The Weekly

Audio edition

For this term, we are trialling the audio version of the Churchie Weekly Newsletter as an additional way for you to hear what’s on at Churchie. For feedback or general inquiries, please contact Churchie News.

From the Head of Senior School

GPS Swimming Championships

Congratulations to the Churchie Swim Team on their performance at the GPS Swimming Championships at Brisbane Aquatic Centre on Friday. It was a very good team effort to secure fifth place overall. While Churchie Swimming has consistently placed mid-table in the last few years, there is a sense that our swimming programme is building a fantastic culture under new leadership. We look forward to seeing the momentum continue into next year.

I express my gratitude to Director of Swimming Jaye Finocchiaro, Head of Aquatics and Head Coach Richard Sleight, Junior Coach Liam Smith and their staff for their dedication and hard work throughout the season. Also, I congratulate all swimmers who achieved a personal best on the night.

Student leadership

The development of leadership skills is a key focus for our Year 12 cohort, supported by housemasters. Throughout Term 1, we have been proud to highlight the leadership journeys of our senior students. At events such as Founder’s Day and the Headmaster’s Leadership Assembly, we have showcased our student leaders. At GPS events many seniors were present to lead and oversee the positive support for their peers and the School. In Term 2, all Year 12 students will officially become senior leaders, receiving their senior badge at the House Family Chapel Services. Our model of student leadership at Churchie promotes servant leadership, where students actively serve the community. Guided by our school tenets of academic excellence, personal growth, service and spiritual awareness, our leaders are always expected to set a positive tone, inspiring their peers.

2024 Captain’s Charge

At Headmaster’s Assembly on Thursday 29 February, School Captain Noah Monahan delivered his Captain’s Charge. His speech was powerful and motivating. He encouraged unity and effort, stressing that each student’s contribution is vital for the collective success and legacy of the year. Noah urged everyone to give their best, make the most of their opportunities and work together to leave a lasting impact.

Prefect vision and portfolio

The Prefect team developed their vision for the 2024 school year with the theme of ‘leaving your legacy’ and allocated prefect portfolios:

As a Churchie collective in 2024, we aim to honour and build upon the legacies of the past. As the ‘blue and grey’, we aim to further foster relations between spirit and respect, teachers and students, boarders and day boys, to unify all individuals across each facet of school life. Our goal is to empower the boys to access their full potential in every value and tenet of the school to build upon the Churchie legacy, ultimately leaving a legacy of their own.

Rod Olsen
Head of Senior School

The Viking

The Viking 2023 has arrived

The Viking 2023 yearbook has been distributed to all staff and students across the School. If your son was enrolled at the school in 2023 and has not yet received The Viking 2023, please have them contact their housemaster (Senior School) or classroom teacher (Prep School).

Final call for The Viking 2022

If you do not have a copy of The Viking 2022 yearbook, please collect one within the next week from any of the following locations:

• Prep School office
• MS24 student services
• Jackson main reception

Prep School

Our value of the week is excellence. Excellence is doing your best and giving careful attention to every task and every relationship. Excellence is an effort guided by a noble purpose. It is a desire for perfection. The perfection of a seed comes in the fruit. When you practice excellence, you bring your gifts to fruition. Excellence is the key to success.

This can be such a loaded concept with unreasonable expectations placed on our young boys. The pressure to do well at school that is placed upon themselves, by parents, their teachers and the School can have detrimental effects on their learning and sense of well-being. Excellence for our Prep boys means working towards and aspiring to achieve high standards of academic and personal performance.

For our Prep boys, excellence can be demonstrated in a variety of ways.

• Academic achievement: this involves boys achieving their personal best in a variety of subject areas.
• Creative thinking: excellence can be demonstrated by creativity, problem-solving skills and innovative thinking.
• Positive attitude: boys who exhibit a positive attitude towards learning take responsibility for their own learning and are motivated to learn. They are considered to have excellent personal performance.
• Social and emotional development: boys who demonstrate social and emotional development show strong interpersonal skills, empathy and self-awareness.
• Active participants: boys who are actively engaged in cocurricular activities such as sport and music demonstrate a high level of commitment and dedication—traits that are considered to be excellent.

