Caringbah High School
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 School Emblem |
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| Motto | Omnia Vincit Diligentia "Dilligence conquers all" |
| Principal | Terry Wylie |
| Deputy Principals | David Chapple and Tony James |
| School type | Selective Public |
| Established | 1960 |
| Location | Caringbah, Sydney, NSW |
| Enrollment | c.900 students, 7-12 |
| School Colours | Orange and Green |
| Website | Caringbah High School's Website |
Caringbah High School (sometimes referred to as Caringbah Selective High School) is located on Willarong Road North in the suburb of Caringbah, in the Sutherland Shire, Sydney. It is one of the few academically selective, public and co-educational high schools in New South Wales. Caringbah High School achieves consistently high marks in both the School Certificate (SC) and the Higher School Certificate (HSC), as such is it is considered to be the "best" school in the district. Caringbah High School also performs well in many other academic activities, such as public speaking, debating, tournament of the minds and HSC distinction courses.
The school was opened in 1960 as a co-educational high school and was nominated to become selective in 1989, over the neighbouring Port Hacking High (rumoured to be due to a member of the selection committee being an alumnus of Caringbah High). Currently there are around 900 students enrolled.
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[edit] School Site
The school site is split between two campuses, the main (top school) and annexe (bottom school), these are linked by a covered walkway and park. The main school is the original site which contains the primary administrative offices, school hall and canteen. The annexe school was built to house an increased student population and now houses secondary administration, sport, the new library (opened in 1999) and some departments including English and Science. The main school is built over a filled in clay pit causing the main building to slowly sink creating larger and larger cracks in the main building. During heavy rain, the building has been known to leak. This structural fault combined with financial constraints have led the school to be consolidated at the annexe site. Construction work to achieve this started in 2006 and is expected to take over six years to complete, although the idea of consolidating the sites is not new. The school is also considered to possess a stunning reputation amongst the local community for the kind and responsible students it has educated most notably Mark Houston, Chris Ayoub and Daniel Sly (see sporting teams).
[edit] Online Community
Caringbah High School has its own unofficial online community, "the mednez[collective]" (www.mednez.net), provided exclusively for Caringbah High Students. The aim of the site is to build a student community to help the students get to know one another more, and provides photo galleries from events, games, personality tests, as well as a range of online learning services (to be launched in the latter half of 2006). The userbase is more than half the school, and also provides blogging and forum services for students. Its founder and director is Alex Mednis, who graduated from Caringbah High School in 2005. The site is run totally by students, for students, and is ever growing in services and its' presence, with possibilities of opening the site to a wider audience on the horizon.
[edit] Faculties
[edit] LOTE
At Caringbah High, language is compulsory in years 7 and 8 and it is taught as an elective for years 9-12. Languages taught include French, Japanese, and German.
Every year a group of 15-20 Year 10 students travel to France with Heathcote High School and Kirrawee High School with either of the French teachers for two weeks during the September holidays. Some students from Year 10 also visit Germany for those same two weeks with German teacher Mrs. Kendrigan. Every second year, Year 9 and 10 Students go to Japan for two weeks in the July holidays with either of the Japanese teachers.
[edit] Maths
Caringbah High School has a large number of students proficient at Maths, usually organising 2 classes of Maths Extension 2 in Year 12 for the HSC.
[edit] Science
[edit] English
Advanced English is the lowest English course offered at the Selective School, with the assumption that the vast majority will choose that or higher, including English Extension 1 and Extension 2, with the latter being offered in Year 12.
[edit] Other Activities
The school has many other extra-curricular activities available to students.
[edit] Music
Caringbah has a wide ranging music program which includes over twenty three musical ensembles, including:
- Rock Band 1 & 2
- Concert Band 1 & 2
- Stage Band 1& 2
- Flute Ensemble
- Violin Ensemble
- Clarinet Ensemble
- Choir
- Chamber Choir
- Jazz Band
-Sound & Lighting Crew consisting of Brendan Champion, Mark Houston, Joshua Mikel and Sean Hocking. Their hard work and commitment normally goes unnoticed but these boys truly are amazing and a great asset to the school.
During the school year there are various Musical Nights where the students perform in front of parents and other students. Towards the end of the year there is the annual music camp which goes blair over three days in Stanwell Tops. It is here that the students practice and then perform at an end of year music concert. Musicals used to be run frequently, but in recent years there has only been one which was a production of 42nd Street in 2002. In 2004 the school's music ensemble program was recognised in The Australian's "Australia's best schools"; a credit to the hard work and dedication of the two music teachers.
[edit] Sporting teams
Caringbah has may successful sports teams which include:
