Penrith High Towers-Alumni

As we approach the end of Term 3, the daylight hours are longer and the really warm Penrith weather is yet to hit. Of course, it also marks the end of classes for Year 12 and the class of 2019 are in the final stretch before the HSC exams commence on Thursday October 17 with English paper 1.

Farewell- Class of 2019

The group have left a positive impact on the school and it has been exciting to see students excited by the offer of early placements in their university courses, multiple awards and scholarships to support their transition to tertiary studies. Of special note was the achievement of two students (William Gao and Keshna Jeyadrabalan) who were both awarded the Ministers’ Award for Excellence. William is heading for a career in Technology and Keshna in Medicine. Not only are both incredibly intelligent, but William and Keshna are special young people who take others along with them and share their experiences with students and across the wider community. Keshna has also been awarded the John Lincoln Award (Presented by the NSW OAM Committee) and The Dame Marie Bashir Award for Peace. Both are names to watch in the years ahead.

Duke of Edinburgh students meet Royalty

Many for Penrith students have fond memories of the Duke of Edinburgh program and earlier in September, 4 students were presented with their gold awards. The event also marked the 60th Anniversary of the awards in Australia and to make a special event even more so, Prince Edward travelled from the UK to present the awards (see photos below). 9 current and former Penrith students including Andreas Higginbotham (’19), Josh Lin (’19) Kristiana Margate (’20) Grace Faulder (’18), Holly Vallester (’18), Michelle Lin (’18). William Ngo (’18) and Amber Walker (’16) came along with current PHS teacher/ Duke of Edinburgh coordinator Lisa Andreatta (’96) and joined Prince Edward on a hike in the Royal National Park.

A quarter of a century of selective HSC classes

It was a wonderful experience to meet with former student, Maria Calibo - Sales (’94), this term. Maria was the SRC President in her time at the school and has gone onto make an incredible impact globally through her work. An insight into Maria’s work can be found further in this edition of Towers - Alumni. Maria’s return to school marked 25 years since the first selective graduating class. A quarter of a century is an impressive milestone and we look forward to reflecting further on this when we mark 70 years of Penrith High School in 2020.

Alumni Engagement

Finally, it has been wonderful to welcome back Alumni from every decade of the school’s life over the past term. Thank you again to everyone who came back from Alumni Night with Years 11 and 12, purchased pavers for the Alumni Garden (construction starts next week) and to Renee Yates ('02) who gave an inspiring and insightful Occasional Address at the Year 12 graduation. I’m also really happy to share that we have set the date for our 70th Anniversary celebrations. The school will host an open day and support some other events on Saturday April 4. A program of events will be published next term and we hope to see many former students and their families back at school.

Please enjoy this edition of Towers Alumni and if you have something that you would like included for the final edition of the year, we would welcome updates including reunion photos via the school email account: penrith-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Warm regards,

Mark Long

Principal

Alumni Night

Years ago, Penrith High was very different from now. On July 2, Penrith High School conducted their very own Alumni Night, where ten alumni were kind enough to speak to the senior students. With an attendance of over 150 students from year 11 and 12, the night was a definite success!

The alumni worked across a wide spectrum of careers, from teaching to science, to finance and medicine. In the session, the students gained extensive insight into the workforce after high school and possible career options. Along with varying careers, each Alumni were of different stages in their career, from recently graduated to just retired. The range of information and advice they provided was extremely beneficial.

Furthermore, the Alumni each gave us invaluable advice for preparing for our HSC and university life. From this, the current and former students were able to build a connection, learn from one another and experience a fun night.

During the night, students were able to meet and speak with the alumni they wish. The alumni each introduced themselves and enthusiastically answered the many enquiries we had. There were three sessions of twenty minutes, where students would rotate and visit different Alumni for each of the session.

Overall, we’d like to thank Mr Long, Ms Fayle and the 2018-2019 prefects for giving us this opportunity and the Alumni for joining us.

