Senior School News

Congratulations Catie Crisp - Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award

Catie Crisp has recently received her Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. It is a fantastic achievement in what has been a disrupted 2020/21. She has been a fantastic Duke of Edinburgh participant and a great ambassador for the school. She has shared her story below.

The Duke of Edinburgh Awards is an internationally recognised program that was founded by HRH Prince Philip in 1956. The Award has Bronze, Silver and Gold options.  Each requires different amounts of time for each of the components. You work your way through the Awards by completing service to the community, a sport, learning new skills, organising journeys and a residential project. 

While the Awards are challenging, they are also extremely rewarding, and I have learnt so many new things.

I started working for my Gold Award in 2019 and was lucky enough to go to France on school exchange the same year. The exchange counted as my “Residential Project” and lasted for 7 weeks. I was thrown into a different culture and language which was utterly terrifying, however it turned out to be an amazing experience that I will not soon forget. I met new people and was able to experience French life and further my knowledge of the French language.

Perhaps the most memorable part of my Duke of Edinburgh Award was the Adventurous Journey. A group of other Gold Award participants and I took part in an trek through National Parks north of Sydney. This required us to plan and organise ourselves before and during the trek. We needed to sort out food and water rations, sleeping equipment, spare clothes, cooking equipment, maps, compasses, basic first aid tools and everything that we would need for the entirety of the 76km trek from Hornsby to Wondabyne - we had to carry the lot.  During the trek we were able to meet Gold Award participants from other schools and push ourselves to new limits. The Journey was very tiring and difficult but was an unforgettable experience filled with amazing views and new friendships. We were very lucky to have done this in light of recent COVID lockdowns. Due to the pandemic, many of my Duke of Edinburgh activities were interrupted but I managed to overcome these difficulties and finish the Award. The Award has required organisation, discipline and resilience which are skills that I will continue to use throughout life. I would highly recommend the program to anyone. 

Universities now are just as interested in your character and co-curricular activities as they are in your academics, so the Silver or Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award is highly regarded by any university and by employers both here and overseas. Many of the opportunities at Kinross Wolaroi, like music, cadets and sport, can be counted towards the Award, and the program is a great way to bring them all together and really show people what you can achieve.

Catie Crisp- Year 12 , 2021.

National History Competition results

Earlier this term, our Junior History students sat the National History Competition.  The Competition focuses on testing interpretation and analysis.  The following students received commendable results:

Year 7 results – 94 students sat the National History Competition

Year 9 – 51 students sat the National History competition

Year 10 – 111 students sat the National History Challenge

Year 7 History

In Term 3, Year 7 History have been exploring the Viking Age (AD 793 – 1066) and their legacy.  Students are fascinated with the Viking Age, their pagan ways – thanks to Marvel (!) and their technology.  

During Screen free Monday some of Year 7 History students engaged in a ‘Viking Longship’ challenge. Students had to create a longship using materials they had around the house. Students were particularly creative in their choice of materials ranging from tissue boxes to chocolate cake! 

Here are some of their creations:

English Lockdown Style

It is often under pressure and constraint that our true capacity for creativity shines through and this has certainly been the case with English at KWS over the past couple of weeks. 

The collegiality and teamwork amongst the teachers (always spectacular) has reached new heights. We are furiously creating and sharing resources and ideas as well as celebrating our classes’ successes, both big and small. Some lockdown highlights (in no specific order) have included:

• Year 7 working in groups to act out scenes of their play ‘Harry Potter and The Cursed Child’ – complete with costume and props.
• Year 7s screen-free lesson making a wand and writing a spell (some even brewed magic potions!)
• A Year 7 class has been invited to Hogwarts as first years and students have been earning points for their houses in pursuit of the House Cup.
• Using breakout rooms to write Macbeth essays together (Year 10)
• Senior students have been revising for their exams by participating in university style tutorials, quote-finding races, answering provocative questions and writing challenges, ‘Scattergories’ style games to revise HSC texts and concepts, creating playlists that represent characters and events in novels, students devising their own HSC-style exam questions, team-teaching tutorials with 3 teachers and 88 students…
• Online book clubs, sharing opinion, advice and information about good books and authors.

Pictures from Mrs Callaghan’s Book Club 

BOOK WEEK

In dark and uncertain times, it is good to have something to look forward to with joyful anticipation. This is why we are so grateful to the library for recently informing us that BOOK WEEK is still going to happen! KWS will be celebrating with a traditional dress-up parade and this year the Senior School will join in too. We can’t wait to see the kaleidoscope of literary characters that will visit KWS that day. Who will you be??