Festival on Forbes

Thank you for all your generous contributions for our Festival. With less than three weeks to go, we are relying on your continued support now more than ever!

Please click the link below for further details:

• Silent Auction
• Cake Stall

• School Fee Raffle

Silent Auction

One of the major fundraisers for the Festival is the Silent Auction, and the P&F work hard with the wider community to obtain brilliant prizes.

Here is a preview of just some of our generous donations:

1. Woodcut – Private Dining Experience for a party of 12 guests valued at $9,000
   • Silver Ash Private Room
   • Black Wattle menu (includes dishes such as N25 caviar, lobster, Ranger’s Valley Black Market T-Bone)
   • Paired wines
   • Personal meet and greet and introduction to each dish by Chef, Ross Lusted

2. Art Gallery of NSW – Private Curator Tour of Sydney Modern Project Building for 10 guests
   • Money can’t buy experience
   • Private tour of this extraordinary new building and galleries
   • Access before it is open to the public

3. Kangaroo Valley – Luxury Two Night Stay
   • 5-acre residence
   • Iconic view of Barrengarry Mountain
   • Recently added swimming pool
   • Words genuinely do not do this unique property justice

4. Plus, more

1. • Three night stay in Byron Bay
   • One week stay in Coromandel, New Zealand
   • Dinner at some of Sydney’s most recognised restaurants including Copperstone, Pompei’s, Ezra and Nomad
   • A range of fine wines
   • Work experience opportunities for students
   • Skydiving
   • Luxury fashion items 

Donations to the Silent Auction have an enormous impact on the Festival’s success and we value greatly the generosity of every donor who contributes to the auction.

The Festival on Forbes Committee would love to hear from you if you wish to donate or source prizes for the Auction. If you have any queries or ideas, please contact our Silent Auction Coordinator, Jenne Tsangaris   or Director of Development, Daisy Bahen.

Many thanks for your support.

Calling all Bakers – the Cake Stall needs your help!

It wouldn’t be a SCEGGS Fair without the legendary cake stall. To make it a success we will call upon the whole of the school to contribute one type of baked cake/muffin/slices in the days leading to the fair.

Next week, each girl from Kindergarten to Year 12 will come home with one empty cake box to be filled with a delicious home baked treat. There will be a link in next week’s Behind the Green Gate to an online recipe guide, prepared by the Year 8 parents managing the Cake Stall. Be sure to check out the guide!  Cakes may be delivered on the following days:

• Friday 19 August to the General Office between 7:30am and 5:00pm
• Saturday 20 August between 9:00am and 3.00pm to the Cake Stall (OG9)
• Fair day before 10.00am to the Cake Stall (OG9)

Your chance to win at the SCEGGS Fabulous Festival on Forbes – 50% off your daughter’s school fees for 2023

The SCEGGS Trust in conjunction with the P&F’s Festival on Forbes, will again be running the very popular School Fees Raffle at the 2022 Festival on Forbes.

First Prize:                           50% off your daughter’s school fees for 2023

Runner-up Prizes:            4 x $250 Voucher for the SCEGGS School Shop

Ticket Price:                      $100 for one ticket
                                             $175 for two tickets
                                             $400 for five tickets

To purchase your tickets and for T&C’s please follow the link below:
https://www.trybooking.com/BZIHP

This year all funds raised will be directed to the Light Her Path Campaign in support of the redevelopment of Wilkinson House. 

Thank you for your support – We look forward to seeing you at the 2022 Festival on Forbes.

Good Luck!   

For Festival on Forbes information from previous editions of Behind the Green Gate, click here or email sceggsfof2022@gmail.com with any questions or queries.

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram! 

2023 Orientation and Subject Selection

As some of you would be aware, from the emails I sent you, we are holding our Subject Selection Information sessions next week. As subject selection is very important, parents are encouraged to attend these meetings with their daughters. For each Year group, there will be a Subject Information Booklet distributed digitally (except the current Year 9 girls as last year’s booklet covers both years). These information booklets are distributed beforehand and expand on the NSW Education Standard Authority (NESA) requirements and the details about the subjects offered. Representatives from each Department will also be available at these sessions, where girls and parents will have the opportunity to ask questions and find out more about the various courses. We do remind you that you should not attend if you are at all unwell, and when attending, we encourage you to wear a mask, to observe cough and sanitising etiquette and to socially distance as much as possible.