Excellence in our Churchie Prep community encourages boys to be curious about the world around them, gives them the tools they need to explore and discover the things they are curious about, promotes their agency to affect change, builds their sense of self-worth and inspires their personal purpose and place within our learning community that is Churchie. Ultimately, excellence for our Prep boys is about striving to be the best version of themselves. This is a noble pursuit and something to which we are dedicated to supporting our Prep boys in their journeys at Churchie.

Attribute of the week: inquirers

Inquirers have a natural curiosity and learn to acquire the skills necessary to conduct inquiry and research and show independence in learning. You actively enjoy learning, and this love of learning will be sustained throughout your life.

Music Immersion Evening

Our Prep musicians have such wonderful musical opportunities offered to them at Churchie. Learning through playing music in a band or string ensemble develops a range of important learning tools or skills. Some of these tools for learning include developing social skills as they cooperate and work with others, thinking skills as they learn how to play a new instrument, comprehension and analysis skills as they improve literacy by reading musical notation, improved memory and executive functioning (including self-regulation) and self-management skills as they develop fine motor skills and organise their practice, and communication skills through learning about gesture and non-verbal communication, as well as reading and, of course, listening! The benefits of learning music are endless.

Our music tutors at Churchie are incredibly skilled and knowledgeable, and they inspire in our boys a lifelong love for music. Many of the Years 4 and 5 parents experienced this at the Music Immersion Information Evening, having a blast trying their son’s woodwind, brass, string and percussion instruments. Our music tutors facilitated parent groups as the parents and carers explored what it looks and feels like to be a starter or beginner musician. This included just setting up the instrument and the first steps of learning music, including the first few notes.

It was wonderful to see parents enjoying this opportunity, demonstrating their risk-taking by having a go at something new. Some of the groups even advanced to playing a few songs! As well as developing appreciation and empathy for their boys learning a new instrument, our parents and carers learnt how to encourage and support the boys at home.

Learning an instrument is not only about self-expression and artistic freedom but developing self-discipline and focus. The role of the parent is ‘instrumental’ in this learning journey, and we encourage you to listen to the boys as much as possible on their instruments. In the early stages, short, frequent intervals are best. Consider setting up a music space at home with a music stand, perhaps offering nightly five-minute practice sessions or concerts. When you show interest in their instrument, their motivation is enhanced! Keep it fun, aiming for enthusiasm and praise for your son’s efforts. This develops a growth mindset as it will not always be easy. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make it better!

Thank you to Ben Hooper who coordinated the event. The information slides will be available on the Years 4 and 5 parent information page. The slides also include the contact details for each of the music tutors (VPATs), should you have any questions regarding immersion lessons. You can also directly contact Head of Strings Ben Hooper, Head of Bands Jeremy Williamson or myself, Head of Preparatory School Music Melissa Black.

Ben Hooper played an excellent video from Dr Anita Collins, an award-winning educator, researcher and writer in the field of brain development and music learning, also a huge advocate for understanding how playing an instrument benefits child development. The video summarises how neuro-scientists study the impact that music exposure has in opening up neural pathways in the brain, and how music learning further develops neural connections all over the brain.

We look forward to performing for our school community later in the year and thank you for your ongoing support for our youngest musicians.

Melissa Black
Head of Preparatory School Music

All reading is good reading: The literary merit of graphic novels

We have noticed that many of our best readers and most frequent borrowers are huge fans of our graphic novel collection. Graphic novels are so much more than the comic books we grew up with in past decades. Increasingly, they are being recognised for their literary merit, with complex themes and stimulation of critical thinking, far beyond the Archie comics of the past.

