Penrith High Towers-Alumni

Welcome to our (first) Penrith Alumni update. It is hard to know, but safe to assume, that this isn’t the first time that the school has produced a newsletter for former students, but after quite some time trawling the archives we couldn’t put our hands on any of the earlier versions.

By way of introduction, my name is Mark Long and I have been the Principal here at Penrith since August 2016. My initial appointment was for 10 weeks as the Department of Education started the process of filling the position following John Elton’s retirement. As former students, you would know that Penrith is a very difficult place to leave so I left my position as Deputy Principal at James Ruse Agricultural High School and started permanently just before Christmas 2016.

I was struck very early on when I arrived at Penrith by the rich history that the school has and how we could find ways to welcome you back at school, link current students with you professionally and also help you to connect with each other.

2020 marks the school’s 70th Anniversary and we will start planning in late 2018 for how those celebrations will look. Wendy De Paoli (Principal 2000-2010) has shared much about what the 60th celebrations looked like and I know there is already some planning underway by some of your classmates and it will be enjoyable to work together as we head towards 2020. Former PE teacher, Maxine McNally, is working through the process of digitising each of the Tower’s Magazines to ensure that we keep that history for many years to come.

As the school’s motto Altiora Peto notes, students and staff are still striving for the highest and we were delighted that a range of important indicators (including the HSC results, university offers, leadership opportunities in a range of areas - sport, the arts, politics, community service to name but a few) continue to trend strongly upwards.

We have welcomed back a number of alumni in the past 18 months, including for our Prefect Induction Ceremony, Ross Penninkilampi and Grace White (Captains 2012), Graduation Night keynote, James Willis (2010), our Pathways into Medicine/ Dentistry and Engineering forums: Gavin McPherson, 2003, Ross Penninkilampi (2012), Krishehen Thayaseelan, Atishay Kumar, Jasmin Lee, David Pirez, Rahul Menon, Devash Shah (2015), Saami Bashar (2014) and Jasleen Kaur (2016).

I hope that you enjoy some of the pictures that you will find further in this update and will take the time to join our mailing list so we can email you directly next term. If you are organising a reunion, particularly the classes of 58, 68, 78, 88, 98 or 2008 you are more than welcome to contact the school and if we can make a venue such as the hall available or have current students lead a tour of the school, we’d be more than happy to welcome groups back.

Warm regards,

Mark Long

Principal

In Term 4 2017, 22 schools from all across Sydney made their way over to our school from 4pm to 6pm.

We invited them over to our first major event, the Prefect Afternoon Tea, and we hosted over 100 students. Along with them, we invited Emma Husar, the federal member for Lindsay as well as Ms Summerhayes, the director of Public Schools, to speak about leadership.

Afterwards, students participated in speed dating sessions aimed towards establishing connections with many of the other well known selective schools of the state, as well as the many schools within the local community.

This was a huge step for our school as we reached out and created opportunities that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. The afternoon was a tremendous success due to the huge turnout and the collective effort of the whole prefect body.

Make sure that you remember to like our Penrith Prefects Facebook page, follow us on Instagram (@pshsprefects) and subscribe to our YouTube channel (PSHS Prefects).

Internationally World Teachers' Day is celebrated on the first Friday in October. However, as this is usually during the Australian school holidays, Australia celebrates the day on the last Friday in October of each year. In 2017 this was October 27. This provides an opportunity to celebrate our teachers and to recognise the challenges they face each day.

Our prefects put together a video below of the 2017 World Teachers' Day.

Penrith High School began as an intermediate school in the 1930s, occupying the land adjacent to the school's current location(the present day Penrith Public School). During that time the land that PSHS currently occupies was the site of a mansion known by the locals as "The Towers". During the 1940s, the mansion and the land it occupied was sold to the Department of Education who demolished the mansion and built Penrith High School. Two of the original foundations of the mansion have been preserved and remain in the school grounds. The original plaque has been transferred into the present day school hall. Penrith High School (established in 1951) was designated as an Academically Selective High School in 1989. The name change to Penrith Academic/Academically Selective High School appeared after 2010 and has been recently trimmed back to mirror a shorter title used by Manly Selective. Regardless, the school is very aware and proud if its long history and is looking forward to increasing engagement with former students from both the comprehensive and selective eras of the school.

Celia has competed in the Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast in the 10,000 metres this week. She made a stellar performance coming in 6th overall. Celia had won the Melbourne Marathon (42km) late last year and she did very well to keep reasonably in touch when the pace picked up towards the end. Congratulations Celia!

Hi to all,

As some of you might realise I retired from teaching in 2016 after arriving at Penrith High in September 1983. I am currently keeping my hand in by doing some regular casual teaching.

Penrith High is a school with a long and proud history. To have been able to play a role in that history, particularly in sport, and to meet so many wonderful people has been a privilege.

The formation of an Alumni group and Newsletter is a great opportunity to catch up, celebrate the achievements of students past and present and share the stories and memories of time spent at Penrith High.

The 70th Anniversary in 2020 will be a wonderful celebration of Penrith High.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Maxine McNally

1983-1990 - various faculties

1990 - 2016 - PDHPE/Sports Organiser

Hi,

I began my teaching career at Penrith High School in 1988. The Principal back then was Peter Press and the Deputy was Ray Bancroft. Penrith City and the school were so different in the 80s. I arrived to a school where the Language Department had limited resources. I found 20 copies of 1 Italian Text Book and numerous French and German texts which were so old that they were “unusable”. There were also few classes in any of the 3 languages. To say that the school has changed over the years is an understatement!

I have enjoyed my time at the school – so much so that I have never left! Throughout the years, I have been lucky enough to meet and teach some extraordinary and talented students, in particular as year Adviser for the 2001 and 2014 year groups. Those are memories I will cherish forever. I have seen Principals and Deputies come and go and I am so very excited with the direction in which the school is heading under the leadership of Mark Long.

As our 70th Anniversary approaches, it would be wonderful to see as many ex-students as possible. You all have helped shape the school’s identity.

Antoinette Pipio (Marchetta)

School Spirit Week is a longstanding school tradition where the SRC and other clubs and groups across the school run a series of events over the week so that students can enjoy the end of the term. 2018 marks a new date for this event, as it has traditionally run in Term 2 alongside the Athletics Carnival. As the 2018 School Calendar was being planned, we tried to finish each term with a celebration or the chance for students to somewhat relax before heading to holidays and School Spirit week will book end term 1 alongside the Cross Country to be held on the last day of term.

Multicultural Day has always been an important event on the School Calendar. The school's Multicultural Day has a history of a fun - filled day that now includes activities, food stalls, colourful traditional outfits and a celebration in the hall of traditional dancing. Multicultural Day will be the final day of Term 2 and is set to be another spectatcular showcase of the school.

The entire Penrith School Community sent its condolences to the family of former Principal Mr Jack Mullane (BA Dip. Ed) who passed away in late 2017, aged 98.
Mr Mullane was Principal from 1976-1980 and spent almost half of his 40 year career in a number of positions at the school. We thank him for his many years of service including overseeing the construction of the school gym and classroom block where TAS, Languages, PDHPE and the kitchens are now.

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