From Ms Allum

Welcome to Term 4! It is just lovely to see everyone’s smiling faces ready for another term of teaching and learning.

This morning our new Prefects for 2022/2023 were inducted in a beautiful service. Here, they were reminded that they are the ears, hearts and voices of the student body and that they have a responsibility to serve their community and the potential to shape the student experience for their peers – something I am confident they will do with grace and humility. I look forward to working with Bibi Kuo (Head Prefect), Charlotte Taylor (Deputy Head Prefect), the House Prefects Elizabeth Lapham (Badham), Sophie Davis (Barton), Allegra Sintras (Beck), Emma Juneja (Christian), Eva Harris (Docker) and Scarlett Phillips (Langley), along with Prefects Kate Ambrogio, Milla Brown, Ruby Cooney, Maggie-Rose Dunlop, Indiana Meers, Amelia Moran, Eliza Newton, Sally Oppenheim, Leyla Ozen, Helena Piazza and Jemima Smith.

Towards the end of Term 3, it was announced that COVID-19 isolation rules had been revised. From Friday 14 October, isolation requirements for those testing positive for COVID-19 will be removed. As a community, maintaining the health and safety of all students, staff and families will remain a priority. We will continue to operate in a COVID-smart way, with measures in place to curtail transmission. These include:

• Remaining home and testing if unwell and only attending school if no symptoms are present
• Conducting rapid antigen testing if symptoms develop
• Sound hygiene practices including regular hand washing and the use of hand sanitiser
• Practising good cough and sneeze etiquette by coughing and sneezing into your elbow or into a tissue which is immediately disposed of.
• Keeping up to date with vaccinations

If your daughter is unwell

Staff and students cannot attend school if they are showing any symptoms of flu or COVID-19.

If symptoms occur at any time, your daughter should not attend school and should undertake a rapid antigen test. Even if she tests negative on a RAHT, please keep her home for 24 hours and then test again. Even if multiple COVID tests (RAHT and/or PCR) come back negative for COVID-19, students should not return to school until all symptoms of the illness have gone.

Health advice is that students who are sick should always stay home to rest and recover and avoid putting others at risk of getting sick.

Please help us keep everyone in our community as safe and well as possible this term!

Happy Term 4 everyone!

Jenny Allum
Head of School

The Motivations Behind Light Her Path Giving

The Light Her Path Capital Campaign is seeking to raise $12 million this year for the redevelopment of Wilkinson House and has a longer-term goal of an additional $8 million for the scholarship fund. The campaign has enjoyed tremendous support from the SCEGGS community and has succeeded in raising over $8 million to date.

Over 150 members of the community have contributed generously. Donors are listed on the campaign website and will be recognised in the redeveloped Wilkinson House in a lasting acknowledgement of their contribution.  Donors have a wide range of compelling reasons for participating:

Chief among the rationale for donors is the desire to support the core principles of a SCEGGS education:

“I’m a SCEGGS Old Girl, a current parent and a Light Her Path Campaign pledge maker. This might lead you to believe that I’m financially very comfortable and give generously to a repertoire of noble causes. But – that’s not quite the case! I’m a SCEGGS parent through the generosity of the Old Girls Union scholarship, and a pledge maker to the Campaign not because I have a high disposable income, but because I passionately believe in SCEGGS and a what it means to be a SCEGGS girl.”
Zoë Hart

“We have been part of the SCEGGS community since 2013 and during that time our daughters have grown into amazing young women who benefited from the broad education that is at the heart of SCEGGS.  The friendships that we have all made are the result of a school that is founded on strong values of community and togetherness.”
Alex Kibble and Elizabeth Carpenter

Other reasons for giving include the need to make Wilkinson House fit for purpose:

“We understand that it is each generation’s responsibility to build upon the generous giving of prior generations, and we wanted to contribute to Wilkinson House because it will provide such a significant uplift in the school’s facilities for current and future SCEGGS girls.”
Sally Auld and Fiona Moore

“Originally, we decided to donate because it was very clear to us that Wilkinson House is not fit for purpose. SCEGGS has a tiny footprint and each square metre needs to be used optimally.”
Therese Cochrane and Fred Woollard

The value of a diverse student body, together with the unique perspective offered by the school’s location in Darlinghurst, also figure highly in donor’s motivations:

“SCEGGS offers such an amazing, whole-girl educational experience that we think it’s incredibly important to open up that opportunity to girls whose families can’t afford it on their own.  As a girl I was able to attend an independent school on scholarship thanks to the generosity of others, so I know how much that opportunity can mean.  When there is a strong culture of giving, not only do the scholarship recipients benefit – the entire school benefits from a greater diversity of perspectives and backgrounds.”
Kate Howitt

The desire to also ensure that the resources available for the education of girls keeps pace with the resources offered in independent boys’ schools is a key part of many donor’s rationale for giving.

