Food Technology, Legal Studies, Chemistry, Design and Technology, Visual Arts and PD/Health/PE. We also had impressive results in Advanced and Standard English, Construction and Society and Culture. Additionally, 20% of our students who completed Extension Maths and History received E4's.
Our ATAR results reflect the effort and dedication our Year 12 2019 cohort gave to their HSC studies. Joseph Burton, Conner Rudebeck, Sophie Nagle, Davedia Azzi, Tayla Sanson and Claudia Stow received an ATAR above 90 and many students achieved ATAR's above 80.00 and 70.00. The Xavier community is very proud of our 2019 Year 12 students and I thank this group for the wonderful contributions they made to Xavier High School.
This year we welcome the following staff to our school:
Mark Nelson - Teaching English
Don Hillam - Teaching Music
Jack McDonell - Teaching HSIE
Grace Shephard - Teaching HSIE
Renee Page - Teaching PDHPE
Jarryd Hatton - Learning Support
Molly Parnell - Learning Support
Taylah Reidy- Learning Support
I also congratulate Danielle Lawson who will move from the Cafe to Learning Support.
We say farewell to Sam Gosbell who has taken on a position at Tallangatta Secondary College. I thank Sam for all his work at Xavier, particularly in the role of House Coordinator for Aquinas and more recently Mackillop. Amy Martin and Alison Meani have been appointed to the Mackillop House Coordinator role until Erin Monte returns from her maternity leave.
Over the holiday break we received the news that Paula Gleeson and her Husband Markus welcomed Darby. Congratulations to Paula and Markus on the new addition to their family.
This week our Year 12 students attended their Year 12 Retreat at Warrambui. This was led by Damien Keady and Ed Brown. The Year 12 group were fantastic, they responded really well to all the activities and participated in a way that should set themselves up for the year ahead and their future. Next week our Year 11 students head off on their Spiritual and Academic Enhancement Week. This week will help our Year 11 students prepare themselves for success in their senior years of school.
Key Dates:
Year 11 Spiritual and Academic Enhancement Week - 10-14 February
Year 12 Drama Excursion - 11-13 February
School Photo Catch Up - Thursday 13 February
Swimming Carnival - Monday 17 February
Year 7 Camp - Wednesday 19 February - Friday 21 February
Xavier Open Day - Monday 2 February