If you would like to read more about why we should not discourage our kids from reading graphic novels, please read some of these links to research about this growing movement:

• Graphic novels can accelerate critical thinking, and capture nuance and complexity of history, says Stanford historian
• How the Graphic Novel Has Made Its Way Into the Literary Canon
• Graphic Novels Should Be Considered Literature

Library news

Year 5 boys thoroughly enjoyed Mark Greenwood’s writing workshops on Friday, which focused on narrative and persuasive writing to support NAPLAN preparation, while also linking beautifully with Year 5’s current ‘Where we are in place and time’ unit of inquiry. Any boys who wish to purchase signed copies of Mark’s books need to return forms (after making an online payment) by Thursday 14 March.

Belinda Booth
Teacher Librarian

Nocturnes

In recent years a special part of the Lenten journey has been Nocturnes at St John’s. For five Friday nights (23 February to 22 March at 9 pm, the building will calmly resound with the sound of thirty minutes of reflective seasonal choral music. This is followed by the intimate liturgy of Compline, where music and words gently bring the day to a close. On Friday 22 March, Churchie’s St John’s Cathedral Choristers will inspire us during Nocturnes, and all are warmly invited to attend.

Stephanie Cotroneo
Lay Minister

Easter service

The Prep School’s Easter Service at St John’s Cathedral will be on Monday 25 March from 6 to 7 pm. The service is compulsory for all Years 4 to 6 boys. A roll will be taken in the evening. The formal uniform of a white shirt and tie is to be worn by all students attending. Boys with special tasks at this service will travel to the cathedral during the day of the service to rehearse. All families are welcome to attend.

Parents on campus

A reminder that all visitors to campus (including parents) during the school day must sign in upon arrival.

If you are attending the campus for an appointment with a staff member, the sign-in process generates a notification to let our staff member know that you have arrived. It will also print a name tag for you to wear whilst on campus.
 
Sign-in kiosks are available at the Prep School Office. Parents who are volunteering at the tuckshop can sign in at the tuckshop. Your cooperation with this process is appreciated.

Traffic and parking

The safety and wellbeing of our boys are paramount. Please ensure when accessing the drop off and pick up zones around the school, you observe the local road rules and conditions. We are happy to provide staff in these areas in order to facilitate an efficient, orderly and safe environment for our boys.

Mark Wyer
Head of Preparatory School

QCE evaluation

The QCAA has engaged the University of Melbourne’s Assessment and Evaluation Research Centre to conduct an independent evaluation of the new QCE system. The aim is to assess the QCE’s efficacy and for recommendations to the QCAA for future improvements.

Following a recent opportunity for school communities to provide initial feedback via a quick survey, the University of Melbourne is now inviting organisations and individuals to make more substantial written submissions of up to 2,000 words on their thoughts, experiences and impressions of the QCE system and its processes. Responses are required address to five stimulus questions that can be found on the submission form via this link. The closing date for these written submissions is Friday 19 April.

Please click here for information on Churchie’s thoughts regarding the new QCE. However, we encourage members of our community to offer their own views.

Richard Wheeldon
Deputy Headmaster

Senior School

Academic achievements

Congratulations to the following students on their academic achievement last year, achieving all As or all As and one B for Semester 2 2023. These young men have also demonstrated excellent learning behaviours, reflecting the hard work and diligence that often underpins real success.

Techniques for preparing and completing exams

With the end of term on the horizon, students will be approaching exams across various subjects. Understandably this can present as a daunting task. However, help is available, with useful techniques on hand to help calm the nerves, focus the attention and approach your exams with confidence.

A great resource is provided by the University of Sheffield. I encourage you to visit the page and read it in full. It covers how to use your time in an exam, specific tips for essay-based and multiple-choice exams and a range of tips and further links.

The key points from the article are below:

How do you use your time in an exam?

At the beginning of an exam

• Use your planning or perusal time wisely. Read the instructions at least twice, even if you are familiar with the style and format of the exam.
• Read the entire paper carefully at least once, noting how many questions you need to complete and the exam length.
• Next, consider how long you will spend on each question, ensuring that the time allocated to a question matches the number of marks available.