“We decided to increase our donation after the recent focus on the under-representation of women in different parts of society – politics, business, civil society. Dealing with this issue requires a multi-faceted approach. Redressing the imbalance in resourcing of girls’ education (access to world class facilities, as well as scholarships) is one step. Many private boys’ schools have significant financial resources. Independent girls’ schools, much less so. It is time to redress the imbalance.”
Therese Cochrane and Fred Woollard

We thank all of our donors and encourage the whole school community to support the campaign, to give generously for you. As current students have benefitted from the generosity of previous generations, it’s our turn to Light Her Path for future generations of SCEGGS girls.

The Capital Campaign Committee

Year 11 Roughtober Sleepout

On Friday 21 October, a group of Year 11 students will be participating in this year’s Roughtober Sleepout. This is an awareness and fundraising event for Rough Edges, the drop-in café for people who are living in vulnerable and at-risk situations to have a place where they can belong, get food, and develop a sense of community with other people each night. Rough Edges relies very much on the fundraising efforts to sustain its vital services in our neighbourhood of Darlinghurst. You can read about the ways in which this service helps people rebuild their lives and treat patrons who visit with dignity through the love and care shown by those serving and volunteering at the café here.

We hope that you will help support our Year 11s who are sleeping out at St John’s in Darlinghurst and would like to raise $5000 this year through a donation to our SCEGGS Darlinghurst Roughtober fundraiser page.

We thank you for your generosity and support of this important and life changing service.

Dynielle Whitney
Head of Religious Education & Social Justice Coordinator

Visual Arts

Howard Tanner Drawing Prize Due tomorrow

A reminder that entries for the Howard Tanner Drawing Prize are due tomorrow. Please submit your drawings with your name and year group to Ms Jackson in the Art Staffroom.

Co-Curricular Art classes resume in Week 2

A reminder too, that Co-curricular Art classes will resume for all students currently enrolled in either Drawing, Painting, Digital or Darkroom Photography. If you would like to join one of these classes, please drop by the Art Staffroom to see if a place is available for you this term.

This week’s banner is an image from Ms Dawson’s Year 7 ceramic installation (Art party!) from the end of last term. Students studied the work of the American Pop artists Claes Oldenburg and Wayne Thiebaud and chose their favourite foods to sculpt in clay. Their individual works are beautiful and have taught them how to hand build, use a range of specialised tools and engaged their planning skills, creativity, and imagination. The works when exhibited as a group gain such visual impact. Well done Year 7! Below are some images from Ms Dawson’s celebration of the completion of their installation and Ms Jackson’s class.  We look forward to seeing all our other classes put together their collaborative works during this term.

We are looking forward to a great term ahead, with many excursions and special events planned for Art Students!

Heidi Jackson
Head of Visual Arts

Primary Sport News

Saturday Sport

As we enter the final stretch of the year, we look forward to another term filled with lots of sports and activities. We are hopeful that the weather is kind to us over the term to make the most of the exciting term that we have ahead!

Best of luck to all of our Saturday Sports Teams in the IPSHA Competition that will go ahead this weekend, participating in Basketball, Tennis and Cricket. We are excited to hear all the results from the weekend ahead.

Special good luck goes out to our two cricket teams that will take the field this weekend. After many years of not having a team, we are so happy to see such an excited group of young girls getting involved.

Year 3 Football

A reminder that the Year 3 Football competition begins next weekend. We will use this Saturday as a final training session before the competition officially launches next weekend. Training will be at 8.30-10am in the SCEGGS Sports Hall.

Parent/Daughter Camps

Just a reminder that with the upcoming parent/daughter camps for Year 4 in November, all students are required to still fulfil their Saturday morning sporting commitments.

Sport Reminders

If your daughter cannot make an afterschool activity anytime throughout the term, please contact the relevant sport convenor or me at TomMitton@sceggs.nsw.edu.au. Our priority is to make sure your daughter is safe, and ensuring we know that she will not be attending an afterschool activity is one step in making sure this is possible. If your daughter is not able to attend, this has impacts on our training, staffing and venue bookings. Your help in making this process as smooth as possible is appreciated!

