Penrith High Towers-Alumni

Dear Alumni,

As I write this update, we have just completed our 2019 Alumni Night. We had 22 former students from a range of fields register to join us and 175 Year 11 and 12 students attend to learn about life beyond school. It is the second year that we have run this event and the student feedback is incredibly positive. On behalf of the school, thank you to everyone who gave up their time. We know how busy it is and how far many of you travelled to come back. We look forward to hosting the 2020 event around the same time next year.

We continue to plan for the 70th Anniversary of the school. It is great to share that our current plan is to have an open day on Saturday 4th April. We have had a number of former students contact us with the intention to align reunions/ events with this date so people can take the chance to visit the school and then move to other locations in the area for afternoon teas and dinners. We will have an organising committee for the 70th Anniversary and finalise plans later this year. At this point, we are planning to have school tours, displays of archived items, food stalls and performances. If you are interested in contributing ideas or being part of the organising committee, please contact the school via email: penrith-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au

As part of the 70th celebrations, we are in the final stages of designing an Alumni Garden that will incorporate a gazebo style structure, rose gardens and a pathway with personalised/engraved bricks that former students and teachers can purchase. The garden will be located on the front grass outside of the main building and will importantly feature the 2 historical sandstone pieces from the front gates of the Towers Mansion. The design is aiming to honour the heritage of the former Towers site, the success as NSW's 62nd High School while ensuring that additional bricks can be added in the years ahead. The school has recently established a building fund that allows donations to be claimed as a tax deduction and contributions to this fund will be recognised with the opportunity to have a personalised/ engraved brick placed in the Alumni garden. Details about how to make a donation and provide the details on your brick can be found on the website: https://penrith-h.schools.nsw.gov.au/alumni/alumni-garden.html​

Below in this edition of Towers - Alumni are both the hand drawn plans (Completed by former Head Teacher- Chris Prior) and a digitised plan (Completed by Year 10 student - Darren Pradham). Both capture the vision for what we hope will be in place for an official opening in April next year.

Finally, can I draw your attention to our expanded offering on the Alumni/ 70 years of PHS page on the school's website. We are updating it regularly with information including reunions. Please feel free to share any events with us and thank you to those who already have. We know that over 1000 people read this quarterly publication and it is nice to capture what students are doing after school - be it recently or a little while ago. https://penrith-h.schools.nsw.gov.au/

As always, we look forward to hearing from our former students and I hope that you will make plans to join us in 2020 to celebrate 70 years of Penrith High School.

Warm regards,

Mark Long

Principal

Over the last 2 months, the school has completed a number of significant upgrades. Many of these have been funded through the support of parents through fundraising and early payment of the school contribution. Classrooms have been painted, new seating made available for students in H, M and C Blocks, the expansion of the weights area to allow for a full class to utilise the area and phase 1 of the upgrade to the school gym. In the coming weeks, construction will commence on phase 2 of the gym area which will see the enclosure of the area between the canteen and gym. The large wooden wall will be replaced by 4 sliding glass panels to allow access into the gym. Tables and a kitchenette will be installed for student comfort and use and the Barista Training Program will commence so students can learn additional skills while volunteering to provide a service to staff and senior students. We have a joint funding application being reviewed for Term 3, which would see the space fitted with air conditioning and heating. Additionally, the former music staffroom will be converted into 2 sound proof tuition rooms. Constructed with comfort and line of site in mind, the space will help our musicians to practice during their work with tutors and teachers as well as during lesson time. Thanks to Mrs Maria Ryan, Mr Matt Oxley and Mr Chris Prior for all of their work to manage and complete such a wide range of projects.

As mentioned in Mr Long's report, on July 2 we celebrated our second Alumni Night with many Alumni returning to share their post school experiences with our current Years 11 and 12.

The evening was extremely successful with over 170 students attending. We have had nothing but positive feedback from both the students and Alumni.

A special mention to Max Peters and Amber Vella on a job well done in helping to organise such an important event.

Below are the profiles of some of the Alumni who attended on the night and additional Alumni who were unable to attend, remembering that some returned for a second time so their profiles are in previous Towers-Alumni Newsletters.

Grad Dip Applied Finance and Investment - Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA)

Carl has spent his career providing financial advice to the world’s leading investors. Firstly Carl provided Australian equity advice to the world’s largest fund managers, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. Carl then moved into private wealth for Australians, providing holistic financial advice to high net worth individuals and ultra-high net worth families and sophisticated investors.

