Around the Senior School

Year 8–9 Service Camp: Love in Action

Last week we held our annual Service Camp for Year 8 and 9 students who were not attending Cadet Camp. It was an action‑packed week filled with cooking, cleaning, talking, listening, and learning.

Throughout the week, students had many opportunities to serve our local community. We visited the Wontama Aged Care Facility to celebrate Harmony Day, sharing conversations and enjoying a few lively games of bingo together. Students cooked and prepared meals for people in need in Orange through the Salvation Army and the Uniting Church, as well as for the Bathurst Uniting Church.

Back at school and around the local area, students washed school buses and some teachers’ cars and collected rubbish both on campus and at Lake Canobolas. They designed activities for Riding for the Disabled, with several students receiving training as leaders and side walkers to support our ongoing service partnership.

Students also made an incredible 600 sandwiches for local school lunches and personally delivered them, gaining insight into just how many people in our community need support. In addition, they knitted beanies for donation to those facing the cold and decorated rocks to bring smiles to children walking through the park.

The week challenged students to broaden their understanding of who lives in our community and what they might need, while also discovering the difference they themselves can make.

Everyone involved should be incredibly proud. It was a blessing to see our students’ love in action.

Reverend Sally Yabsley-Bell

Chaplain

ASTA i3 National Science Awards

Holly Bennett (class of 2025) won a Grand Prize at the ASTA i3 National Science Awards for her work in the Science Extension Course last year.

We are delighted to share some exceptional news celebrating the achievements of our science students at the National ASTA iCubed Awards for Science.

Holly Bennett achieved remarkable success, winning both the Agriculture category and the prestigious Grand Prize for Inquiry. She was selected as one of only seven Grand Finalists nationally, from thousands of student entries across Australia. This outstanding result follows her win as Rural Young Scientist of the Year in 2025, which qualified her for consideration at the national level. Her mentor, Gordon Refshauge, supported Holly with her research for her major work in the Science Extension Course in 2025. Her project, titled “Reproductive Rate or Maiden Ewes and the Relationship with Liveweight at Mating and Birth Type”, was highly regarded by the judges at the state and national level. Holly is currently studying in her first year of Veterinary Science.

In addition, we congratulate Nethuli Pathirana (Year 11), who was recognised among the top 100 student research projects in the country—a significant achievement highlighting the quality and depth of student-led scientific research. Nethuli’s project, titled “Effect of Storage Temperature on Free Fatty Acid Levels and Rancidity in Canola Oil”, was Nethuli’s Year 10 Student Research Project assessment in Science. 

These accomplishments reflect not only the dedication and talent of our students, but also their commitment to inquiry, innovation, and real-world problem solving. We extend our sincere congratulations to both students and thank the Staff and Mentors who have supported them on their scientific journeys.

The projects can be viewed here https://i3awards.org.au/i3-virtual-fair/

Building Skills and Confidence at the National Science & Engineering Challenge

Recently, Kinross Wolaroi School entered a team in the National Science and Engineering Challenge, held in Orange, where our students achieved a commendable 5th place overall. What makes this result particularly noteworthy is that our team comprised predominantly Year 7 students, competing against teams mostly made up of Year 10 and 11 students from across the region.

Throughout the day, our students demonstrated outstanding teamwork, creativity, and perseverance across a range of demanding challenges. Highlights included:

• First place in the Grab Lab challenge
• Second place finishes in Confounding Communications and Fish Traps
• Second place in the Bridge Challenge, where students successfully cleared the preliminary weight tests before narrowly missing the final stage with the large ingot. 

While we didn’t take home the overall win, the maturity, resilience, and problem‑solving skills shown by our younger students were exceptional and a clear indicator of what lies ahead.

These results reflect the strength of our Science program overall, and in particular, the strong connection we have fostered with our Junior School Science students over the last three years, where they regularly spend time learning in the Senior School labs with our Senior School teachers as part of our experiential learning focus. We are excited about the bright future in science at Kinross Wolaroi.

Outstanding Design in Industrial Technology - SHAPE Exhibition

We are thrilled to celebrate Isabella Pearce (Class of 2025) on an extraordinary achievement!

At the SHAPE Exhibition opening at UTS, Isabella was awarded the Outstanding Design in Industrial Technology - an incredible honour and a testament to her creativity, innovation and dedication. 

Isabella’s Industrial Technology project, ‘Arena Rake’ is an impressive example of thoughtful engineering and creative problem‑solving. Her work showcases the kind of innovation and dedication that inspires future designers and makers. 

When reflecting on her major project, Isabella noted how the process helped her develop practical skills and knowledge, “The hands-on challenge of creating something useful from start to finish was incredibly rewarding.” 

Adding to this success, Isabella is also one of 18 Kinross Wolaroi students whose major works were selected for the SMART Exhibition as part of the NSW HSC Showcase Season - an outstanding reflection of the talent and commitment across our school community.

Congratulations, Isabella, and to all students and staff involved in this remarkable achievement.

Stage 6 English 

During a busy period in the school calendar, English has made the most of the opportunity that Camps Week provides to develop key skills regarding examination preparation, particularly for reading comprehension and short answer sections for both Years 11 and 12. 