Cancellation due to Adverse Weather

Weekday sports training cancellations are posted on the @SCEGGSSport Twitter feed and Primary parents will receive an SMS when their child’s activity has been cancelled or adjusted for that day. The @SCEGGSSport Twitter feed can be viewed on the Sport Course homepage on Cognito (Parent Access), via the Twitter App or by typing “@SCEGGSSport Twitter” into a search engine.

Secondary Sports News

Parent/Daughter Camps

Just a reminder that with the upcoming parent/daughter camps for Year 7 and Year 9 coming up in November, all students are required to still fulfil their Saturday morning sporting commitments.

FIBA World Cup Basketball

On 22 September myself and 28 other girls attended the opening ceremony of the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup. The competition consists of 12 countries that face off over the span of a week to qualify for the quarterfinals. The World Cup hasn’t been held in Australia for almost 30 years so this was a very exciting opportunity for our young, keen, SCEGGS basketball players to see and support our National Women’s team.

We arrived at school, all set in our green and gold scarfs and Aussie t-shirts. The first game we saw was China vs. Korea, China taking a comfortable victory, 107-44. Next, was the official opening ceremony which was very exciting and a real privilege to see in person, with performances from multiple Australian artists including well-known singer Tones and I.

Next the Aussies were set to face France. After a long and physical fight, the Aussie Opals lost 70-57 but received constant and enthusiastic support from the home crowd.

This was a great experience especially for our younger players to see the hard work and dedication the Opals demonstrated on the court. I hope it provided the girls with some inspiration and we all enjoyed it immensely.

Australia went on to qualify for quarterfinals and then semi-finals where they played China, a tough team, only having lost 1 game so far. China continued this streak narrowly defeating Australia 61-59. Australia was set to play Canada for the bronze medal. The Opals, cheered on by the home crowd, played to perfection, securing the bronze medal with an impressive 95-65 win.

Isabella May
SCEGGS Basketball Captain

Water Polo

Congratulations to Claudia Quinn who represented the NSW Blues at the Australian 15 and Under Water Polo Championships. The team was successful in winning the Gold Medal and Claudia was named in the Cadet Women National Age Group Australian Squad. We wish her well as she commences her training with the squad.

Sailing

Congratulations to Grace Morrow (Year 11) who has been busy over the holidays competing in the 420 class, a two-person boat. Grace’s achievements were as follow:

• 3rd in the NSW 420 State Championships and 1st Girl’s boat
• 2nd in the NSW Youth Championships for 420s and 1st Girl’s boat

Grace is now busy training for the Australian Championships in January. We wish her well with her preparation.

Volleyball

Aliyah Bensan (Year 8) has also been busy over the holidays competing at the Australian Youth Volleyball Championships that were held in Victoria.  Aliyah played in the NSW U’15 team that finished in 3^rd place, winning the Bronze Medal. Congratulations!

Australian Cross Country Skiing

Congratulations to Phoebe Cridland (Class of 2019) who is continuing to produce wonderful results on the international stage in the sport of cross-country skiing. Phoebe competed at the World Junior Cross Country Skiing Championships in Norway. Phoebe will have a busy schedule ahead after being named in the Australian Continental Cup Team and the Australian U’23 Team which will see her travelling to Europe, the USA and Canada to compete throughout 2022-2023.

Phoebe was on hand to help coach some of our SCEGGS Cross Country Skiers at the recent NSW Championships that were held in Perisher, before flying out to compete in Norway. We look forward to sharing more of Phoebe’s journey with the SCEGGS community throughout 2023.

NSW All Schools Athletics Results

SCEGGS had several athletes compete at the NSW All Schools Athletics overall the holidays.  All competitors achieved outstanding results as highlighted below. Congratulations to Matilda Emanuel and Coco Espie have now qualified for the Australian Championships.

SCEGGS Training sessions before and after school plus Saturday Sport

Please check the @SCEGGSSport Twitter feed for the latest updates relating to cancellations.

IGSA Fixtures, Results and Wet Weather

The IGSA website and platform for accessing wet weather, fixtures and team results can be found here.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact myself on 9052 2721 or 0418 491 521. Alternatively, if you have any news or photos that we can highlight in the newsletters please email alisongowan@sceggs.nsw.edu.au

Alison Gowan
Director of Sport

Betty Behan and Gwen Cockell English Prizes

Next Friday 21 October is the closing date for the Betty Behan Memorial Prize for Short Story and Gwen Cockell Prize for Creative Writing (awarded for Poetry). Named in honour of an old girl and former English teacher, these prizes are awarded at Speech Night and are a wonderful way of celebrating the writing of our students. Winning entries and extracts of commended pieces of work are also published each year in the Lux magazine.