Electrical Trade; Refrigeration Trade, Solar and Solar Battery design and installation qualification, Cert IV TAE; MBA SGSM (UWS).

I left PHS in 1978 and completed an electrical apprenticeship in 1983. I started an electrical company in 1988 and grew this to 65 employees and sold the business in 2009. I have since started a Solar and Solar Battery Storage installation company and we have our office across the road from PHS, where it began all those years ago.

Diploma Law 1993 (Solicitors Admission Board)

Admitted as Solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW 1994

Highlights of your time at Penrith:

• Being selected as Vice School Captain in 1979

• Great teachers

• Sport – Rugby League, Representative Volleyball

Career:

• Clerk, NSW Department of Justice 1980 -1985

• Registrar of the Local Court 1985 - 1998

• Deputy Director, NSW Local Courts 1998 - 2007

• Appointed as a Magistrate and Coroner of the Local Court of NSW 2007 to present

Community Engagement:

• Director, St Paul’s Grammar School, Penrith 2002 -2014

• Chair, St Pauls Grammar School 2012 – 2014

• Chair, Australian Friends of Tandaza ( Not for Profit Charity)

• Volunteer, Mama Lana’s – Penrith (Charity)

A Key message for Year 11 and 12 students as they plan for life beyond School:

• You get out of life what you are prepared to put into it

• Future success and happiness is not measured in dollars. It is measured by the positive impact you have on others and the ability to make a difference in our world no matter how small.

• Be prepared to start at the bottom to reach the top.

• Treat everyone with dignity no matter their circumstances.

• In a world where the “me” generation seeks to be the norm. Dare to be different. There is no such thing as self-entitlement.

I finished Year 12 at Penrith High in 2002 and started a Bachelor of Science (Advanced) at The University of NSW (UNSW) the following year. I completed an Honours year in science (biochemistry) research in 2006 and then a PhD in biochemistry from 2007-2010. Since 2011, I have been working as a Post-Doc scientist at UNSW, with a couple of career breaks to have children. In my job, I perform experiments in a lab, write research publications, apply for funding, and supervise PhD and undergraduate students, amongst other tasks. I have been to conferences both interstate and overseas to present my work and we collaborate with other researchers around the world.

Thank you Jurriaan Beek for supplying us with the photos below of Mr Stockton in the classroom at PHS teaching Modern History in 1958 and in the paper in 1988.

Jurriaan is still actively working as a GP Obstetrician at Casino Hospital as well as Lismore Base Hospital.

He was recently (May 2019) given an award for "Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning" by the University Centre for Rural Health, part of the University of Western Sydney, where he holds an appointment as Conjoint Senior Lecturer at the school of Medicine.

Note: Jurriaan's full profile appears in an earlier edition of this newsletter.

Ben Sewell, graduated from PHS 1995

Ben studied Arts and Law after he finished school in 1995 and then continued to study part-time and ended up with a Master of Law and a Masters of Business Administration.

Ben has followed a career path as a commercial lawyer and after his first job working as a Judge's Associate in the District Court he worked at commercial law firms. In 2006 Ben started his own law firm and since then has run his own law firm (Sewell & Kettle Lawyers).

Ben's area of specialisation as a lawyer is insolvency law and he's incredibly passionate about it. His career has taken him around the world with lots of interesting cases and challenges.

Ben's message for students is to keep learning as a lifelong habit and have the courage to follow your convictions.

Thank you to Kane Hausfeld (class of 2013) and Rachel McInstry - nee Ferguson ( class of 2015) for coming back as Alumni to speak about career options as part of the Year 10 Career's Program.

A huge congratulations to our School Administration Manager, Maria Ryan, being awarded the Metropolitan North Executive Director's Award for Excellence. There isn't a student, staff member or parent who hasn't been impacted by Maria's work and goodwill. Well done and thank you for 16 years of service to the school ...so far!

Early June a special chapter in our school's history ended. Marry Ward, who has worked in our canteen since 1981 retired.

Thank you Marry for feeding thousands of students and staff over the years and for years of work on the P&C.

We will miss you! Have a great retirement!

