2019 Leaders
Final parade Handover Our final parade for the year saw the 2018 student executive hand over to the 2019 student leaders. It was also an opportunity for our Year 12 students to say farewell with an outstanding performance from Jasmine Day, Jamie Saxon and Sean Allen.
Otani Muroran High school Day Visit On Friday 2nd November we had a visit from 54 students from Otani Muroran High School. Otani Muroran High School is a Japanese High school and has a total of 400 students and they have been visiting Atherton High for 10 consecutive years! Riley Hohnberg did a fantastic performance and the Japanese students also showed us AMAZING dances! When the students return to Japan there will be 5 Muroran students staying with Host families to complete the school year here at Atherton High. On the 28th November Xaante Thomas and Yasmin Michan will travel to Japan and go to school at Muroran, they both return to Australia on January 23rd. We wish them all the best with their exchanges!
Paying School Fees
Chris Weekly Spot Lets talk about cannabis maybe you know it as marijuana or perhaps weed, yarndi, hash, dope, pot or gunya.just to name a few. Well did you know that cannabis is the most commonly used illicit (illegal) drug among high school students in Australia and across the globe? This is because it is readily available, easy to access, the risk of overdose is very low and the risk of harm is generally also perceived as low. There has been a drop in the amount of students who believe cannabis is harmful. This change in attitude can be contributed to the increased usage of cannabis for medicinal and therapeutic purposes, and the increasing public debate for legalisation within Australia for personal use. If something is used to help people and they are looking at making it legal then surely it can t be that bad!!! What about in teenagers though? There is a growing body of evidence that marijuana use in adolescents is associated with reduced neurocognitive (brain) functioning. Cannabis is a depressant drug, which means it slows down messages travelling between your brain and body. The main active chemical in cannabis is THC (delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol). The adolescent brain is undergoing significant development well into the 20s, and the regions that are last to develop are those regions that are most populated by cannabis receptors. These areas are most critical to cognitive functioning. The human brain makes its own chemicals that resemble THC. These naturally occurring brain chemicals are called cannabinoids. Two of these, anandamide and 2-arachidonoyl-glycerol (2-AG), are considered neurotransmitters because they bind to cannabinoid receptors (CB 1 and CB 2) located in the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, basal ganglia, amygdala, hippocampus and cerebellum. This endocannabinoid system plays an important role in the maturation of the neuron networks in the brain. These reach their maximum levels during late adolescence. This system is also involved in regulating other neurotransmitter systems such as dopamine and serotonin, enhancing brain cell growth and controlling brain functions such as appetite, motor activity, motivation, mood, immune system activity, reward, learning and memory. The presence of these natural cannabinoids in the brain has led many to suggest that cannabis use is natural and won t affect the brain. However, when THC is taken into the brain, it targets the CB1 receptors in much higher quantities than natural brain cannabinoids, effectively flooding the system to the point that it no longer works efficiently.
Chris Weekly Spot (con t) This hijacking of the endocannabinoid system wreaks havoc on many complex processes in the brain, disrupting the regulatory role the system plays and inducing neurotoxic (poisonous to the brain) changes in brain regions rich with CB1 receptors. These neurotoxic changes have been shown to dramatically affect the natural process of brain development in adolescence and, in turn, promote physical changes in the brain s structure. As a result, effectively altering the functions responsible for emotional and cognitive performance. Given that CB1 receptors are widely dispersed throughout the brain, many different types of behaviour are affected by cannabis use, ranging from academic performance to motivation to psychomotor skills like driving. Whilst there exists many different variables to be considered amongst individual users of cannabis, the evidence is mounting, that early onset cannabis use has a tremendously negative impact on the structure and functioning of the teenage brain. Acute cannabis intoxication has been linked to deficits in focus, information processing, motor coordination and reaction time. Long-term regular use that starts in adolescence has been found to be associated with long term impairments in attention, decision-making ability, impulse control, memory and learning. In some contexts, the long-term cognitive impairments that result from regular cannabis use have been reversed after ceasing cannabis use, but this appears to be less likely when heavy use began in adolescence. Cannabis use can lead to the onset of psychotic symptoms, and is a major risk factor for developing schizophrenia. Psychotic symptoms include delusions, hallucinations and seeing or hearing things that do not exist or that are distorted. Regular cannabis use in adolescence has also been shown to worsen symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders, and childhood behavioural disorders such as ADHD. Those with a family history of mental illness are more likely to experience anxiety, depression and psychotic symptoms after using cannabis. It has been shown that the risk of reporting psychotic symptoms, or being diagnosed with schizophrenia in adulthood, is doubled in individuals with regular cannabis use in adolescence. The dynamic neurodevelopment that occurs during your adolescent years is instrumental in creating an optimised brain that will help propel you into a more prosperous and functional adulthood. As evidence demonstrates, cannabis use during these pivotal years of development can impact greatly on this natural process. ASK YOURSELF..IS IT WORTH THE RISK???