- By Alumni Prefects (Candy Ma, Nicole Huang and Jessica David)

It was such a pleasure to participate in the PHS Alumni night 2019 and is something I would love to be a participant of in the future. At first I signed up to the event, not really knowing what I was agreeing to, however, upon entering the hall I found hundreds of kids who were enthusiastic to hear about my after school and career experiences. The kids had endless questions and clearly have a very clear understanding of their university and career goals ahead of them and were exceptionally grateful for the opportunity to talk with me. If in some small way I have provided guidance from my experiences, it can only help them for their futures.

(Direct from Laura's tweet)

I just spent the evening at my old high school answering students' questions about career paths. Time well spent! I fielded questions about science, research, @NSW, majors, decision making, HSC stress and whether I'm still friends with people from high school (yes!).

It was great to see so many interested students at the Alumni event. They had some great questions and each student I spoke to seemed excited for their future.

I personally found it very rewarding, it feels good to give something back to the school and the community. I always love talking about what I do in business, the types of advice I give my clients and how it improves their future, how my career evolved and how my profession is changing and adapting to the new economy. I hope that I inspired at least one student to pursue a career in Finance, and helped another to appreciate that career paths aren’t linear.

I would certainly participate again.

Once again, as you would expect, the evening was a mix of the pre-determined scholastic with certainty of future career, and the undetermined collective openly questioning all possibilities. I can relate to both groups. At their age I was on a pre-determined to study Law before Fate intervened and I studied Civil Engineering, something after 46 years of practice, I have never regretted for one minute. Fate in my case was a faulty computer scanner (or perhaps, more accurately, my failure to properly colour in the squares of the multiple choice questions in the 1968 Science paper) and by the time that reading error was discovered I was fully immersed in another career path.

So I can appreciate both sides and I can appreciate from my own experience at that age to be open to all possibilities, to be nibble, to remain optimist and (in my case) to have parents never critical but ever supportive and wise enough to so say : you are old enough at 18 to sort out your own problems - go and do it. (The family then stayed away on holidays and I returned home to Sydney). That positive push from my parents to “go sort out the problem” certainly created a positive self belief and a resilience that has stood me in good stead ever since.

That same push my parents gave me, I tell these students : go overseas for a year, learn about life, other cultures, about self, about being self reliant and forming a better idea of your destiny before investing capital and time in the next stage of your formal education. That is, don’t do what I did as I believe there is a better way.

The beauty about these nights is the exposure to a wide range of careers and of life narratives from people at various stages of career(s). Even I would love to listen to other “old boys and old girls” as there is always something to learn even at 69 years young.

Overall, they are all great young adults and it is a pleasure to be there!

Our main project as Alumni Prefects was being involved with the establishment of the Alumni Garden. With consultation from Mr Long, we designed flyers to encourage voting for our planned Alumni Garden in the ’My Community Project’ to receive a $50,000 grant. Along with the flyers, we added the paver purchase slip for anyone who may be interested in purchasing a paver. After finishing the flyer, the Alumni Prefects and 10 other Prefects helped distribute the flyers around the Penrith community - to the parents of our school and Penrith Public School, letterboxes of local residents and more. In total, we distributed around 400 flyers! We now wait patiently for the results and hope to receive the grant for the Alumni Garden, that will help us connect with the Penrith community, and past/present/future Penrith students.

Furthermore, the Alumni Prefects worked with Ms Fayle, by writing a review of the Alumni Night for this newsletter.

The Alumni team has been brainstorming some ways to organise an Alumni Week showcasing past newsletters, student achievements, photos and more! The week planned will recognise the rich history of our school!

Candy Ma, Jessica David and Nicole Huang

This year has marked another milestone in the history of Penrith High School. Every student now enrolled in the school has gained entry under the Selective High School system. The first of our selective system students present themselves for the Higher School Certificate at the end of this year. I wish them all the best in this examination and also in their future. It has been a great pleasure to have witnessed their development from pioneers in 1989, to the very fine group of people they are today. They have led the way for other students to follow and have played a very important part in the development of the school.

The past six years have not been easy. Initially the conversion of Penrith High School from a local comprehensive school to a selective school was received with a lot of opposition and fear of the unknown. With the dedicated effort of the students and staff we are now accepted by the community of Western Sydney and this sets us a challenge to continue and maintain this position.

Mr P. D. Press

Principal (pictured above)

“Penrith High School holds the very best memories of my schooling life. As the first selective student intake, I felt we were given space and support to explore, be curious and challenge the status quo. Peer Support was one of the very first programs we implemented, and I thoroughly enjoyed being a Peer Support Leader. As SRC President, I had the joy of proposing the first video disco to Mr Press, the former principal. I must have caught him on a good day, as the video disco went ahead, and was the first disco event that made a handsome profit from the previous 10 years. With the teacher’s guidance, we started the Year 9 Girls’ Careers Day with Mrs Bigland, Steamwatch with Mrs Shreve and Sydney water, Amnesty International vigils with Mr McLellan, St Vinnie’s Sleepout Fundraiser in the gym with Mr Tucker’s Bush band as the night’s entertainment. I still maintain the very best friendships from the school community, nearly 30 years on – and for me, that is the very best gift from the school. “

This eMagazine interview might give you some insight into what I’ve been up to.

https://femeconomy.com/maria-calibo-sales-female-leader-conversations/

My memories of this date back to my arrival at the school in 1987. At that time the school housed about 1500 students, as Penrith was hosting the students from the newly formed Cranebrook High School as it was being built.

It was understood that once Cranebrook moved into their own buildings the numbers at Penrith would plummet. The school was in the old area of Penrith, with a shrinking intake, as most young families were now living in the satellite suburbs and attending schools such as Jamison High School, Cambridge Park High School and Nepean High School.

It was estimated that numbers could be as low as 600 students and the Principal, Peter Press, was concerned about the possibility that the school could close. A lifeline was thrown to the school in the form of the changing policy direction by the Greiner Liberal/National Government and its Minister of Education Mr. Terry Metherell.

In 1988 the Government announced that, as a result of their policy to establish selective high schools in the burgeoning western suburbs, Penrith and Girraween High Schools had been chosen to convert into selective high schools. The main criteria, from memory, were falling numbers, closeness to transport, particularly rail and a drawing area that for Penrith, encompassed the Blue Mountains.

Peter Press announced the decision to the staff. He stated that any staff member who did not agree with the concept of selective high schools could apply for a transfer with his support. Most stayed, however, the Deputy Principal, Ray Bancroft took the opportunity to leave the school and teaching profession.

The first selective students arrived in 1989. The comprehensive students were very aware of the change and of their diminishing presence in the school over the next few years. The school used vertical rolls at the time that allowed the selective and non-selective to mix. The comprehensive students were very aware of the selective years and, at times, were a little jealous and perhaps feeling a little inferior. We tried to reassure them and build their confidence. Some of the best comprehensives were as good as the first selectives.

The years of transition were busy for teachers as they adapted the depth of material and pace of lessons to meet the new cohort. The students were generally well behaved and classroom management took on a very different focus.

On February 10, 1989, Premier Nick Greiner visited the school for the induction of the school captains. Year 7 student, Mark Greenaway wrote an article in “The Towers “. He stated the following:

… My first impression was that he was short! My second impression was that he was in a pickle with public relations or he would have not have done this. In the public’s eyes this would look like some goodwill mission or maybe just to check on us ‘selective guinea pigs’. Personally I find this title repulsive and disgusting, but that’s my opinion. Of course it would give Nick Greiner great satisfaction if we all went well in our HSC exam and made it to university, even greater satisfaction if we went to the University of Western Sydney. And he would want to see us every step of the way. My final deduction is that the Premier wished to check up on us and portray a good image to our parents…

The Towers 1989 p. 64

The first cohort was special. Peter Press was determined they would have as smooth a path to the HSC as possible, to begin to build the school’s reputation and acceptance in the community. Many students came from the mountains and the closer area around Penrith. Sunny Munn received the highest TER for the first cohort. She was an outstanding Ancient History student, excelling at 3 unit level. She, and many of her cohort, did go to university but not necessarily the University of Western Sydney. The University of Sydney and UTS were popular choices. Reputation and transport were again to play a part. P.H.S’s reputation developed with many of its best results coming from the Arts & Humanities subjects, setting it apart in the new selective era.