Students are invited to submit work that they have completed in class, or which they have worked on independently over the year. Each year we are thrilled to have so many entries from the talented writers at SCEGGS. Students can follow the link below to read the instructions, upload their work and read winning entries from previous years here.

Jennifer Bean
Head of English

Music Matters

ENCORE Nomination – Madison Au

Congratulations to Madison Au (Year 12) who has received a nomination for her Music Extension Performance program.  This is an outstanding achievement as Madison had also received a nomination for her Music 2 Performance from her examination last year (Madison completed the Music 2 course as an accelerated student).  We hope that Madison’s performance can be included as a part of next year’s HSC Encore Concert.  Well done Madison!

Amati Strings

Amati Strings performed at Assembly this week and provided a lovely musical welcome to Term 4 for students and staff. Amati Strings worked hard in Term 3 to perfect repertoire for performance at the Australian School Band and Orchestra Festival (ASBOF). The girls gained a Gold Award in the Ernest Llewellyn Premier Event at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. A requirement for ASBOF is that each ensemble performs a work by an Australian composer and Amati Strings performed a new piece called Stringybark Suite by Nicholas Buc. This piece was commissioned for the Australian String Teachers’ Association (AUSTA) National Conference in Melbourne in July this year. Mrs Sweeney liaised with the composer Nicholas Buc, who was thrilled to learn that a special harp part has been arranged for Ilaria Roncolato (Year 10) for this catchy piece.

Listen to Stringybark Suite here.

String Studio Concerts

String players will perform in String Studio Concerts to be held in Week 3 on Monday 24, Wednesday 26 and Friday 28 October. We are excited to be able to welcome parents onsite to provide an enthusiastic and appreciative audience for these concerts. Families can choose which day suits their schedule for their daughter to perform – either Monday, Wednesday or Friday. Girls will be encouraged to announce their piece, perform and bow at the end. Performance opportunities of this nature, in a supportive and non-threatening environment, are vital to a musician’s development. String tutors have been working with each girl in her lesson to prepare a solo piece to perform. Please ensure that your daughter confirms her solo piece with her tutor, then submit this form for inclusion in one of the three String Studio Concerts in Week 3:  22 String Studio Concerts

Closing date for String Studio Concert entries – Friday 21 October 2022.

Mrs Anne Sweeney
Director of Strings

AMEB String Exam – Congratulations

Congratulations to Amelia Yiu (Year 3) who recently completed her AMEB Preliminary Grade Violin exam. Amelia learns externally and recorded her video exam last term with her tutor.  Well done Amelia!

Term 4 Music Calendar

Pauline Chow
Head of Music

Drama News

pretty.strange.

The Senior play, pretty.strange., is entering final rehearsals with a cast of 17 enthusiastic young actors and is being presented in Week 5.

pretty.strange. has been written by SCEGGS alumnus, Olivia Satchell after a commission by Ms Inga Scarlett for SCEGGS Drama. The play tells the story of a group of friends and the impact when one of them goes missing. The narrative is informed by the Greek myth of Persephone.

The cast are being guided through this production experience by a talented team of theatre-makers:

pretty.strange. will be presented in St Peter’s Playhouse – 9 to 12 November.

Bookings open on Monday 17 October.

The School of Rock

We wish all of the SCEGGS girls in Cranbrook’s production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The School of Rock all the best for a triumphant Opening and season of the musical. The show plays:

• Thursday 13 October 7pm
• Friday 14 October 7pm
• Saturday 15 October 7pm
• Sunday 16 October 2pm & 6pm
• Tuesday 18 October 7pm
• Wednesday 19 October 7pm

Bookings can be made through The Cranbrook School.

Chookas Eliza Newton, Georgia McCormack, Alexa Argy and Lulu Thomsen!

The Mousetrap

Congratulations and bravo to old girl Charlotte Friels, who is making her professional stage debut in Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. The play is being celebrated in this 70^th anniversary production at the Theatre Royal prior to a National tour.

Charlotte is a recent NIDA graduate, who has since gone on to work in theatre, film and television. Her theatre credits include playing Drury in Goldilocks, Lady Anne in Richard III and Dunyasha in The Cherry Orchard for NIDA, and her film credits include The Dressmaker by Jocelyn Moorhouse, Nitram by Justin Kurzel and Respect The Kink. Most recently she was seen in After The Verdict on the Nine Network.

 “I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theatre is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture”. ~Laurence Olivier

Peter Eyers
Head of Drama

Primary School Library News

Kindergarten to Year 2, Sami Bayly Author Visit

Students in Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 are eagerly anticipating meeting highly acclaimed Australian author and illustrator Sami Bayly on Thursday 20 October.