These year groups had three lessons each dedicated to honing those skills through lecture based instruction, modelling of exemplar responses and completion of timed writing. Students then had opportunities for peer marking feedback and self-reflective practices. Students tackled past Preliminary Examination papers and HSC papers under the direction of Mrs Lewis for Year 12 and Mrs Callaghan for Year 11. 

English staff were so impressed with the effort, dedication and the quality of responses produced by our Year 11 and 12 students who were in attendance. All resources will be made available to students who were away during Week 9 to ensure they do not miss out on this key learning opportunity.

Cockatoo Island Excursion - Year 11 and 12 Visual Arts

The Sydney Biennale is an international art show that occurs every two years. It displays works by approximately 180 artists across a variety of locations and galleries. The Stage 6 Visual Art students had the wonderful opportunity to visit it on 26 March, at the same time as viewing Art Express, the curated show of some of the best HSC works from 2025.

An earlier start than planned was required due to the Mt Victoria road closure. However, the students were very efficient and polite at our breakfast stop and we made up time, arriving on schedule at the Penrith Regional Gallery. This charming and very engaging gallery is hosting part of the Biennale for the first time. Fresh, and not yet art-saturated, the students were attentive and participated well. With earthy installations from remote Pilbara (by Yindjibarni Nyinyart) alongside sleek video works from Ireland (Diedre O’Mahony), and an incredible installation of hanging photographs that will grow over the course of the show as people contribute from their experiences of Sudan, based on the Sudanese diaspora (John Harvey and Walter Waia). Exposure to this diversity of work is a rare privilege, and a wonderful help for the students in feeling comfortable about the demands of unseen work in the Preliminary and HSC Visual Arts examinations.

Minds buzzing, we re-boarded the bus, which dropped us at Circular Quay for lunch on the grass in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art - amid seagulls, tourists, buskers and more! A guided tour of the museum continued the exploration of many different artists working in many different forms, inspired by many different aspects of the world. One particular exhibition, “Data and Dreams; Art and AI” proved very thought provoking and relevant. 

Boarding the ferry added to the sensory overload, with unimaginable numbers of people for many of our country students, but it was lovely to be directly complimented by one of the ferry “wharfies” on how “this was the most polite and well-behaved student group that they had ever seen." 

Cockatoo island, our accommodation for the night, was at the end of the meandering ferry ride. After being introduced to their tents, which somehow completely surpassed their expectations, the students broke up into groups for a tour of the island. It has a fascinating history, from Indigenous use as a special women’s site, to incarceration for convict re-offenders, and as a vital ship building facility throughout much of the 20th Century. There was no end to the fascinating nooks, crannies, and historical industrial monumentalism to be seen. 

After eating dinner alfresco, overlooking the harbour to the glittering city skyline, a few of the more intrepid and fearless embarked on a wildly inaccurate historical ghost tour of the island with Mr Orme-Smith. Cooperative fruit bats flapping overhead and clumsy possums crashing in the bushes added to the general hysteria, while the extraordinary setting necessitated a lesson on how to do night-time photography with obligatory ghostly figures moving amongst the shadows of the ruined convict buildings! 

A harbour view breakfast, a tidy of the tents, and a dash for the ferry saw us back on the mainland and off to the Art Gallery of NSW. They had generously discounted our entry to the unnerving exhibition by Ron Mueck, so a confronted group of students stumbled out of that and into the Art Express showcase. Inspiring and daunting in equal measure, the exemplary works from last year’s Visual Arts HSC were a big topic of conversation as we lunched on pizza under the fig trees of the Domain. This brief respite was followed by a tour of our final location, the White Bay power station exhibition of Biennale works. Standing under Nikesha Breeze’s 30 metre white cotton Boab tree while eerie projections of slave era cotton pickers provided a wonderfully incongruous finale to the infinite possibilities of Art for our students. That, combined with the uncertain soundness of sleep under canvas, led to a quiet trip home!

Andrew​ Orme‑Smith

Head of Visual Arts

Careers

During Weeks 8 and 9 the school hosted the University of Newcastle and University of Wollongong on campus. The presentations included getting into university via UAC and Early Offer, campus life, scholarships and life away from home. The presentations were well received by our students. Both Newcastle and Wollongong get numerous applications from students at Kinross Wolaroi. Outside the Sydney metropolitan area our school has the largest number of applications to both universities. We are very grateful that UoN and UoW make it possible to visit our students on campus, their support of our pathways program is very much appreciated. 

Bruce Paine

Career Advisor 

Big Tech, Big Ideas - Year 12 Agriculture

Last Friday, Year 12 Agriculture students travelled to Dubbo to attend the Big Tech Big Ideas Expo.

Year 12 Agriculture students study 'Farming for the 21st Century' as their HSC option and this event provided hands-on access to some of the latest innovative technology that is currently changing the face of Agriculture. 

Students engaged with a variety of new technologies, speaking with industry experts and government departments who are analysing data that is collected as a result of efficiency testing. They were able to see the technology and create a report for a number of examples that they can apply to their HSC exam later in the year.

There was also a career forum for students to learn the diversity of careers within the agriculture scope (everything that is included within food and fibre production) through the use of AI.

This was a unique opportunity for senior students to engage with the latest technology that is shaping the future of the industry.

Mrs Jody Haydon

Head of Agriculture