Year 7, 2023 (Current Year 6 girls)
Orientation Morning
Friday, 12 August – SCEGGS Great Hall, 9.00am-11.30am

Year 8, 2023 (Current Year 7 girls)
Elective Subject Selection
Thursday, 11 August – Lecture Theatre, 2.15pm-3.30pm

Year 9, 2023 (Current Year 8 girls)
Record of School Achievement and Elective Subject Choices
Wednesday, 10 August – SCEGGS Great Hall, 2.15pm-3.30pm

Year 10, 2023 (Current Year 9 girls)
Record of School Achievement and Elective Subject Choices
Tuesday, 9 August – Lecture Theatre, 8.20am-8.50am in Form time (girls only)

Year 11, 2023 (Current Year 10 girls)
The Higher School Certificate
Tuesday, 9 August – SCEGGS Great Hall, 1.30pm-3.30pm

Please note: ALL subject selections for 2023 must be submitted by Friday 26 August. After this date, elective lines for each Year group will be determined by the girls’ preferences, thus placing restrictions on student choices and changes to original preferences. I encourage all girls to think very carefully about their subject choices for next year and ensure that their form is in before the due date. Please do not hesitate to contact your daughter’s subject teachers or me if you have any questions about subject selections for next year.

Andrew Gallagher
Director of Curriculum

From the Chaplain

Visiting the homeless and cooking for Rough Edges

As with many things that were part of our usual routine, Covid and the subsequent lockdowns put a halt on a whole range of activities. One of those activities that our students had been involved in for a number of years was taking food out to the homeless. Not only are we providing food to satisfy appetites but also company for those neglected. We are now starting up this program again and students in the Secondary School can find all of the information in the SCEGGS Darlinghurst 2022 course on Cognito under the Food Delivery icon. Students will need to sign up to an allotted date and prepare food at home to take out the following day. If any parent has any concerns about the nature of this activity please feel free to contact me.

One of the homeless people’s services that we consistently are working with is Rough Edges, a community centre for the poor, lonely and marginalised, located under the hall of St John’s Anglican Church, Darlinghurst. Twice a week, our staff take whatever leftover food we have at the end of the day from our cafeteria to Rough Edges so that they can provide it to those who attend this centre. I ran this podcast about Rough Edges a couple of weeks ago but we have had some problems with one of the platforms. Please have a listen to find out more about the great work that Rough Edges does.

The SCEGGS Podcast “Walk The Mile” Episode 25: Rough Edges

A reminder that we are published on Spotify, Apple, Google Podcast so you can access it most easily from your preferred device. I always welcome your feedback or any ideas you may have for further episodes. You will find each podcast as they are produced in this newsletter and on the other platforms as well as our website.

Monday night meals

Unfortunately on Monday nights, food is difficult to come by for the centre. We have started a roster where families or individuals can make cooked full meals, enough for about 5 people. It wouldn’t have to be a regular weekly commitment and with the more volunteers that we have involved, the more we can share the love around. The food is dropped off to school on a Monday morning and I deliver it to Rough Edges later that morning. I have a list of menu ideas and preparation requirements to help you with your planning. Please let me know if you are interested via email and I will add you to the rapidly growing list. In one week we have had over 30 families volunteer to make a meal at some stage and I just wanted send a big thank you to those already signed up. It is a great thing for us as a school community and a great thing for our local community.

Rev. Garry Lee-Lindsay
School Chaplain

Investigating Mathematics Inquiry

This term Year 6 have been looking at a Fermi question in Mathematics of their choosing. A Fermi question is a problem that does not have an exact answer. Year 6 have been planning and working on it for many weeks and have made some spectacular discoveries! Since the creative minds in year 6 got to create their own questions, there were a variety and here are some examples:

• What percentage of the school’s electricity is powered by solar panels? Should we be using more?
  From Nina Genc, Saskia Sostaric and Luella Zillman

• If a child was late for school by 30 mins every day for a week, how would it affect them?
  From Gemma Shennan, Sophie Wu and Ashanti Gillies

• How many trees could we save if we stopped using paper at SCEGGS?
  From Perri Lawrence, Brigitte Deeming-Hall and Adison Lewis

Last week one of these groups had the pleasure of getting their hands dirty and going through the bin for their research.

