At the end of last term Sophia-Rose Markham, Jessica Ferris and Alexis Lockwood were invited to participate in the Aboriginal Dance Company – Training Program where they rehearsed alongside the Aboriginal Dance Company – Associate Program dancers, which includes Nya Quinlan. Last weekend was an opportunity for students to work on their dance skills with Bangarra Dance Theatre tutors, as well as make some new friends with a similar interest in dance.

Thank you to Sidney Saltner and Sani Townsend from Bangarra and Ashley Napoleoni from the Department of Education Arts Unit.

Congratulations to Elsie Goldzieher-Parkin on receiving an HSC Music Encore nomination in recognition of her outstanding performance in the HSC practical examinations. All the Music students performed well and it's a wonderful achievement for Elsie to be recognised. Elsie will now submit a video of her performance program to see if she will be included in the showcase at the Sydney Opera House on March 4th 2024.

Also a special thanks to Elsie's accompanist Robyn Bradley and her Violin teacher Sofia Debus.

Congratulations to Skye Vaughan (on the left) she is representing Netball NSW Academy Challenge in Port Macquarie for NIAS.

Abi Chambers

Entered the Book Fair Australia Short Story competition & has been shortlisted in the TOP THREE writers in Australia for students aged 13-19 years!

Congrats Abi!

Interschools Horse Extravaganza…

Taylor Chick-Sauer has had a week at ISHE representing ASC...

Champion Combined Training.

Champion Open Novice Dressage.

Reserve Champion open heavy weight Hack.

5th rider class.

4th Working horse Challenge.

Champion Team of 4.

ARC Celebrating our Resilience breakfast.

What a fantastic group of students, also thanks to the Lyambay Dancers.

Under 14's boy cricket had a good win over Guyra Central School. After Blake Swilks won the toss and elected to bowl. The boys sent Guyra in at their home ground, by the end of the first over Guyra were 2 for 2 and the wickets kept tumbling. The boys ended up bowling Guyra Central out for 36. Openers Jacob Williams and Jacob Finlay started strong with partnership with 22 runs before the boys hit 2 fours in the 7th over to get the team over the line.

Thank you to Guyra Central School for hosting us and a special thanks to coach Mr Watkins.

Myles Harris competed in the Schools National Championships for Futsal in first week of the September holidays, representing Far Northern NSW (FNNSW). While they only won one game, not having played together before, they played well and impressed a lot of teams and referees with their sportsmanship.

At the award ceremony, Myles was awarded an Allstar 10. This was voted on by all the other coaches from the other teams. Due to this award he has been chosen to play for Australia in Brazil in August next year! Well done Myles!

The Celebration Choir that was on in Sydney. They helped raise over $30000 for Westmead Children's Hospital.

Girls open cricket knockout-Marie Cornish Trophy.

Armidale Secondary College played Tenterfield High School in the Marie Cornish knockout competition in Armidale. ASC betted first and were able to post a very handy score of 1 for 219 off 30 overs.

The standout of the day was Sophie Parsons who dominated the bowling with a outstanding innings. She score 108 not out off 20 overs and retired herself to give others an opportunity to bat.

She hit the all to all parts of the ground and even out of it on a number of occasions. Sophie combined with Samantha Marshall for a fantastic partnership with Samantha rotating the strike to enable Sophie her run scoring spree.

Tenterfield were on the back foot early with early and regular wickets taken.

Maddison Bull took a wicket with her first ball and finished with 2 for 13 off 4 overs. Alynyah Moran and Lucy Deiderick also finished with two wickets each with Lucy just missing out on a hattrick.

Tenterfield finished with 130 runs off their allotted overs. We now await to see who we play in the next round.

Thank you to Tenterfield High School for travelling down to play us and also Mr Peter Smith for umpiring.

Year 11 Student, Dallas Kelly has been called up for the NSW CHS Under 18s Rugby Union Squad to tour New Zealand in 2024. Dallas was a standout player in North West's bronze medal finish at the state championships back in May and was unlucky not to secure a sky-blue jersey earlier. Dallas captained ASC's rugby league squad in an outstanding game schoolboy football in which ASC went down narrowly 34-32 to Guyra High School.

