Sport & Co-Curricular

4-12 Athletics Carnival

Our Years 4–12 Athletics Carnival was a wonderful opportunity for the Loreto community to come together early in the year. It was fantastic to see senior and junior students celebrating side by side, supporting one another when needed and cheering enthusiastically throughout the day. The spirit displayed by all Houses was outstanding.

This year’s House themes added colour, creativity and excitement to the carnival: Yee Haw McGrath, Barry the Builder, Mulhall’s Mission, and World Cup Ward. Each House demonstrated tremendous pride and unity, led with exceptional leadership by our Year 12 and Year 6 students. Their organisation and enthusiasm ensured a day filled with energy, encouragement and collegiality.

The carnival was a wonderful blend of fun and mass participation. Students competed across a wide range of events, including javelin, discus, long jump, high jump, shot put, vortex, sprints, relays and novelty events. While participation and House spirit were key priorities, every carnival concludes with one overall winner. This year, Ward was crowned the overall winner of the carnival, and Barry proudly claimed the Spirit Cup.

All students are to be congratulated for the positive manner in which they competed, consistently challenging themselves to achieve their personal best. We witnessed several outstanding individual performances on both the track and in the field, including one new record broken on the day. Congratulations to Kaysii O for winning the Champion of Champions 100m race. Many students also embraced the opportunity to extend themselves, competing in a maximum of five athletics events in addition to novelty events and relays.

Events of this scale require significant planning and teamwork. A sincere thank you to our Senior Sports Captains, Albina and Maria (Ward), Matilda and Ruby (McGrath), Minnie and Paulina (Mulhall), and Jasmine and Hennie (Barry) — for their leadership in organising nominations and placing students into events.

Thank you also to the Loreto staff, parents and student volunteers who officiated on the track and in the field, as well as the Property Services and IT teams for their invaluable support in ensuring the smooth running of the day.

It was a truly memorable carnival and a wonderful celebration of community, House pride and participation.

Mandy Braddock

Leader of Health & PE 7 ‑ 12

Co-curricular Sports

Term 1 Information

We are now up to Round 4 in our Term 1 competition with the girls continuing to make us proud with their skills and sportsmanship. There are no games this Saturday 7th March due to the long weekend, but Saturday sport will resume next week. 

Carnival Dates Years 7-12:

• Saturday 14 March (Week 7) – Head of the River
• Tuesday 17 March (Week 8) – Loreto Swimming Carnival, Years 7-12 (Burnside Pool)
• Monday 23 March (Week 9) – SACSSGSA Catholic Schools Athletics Carnival, Years 7-12 (Athletics SA Stadium)
• Wednesday 1 April (Week 10) - SASSA Athletics Carnival, Years 7-12 (Athletics SA Stadium)
• Wednesday 6 May (Week 3, Term 2)– SACSSGSA Catholic Schools Swimming Carnival, Years 7-12

SASSA Swimming Carnival

Congratulations to our Loreto swimmers for proudly representing the College at the SA School Sport Swimming Carnival on Tuesday 24 February. The team delivered an outstanding performance, finishing an impressive 6th overall.

A special mention to Year 7 student Rebecca and Year 8 student Lucy for achieving multiple first and second place finishes. Well done as well to our Under 13 relay team for securing 2nd place in their event.

Extra congratulations to Lucy for her fantastic achievement in winning the Open 100m Freestyle, a remarkable result!

Term 2 & 3 Information

Thank you for completing the Terms 2 & 3 sports selections, it is wonderful to see so many students choosing to participate in sport. We will be lodging teams with SA Catholic Schools Girls Secondary Sport Association (SACSSGSA) at the end of next week. We will not receive Term 2 & 3 grade allocations, fixtures and venues from SACSSGSA until early in Term 2.  

Rowing

Only one week until the 2026 Head of the River on Saturday 14 March, 8:30am – 2:00pm. This highly anticipated event is a highlight of the rowing calendar, and we invite our entire College community to cheer on our rowers - your support will make a world of difference. Let’s come together to celebrate the hard work, determination, and team spirit of our athletes.

