School News
Harmony Day
Harmony Day was a highlight for our students and staff this year, we recognise the value of the diversity within our community and within our school.
This year, the day started off with morning performances by our Aboriginal dancers as well as our Ezidi singers and dancers. Our school then quietened for a minute's silence to acknowledge the Christchurch tragedy.
We celebrated further with a 'street-market' over lunchtime with stalls selling multicultural foods and treats. The stalls were well supported with a wide variety of foodstuff.
The entire week had a focus of acceptance, tolerance and harmony and we valued the opportunity to celebrate these concepts.
Nextgen Illuminate
One of our 3 teams WON the overall Challenge in theNextgen Illuminate Challenge!
In addition, we also won 2 of the categories: Winner of Best Short Challenge and Winner of Student Choice: 'Best Teamwork'.
Our teams in the Challenge participated in the week-long process that aims to develop entrepreneurs and social change makers. Thank you to the organisers and sponsors of such an amazing initiative. A big well done and congratulations to the student participants for their high commitment and effort in the challenge.
Care Messages
In special recognition of the attributes of Harmony Week, hundreds of care messages were popped around the school, especially for the person who read them and needed a little boost.
A lovely little initiative that was appreciated by everyone who happened upon a note.
Colgate Challenge
You may be aware that we are involved in the Terracycle "Colgate Community Garden Challenge" for 2019! This challenge is open to all schools across Australia and requires the collection of oral care waste (everything from used toothbrushes to empty toothpaste tubes and empty toothpaste and toothbrush packaging).
Last year, at Duval High School, we collected 583 units of oral care waste that all got sent back to Terracycle to be recycled and upcycled! We are hoping to get to 1000 units of oral care waste this year as every unit earns us 10 points and the top three schools will each win a recycled community garden set! These sets include 3 x garden beds, 2 x custom-made benches and 1 x $500 Bunnings Warehouse gift voucher to buy gardening supplies! We can also accrue points by heading to https://www.terracycle.com/en-AU/contests/colgategardenvoting and casting your vote for "ARMIDALE SECONDARY COLLEGE".
It would be appreciated if you could bring any oral care waste into the Science staff room to help towards our recycling efforts! A notice was put in the last ASC newsletter and posters will be going up around the school to keep students informed! Oral care waste can be collected and sent away to Terracycle up until October 2019!
Bangarra Dance Workshop
Bangarra Dance Theatre held a workshop at our school. 16 of our students joined 30 others from Inverell, Guyra, Tamworth and Moree to participate in a wonderful workshop led by the Bangarra Dance instructors.
All the students were fabulously engaged and so danced so well. Special congratulations to Ashanti Hoskins, Will Marr and Dion Whitfield who have been shortlisted for the state ensemble.
RSPCA Volunteers
Dylan Barrow (Yr 10) and Liam Sim (Yr8) are RSCPA foster carers. These guys can be seen helping out at Adopt a Pet mornings held on the first Saturday of each month and both commit a lot of time and effort to the Armidale RSPCA program.
The animals benefit from the gentle care and attention of these young men and their efforts are appreciated by the local RSPCA coordinators.
Awesome effort, Dylan and Liam!
Australian Kids Lit Quiz
Josie O'Baoill, Flynn Hess, Hallam Weeks and Khaiam Ali participated in the Armidale heats of the Australian Kids Lit Quiz held at Armidale City Public School. We were fortunate to have the quiz master himself, Wayne Mills, asking the questions. This was a first for the Armidale heats.
These four students displayed an excellent knowledge of characters, fables, mythology, films, comics, places, animals, toys, caves and even teeth in a variety of literature types. Our students even scored a perfect 10/10 in their selected specialist topic: comics. Luckily for them they had chosen this as their double points round. Each team who won a round were rewarded with the best prize of all... a book from the prize table. Hallam even won a personal prize answering a question from the Australian Finals 2018.
The event was very exciting with close competition provided by the PLC secondary team. However, our students were the winners of the day, winning a place in the national finals held in Sydney on the 3rd of May at the State Library.
We are very excited to be representing our fabulous school in this fun and challenging event.
Ex-student News
Max Lawler (DHS 2017) will be competing in the world championships in Ukraine for steel fighting. Well done Max and all the best for your upcoming preparations and competitions!