Sami’s first book, The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Ugly Animals, won the Australian Book Design Award for Younger Readers. Her second book, The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Dangerous Animals, received an Australian Book Design Award for Younger Readers and was named a Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Honour Book. Earlier this year, The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Peculiar Pairs was identified as a CBCA Honour Book in the Eve Pownall, non-fiction category.

The girls will have the opportunity to ask Sami about the writing and illustrating process as well as preview her new and extended picture book, How We Came To Be: Surprising Sea Creatures.

The books will be delivered to school after the author visit. Book orders close on Friday 28 October.

Karen McBride
Teacher Librarian

Debating

Welcome to debating for Term 4!

This term, Year 7 and Year 8 Debating is moving to Thursday afternoons, from 3:10-5:00. These sessions will be a great opportunity for anyone who would like to try out debating to do so outside of the competition season. They will be structured so that anyone new to debating can get a thorough and enjoyable introduction to the activity, and I am looking forward to hopefully seeing some new faces! These sessions are for everyone, so they are also an opportunity for our current debaters to continue the activity during the ‘off-season’.

In the primary school, Year 6 Friday lunchtime debating will continue from Week 1, and any Year 6s are welcome to attend. This term there is no competition, and we will focus on preparing our debaters for high school debating. In Week 2 we will commence our Friday afternoon Year 5 Introduction to Debating sessions. 

Imogen Harper
Debating Coordinator

Go Greener

Birds are an important part of our ecosystem. They eat pests, disperse seeds, pollinate plants, protect environments such as wetlands and are creatures of beauty. I am lucky enough to have a Powerful Owl living in the bush adjacent to me. He often visits my backyard at night as I can hear his slow, deep, double hoot.

The Aussie Bird Count is on between 17-23 October 2022, giving you the opportunity to become a citizen scientist and participate in the important work of Birdlife Australia. This activity has been running yearly since 2014. You can become involved by signing up on their website. You do not need to be an expert on birds to participate in the Aussie Bird Count. You just need to spend 20 minutes in your favourite outdoor space and count birds. If you have trouble identifying birds a poster of common NSW birds can be accessed here.

Last year in NSW 1,644,056 birds were counted with 420 species identified.

The 5 most common birds found in our state were the Rainbow Lorikeet, the Noisy Miner, the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Australian Magpie and the Galah.

In the past, the Common (or Indian) Myna, which is native to Asia, has been increasing in population. 2021 is the first time this bird has dropped off the national list as one of the top 10 birds sighted in Australia. The Australian White Ibis, also known as a bin chicken, is number 10 on the national list. This could be due to the drought in 2019 when many of the birds moved to the coast and decided to stay.

If you would like to encourage more native birds to your garden, follow this link about suitable plants on the Birdlife Australia website.

Take some time out, be still in nature and sit and watch during National Bird Week beginning next Monday.

Sue Zipfinger
Sustainability Coordinator

From the Business Office

The Term 4 tuition fee invoice was emailed to parents/guardians on 28 September and was due for payment on 10 October.

Thank you to all parents and guardians who have paid their fees.  We greatly appreciate your commitment to pay fees on time which allows us to manage cashflow and provide the best possible education for SCEGGS girls.

If you have not paid your fees or have a balance outstanding on your account, we kindly request payment in the near future.

We understand that, on occasion, emails may not reach the intended recipient or they may be overlooked.  If that is the case, please contact us at accountsreceivable@sceggs.nsw.edu.au and we will be able to resend your Term 4 invoice.    

This is the last tuition fee invoice for 2022.  A final invoice for the year will be emailed in November containing any co-curricular and miscellaneous charges, if applicable.

Remember that you have access to your full fee account history on the parent portal which includes any current balance as well as historical fee invoices and record of payment.

As always, please feel free to contact the Business Office with any fee related queries.

Kind regards

Adrian Craig
Business Manager

Parents’ and Friends’ Association

P&F Term 4 Meeting – Panel Discussion on Emotionally Intelligent Parenting

Join us for an insightful discussion on Emotionally Intelligent Parenting  on Tuesday 15 November at 7.00pm in the Lecture Theatre.

Our Director of Student Wellbeing Laura Connolly and two of our School Counsellors, Janet McEwen and Olivia Whelan, will lead a dynamic discussion that will resonate with all parents and carers of pre-teens and teenagers. Discussion and topics will include research and strategies for communicating with, understanding and helping your children to manage their emotions, plus there will be an opportunity for Q&A at the end.

This event is free of charge, but for catering purposes, an RSVP is greatly appreciated!

Class Parent Events