Blue Round

In Round 2, SACSSGSA went BLUE to raise awareness of mental health. The SACSSGSA Blue round promoted mental health awareness in our schools and community. On Saturday 21 February, teams came together in a variety of sporting fixtures to play, compete, and do their best.  It was great to see teammates encourage each other, care for their friends, and go that extra mile to make everybody feel included and valued.

Individual Tennis Championships

A huge congratulations to our incredible tennis players who represented Loreto College at the School Sport SA Tennis Championships this week! The standard of competition was outstanding, and our students rose to the challenge with determination and skill.

All five competitors achieved match wins, with three of our students claiming gold medals in their respective categories. An amazing achievement all around - well done, team!

• Year 8 – Abbey B

• Year 10 – Ruby L & Zoe D

• Year 11 – Harper H

• Year 12 – Daisy J

State Teams

If your daughter is playing sport at a high level, please be aware that there is the opportunity to trial for state teams through School Sport SA.

Further information such as how to nominate, trial dates and competition dates can be located on the School Sport SA Website or by clicking on the link below:

CLICK HERE for State Team Information

Knockout Teams

Thank you for the many expressions of interest we received for the Knockout Sport Competition.  We have submitted the following teams into the competition and will be selecting Term 2 teams in the coming weeks:

Term 2:

• Years 7/8 Netball
• Years 9/10 Netball
• Years 11/12 Netball
• Open Soccer
• Years 10-12 Touch Football

Term 3:

• Years 7-9 AFLW

Term 4:

• Years 7-9 Touch Football
• Tennis TBC

Students have been asked to keep an eye on the student bulletin and their emails for trial dates. Also, please note that we use the upcoming netball trials as the first stage of selection for our knockout netball teams, so if students are not playing school netball but are interested in knockout netball, please notify Ms Hage or Ms Braddock. 

Netball Trials

Years 7-12 netball trials have commenced and will conclude in Week 8.  Each year level has two scheduled trials, with a possible third trial if needed.

CLICK HERE for 2026 Netball Trial Dates

If you have any questions about co-curricular sport, please do not hesitate to contact me -Sophie.Hage@loreto.sa.edu.au

Sophie Hage

Director of Sport and Sport Performance

Junior Co-Curricular Sports

East Adelaide SAPSASA Swimming Trials

Well done to all the students who represented Loreto at the East Adelaide SAPSASA Swimming Trials!

The Loreto swimmers competed against swimmers from 14 other schools in the East Adelaide District and recorded some outstanding results. A special mention to Colette who came first in the 50m freestyle, 50m breaststroke and 50m butterfly – an incredible achievement!

10-year-old age group

• Ruby VB
  • 1st in 50m Backstroke

11-year-old age group

• Lucy D-F
  • 3rd in 50m Breaststroke
• Sophie R
  • 3rd in 50m Butterfly
• Evie H
  • 4th in 50m Freestyle
  • 4th in 50m Breaststroke

12-year-old age group

• Colette C
  • 2nd in 100m Freestyle
  • 1st in 50m Freestyle
  • 1st in 50m Breaststroke
  • 1st in 50m Butterfly
• Imogen F
  • 3rd in 50m Butterfly

Several of our swimmers have now qualified to represent East Adelaide at the State Swimming Championships later this term.

Well done to our whole swimming team who achieved brilliant results in their heats. Several swimmers recorded a personal best and it was heartening to see everyone supporting each other so well.

