Riverside Currents Week 1 Term 1 2025

Dear Parents/Caregivers,

We have had a wonderful week both preparing for the arrival of our students and welcoming the students back.

As you are all well aware, all DoE schools have been granted TWO additional staff development days at the beginning of the year, the result of our New Award, to provide all staff with valuable, school-based time to plan programs and lessons to ensure that we were able to hit the ground running the minute that students arrive. And what a day it was yesterday – all students arriving at once! This has never been the case in all my teaching experience. Welcome back to all of our students, particularly our 116 new Year 7 students!

Welcome to Year 7

It is always a buzz to welcome our Year 7 students into our school and this year was no exception. Every student was full of smiles and curiosity and seemed to be fitting in very comfortably and confidently to our school environment. Starting any new experience can always be slightly overwhelming and we have had a few bumpy starts. I would just like to reassure the parents of these students that the journey does get easier as the surrounds and people become familiar. Hopefully, those students who have struggled with their transition into Year 7 have a lovely weekend preparing to come back on Monday in a slightly more confident manner.

I addressed the Class of 2030 when they arrived yesterday and congratulated them on their punctuality, organisation and presentation. They had all clearly taken the first day of high school very seriously and approached it in a very mature manner. To our Year 7 students and their families – thankyou for making our school an instantly better place; and it was a pretty good place to start!

Thankyou to Mr Palmero, The Year 7 Adviser, Ms Hendriks, the Year 7 assistant Year Adviser, Ms Miller, our Head Teacher Wellbeing, and the Year 10 Peer Support leaders for supporting Year 7 in their transition to high school. Year 7 participated in many fun peer support activities together and began to develop friendships with students across the cohort. All staff have reported to me that the Year 7 students are beginning to make their positive mark on Riverside already.

New Staff

There have been a few staff changes at Riverside for 2025. Please welcome the following teachers to our staff:

Head Teachers Secondary Studies - Ms Tyson/Ms Turner

ENGLISH

• Mr Hossain
• Mr De Bres
• Ms Mulcahy

MATHS - Ms Sullivan

HSIE - Ms Burgmann

TAS

• Ms Kulinitsch
• Ms McNeil-Dean

PDHPE

• Ms Aldred
• Ms Dive
• Ms Vardanega

Careers/PDHPE - Ms Low (3 days/week with Ms Soares)

HSC 2024

We are extremely proud of the achievements of all of our HSC students for 2024 and as a school we ranked 18th in the Top 20 comprehensive high schools – an achievement for which I am supremely proud.

Our top ATAR of 96.5 went to our school captain, Aimee C, who also came 6th in the state in Hospitality and achieved Distinguished Achievements for three subjects. For those of you who have not seen our key achievements on our socials, I would like to present the following HSC highlights:

As a school, we analyse our HSC results, taking note of successes and reflecting on areas for improvement and strategies to make these improvements. I have met with all curriculum head teachers to discuss their results and faculty goals for 2025. As a staff, we also reflect on the successes of all HSC students, measured in metrics such as growth (Band 4-5, 3-4 or 1-2) or students’ merely turning up to complete an exam (for some students this in itself is a major achievement).

School Excellence Planning

At Riverside, teaching and learning is where we aim to truly excel and I can say with great confidence, we know our students, their learning styles and potential and their general state of wellbeing. All staff are encouraged and supported to engage in continued professional learning to adopt new ideas and enhance their skills and capabilities as subject experts and classroom practitioners. We encourage a cross-curriculum focus and collaboration through the implementation of professional learning teams to lead improvement in Literacy, Numeracy and Data, Explicit teaching, Transitions and Community Partnerships, Generative AI, Connectedness/Belonging/Attendance. These teams, built on diverse talent and interest, form the basis for our school planning and improvement and investigate and design evidence-informed initiatives to drive student growth and attainment. We strive to remain up-to-date with new ideas and pedagogy and to remain innovative in all that we do.