The overall recount

Marry explained to us that her plans for retirement included visiting old friends, catching up and that she is in the middle of moving out of her current home. She hopes that within the next 5 years she will still be enjoying her retirement with her family by her side. Marry first began volunteering with the school canteen in January 1981, at this time the current Gym, TAS and Languages blocks had just finished construction. Over the years she has seen her fair share of students, staff and change within the school and the canteen. She remembered vividly early in her time with the school, the canteen had been broken into 12 times within the space of just a few terms costing around a thousand dollars worth of food. The canteen has also had a fire starting from a faulty evaporative cooler which forced them to cook out of the history block. But aside from all this occasional madness Marry says that the best part of the job was being able to make good memories with the other canteen volunteers and seeing all the students come and go. Of all the different foods that have come and gone from the canteen she recounted that the best sellers of all time were the donuts(her personal favourite), cream and finger buns, Coca~Cola(before they switched to Pepsi).

Besides her long career in the canteen Marry has also been playing and umpiring netball since 1982 until she stopped just two years ago. She will continue to garden - a hobby that blossomed out of her love for flowers, of which her favourites are: roses, tulips, irises, dahlias and gerberas.

She told us the biggest change within the school was probably the switch from comprehensive to selective, stating that back when Penrith High was a comprehensive school she occasionally had to step out to break up fights. She mentioned that she remembered when Ms Andreatta and Mr MacRae attended the school but couldn’t remember ever seeing Mr Chapple(unlucky sir). She’s served many people over the years and some of her most memorable orders include a chicken bearnaise pastry placed inside of a bread roll, Miss Graham’s cheese and tomato roll, Ms Cunningham’s sparkling water and Ms Clapshaw ice coffee milk, chicken roll and blueberry muffin. Although there has been several embarrassing incidents her most recent and easiest to remember was when she dropped a tray of chicken and rice spilling it across the floor. Its safe to say there was some amount of clean-up required.

******

Marry is what people can call a pillar, a constant in life. To our school canteen, that’s what she’s been, the occasionally intimidating but friendly woman who teaches you manners right from the start of Year 7.

The History Interest Group has some exciting projects that they are currently working on. If you are able to provide any assistance with information, particularly names, email addresses and phone numbers this would be greatly appreciated, as these are at times very difficult to track down.

Please send information about any of the projects below to Clark Stone, Head Teacher History.

Email address is:

clark.stone@det.nsw.edu.au

We have some exciting projects happening:

The Principal's Photo Gallery

We are looking to frame the best photos we can find on all of Penrith High School’s principals, with a plate stating names, academic qualifications and years as Penrith High School principal on the bottom of each photo. These will ultimately be placed in the main corridor of the main building. If you have any suitable photos could you forward these on. Any photos would be greatly appreciated.

A past Captain's book for our 70th anniversary

We are gathering information about all of our past captains. Our plan is to create a book which has the boy and girl captain for each year on a double page. There will be the name and year on each page. Each page is intended to have a school photo of the captain (when actually the captain) and a more recent photo beside it.

Underneath this will be four questions:

1. What is your best memory of Penrith High School?

2. What did you think you would be doing after you left high school?

3. What are you doing now?

4. What is the best advice you could give to current PHS students?

We may be able to get some of these responses from the profiles in the back of The Towers.

If you were a past captain could you forward a suitable photo and your responses to the four questions. This will be passed on to the relevant students. Each student has been allocated a five year period to research.

If you know the contact details of any past captain could you pass this information onto Clark Stone.

The intention is to present this book to the school in 2020 with copies for sale and one to placed in the school foyer.

A PHS War Veterans Board.

We have obtained funding from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs for an honour board to acknowledge to contributions of past PHS students who have served Australia in times of conflict. If you, or other past students that you are aware of, have served Australia please contact Clark Stone.

This board will be placed with all the other honour boards in the school hall.

Constructing a scaled model and computer generated model of The Towers

We have some creative and talented students working on producing a scaled model of The Towers, the building that was on the site prior to the school being built.

At the moment we are considering using lego, but are open to suggestions (and lego donations!). We also have computer savvy students working on a computer generated version of The Towers. We have some high quality photos of the front and both sides of The Towers , but none of the back, or inside the building.

If you have any photos that would help please send us a copy. Both of these versions will be displayed in the foyer of the main building.

1. Working out and marking the Towers footprint.

   We are also trying to determine the “footprint” of The Towers, by marking out the line of the perimeter on the ground. To do this we need any helpful information. At the moment we are relying on photos and the position of the two bunya pines at the front of the school.

Reunions are a wonderful way to keep up your connection with old friends, reminisce and catch up.

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

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.

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

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