Results from the heats:

Freestyle 

• 10-year-old age group
  • Courtney R 1st
  • Madeline W 3rd
  • Ruby VB 3rd
• 11-year-old age group
  • Evie H 1st
  • Sophia R 2nd
  • Helen C 2nd
• 12-year-old age group
  • Colette C 1st in 50m and 2nd in 100m
  • Imogen F 1st
  • Kenya P 3rd

Backstroke 

• 10-year-old age group
  • Ruby VB 1st
  • Courtney R 3rd
• 11year-old age group
  • Sophia R 2nd
• 12-year-old age group
  • Imogen F 2nd

Breaststroke Heats

• 11-year-old age group
  • Lucy D-F 1st
  • Helen C 2nd
  • Evie H 3rd
• 12-year-old age group
  • Colette C 1st

Butterfly Heats

• 10-year-old age group
  • Courtney R 3rd
• 11-year-old age group
  • Sophie R 1st
• 12-year-old age group
  • Colette C 1st
  • Imogen F 2nd

Summer Netball

The season has finished for several of our teams - well done to all players and coaches on a great summer! We had to dodge quite a bit of hot weather and some lightning but still got to play plenty of matches and have lots of fun.

Well done to our Pink and Green teams who have now banked their first season of netball! Thank you to our coaches for making sure the girls’ first experience in netball was such a positive one. We hope that we will see these players represent Loreto for many years to come!

Our Orange and Purple teams were pushed up to higher divisions which made them work hard against older/taller opposition. They never gave up and improved as the season wore on.

Our Silver team had a barnstorming finish to the season and finished as Primary 3 premiers! Congratulations to Julia and the team who took all before them after Christmas.

Our Red team fought hard all season, matching it with all the best teams and finishing in 3rd place in the Primary 1 division. There are no finals in this age group, however we toppled the minor premier in our last match by one goal, so we’ll count that as a finals win!

Our White team fought hard in the Sub Junior 2 division with many close games, some wins and improvement throughout.

Good luck to our Blue, Gold and Maroon teams who embark on finals campaigns after the March long weekend.

Character and fair play

Well done to our Slam Dunkers basketball team for their game on Wednesday. Bella shot brilliantly, Ruby also scored after a day spent dominating the pool at SAPSASA swimming, and Sofia was tenacious on defence. Everyone played well and we won 18-0 … but that’s not the really good bit.

Our opponent was short on players and some Loreto girls took turns playing for the opposition so that they could field a full team. Brooke, Eleanor and Sarah each played a half for the other team and played their hearts out. It was great to see our girls jump at the opportunity to spend more time on the court and to help out the other team. It reflects well on our College! We finished with a big win but remained respectful to the opposition. Coach Vanessa said that our girls were great ambassadors for Loreto, which is lovely to hear, and more important than any points or wins.

Defence

It was great to see our Year 3/4 touch football team improve their defending this week, working together with a coordinated, strategic approach to block the opposition.

Offence sells tickets, but defence wins championships.

Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant

Often defence is considered the “boring” part of sport. The fun bit is scoring goals, tries, runs, touchdowns… everyone wants to play Goal Attack. But never underestimate the importance of what happens at the other end of the field.

In one Aussie Rules senior team I coached I tried to encourage our forwards to put pressure on their opponents and try to force turnovers. “Everyone is a defender when the opposition has the ball,” I implored. Our full forward though only cared about kicking goals and never paid too much attention to defending. He told me, “Defence goes around depaddock to keep decows in.” I might have failed to get the message through to my full forward but it’s great that our Year 3/4s are picking it up so quickly!

Ben Johnswood

Sport Coordinator

Music at Loreto – Instrumental Lessons & Ensembles

We are thrilled to announce that our 2026 Junior School Musical will be Mary Poppins Jnr!

Excitement has been building across the Junior School as our girls eagerly stepped into auditions, ready to sing, dance and bring this much-loved story to life. The standard of talent on display was outstanding, making casting both a joy and a challenge. We are so proud of every student who auditioned and embraced the opportunity with courage and enthusiasm.

With roles now announced, rehearsals are officially underway. The Year 5 cast has already begun working hard to learn music and dialogue, embracing the spirit of teamwork and creativity that makes our school productions so special. We cannot wait to see these dedicated young performers transform the stage into Cherry Tree Lane!

Performances will take place on Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 June. Ticket information will be released in Term 2. We look forward to sharing this practically perfect production with you!

Elicia Baldwin

Music Ensembles & Instrumental Coordinator