30 October 2019

Newsletter Articles

Executive Principal’s Report

Dear Parents and Friends,

What a wonderful week of celebrations we had last week.

Our Annual Speech Night 2019 – We are the Champions was a spectacular event showcasing the vast array of school talent and student successes we have experienced this year. It was great to see such a large number of students receiving awards. Our performers made us very proud and our Drumline certainly stole the show – fitting in nicely with the theme! Our Guest of Honour – Hayley Lewis OAM gave a very heart warming and inspirational message to our students and she certainly walked away very impressed with what our school has to offer.

Once again I congratulate all our Award recipients and would especially like to acknowledge the recipients of our three top awards:

Dux of the School: Nghi Le Pham

Caltex All Rounder and ADF Long Tan Leadership award winner: Cooper Benz

Principal’s Award for School Service: Ismail Mohammed

The night was filled with performances, celebrations and achievements and we are so proud of all of our students! Our students also went above and beyond for the night as they took care of the catering for hundreds of parents, family and friends in attendance. Thank you to everyone who attended the night, and to all of our staff who made the night possible.

Please view our Speech Night Gallery on our website.

On Friday evening our annual Art exhibition and Music in the Night also showcased the fantastic talent that has evolved over the year. Our Arts staff certainly worked hard all week on all fronts. Just to add to the calendar our Dance Crew competed on Saturday at the House of Champions event at South Brisbane. What a week it was.

Last week we hosted some Indonesian students as well as their Principal and Vice Principal. Our staff and students went above and beyond to provide a unique and memorable experience for them at Corinda. I am sure that they have taken back many wonderful stories and memories. Our students did an outstanding job as buddies and hosts and we are very proud of the way in which they supported our International guests.

On Friday we celebrated World Teachers’ Day. Our School Captains hosted a special morning tea in the Station Masters House as a gesture of gratitude and made our Teachers feel very special. It was a day to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of our teaching staff and the commitment they make to our school community and most importantly our students.

Helen Jamieson
Executive Principal

Coming Events

Some of our best…

Debating

We had our final round of debates here on Friday night against Canterbury College, who really brought their A game. Our 12s had a win and Abbi Chaseling received a best speaker award. Most of the other debates were very close, with Corinda going down by only one point.

Thanks goes to the adjudicators Julie Arnold, Madi McCabe and Amy Heymer for giving up their Friday night and to the coaches Simon O'Brien, Alex Griffin, Amy Heymer and Patrick Duggan for all their time and hard work with the debaters across the year.

Agriculture

Last month, Lucas - our agricultural assistant - was fortunate enough to attend an introduction to alpacas’ session hosted by the Alpaca Association of Australia (AAA). The session proved to be very informative in helping Corinda SHS to further our care and continued relationship with these wonderful animals. The event was hosted by Michelle Malt from the AAA with guest speakers and a practical demonstration on some local alpacas. Lucas learned many new things regarding care of the animals, training, showing, fleece processing, and the history of alpacas in Australia. The practical demonstrating showed proper vaccination techniques, feet and teeth care, and shearing. Following this event, the school was invited to join the AAA who will continue to support us on our Alpaca journey.

This day also provided a chance for him to visit the local Creekside Alpaca farm run by Chris and Craig Chidgey. The time there provided a valuable insight into how an alpaca breeding farm is run, even managing to see some baby alpacas only weeks old. While there Lucas was able to view an Alpaca that Corinda was purchasing from Creekside, only to have Chris and Craig offer to donate another two! Since that day we have taken delivery of our three new friends who join Rocky our current Alpaca. The new Alpacas are: Motley Cruz a 10-year-old male with a gentle temperament and easy nature; Timelord, a 4-year-old wether with a very curious and active nature; and Dynamo, a 12-month old male who is just starting to mature but showing great promise. All 4 are getting along wonderfully and taking well to both the students and other animals. The students have already begun to practice halter training all four and they have taken very well to this.

Digital Technologies & Business

On Friday 11th of October two of our Year 10 Business Studies students, Miranda Byrnes and Sana Shameer were awarded a Highly Commended Award for their group business plan in the BEAQ Plan Your Own Enterprise (PYOE) Competition. Students have conducted customer research to identify a pain point for the target market and design a product that solves this. They then developed a business plan detailing the ins and outs of how they would run their new business. Miranda and Sana’s concept, Dea Beauty, is an App that integrated smart technologies and provided dermatological advice to users.

Community News

Nathan Wallis

Sound Scouts

The Sound Scouts hearing check App is FREE for all school-aged children K-12 thanks to funding from the Department of Health.

An estimated 10% of schoolchildren suffer from hearing loss which left undetected can lead to speech, learning, and behavioural problems.

The Sound Scouts App provides an indication of a child's hearing health and generates an automated report that can be shared with parents. This report details the child's listening abilities, in quiet and in noise. It's game based so it's fun and easy to use. 600+ schools nationally have now adopted using the App to help identify the increasing number of hearing issues in school-age students. The App is endorsed by Hearing Australia.

South Graceville Hounds