On Wednesday 8 March we held our International Women’s Day breakfast at school with over 120 people in attendance. It was a wonderful morning which included some amazing music by our Senior Girls’ Chamber Choir, as well as a presentation by our special guest speaker, Alumni Madeline Townsend (Class of 2008). Madeline shared her journey post school where she studied to become a dentist, after which she was not long diagnosed with a very rare type of cancer. She talked about her the battle she faced before eventually defeating the disease, and how she hopes her story can help inspire others. We were very grateful that Madeline was able to come back to Tintern to share her story and to help bring awareness to those suffering from rare forms of cancer. Shortly after the event Madeline was climbing Mt Kosciuszko in a team as part of the Rare Cancers Australia Kosi Challenge. The Tintern Community donated from this breakfast and a later staff morning tea the amount of $1819.70 for Rare Cancers Australia.
The theme for International Women’s Day this year was #Embrace Equity and as part of our ongoing commitment to improving everyone’s understanding of this, we were incredibly lucky to have the Honourable Chris Maxwell (jurist) come to our school to talk to our Years 9 – 12 students. Justice Maxwell is a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University where he studied Law, before returning to Australia to further his opportunities in this area. He worked for over 20 years as a barrister in Victoria before becoming the President of the Court of Appeal for 17 years. He spoke to our students around gender equity in the workforce.
House Athletics
On Friday 10 March we held our annual House athletics carnival at Proclamation Park in Ringwood. It was a fantastic day of fun and energy by all involved. The determination and spirit demonstrated by all students was great to watch with a very close battle between the Houses throughout the carnival. It came down to the last set of relays where Somner Stewart were able to achieve enough points to take out the overall champions for the day, with Gordon Grant coming in a very close second. Read the Sports Report
EISM Division 1 Swimming
On Tuesday 14 March our swimming team ventured to the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre (MSAC) for the EISM Division 1 competition. There are 9 teams in Division 1, making it a very competitive and challenging level; however, our swim team excelled this year to finish an amazing 2nd overall – our best finish for a very long time. We won the Most Improved school on the night, as well as the Under 13 girls and Under 16 boys divisions. This is a fantastic effort by our swim team with many of them qualifying for the Champions meet on Monday 27 March back at MSAC – we wish them all the very best for this next level of competition.
World’s Greatest Shave
March 15 – 19 was the World’s Greatest Shave for the Leukaemia Foundation and one of our Year 8 boys, Seth Chrisfield, nominated himself to participate. He has been growing his hair for several years in preparation for this and reached a point where he felt ready to participate in the event. To help with the situation, his very own hairdresser, Emily from the Cutting Co 3134 in Warranwood, came onsite to perform the cut and shave. Given his hair was very long, the first part of the cut was to create ponytails that were then donated to the Ponytail Project where they look to provide wigs for those suffering with cancer who cannot afford them. This was followed by a number 1 shave of his head for the Leukaemia Foundation. We would all like to congratulate Seth on his commitment and fundraising efforts.
Our Year 8s departed for their camp this week to the Grampians National Park. It is a week filled with so many fantastic activities such as rock climbing, abseiling, canoeing, hiking and mountain biking. It builds on their Year 7 introduction to camps by having them fully self-cater for the 5 days using their Trangia stove, helping to prepare them for their adventurous camps in Year 9.
We are all very excited for the upcoming school musical Chicago at the Karralyka Theatre next week. A reminder that the show is running from Wednesday 29 March – Saturday 01 April and tickets can be booked through Karralyka directly.
Brett Trollope | Head of Secondary
Debating – Round 1 summary
The Debaters Association Victoria (DAV) schools debating competition is a co-curricular activity for secondary students. It is the largest English speaking Debating Competition in the world, with over 250 schools competing and 1500 teams. We are proud to support our student’s skills of debating by being a Host School. We have 7 teams in 2023 who recently competed in Round 1 on 8 March. Our C Grade (Year 10) and two of our D Grade (Year 9) teams won this first round. We also celebrated two best speakers Arya Yogesh Kumar and Himandee Jayaratne. Our A Grade (Year 12) and B Grade (Year 11) and two D grade teams were defeated by a narrow margin.
We are looking forward to our next debate when the topics will range from ‘That Uranium mining in Australia should be banned’ through to ‘That we regret the rise of artificial intelligence’. In round 2 the Tintern B grade and C grade teams will have a bye, but all four D grade teams and our A grade team will be debating.
Lanna Derry | Debating Co-ordinator