The group members found some shocking discoveries, such as landfill in the recycling bins, recycling in the organic waste, organic waste in the landfill bins and much more. It also came upon us that there were lots of full lunches/ sandwiches. When we saw this, it broke our hearts that so many kids don’t like their food or just won’t eat it. Make sure that your daughter has a lunch they enjoy and that you know they won’t throw away.

Our group felt that the rubbish itself was horrible, but the misuse of bins was much worse.

This really made the group think harder about organising the rubbish more and encouraging others to do so. How does this make you feel? Will you act?

Lilly Zadgan and Sarah Bird

Below are some other examples of the Year 6 Fermi questions:

“How many trees would we save if we stopped using paper at SCEGGS?” Our answer is that we would save 105.3 40ft trees or 1232 metres of tree! Our working out was finding how much paper we bought, how large a tree is and how much paper is in a tree. The purpose of this question is to help SCEGGS become more sustainable.

Brigitte Deeming-Hall

My groups inquiry question was “How many people became unemployed due to Covid in NSW?” We answered this question by looking at the loss of employment during the Covid period in NSW and comparing that to a baseline. We also looked at the loss of employment during the Covid period, industry by industry, to verify our answer and concluded that 269,588 people lost their job due to Covid in NSW.

Olivia Plavsic

We decided to look at how much money is spent on Festival on Forbes and how this has changed over the years. We chose this inquiry question because Festival on Forbes is coming up and we were curious to see how much time and money this would take. We believe that this information will benefit for years to come. Finding this question out meant that we had to challenge our brain and have good teamwork. We really enjoyed doing this project.

Adelaide Gilpin

Our group researched how many wind turbines you would need to power SCEGGS per month. Firstly, we needed to find out how much one turbine was and how many we would need to power SCEGGS per month. Since SCEGGS uses 800mwh per year, we would need to divide that by 12 because there are 12 months in a year. This equalled 66.67mwh per month so we would need 1 turbine to produce enough energy to produce enough energy for SCEGGS each month.

Ilka Johns-Hammond

Our question was “If you could only order a lunch order once a week, would we produce less waste?” We decided to do this topic because it is beneficial for our school. To work this out, we collected data like how many lunch orders per week and how many grams a piece of lunch order waste is. Out conclusion states that “Yes” it would produce less waste, 2Kg in fact!

Lucinda Morgan

Visual Arts News – Chris Gleisner Exhibition

Many of you will know Chris Gleisner, who is currently teaching Digital Photography as part of the Visual Arts Co-curricular program.

Chris was also the SCEGGS in residence school photographer during 2020 and her work culminated in the beautiful commemorative book “A year in the life of SCEGGS Darlinghurst” celebrating the School’s 125^th anniversary. (Copies of this photo book are still available for preview and purchase through the school shop.)

Chris is a valued member of the broader Visual Arts team, bringing a wealth of experience and creative expertise to her teaching and wider involvement in SCEGGS school life. During periods of lockdown over the past 2 ½  years Chris has spent many hundreds of hours working on Drawing as a practice and this has resulted in her first non-photographic solo show. Details are below and all members of the SCEGGS school community are warmly invited to attend the Opening or to view via appointment during opening hours for the duration of the exhibition.

Heidi Jackson
Head of Visual Arts

Music Matters

Change of Date – SCEGGS HSC ENCORE Concert                                                                                                                           

The date of the SCEGGS HSC ENCORE Concert has been changed to Thursday 25 August – Great Hall, 6pm.  We look forward to sharing the Year 12 Class of 2022’s music performances with the school community in this free concert. 

All Elective Music students are also encouraged to attend this performance with their parents to experience and support the work of the senior Music students.