I am proud of all that we do and, most of all, our responsiveness and creativity in meeting student need and driving student success. 2025 is going to be another exciting and fulfilling year at Riverside.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Louise McNeil

Principal

Open Day

Our annual Open Day will be held on Tuesday 4 March from 4:00pm - 6:00pm. Please pass this on to your friends and family who may be interested in visiting our school and considering Riverside for their daughters now or in the future.

Messages from the office

Attendance

There is no safe number of days for missing school. Being away from school for one day a fortnight adds up to missing four whole weeks of school a year. Where possible, you should avoid your child missing school, for example, make appointments for your child outside of school hours and keep family holidays to outside term time. If your child is absent, please wait for the text message you will receive from the school and respond accordingly.

Payments

All payments can be made online via School Bytes. We can also receive payments (correct cash or card) in the office at Recess two or lunch from Monday - Thursday.

School Photo Day

School Production

This year's school musical is The Little Mermaid. If you are interested in auditioning to be part of the cast or to sign up for backstage, please join our Google Classroom: tekemsb and complete the Google Form. https://docs.google.com/forms/...

Audition information is on Google Classroom and outside Room 2. Auditions will take place on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of Week 4. Rehearsals will take place after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays. See Ms Young if you have any questions.

Ms R Young

Faculty News

Co-curricular Activities

Sydney North Trials - Term 1

Please join the SPORT GOOLE CLASSROOM for more information about Term 1 Sydney North Trials.

Sport Google Classroom Code - u4ot4ys

The following Sydney North Trials will be held in Term 1:

• Volleyball - 7th Feb - Homebush
• Hockey - 25th Feb - Wyong
• Tennis - 25th Feb - North Parramatta (CHS competition)
• Football (soccer) - 27th Feb - Narrabeen
• Touch Football U15s - 28th February - West Gosford
• Rugby 7s - 3rd March - Narrabeen
• Australian Football U15 - 4th March - Hornsby Heights
• Golf - 6th March - Gosford
• Basketball - 7th March - Terrigal
• Netball - 4th April - Terrigal
• Bowls - 4th April - Ourimbah

Ms S Nicol

NSW Junior Beach Championships

Riverside would like to congratulate one of our students in Year 9 this year, Skyler S. for her significant achievements in both indoor and outdoor/beach volleyball. Over the holidays Skyler competed and won gold for the U16 division at the state’s NSW Junior Beach Championships, as well as just before Christmas Skyler also won gold at the Brighton Youth Competition for Beach Volleyball.

Skyler normally balances around 12 hours of sport per week during the school term, meanwhile still achieving excellent academic results too. This year Skyler has been selected to play in the NSW Phoenix team, join the Div 1 U16 Girls rep team at UTS Volleyball, has been granted a High Performing Scholarship and will also be playing at the Australian Youth Beach Volleyball Championships in March.

We look forward to following Skyler’s incredible journey with Volleyball and supporting all of her endeavours this year.

Go Skyler!

Ms T Hendricks

2024 Duke of Edinburgh Bronze and Silver Journey

In the last week of Term 4, Year 9 and 10 students embarked on their Duke of Edinburgh Adventurous Journey to Camp Somerset in the Colo River. It wasn't a smooth start - with predicted weather of 35-38 degrees, the girls adapted and overcame some challenges and last minute changes to their hiking program.

Accompanied by Ms Hendriks and Ms Miller, students set off on Monday 16 December and undertook a day of practising a new skill - canoeing. Lucky they had the day to do this, as it was early the next morning they set out to beat the heat and complete their qualifying journey of an 8km canoeing expedition up to the Colo River. Conditions were warm but the cool water was certainly a reprieve from what may have been a very long hike.

At camp during the second afternoon and evening, the girls had fun completing some team building activities and of course, cooking off Tranjias! The evening was hot and the tents were humid, but our girls showed tenacity and perseverance, with little to no complaining reported by the supervising teachers and instructors!

A massive congratulations to all Duke of Edinburgh students. If you are interested in Duke of Edinburgh, there will be an information session in early March for new recruits. Keep an eye on Sentral Daily notices and Year group google classrooms for more information. FYI, you must be in Year 9!

Miss J Lemon