Before you start writing

• Re-read each question and break it down into its parts.
• Look for cognitive verbs, such as analyse, argue, compare and contrast, critique, and discuss. See the attached document.
• Highlight keywords or phrases.
• Examiners don’t want you to write everything you know. Instead, they want to see that you have critically engaged with the set questions.

Try to allocate some time to proofreading and checking.

Strategies for multiple choice exams

Five step process

This strategy helps you to avoid being confused or distracted by incorrect options and to make positive and confident choices.

1. Cover up the answers and read the stem. It might help to underline negatives or absolutes, e.g., never, none, unless or not.
2. Anticipate or make a ballpark guess at the correct answer if you can.
3. Uncover all the answers. Do any of them correspond to your anticipated answer?
4. Read all the answers carefully, even if your first choice seems obvious.
5. Choose your answer.

First impressions

Your first impression is often your best friend for a few important reasons:

• Your guesstimate will help you to eliminate obviously incorrect answers.
• Examiners are not trying to trick you – if it seems right, it probably is!
• If you are well prepared and have read the question and possible answers carefully, your first impression is probably right.
• As a general rule of thumb, only go back to change an answer if you have a very good reason to do so.

Watch out for answers that are worded similarly but have different meanings. This can be extremely common in MCQ exams, so read the question carefully and select the correct answer.

Essay-based exams

Writing an essay under the time pressure of an exam can be challenging. It requires careful planning and organisation to set out your thoughts.

• Understand the question: Exam questions usually involve a prompt word/cognitive verb that dictates the structure and approach required in the essay. Please pay attention to the prompt word/cognitive verb; it will make planning and structuring your essay much easier.
• Plan your exam answer: Spending time planning the content and structure of your exam answer will be an investment that will pay off when you start writing.

Calming the nerves

Practice breathing techniques. A breathing exercise can help slow your breathing and calm your nerves. Try the square breathing method.

Before taking the exam/test, visualise yourself sitting down, answering the questions and getting a good grade.

Kelly Jackson
Senior Learning Support Coordinator

Artist in residence: ‘the churchie’ finalist Jordan Azcune

Jordan Azcune, an artist and maker who has participated in a wide range of solo and group exhibitions, and has been awarded prizes, grants, and residencies, was selected in 2019 as a finalist for ‘the churchie’, earning the People’s Choice Award. As suggested by his accolade, Jordan is an artist whose work is contemporary but also accessible, interesting, and enjoyed by the general populace. We were therefore delighted when Jordan agreed to work alongside Year 11 IB and QCE artists, sharing his fascination and love of colour, optics and spirituality. Over two four-hour workshops, Jordan guided our student artists to find their own connections with these themes through experimentation and expression. The results were fantastic. The boys were enthused and engaged, immersed as they were in materials and making. The classrooms were hives of wax (excuse the pun) and plaster casting activity and it seemed that four hours went by very quickly. No one could believe it when the bell rang for lunch.

We would like to warmly thank Jordan for generously sharing his expertise, time and wisdom with our art community. The art teachers are looking forward to seeing what the boys will do with their newfound knowledge. Even better, wouldn’t it be wonderful if they, at some point in the future, became a finalist for the churchie emerging art prize?

Dr Vicky Leighton
Committee Member ‘the churchie’

Rod Olsen
Head of Senior School

Chaplain’s corner

Confirmation Service

Date: Wednesday 12 June 2024
Time: 7 pm
Location: Canon Jones Memorial Chapel

Churchie students in Year 9 and above are invited to express interest in taking part in the sacrament of Confirmation.