MLC Australian Music Day Workshop – Thursday 28 July

Last Thursday 28 July, students from Year 11 Music 1, Music 2 and 10 Elective students attended the MLC School’s Australian Music Day Workshop.  It has been 3 years since these workshops have taken place and they have always been a valuable experience for students who are learning to compose in either the Music 1 (Program 1) or Music 2 (Program 2) course. Please read below the learning experience students had of the day.

Program 1

The MLC Australian Music Day Program 1 workshop was an extremely educational experience which provided the Year 11 Music 1 class (and some Year 9 and 10 elective music students) with tips on writing compositions for the HSC, and on writing songs in general. We had the opportunity to view musician Simone East and band Sleepmakeswaves live to observe their song making process and to get tips on ours. The day started with a showcase of a couple of Simone East’s songs, then a guide to making song titles and song lyrics. We then made songs in small groups and received feedback from Simone. In the next part of the workshop, we attended a talk on how to write compositions for the HSC and were able to view example scores, something which I as a Year 11 student doing Music for the HSC, found very useful. Next, we watched Sleepmakeswaves’ first live performance since lockdown, followed by experimentation with different chord progressions and improvisation. Overall, the day was an incredible experience, one which everyone enjoyed and learnt from. Personally, this program helped me to decide to do a composition for my HSC, and encouraged me to continue producing songs in my own time.

Lara Greenfield
Year 11 Music 1 student

Program 2

It was so exciting to experience this year’s MLC Australian Music Day. I was lucky to experience Program 2 where we got to explore, learn and create with Australian musicians and composers. We started with listening to A Dream within a Dream, by Holly Harrison.  The work is inspired by the characters the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse and Alice from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. Holly Harrison’s concept was to express the story of the Hatter trying to keep the Mouse awake at the tea party using only a clarinet, performed by clarinettist Jason Noble using electronic effect pedals. This piece is extremely unique and inspiring as it uses electronic effects (e.g. digital delay, ‘wa’ pedal) to accompany the clarinettist.  The effects not only creates accompanying layers, but also stands alone as an ‘electronic clarinet’ part. Holly also explained her creative process, using images and patterns to create structure of her piece. Her explanation was extremely beneficial as it has taught me how process can be incorporated in my own compositions. Holly Harrison also explored various techniques and musical material to not only create clear contrasting characters (e.g. Hatter and Mouse) but a neurotic and engaging piece! All the students had the opportunity (and pressure) to compose our own clarinet solo pieces. I was lucky enough to have my quick composition played and it was amazing to see the music come alive! To have your composition come alive is an extraordinary experience that every student is grateful for.

Black Sea Dance was another piece performed and analysed by Gerard Brophy as a flute and cello duet. It was exciting to see this complex piece experiment with time. Even I mucked up my time signatures and beats but Brophy commented, on my quick composition, saying “Interesting change in the time signatures… it’s always good to make change – even a dramatic one.” Lastly, we ended our creative journey with a colourful and catchy riff based piece called Gothic Carousel by Tristan Coelho. This inventive and engaging piece used a unique quartet of double bass, cello, viola and piano. This whole experience of seeing current Australian music, having my own music played, sharing this experience with classmates is something memorable that I will always keep in mind when I’m composing music.

Sophie Gallagher Horne
Year 10 Elective Music Student

String Fun Day Primary String Workshop – Sunday 7 August 10am to 1pm

This coming Sunday (7 August), Stringalong and Sinfonietta will come to the Great Hall for a fun workshop to prepare their performance repertoire for the Australian School Band and Orchestra Festival (ASBOF) to be held at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music on Sunday 28 August. Girls should bring their instruments and music. We will share a pizza lunch in our break together!

Please note start and finish times for each ensemble for this Sunday, parents please drop your daughter off in St Peter’s Street:

Stringalong        Arrive: 10.00am             Finish: 12.30pm

Sinfonietta         Arrive: 10.30am              Finish: 1.00pm

Kindergarten Violinists

Violin tuition has begun for Kindergarten students this term, with five new beginners starting their journey as instrumental musicians! Violin tutor Ms Dominique Gallery has enjoyed meeting the girls and giving them their first few lessons. Once our newest violinists have had a term of lessons, they will be invited to join our beginner string ensemble “String Power”. Happy practising, girls!

