House Leader Reports

Blackwood Captains Report

We’ve had an absolutely JAM-PACKED start to the term, from swimming to athletics to chorals practice to homegroup competitions, something and everything is going on all at once. For this article, let’s mix it up and get some words from our lovely domain captains!

“What a term it's been for Blackwood! Our swimming carnival was absolutely amazing, from the immense amount of house spirit to the blue in the stands, I am incredibly proud of all of you! We even had lots of participation from all of the house, there were absolutely no empty lanes, everyone was willing to participate and that was incredible to see!! Let’s keep this momentum up and hopefully we can teach Kororoit a lesson for taking swimming from us…

And the house spirit transcends swimming to senior sport! In volleyball our yr 12’s are currently undefeated and guaranteed a place in the finals already! And the same goes for soccer. We are currently undefeated in all matches!!

Athletics was another topic altogether, the amount of participation and support the whole house gave on that day was incredible to see. For the first time in our history at SCHS we have come second in athletics!!!!! What an achievement this is and this is only because of you all in Blackwood. Everyone gave their very best and all they had, and now we are one step closer in the house cup. This type of house spirit is exactly what Blackwood is about and to see it from everyone was inspiring. Let’s keep this up for the whole year and see what it can bring us!!!

In the end, let's keep up this amazing participation and dedication for the rest of the year and without a doubt there’ll be a house cup with Blackwood on it for us!!!” 

- Your Sports Captain, Sam Pai (B9)

“TIME TO TALK ABOUT HOMEGROUP COMPS!! Blackwood has been SMASHING it so far, with engagement levels through the roof!

Our amazing leadership team has been coming up with amazing competition ideas. So far, we've had:

- Best painting of homegroup teacher

- Most roses for Valentine's Day

- Who knows Chorals lyrics best

- Best 'BLACKWOOD' sign

Currently, B7 is in the lead after winning almost every homegroup comp so far!! B6 and B9 are closely following in a tied 2nd place, and B8 shortly after in 3rd.

Our leadership team has been facilitating the competitions every Wednesday, and we're loving it so far. Keep up the enthusiasm, the prize isn't too far. At the end of the semester, the winning homegroup will receive a pizza party!! Good luck Blackwood :)”

- Your Initiatives Captain, Keyara D'Souza (B5) 

“You guys did incredible during our first two house assemblies learning Coming Home and Shut Up and Dance with Me. I really appreciate the effort each and everyone of you have put into chorals, whether it be setting up for house assembly, coming to rehearsals or just opening your mouth to sing during mass singing. 

Our small ensembles and chorals team have been working hard preparing everything behind the scenes so please look forward to hearing our amazing performers ! 

If everyone could just learn our lyrics and push through rehearsals just until Term 2 Week 3 we’ll be guaranteed to do very well on the day.” 

- Your Chorals Captain, Caitlin Sim (B4)

“Our Blackwood Media Team has an interesting start to the year. We’ve been busy with updates from both Swimming and Athletics Carnivals! Another point to mention, two of our very talented artists, Krishna Missam and Mai Nguyen, have completed full portraits of our House Leaders, Mr Moden and Ms Kaur! They will be up in T-wing soon, so please come and check them out! That was everything from me for this first newsletter of the year!!”

- Your Year 11 Vice House Captain, Rachel Lee (B4)

And lastly, our entire leadership team would love to give a standing ovation to every single one of you 👏. You’ve all put in such a phenomenal effort this year (and it’s only the first term), we love all of you, and we are so proud of every single one of you. We really couldn’t ask for a better house. Thank you so much for being amazing Blackwood <3

KNIGHT TO KNIGHT (TOGETHER WE FIGHT)

Lots of love,

On behalf of the Blackwood Leadership Team, Your House Captains Wiltberg Haway and Harguan Kaur. 

Cottrell Captains Report

So far, we’ve had a pretty decent start to the year! We finally broke our always coming 4th in swimming streak, although on a technicality (not last is not last), and we came second in house spirit! Our house pride is definitely our greatest strength 💪

Let’s keep up the good work and get the top spot for athletics! Also in recent news, our mascot has come to life! Meet Carlos, the Phoenix that was beautifully crafted by Ms Bourkel (huge shout out to her, it's lovely). Currently, it resides in the Cottrell Leaders’ office, so you’ll have to settle with just looking at it through pictures for now. With Carlos on our side, Cottrell has house pride in the BAG. 

