chosen other song (such as Pharrell Williams' 'Happy') as an ensemble. This performance requires several lessons' worth of time to practice as a school and has been conducted on Zoom meetings in recent years or through lipsyncing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Curriculum Cheltenham Girls' High School is registered and accredited with the New South Wales Board of Studies, and therefore follows the mandated curriculum for all years. The school provides two years of compulsory subjects (Years 7–8); two years of compulsory subjects, plus three elective subjects for the School Certificate (Years 9–10); and two years preparing for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) (Years 11–12). In Years 11 and 12, a minimum of 12 units Preliminary and 10 units HSC must be studied, with English the only mandatory subject. The school also offers two accelerated course for selected students, the subject are IPT, and Aboriginal Studies. Additional courses are also available through TAFE NSW, the Open High School, Saturday School of Community Languages and other providers. The school is a comprehensive high school, and typically performs well in the HSC, outperforming some public selective schools. In the 2006 HSC, the National Education Directory of Australia named Cheltenham Girls the sixth best performing school, and the best non-selective public school in Sydney's Hornsby region. House system Students are divided alphabetically into six house groups. School carnivals in swimming athletics and cross country are organised on a house basis. There are also sport prefects mostly from the senior years, but a few from the juniors in each sport house that lead the houses into house and school spirit chants and organise house meetings and do various jobs. The houses are: Bookoola (light blue) — "Wise Owl" Mirrabooka (dark blue) — "Southern Cross" Coolaroo (yellow) — "Stars" Petarli (white and black) — "The Moon" Dulkara (red) — "Rainbow" Wirreanda (green) — "Tall Trees" In the earlier days of the school, there were only two houses in the colours of green and a darker green. Student Leadership School prefects are elected from year 11 by staff and peers in years 10 to 12 in June each year. The captain, vice-captain and senior prefect are elected by the prefects. Transport prefects are elected from year 11 and support the safety, welfare and conduct of each student as she travels to and from school. Transport prefects report misbehavior, problems etc. to the head teacher welfare. The