 SYO Regional Tour – Congratulations!

Congratulations to the following students who have been selected to be a part of the SYO (Peter Seymour Orchestra) and SYO/WSYO Regional tours:

Rochelle Wang (Year 11) – Double Bass

Sophie Gallagher-Horne (Year 10) – Double Bass

Georgia Cate Baker Wood (Year 8) – Oboe

As part of the tour, students will also collaborate with the local Conservatorium musicians and the wider local community of musicians.  Well done and best wishes for these girls.

Band Discovery Fellowship – Bassoon Recipient

Congratulations to Yang Zhou (Year 7) who received her instrument and commenced her learning journey this week.  Yang was a successful recipient of the Year 7 Band Discovery Fellowship and had selected to learn Bassoon.  Yang is learning from our new Bassoon tutor, Miss Laura Brown.  Miss Brown received her Masters degree (Bassoon) from the Hochschule für Musik & Theatre Hamburg.  She is currently working with the Arts Unit and performing in several state orchestras in Australia.  We are so pleased to welcome Miss Laura Brown as part of our peripatetic teaching studio. 

 ASBOF Competition Tickets on Sale – Band and String Ensembles

Tickets for the ASBOF Competition are now on sale.  The tickets for this event (25% discount when purchasing online) can be accessed via the ASBOF website here.

The ASBOF Web App is also accessible via the website and gives parents access to the full Festival Draw.

Please see below for the information and ensembles that are involved in this year’s competition:

Sunday 28 August – Sydney Conservatorium of Music

• Sinfonietta – arrival time of 8.30am
• Stringalong – arrival time of 9.35am
• Bugles – arrival time of 11am

Sunday 11 September – Sydney Conservatorium of Music

• Amati – arrival time of 10am
• Holst Wind Band – arrival time of 1pm

Australian Youth Orchestra – Applications Open!

The Australian Youth Orchestra has opened applications for their 2023 programs. From gifted, school-aged students to those on a verge of a professional career, AYO provides specialised training opportunities for the next generation of musicians, composers and arts administrators. For more information and to apply click here.

Term 3 Calendar of Music Events

Pauline Chow
Head of Music

Drama News Report

Senior Play

The Senior play, pretty.strange., has commenced rehearsals with a cast of 19 enthusiastic young actors. They have completed a text analysis with their director and last Sunday, completed an intensive ‘Viewpoints Method’ workshop with a practitioner from Chopt Logic Theatre Company.

As a method of actor training, Viewpoints encourages actors to focus less on their characters’ psychology and more on observation and movement.

Physical Viewpoints

• Spatial Relationship: The distance between things (objects, bodies, etc.) onstage.
• Kinesthetic Response: How performers respond to movement from other people, objects, or design elements.
• Shape: The outline of a body in space.
• Gesture: A behavioral or expressive shape that has a beginning, middle, and end.
• Repetition: When performers recreate something they have done or seen.
• Architecture: A performer’s physical environment.
• Tempo: How fast or slow something happens onstage.
• Duration: How long a movement lasts.
• Topography: The onstage pattern or design a movement creates.

Vocal Viewpoints

• Pitch: The highness or lowness of a sound.
• Dynamic: The loudness or softness of a sound.
• Acceleration/Deceleration: Speeding up or slowing down a sound.
• Silence: The absence of sound.
• Timbre: The texture or quality of a sound, distinct from its volume or pitch.

This pre-production preparation has allowed the cast to embrace a solid understanding of the text and physicality of the characters before beginning the blocking process.

pretty.strange. has been written by SCEGGS Old Girl, 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:

Director: Ms Romy Bartz

Designer: Ms Anna Gardiner

Technical Director: Ms Eddi Goodfellow

Production Assistant: Ms Poppy Lynch

Cast of pretty.strange:

Shaun: Ava Nunley

Max: Eleanor Lawson

Kate: Madeleine Tudehope

Pip: Billie Palmer

Sophie: Zara Ibrahim

Sarah: Allegra Sintras

Grandmother/Chorus: Sophie Gallagher-Horne

Greek Chorus (the school community):

• Astrid Hooper
• Bianca Rozsa
• Susannah Sheumack
• Sienna Taylor
• Chiara Weaver
• Alexandra West
• Josephine Robson
• Camille McCarthy
• Julia Piazza
• Gemma Ashton
• Rose Davidson
• Willow Garside

pretty.strange. will be presented in St Peter’s Playhouse during Term 4 – November 9 to 12. Bookings will be available from the beginning of Term 4.