Speaking of house pride, we came first for that in Athletics! Good job everyone! And topping it off with coming 3rd in overall events, we have to say that Athletics was an absolute banger! The enthusiasm that everyone had throughout the day was top tier and we cannot emphasise on how proud we are of everyone that was there. Let’s push even harder for the rest of the year!

Looking ahead, there is one major event coming up: Chorals. This is the big one. After we came first place last year, we definitely want to keep that winning streak and give it our all. Can’t be that hard to win with “What Makes You Beautiful” and “Coming Home” as our songs. Our first major rehearsal was a good start, but we want to make sure we put 110% into the next rehearsals before the big event comes around.

Heads up Cottrell, there’s a brand new team ready to keep you up to date on all that’s going on! Get ready for….The Phoenix’s Nest! Cottrell’s very own newsletter to help us all keep on top of upcoming events, and just to give the more creative of us a space to flourish. The first edition, ‘Summertime Swimming’, came out a few days before the event and included all the key details such as transport, timings and where to go, and even a short memoir. If you didn’t get a chance to get your hands on a copy, keep an eye out for the athletics edition!

Another big highlight of the term was our leaders finally getting their shiny badges and officially, officially stepping into their roles. All of Cottrell’s amazing domain captains, SRC’s, vice captains and, of course, the great house captains Lilliana and Khathab are extremely proud to be representing this energetic and passionate house and we look forward to seeing what the rest of 2024 holds for us. GO COTTRELL!!

From the Phoenix’s nest,

Your Cottrell Vice Captains - Vishesh Manik (C4) and Prisha Sharma (C7)

Kororoit Captains Report

We’re back and already made an unbelievable start to the year, already taking home the win for two of the biggest house events: Swimming and Athletics (#humble).

We both know that jumping into the pool the first week back is incredibly daunting, but we could not be more proud of you guys!!! Whether you were rushing to your event, or being a student helper, every one of your efforts contributed to breaking back from Blackwood’s four year streak in the event. 

As for athletics, well…no surprises there😋. But what really blew us away was the house spirit everyone showed during the day! Our chant was louder than ever, with everyone fired up to redeem ourselves from swimming, seen no better with the hula hoop house mini challenge - that was an incredible moment of our house coming together and showing everyone what we are capable of! With that being said, house spirit is crucial to keeping the energy going; it's what kept our 7 year winning streak 😎🤭! 

Here’s some more inspiring words from our very own sports captain about swimming and athletics: 

“Hey Kororoit. What a start it has been already- it kickstarted with swimming carnival where we first saw our Kororoit spirit in action. I couldn’t be more proud for everyone who contributed whether they were in the pool for the first time or who swim competitively, cheering on friends, or just there to have a good time in the stands. But to top it all off, taking home the win made the day even more special, not just for me, but Kororoit as a collective. Then moving onto athletics - we got to see the Kororoit spirit once again as they conquered their way in the track and field events! I was surprised that for every event there were people who put up their hand to do the event, even on the day when some people pulled out there were always a few Kororoit people who filled in at the last minute. It emphasised the Kororoit Spirit and the constant energy and support provided in the stands was the best I’ve ever got to experience, and once again to win Athletics again was a feeling I would never forget. Yours Truly- Nathanael (K5)” 

To top it off, our year 9s have been going strong with their first win in Primus! It was a close call between the points but our 9s proved themselves with their massive efforts and commitment! Let’s keep this up and take everything by storm! 

Chorals is coming together smoothly with Dinda and our chorals team working tirelessly behind the scenes. Be sure to engrave the set song (Coming Home - Sheppard) and our chosen song (Steal my girl - One Direction) into your brain and sing your heart out from now as we practise until Chorals day 😁! But why hear this from us, when you have our very own chorals captain Dinda with some inspiring words: 

“HELLO KOROROIT! It’s been a very busy term but one with lots to look forward to. Chorals is taking shape very very well with our small groups rehearsing everyday and they sound AMAZING! What makes this event special though, is how all of you must contribute by singing together, so lets go off our swimming win, bask in the glory, and sing our hearts out every rehearsal. I have very high hopes for all of you and I know we can pull it off. Our house assembly rehearsal in the AUD is coming up on the 18th of March, so make sure you learn the lyrics by then.” - Dinda (K7)

Our logo redesign team is also working hard to obviously change our logo from our cute, sad dragon to something …better (it will definitely be better)! Keep on eye on next updates - we hope to get it finalised as soon as humanly possible!

