Around the Senior School

Vietnam

Thirty three students and four staff spent the April School holidays on an immersion tour of Vietnam and Cambodia.  Below is an overview of the first half of the Tour which was spent in Vietnam.  Our next newsletter will cover the Cambodian phase of our Tour.

From Emika Carter, George Hogg, Ollie Krause, Hannah Jones and Isobella Montagliani

Hanoi was an eye-opening cultural experience. Beginning with an exceptionally long wait to see Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, our group of 33 was intrigued by the communist architecture and packed lines to see the way the Vietnamese venerated their past leader. Following this, a visit to the Confucian temples and museum of literature expanded our knowledge of the culture, then a delightful tour of the old quarter in a buggy saw the improvement of all our bartering skills. The one-thousand-year-old water puppet show closed the evening. 

The next day we travelled to Ha Long Bay to marvel one of the seven natural wonders of the world. We canoed around the limestone peaks and explored the caves in the area. Before departing for Hoi An the next day, we toured the Hoa Lo Prison Museum. 

This historic site was deeply saddening though it taught us of the experiences of the Vietnamese people during French colonialism. 

The evening and afternoon saw us walk through the scenic town and visit the bustling markets on the port. Many people purchased custom made clothes in this city of tailors. We made pottery on day four and enjoyed a cooking class that we arrived at in traditional basket boats at night. Farewelling this beautiful city, we travelled to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). We ate lunch in a restaurant that led onto the old Viet Cong headquarters, and then moved onto the Independence Palace, formerly the Presidential Palace of South Vietnam.

In the afternoon we visited the confronting War Remnants Museum to gain a deeper appreciation of the horrors of the Vietnam War on the population. This was continued as we visited the Cu Chi tunnels the next day, the famous hideout of the Viet Cong in south Vietnam. Here we were given the opportunity to enter the tunnels ourselves and experience the claustrophobic lifestyle of the Viet Cong. We finished with an amazing race, where we were all tasked with a challenge to locate significant historical landmarks and answer questions about them.  That evening we left for Cambodia, embarking on our next adventure. TBC 

UCA moderators leadership workshop

Seven of our school leaders travelled to Sydney to meet with the school leaders of the other Uniting Church schools to talk about building community and to share ideals and plans for events and initiatives at each of there schools. The Uniting Church Pulse team and Mission Education Board member Stuart Bollom lead the day. It was a great event and the school student leadership team are coming back with lots of new ideas. 

Kids Lit Quiz 

Thursday May 2, 2024 

KWS Kids’ Lit Team comprised 22 students this year. We had 3 Senior School teams, 2 Junior School teams and two reserves. The Central West heat was held at James Sheahan Catholic High School on 2 May 2024.  

Kids Lit is an annual literature quiz for students aged 10-13 years. Quizzes are held in many countries around the world. We were faced with 10 categories (Amphibians, Aviation, Big Cats, Colours, Dancing, Dogs, Names, Superstitions, Tattoos and Wives) with 10 questions in each category so we had 100 questions to answer on the day. 

If a team won a round, they were all able to choose a book prize. Sometimes, there would be an individual competition and some of our students were lucky enough to win $5 if they were the first correct guess. They might have been given an author’s biography and had to guess the author or perhaps they were read the first page of a book and had to guess the title. 

This year Alexander Priest, Milly Middleton, Josie Cardiff and Harrison Church placed 3rd overall and Ethan Butchard, Maggie McRae, Austin Wark and Nick Sweetapple came 1st.The winning team are now heading to Sydney to compete at the National Final on Monday 3rd June. 

Team 1:

Devan Prasad

Hannah Cunningham

Jude Jansen

Brooke Howard

Team 2:

Nick Sweetapple

Austin Wark

Ethan Butchard

Maggie McRae

Team 3:

Josie Cardiff

Milly Middleton

Alexander Priest

Harrison Church

Team 4:

Daniel Hayward

Oscar Flynn

Evie Butchard

Willa Tomlinson

Team 5:

Daniel Kerdic

Angus Triggs

Leopold Wade

Lachlan Pantehis-Marriott

Lola Short was our reserve for the SS

Anna Kenny was our reserve for the JS.

Connecting Music and Faith

From Rev Sally Yabsley-Bell, Chaplain

Tash Holmes from Uniting Creative came to speak about the connection between music and faith this morning at chapel. She performed her song 'Beyond' from the Album Transforming Spirit, that the Uniting creative team released last year.

Tash held a work shop with the chapel band working on some new music after school. We hope to build on this new relationship with Uniting Creative and we look forward to working with Tash again in the future.