Bravo!

Congratulations to old girl and the playwright of our school production, Liv Satchell. She was recently awarded the Victorian Green Room Award for her play ‘let bleeding girls lie’ produced by The Voice In My Hands in association with La Mama.

Peter Eyers
Head of Drama

Burn Bright Leadership Workshop

Ice skating… spiders… Smurfette… egg, chicken, dinosaur, Superhero… Ping-pong poke!

These are not ordinarily words that we would expect to be connected, but for Year 5, these words represent the stories, key messages, and inspiration they received during last week’s Burn Bright Leadership Workshop.

As the Year 6 Leaders of 2023, Year 5 spent last Tuesday engaged in challenges, activities and lectures designed to upskill and support them to view their leadership opportunity through the lens of being a positive influence on others and understanding that a leader is first and foremost a role model.

The workshop was split into three sessions: Starting Our leadership Journey, Expanding Our Leadership Abilities and Putting Leadership into Action. The girls have reflected on the key messages within each of these and listed their thoughts below.

•  Group challenges: the games taught us about teamwork and all the skills involved in working together. It made the workshop engaging and interactive, helping us to learn about the key ideas in a fun way – Claudia Rennie-Meyenn.
• Being a positive role model: the younger years are always looking up to you as a leader . Being a positive role model is about setting a good example for them. We want to create a safe and happy school, a place all girls will want to come. By cheering others on and encouraging them, it helps others to build courage. We heard a great example of this in one of the facilitator’s stories where she was cheered on by her sister to catch and free a spider from her house – Ella Chong.
• Putting others first: one motto we learnt was “Think WE not ME!”. This will be something I remember as I work with others, compromising and collaborating for the benefit of the group. One of the workshop facilitators shared an example of this from when she was at school and went ice skating. Her friend who was great at ice-skating spent all her time helping others and picking them up when they fell down. Although she could have skated the whole time, the friend focussed on helping others – Sarah Reif.
• Communication and listening to others: the games and challenges helped us to bond as a cohort and taught us that communication is key to the success of groupwork! Things can go really well or horribly wrong depending on how you communicate! Listening is a huge part of this! When you listen, you’re able to get feedback, take on board the ideas and perspectives of others and both ideas and individuals can evolve – Asha Meagher.
  Participating in the whisper game which including Smurfette, Buzz Lightyear and Minecraft, taught us that we need to be careful with how we listen and communicate. People listen and repeat what they hear with their perspective and interpretation added and we see this with rumours. While we can’t control what people do with what they hear, we can make sure we only say positive and constructive things – Chelsea Fallshaw.
• Decision making and courage: making decisions in leadership involves taking a chance, being brave, collaboration, compromise, considering strategies. The Ping-pong poke challenge also helped us to remember that we need to have focus on our goals when decision making – Isla Roberts.
• Taking initiative: I learnt initiative in leadership is different to using initiative in the classroom, it is about looking around and seeing where there is need and helping – Sara Malavich.
• Building trust and taking responsibility: building trust takes time, between both the leaders and those you’re leading. Responsibility is about stepping up and being a person others can rely on and also about taking ownership of the role you play even when things go wrong – Bonnie Turnbull.
• Appreciating difference: using the analogy of Superheros, we talked about everyone’s differences as their unique superpowers. We each have our own strengths – Anja Baker.
• Goal setting and vision: this was helpful to get us thinking about what we want to achieve next year and how we could create positive change in the Primary school – Daisy Sewell.
• Resilience: Leadership is not always going to go the way we plan! We will need to be able to bounce back in the face of challenge and learn from our mistakes – Chloe Cosman.
• Developing school spirit: going into the workshop it thought this only applied to Sports Carnivals, but now I know this is much more and all about the enthusiasm, supporting others and citizenship you show all year round – Clemmie Reuss.