Rae Clapshaw (former History Teacher and now a regular invaluable casual teacher at PSHS)

I often struggle to believe where the time has gone! The 25th anniversary of our first selective cohort!!! Am I that old? I knew the answer to that question in 2018 when 2 ex-students enrolled their son at our school – the horror I experienced that day has never left me. Thanks Kim Wheeler and Steven Lau!

I remember exactly where I was (Library – in what used to be a “classroom” and is now our computer room) in 1988, in a staff meeting, when Peter Press informed us that our school was to become a selective high school beginning 1989. The staff was quite shocked as we were all expecting Penrith to become the new senior high school!

We welcomed our new Year 7 students with open arms, excited about the prospect of teaching gifted and talented students and curious about what to expect in the classroom. I look back at my experience as a very positive one. I have loved the challenge of extending the students and I am always in awe about how gifted they all are.

I absolutely adore this school and the wonderful opportunities we give to each and every student. This is probably the reason why I have never left. I have worked with some wonderful people over the years and I have been fortunate to work under 4 excellent Principals, Peter Press, Wendy De Paoli, John Elton and Mark Long – all with different leadership styles but all with 1 common goal – to give our gifted and talented students the best learning experiences possible.

Antoinette Marchetta

Head Teacher Co-curricular Programs

1. What was it like during the changeover from a comprehensive school to a selective school?
Reduction in the size of the school from 1200 students to 900 students. The challenging nature of the diversity of the student body. Selective High School students displayed the following characteristics such as:
* pace of their learning, being rapid learners content was covered at a fast pace as they were able to put their thoughts together very quickly.
* longer attention span - able to cover several concepts in the 80 minute lesson - covering theoretical and practical learning strategies.
* enjoying the problem solving, asking probing questions as well as usually large vocabulary
* thinking was abstract, complex, logical and insightful

2.What are 2 highlights from all your years of teaching?
1. A student coming first in the State for the new Textiles and Design course who had never done the subject as an elective in Years 9 and 10. Being the introduction of the new syllabus, resources for this subject were limited as no textbooks to cover the course content, were available.
2. Implementation of the new and challenging courses in the TAS area as a result of new syllabuses being introduced. I have enjoyed learning content and the technology associated with the numerous courses under the umbrella of TAS.

By Rachel Augustine (Alumni Prefect)

Of the several old homes which were to be found around the Penrith district, few were better known than "The Towers". This homestead stood for many years as a symbol of the pioneers of the district and it was with regret that people watched its demolition. At first it was thought that some use might be made of this old building, but it proved to be unsafe and its demolition was recommended.

We are happy to welcome reunion groups back at school. Former students are welcome to contact the school and current students, led by the Alumni Prefect will host a school tour, afternoon tea and provide access to the archives for groups to view.

We are also happy to assist you to re-connect with old friends from school and advertise your reunion details via our quarterly Alumni publication- Towers Alumni. Please email penrith-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au if we can be of assistance.

Please find the details below for the reunions that we are currently aware of or those that have been archived on our website: https://penrith-h.schools.nsw.gov.au/alumni/reunions.html

To celebrate the 60th Anniversary of completing the Leaving Certificate in 2019, interested ex-students are asked to contact Vic Lupton - vjlupton@iinet.net.au 0421619644 or Jim Mason -masomika@tpg.com.au 0408415910, please feel free to pass the details on to other classmates.

Details have also been posted in the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph

This year's 50th Anniversary Reunion of the class of 1964-1969 including those who came and went along the way will be celebrated with a luncheon to be held on Saturday 30 November 2019 at a venue to be confirmed.

The Facebook group is:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/PenrithHighSchoolReunion1964to1969/

Prior to the Saturday luncheon there will be a school tour of Penrith Selective High School on Friday 29 November 2019.

This will be conducted by the Year 12 students in the afternoon (the exact time is to be advised) followed by a brief meeting in the library.

Please contact Vivien Hansen on:

vivien.hansen@lbwireropes.com.au for further information.

Email: penrith-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au
Website: penrith-h.schools.nsw.gov.au
Location: 158-240 High Street, Penrith NSW, Australia
Phone: 02 4721 0529
Facebook: facebook.com/penrithselectivehighschool