Celebrating Our Resilience

Armidale Secondary College students attended the Armidale Regional Council 'Celebrating our Resilience' breakfast a few weeks ago. It has been 2 years since the tornado and it was a nice way to spend the morning thanking those who supported our community.

Congratulations to our Lyambay Dance Group who were superb and to the students who woke up extremely early to support the council event and represent our school.

ASC NAIDOC CUP

Armidale Secondary College 32 Guyra Central School 34, in front of the entire school the ASC Eagles Rugby League team came back from an early 18-point deficit to just fall short of a remarkable comeback. Guyra came out of the blocks early and were ready to play and raced in three unanswered tries. ASC rallied with two of their own two tries but went into the break 24-8 down.

After some strong words from coach Mr Walker, ASC played a much stronger second half and made good ground through the middle. Captain Dallas Kelly was strong as was Jack Mcleod.

ASC scored in the corner with three minutes to go to make the score 32-34 but unfortunately ASC were unable to press home the attack in the last minute and went down narrowly in a thrilling game of football. Guyra coach Mr Galvin awarded the ASC player of the game award to Tyrone Moala, ASC Coach Mr Walker awarded his coaches award to debutant Matt Myers and the referee gave a joint Most Valuable Player award to ASC hooker Morris Collins and Guyra C.

Captain Rave Brazier. The game was played in amazing spirit and both sets of players should be very proud of their efforts.

Mr Jason Walker - Coach

The ASC 2024 captains travelled to Tamworth for the Grip Leadership Conference. They have been inspired to create greater change in the school community whilst fulfilling their leadership roles in the year ahead.

In September school holiday, four ASC students Saho Brown, Oscar Gates, Jay Gates, Michi Takayama attended the Australian Honours Ensembles Programs (AHEP) run through the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.

Sophia-Rose and Noel have done our school proud at the Armidale Dumaresq Lions Club, Lions Youth of the year public speaking awards. With an incredibly strong group of speakers and the 2022-2023 National Winner coming out of the club, our students really soared.

The judges have deliberated for over 30 minutes.

Congratulations Sophia-Rose the winner of public speaking and the overall winner.

Well done to all participants.

Rachel Gooley Year 9

Rachel Gooley represented ASC in three shows of the State Drama Festival at the Seymour Centre in Sydney. The Festival is a collection of group performances devised by students and put on by The Arts Unit. The performances include a mixture of school drama groups and audition entry ensembles. Rachel performed in the Stage 5 State Drama Camp Ensemble's performance 'One Day a Week' which the students used to express their experiences and frustrations with the teacher shortages. The idea for the piece came from one of Rachel's comments during the devising stages and finished with her addressing the audience on her own. The performance sparked conversations amongst audience members and apparently made the head of The Arts Unit teary.

Cricket

The Open Boys Cricket Team played their quarter final of the Alan Davidson Shield on the 6th Nov, a good win over Inverell High School. Myles Harris won the toss and elected to bowl. The team had a good bowling display, bowling Inverell out for 117, before the boys were able to chase the runs down in 23 overs recording a 6 wicket win.

Well done to all of the players and Samantha Marshall and Clare Kelly for scoring. The boys will vs Glen Innes next round.

Mr Andrew Watkins.

NIAS welcomed over 150 ATHLETES from across the region for the 2023/2024 INDUCTION DAY at Wests Leagues Club in Tamworth. Athletes Alexis Lockwood Year 8, Darnell Smith Year 8 and Nya Quinlan Year 9 from Armidale Secondary College have been selected in Basketball and Netball.

Cooper Collins Year 11, has been selected to represent the NSW Koori under 18s at the upcoming Rugby Pasifika Championships to be held in Sydney from the 24-26 November. Cooper has been selected at flyhalf (5/8) among players chosen from across the state.

It is a massive honour for Cooper, who represented Central north at the state championships, Northwest at the CHS championships and NSW country at the Australian School championships this season so far. Cooper is currently in negotiations with Sydney c

olts teams for season 2025 and is enjoying his rugby journey as it progresses.

XEL