Year 5, you showed such enthusiasm and commitment to leadership during the workshop. We look forward to all you will do next year as Year 6 leaders and know the Primary School is in very supportive hands.

Rebecca Woodcock
Acting Head of Student Wellbeing

Primary Sport News

K-6 Athletics Carnival

What a wonderful day for our K-6 Carnival at Hensley Athletics Track. After some early sprinkles of rain while setting up the carnival, it turned out to be a glorious day out on the track.

It was fantastic to see the girls participating enthusiastically in the track and field events throughout the day.

Kindergarten to Year 2 arrived at 11.30 to entertain us with running races, novelties, obstacle courses and shuttle relays.

Thank you to all the Primary staff and coaches for their support in judging, marshalling, taking photos, recording, giving out ribbons, supervising the houses, and recording distances and heights in the field events. Without these people, the day would not have gone ahead.

The Open Primary Championship was the day’s final race, where the eight fastest girls in the Primary school fought out a very tight race. Congratulations to Ava Pepper (Langley), who came away with the win over a strong field of runners.

The introduction of the Students vs Staff Egg and Spoon Race wrapped up the carnival for the day, with much laughter and excitement was had by all.

A huge thank you to all the students who tried new events, strived for their best, cheered, supported and encouraged those around them on a hugely successful day. Congratulations to Langley who finished as the winner for the day!

Overall Winning House

IPSHA AFL

A huge congratulations to SCEGGS’s first-ever AFL team, who played their opening match on Saturday against a combined team from Tara/Loreto. All the girls have had a great time learning new skills, practising, and learning about AFL over the past few training sessions. A big shout-out goes to our amazing coaches, Stacey and Hugo, who have been working hard to bring the girls together for the season’s first game. The team came away with a convincing win. We can’t wait to hear how the rest of the season unfolds!

Congratulations to the following girls in SCEGGS’ inaugural AFL team: Zara Anderson, Georgina Auld, Sophia Carroll, Samantha Cutbush, Sophie Downes, Olive Hunt, Isla Louloudakis, Asha Meagher, Emily Nolan, Claudia Rennie-Meyenn, Marina Roberts, Helena Squires, Charlotte Thomson and Bridget Weaver.

Secondary Sports News

SCEGGS Mid-term Break

With our impending SCEGGS mid-term break coming up on August 15, it is timely to remind everyone that most sporting teams still have fixtures on the Saturday. All students are required to play their scheduled matches. Parents are required to email Ms Allum if they require leave of absence for any Saturday sporting fixtures.

NSW All Schools Cross Country

An update to our article from last week. Nancy Newton has now been added to the team to compete at the Australian Cross Country Championships in Adelaide in August. This comes after excellent results in the club pathway.  Congratulations to Nancy as she joins Ruby Fry and Lily Cooney representing NSW.

Equestrian

The NSW Interschools Equestrian Championships were held in the July holidays. Unfortunately, the weather was not kind with extensive rain playing havoc. Several SCEGGS riders were able to compete in the Dressage on Day 1 (Hannah Doolan and Scarlett Webber).  However, with great disappointment the entire competition had to be abandoned on the second day resulting in several of our SCEGGS riders being unable to compete at all.

Congratulations to Hannah Doolan who has been selected to represent the NSW Show jumping Team at the Australian Interschools Championships to be held in late September.

Water Polo

Junior Olympics

During these school holidays, Elizabeth Shin participated in an intense water polo training program in Santa Barbara in preparation for the US Junior Olympics. 

The Junior Olympics are held in the US and is the world’s largest Water Polo competition, consisting of players and teams from several countries around the world. The competition is played in age groups and across 30 different venues across California.

Elizabeth’s team travelled to San Jose winning some very competitive games and only narrowly losing to the 2nd and 3rd placed teams. 

Elizabeth’s Santa Barbara team placed 5th overall out of 96 teams in the U’14 girls age group. This is an outstanding achievement for an International competition. Congratulations Lizzie!