While we have nothing concrete to share about House Drama & Arts, we have our arts captain to share some news on the very first year of House Dance!!  

“Hey Kororoit, it's your Arts captain here! House Dance has been brought back this year! Your Kororoit dancers have begun tirelessly rehearsing to perfect their performance to outmatch the other houses. Make sure to come and support our Kororoit dancers eat up the stage in Week 5, Term 2 😋😋. On a side note, I would also like to congratulate everyone who helped out making the posters for athletics and swimming. They turned out INCREDIBLE! NOW prepare your artistic talents for the following house event, House Art! House Art will be another major event so let’s try to put our best efforts in and hopefully come back with a win 😄. The theme for House Art and House Drama will be revealed shortly so get pumped!” - Jasmine (K3) 

Please stay tuned for more upcoming information and sign ups! It is a time to show off your artistic talents and acting skills but also an opportunity to develop them, so don’t hesitate to put yourself out there! 

Well, that’s all from us! The year of the dragon has just started so let’s get fired up🔥🔥🔥!!

As always keeping it #humble, 

Your Kororoit leadership team ❤️🐉. 

Leyna Ha (K9), Metheshr Ravichandar Nair (K9), and Dinda Widya Murti (K7), 

Your Kororoit House Leaders ❤️🐉. 

Swimming Carnival Photos

Athletics Phots

Rothwell Captain's Report

It’s been such an exciting year for the family house with the recent swimming carnival and with athletics and chorals competition just around the corner. Our efforts this year have been ASTOUNDING whether it be in decorating your home groups in yellow, participating in swimming carnival or helping create banners and flags for athletics. Our unbreakable house spirit is what sets Rothwell apart, and we are so immensely proud of the passion we’ve already seen just over the past few months. Let’s keep it up 🗣️💥

But first, on behalf of your leadership team, we want to thank everyone for making the swimming carnival such a memorable experience. The real stars of the show were our amazing swimmers who gave their all in every event, pushed themselves out of their comfort zone for the house and who truly embodied what it means to be a house that ✨Outshines with our golden light✨.  But also, for those of us that didn’t swim, it was truly heartwarming to see a crowd full of yellow bumblebees, fairies, minions and more cheering their lungs out in support for those who did!

We also can’t write this post ignoring athletics! Our spirit was genuinely at a level we’ve never seen before, and that last chant was especially loud and proud!🎉 We also had an almost complete domination of relays, winning half of them. Our Year 12 boys specifically absolutely sat the other relay teams down, and at the end of the day we really did do well 💛 If you asked me, the results did not reflect our performance. That being said, if we bring that same energy to chorals, it’s over for everyone

Our mass rehearsals are already sounding AMAZING, and we’re miles ahead of the other houses (don’t tell them I said that 😋). Let’s keep bringing this enthusiasm and spirit in each of our upcoming chorals rehearsals! The effort behind the scenes made by Mandy, the small choir and ensembles is immeasurable, but at the end of the day, our success depends on every Rothwellian voice. We need YOU🫵 to help us blow the competition out of the water! No-one knows how to uplift, inspire and persevere better than the Rothwellians, and honestly, there's not a thing that I would change 😉

As a special treat, we have a few more words from our Year 12 SRC, Zayan: 

“In their respective Open forums the SRCs looked to their individual year levels in building the house spirit, and in ensuring Rothwell lives up to its potential as being the family house, by encouraging everyone to bring a bit of their personality coming to their time at Rothwell and to live out their time here, with the purpose of making it the most enjoyable and fun for everyone as humanly possible.

The SRCs are looking forward to continuing to develop this budding enthusiasm and love the house throughout the course of this year, and bring the best Rothwell at every house event :)”

Ultimately, we know all of us Rothwellians will band together making this year a golden one!! #FIGHTFIGHTFIGHT

- Anjali, Malakai, and your SRCs 🦅💥