Endeavour House News

Endeavour

Winter sport and training have kept us busy so far this term. There are only a couple of students in Endeavour who don’t go to Saturday sport, keeping themselves busy with other activities. As such, Saturday recreation activities have come to a standstill for us for a while as there is little time to fit them in. I am encouraging the girls to go along to the recreation activities on offer on a Sunday as it is good to get out and about for a few hours. There should still be plenty of time for the girls to fit in washing their clothes and other chores over the weekend.

Manure, Please

We have a plan to sell manure and we need your help! It is so good for young people (and the rest of us) to do something for those less fortunate than ourselves and, as such, we would like to sell manure to donate funds to a local charity. We have yet to decide which charity that will be.

Our request is that everyone who lives on a farm, over the next few weeks, bags up manure (we don’t mind what type) then brings at least two bags to Endeavour House. We will advertise the product at school and sell it, with half the funds going to the charity we choose. The remainder will be used to purchase something for Endeavour House, for example, a gym mat or a game console for the recreation room. This will be decided by vote when we have some profit. Those without access to manure will be expected to help promote, stack and load the manure for sale, so we are all involved.

Waxi-Wraps

We are encouraging our students to be sustainable in Endeavour House. We use a worm farm, have chooks and recycle anything we can. In our bid to reduce single plastic usage, we encourage the girls whenever possible to use paper bags for lunch items, rather than plastic wrap. On Tuesday this week, we asked Mrs Bairstow to teach us how to make waxi-wraps. Some of the girls from Breaksea House also joined us, with Mrs Ferreira. Hopefully, these wraps will be used to further reduce our single-use plastic usage.

Slime-Making

We held a slime-making session recently on a Sunday afternoon and it has taken off in a way I never expected. In our first slime-making session, we invited Breaksea House girls to help us. Unfortunately, I purchased the wrong glue and our slime failed. Session two (with correct glue) saw Leonie and Chenae excel as slime-masters and we now have amazing slime. The girls are super keen to continue to make slime, however this is an expensive hobby. If you have any old craft glue, shaving foam, foaming hand wash, food colouring or moisturiser clogging up your cupboards, we would love to turn these items into slime. Any other craft items are always gratefully accepted as the girls are often in the recreation shed making amazing artistic creations. It might be timely to bring an old shirt to boarding for messy activities such as these.

Human Pyramid

For National Boarder’s Week, Mrs Franzinelli asked us to take a funny photo. We decided a human pyramid might be fun, so we attempted it in the recreation room and just couldn’t get it to work. We then moved onto a stacking idea. The photo speaks for itself!

A Homely Environment

Did you know that we have four pairs of sisters in Endeavour this year: Faith and Leonie; Georgia and Bella; Milly and Chloe; and Kira and Amber! We also have first cousins, Lysbeth and Brianna. It is creating a wonderful family vibe! We have seen the beginning and continuation of many lovely friendships created at boarding school, which are special and often last a lifetime.

Birthdays

It has been a busy birthday-tile of late. In-house we celebrated Marisa and Kira’s birthdays, and Bella went home on the weekend for hers. Elisa will enjoy her birthday on the closed weekend. We all enjoy a birthday in boarding as we get to have ice-cream cake. 

Gap Supervisor

You may have heard that our Gap Assistant, Miss Amber Enoch, went home to the UK to be with her family. She had been due to leave us at the end of this term. Miss Miller and Miss Enoch held a little party with the girls and we said farewell on her last morning with a special in-house breakfast. 

Miss Miller is filling Miss Enoch’s weekday shift on a Wednesday night and Thursday morning, and Mrs Weber is covering the Saturday evening shift. We hope to be able to introduce our new Gap Assistant starting in Term Three in the next Boarding Buzz.

Gap Assistants are a great support to the boarders. The boarders often confide in the Gap Assistants as they are close in age to them (a bit like an older sister).

Introducing Endeavour House Staff

Mrs Tracie Symonds covers the Friday night shift in Endeavour House, as well as every second Saturday and Sunday from 8.00am until 3.00pm. Tracie has worked in boarding since the beginning of the year. Her husband is the school's Director of Sport. Mrs Symonds has two small children, Coby (six) and Georgina (four) and has previously worked as a hairdresser. She enjoys spending time with friends, going for walks and restoring old furniture.

Mrs Meghan Weber is now on shift for the rest of the term in Endeavour House on Saturday from 3.00pm until 11.00pm. She is a music teacher who is also working at the school at the moment. Meghan has two little girls, Niamh (pron: Neve) (five) and Eabha, (pron: Eva) (one) and enjoys her time at home with them. She often makes the Endeavour girls Milo when on shift and likes to sit and chat with them in a motherly way.

Communication

I am seeking feedback on communication in Endeavour House, please. This is our main form of group communication to you. Do you read it? If you have a spare few minutes I would appreciate your feedback on how I can improve communication with you. Could you please email me with your preferred method? Could you let me know if you read the full Boarding Buzz, or only parts of it? Thank you for your feedback.

The Endeavour Team wishes you an enjoyable long weekend.

Mrs Tara Ball | Head of Endeavour

Leaders' Report

The start of Term Two has flown by, with all the girls enjoying their sport. Mrs Ball has asked us to plan a fun activity, so on 6 July Endeavour House will hold a Derby Day. On this day, the next Eagles verses Fremantle derby, we will wear our footy team’s colours. We would like everyone to donate a gold coin to Proudies Foundation.  Warrick Proudlove is Madi’s cousin. He was driving from Albany to Perth and was to be drafted by the Eagles. A horse ran out in front of his car and he was paralysed. All our gold coin donations will go to Proudies Foundation. On this day, we will watch the derby and there will be a few games and treats in store.

Madison Smart and Jasmine Bradshaw | Year Nine