HEAD OF SWANS

Tournament of Minds

Our teams have been exploring their creativity while developing their storylines and writing their scripts. It is wonderful to see how each team has taken a very different path in forming their solution to the problem. With the deadline for submission less than two weeks away, we have increased our team time. In addition to the two lunchtimes each week, we are also utilising sport time on Friday afternoons and will be coming into the College this Sunday from 1 – 4pm to create props and practice the performances.

Mock Trials

Congratulations to The Riverina Anglican College Mock Trial team who competed last week in Round 2 of the Knock Out section of the competition. Our opponents were Sacred Heart Central School, from Cootamundra. Our team were acting as the defence and were tasked with proving that the accused, Chris Grande, did not intend to steal three items of clothing that were found in her possession.  While our team were not able to get our defendant out of a guilty verdict, the team did win the overall trial based on points awarded by the judge. This is the furthest we have ever made it through the highly competitive Mock Trial competition. A special mention must go to Trang Nguyen, Year 9, for her perfect score of 40/40 acting as the defendant. This is an exceptionally impressive feat and is very hard to achieve. 

The team also consisted of Isabel Brown, Claire Heazlewood, Sarah Siddiqui, Charlotte Wickson and Tayarni Woods.

We wish the team well in the next round of the competition as they compete against Kooringal High School next week. 

ICAS Exams

The online ICAS exams have progressed smoothly. Students have so far sat the Science, Digital Technology and English exams. Mathematics is the last ICAS exam, which the students will be sitting next Tuesday during Period 3.

Write a Book in a Day

Students with a love of creative writing, a passion for illustrating and/or a desire to help other teenagers are invited to join us at the Dr Ian Grant Library on Sunday 20th September to write and illustrate a book in just 12 hours. Write a Book in a Day is a competition for teams of students to write a story, within surprise parameters, to be given to teenagers with cancer who are in hospital. 

We have participated in this competition for a few years and every year the students involved have experienced, over the 12 hour period, creative highs and lows, lots of laughs, making new friends and the satisfaction of having written and illustrated an original book that will brighten the day of a fellow teenager who is sick in hospital.

There are still spaces available for students who would like to participate in this unique event. The permission note can be downloaded from the College website.

Science Week 2020

This year we celebrated Science Week with a Paper Plane Competition. Over the past two weeks we have seen an interesting range of paper plane designs as each class in years 7 to 10 had their own competition to select the two students to go onto the College final. Senior students were able to nominate themselves.

On Thursday lunchtime the paper plane pilot finalists gathered in the gym to find the most skilful paper plane designer and pilot. The first pilot to step forward was Archie Grintell who drew back his arm and thrust his plane smoothly into the air to fly an impressive 27.75m. A hush fell over the group as they realised this was a huge distance to conquer. As each of the following pilots set their planes into motion we saw acrobatics, high flying, nosedives and smooth flights but no one was able to beat the target that had been set. 

A huge congratulations to Archie for becoming the College Paper Plane Pilot Champion for 2020! His flight will now be entered into the STANSW Young Scientist Paper Plane Challenge.

Kylie Woodgate | Head of SWANS