Junior World Cup

Good luck to Sienna Green who is representing Australia at the FINA World Water Polo Youth Championships in Belgrade, Serbia this week. We hope it is a successful tournament.

AFL

Well done to Yve Mitchell and Julia Machliss who represented NSW at the Australian U’15 AFL Championships. NSW placed 4^th in a very closely contested competition. Both students enjoyed the challenge of stepping up from club football and had a wonderful time connecting with other AFL players from across Australia.

IGSA Fixtures, Results and Wet Weather

There is a new IGSA website and platform for accessing wet weather, fixtures and team results. You do not need to register or sign up to be a member to access this site.

SCEGGS Training sessions before and after school plus Saturday Sport

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

 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

Jeans for Genes Day

Friday 5 August – Year 11 Fundraising Charity

Each year the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) raises money to help our scientists help cures for genetic diseases in children. It is estimated that there are 1 in 20 children who have a serous genetic condition affecting them. Jeans for Genes Day also helps to promote awareness of the work that the CMRI do and you can read about the many advancements that have been made in the last 25 years.

Please help support the work of the CMRI through our Jeans for Genes Day fundraiser. 

Come wearing your jeans and bring in a gold coin this Friday 5 August. Year 11 are encouraging everyone to dress in “Country Denim Style”, their theme for 2022.

If you would like to donate more to this worthy cause, you can use the QR code to do so. This is a SCEGGS Darlinghurst fundraising code so any extra donations will help us achieve our school goal of raising $800 this year.

Thank you for your support of this fundraiser.

Year 11 Jeans for Genes Day Committee

SPAN Save the date

Save the date for SPAN’s next event “Ethics in the Media”. The illustrious panel including Sally Bowrey (Class of 1999), Anne Davies (Class of 1964), Celina Edmonds (Class of 1988) and Hugh Riminton  (current parent), will discuss relevant topics such as media regulation and standards, the role of traditional and new/emerging media, how journalism is impacted by global media, digital media and the 24-hour news cycle, as well as how ethics and the law intersect.

If you are currently working or aspiring to work in fields such as journalism, editing, publishing, advertising, media, communications, marketing or public relations, this event is for you!

Date: Thursday 8 September 2022

Time: 6.30pm – 8.30pm

Venue: SCEGGS Darlinghurst, Great Hall

Go Greener

PPA agreement at SCEGGS to decrease our carbon emissions

One of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions by an organisation is its energy use. The SCEGGS Environmental Sustainability Strategy identified seven areas where we could improve our environmental performance. One of these was energy.

In 2020, SCEGGS entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Flow Power to supply all the electricity needs for our school. By looking at previous energy use to predict our future use we contracted Flow Power to provide clean, renewable energy, generated from wind and solar farms, to match our annual consumption.

The PPA in place will run until mid 2030 and is backed by the arrangements Flow Power has with specific renewable energy generators. Under these arrangements, Flow Power has agreements in respect of the output of the generators equivalent to the amount of the PPA. This energy is then added to the grid to offset energy used by SCEGGS. In addition, SCEGGS purchases and surrenders the renewable energy certificates from the generators to ensure our electricity is 100% renewable.

The renewable generators linked to SCEGGS are the Bomen solar farm and Sapphire wind farm. The solar farm is situated on 250 hectares of land located about 10km southeast from Wagga Wagga. The Sapphire wind farm is the largest operating wind farm in NSW and is in the New England region about 28km east of Inverell. The current PPA amounts are 485MWh of solar from Bomen and 592MWh of wind from Sapphire.

By choosing to support renewable energy generation, SCEGGS is securing long-term electricity cost stability as well as supporting Australia’s renewable energy transition.

Environmental good news stories:

• Australia set a new wind power output record on the evening of 17th July, reaching 7,111MW – beating the old record of 6,853MW set on May 31st.
• The WA Parks foundation announced they have successfully relocated a group of Australia’s rarest birds. It is estimated there are fewer than 150 Western Green Parrots surviving in the wild. They were relocated to a specially prepared site east of Albany in Western Australia. More information about this conservation project can be found here.

Sue Zipfinger
Sustainability Coordinator