All students in Year 9 have been learning about the Christian faith and confirmation during their RE work this term. Confirmation is an opportunity for people to make a decision about following the way of Jesus and the Christian faith. Many people are baptised as children when parents and godparents promise to raise their children in the Christian faith. Confirmation is when young people and adults make these promises for themselves. Bishop John Roundhill will join us for our Confirmation Service and ask God’s Holy Spirit to give each candidate strength and commitment to live God’s way. Confirmation is one step on the lifelong journey of faith and is an important part of the Anglican tradition.

Sisters from any school are welcome to be Confirmed with their brothers.

Please invite family and friends. They are welcome to support and attend this service, which will be followed by light refreshments.

Please complete the Confirmation Application JotForm to express interest in learning more about confirmation. If the candidate has not yet been baptised, this will occur during the Confirmation Service. Please note: a separate form is required for each candidate to enter the necessary details for each person.

Please contact The Rev’d Sharon Mitchell if you have any questions or for further information at sharon.mitchell@churchie.com.au.

Rev’d Sharon Mitchell
Senior Chaplain

Admission to Holy Communion Service

Date: Wednesday 1 May 2024
Time: 6 pm
Location: St John’s Cathedral

Churchie students in Year 4 and above are invited to celebrate being admitted to Holy Communion in a joint service with students from St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School.

Please complete the Admission to Holy Communion JotForm. 

If your child has not yet been baptised, this can occur during or before the Admission to Holy Communion Service.

Please contact Chaplain Stephanie for further information at stephanie.cotroneo@churchie.com.au.

Stephanie Cotroneo
Lay Minister – Chaplain Preparatory School

Music

Chamber Strings 1 Headmaster’s Assembly

Congratulations to Chamber Strings 1, who were presented with their Silver Folders at Headmaster’s Assembly last Thursday after performing Australian composer Percy Grainger’s ‘Mock Morris’. The silver folders are awarded to the premiere ensemble members at Churchie with a bespoke Silver Folder being presented to Year 12 musicians detailing their years of service to each of their premiere ensembles. A reminder also that Chamber Strings 1 will be performing at Stringsfest on Wednesday 6 March 2024 at 6:30 pm in the Great Hall, Brisbane Grammar School. It would be wonderful to see you there in support of these outstanding string students.

Please follow this link to a recording of Chamber Strings 1 performance at Headmaster’s Assembly on Thursday morning:

Finbar Curran, Strings Captain

After a wonderful introduction and the presentation of Silver Folders at Headmaster’s Assembly last Thursday, it would be only fitting to introduce Finbar Curran (Strings Captain) for 2024:

I joined Churchie in Year 5 and have been part of the music programme since—namely, Prep Choir, Prep Strings, Middle Voices, Churchie Strings, Chamber Strings, and Symphony Orchestra, as well as the pit band for this year’s musical (which is shaping up to be a really good show). I think through all these experiences, I am particularly thankful for the sense of community and friendships the programme has offered me. To name one particular memory, the 2021 Gala Concert stands out to me. The theme must have been movies because I remember playing music from The Pirates of the Caribbean in Symphony Orchestra and music from Psycho in Chamber Strings. Both were particularly fun to play.

Of course, before we know it the Gala Concert will be before us this year. I’m looking forward to seeing the full force of the Churchie music programme, and the diversity of its ensembles and their styles being on display. I always enjoy having the opportunity to see the work of ensembles with which I normally have little to do. I always find it really exciting getting to see all the effort being put in across the school by Churchie musicians. This year my aim is to strengthen the ties across ensembles through mentoring in particular.

Finbar Curran

Bohdan Davison
Director of Music

Sport

Round six was an intense week of competition for GPS sports and activities, yielding some superb outcomes and records. The GPS Swimming Championships last held at Chandler on Friday. Our First VI Volleyball is poised for a strong possibility of securing a back-to-back premiership, while the cricket programme continues to deliver impressive results. The upcoming Firsts game against Ipswich Grammar School promises to be a highlight, with the chance to compete for a premiership against TSS the following week. Head of the River this Saturday will be a standout day for our crews, who have dedicated many months to rigorous preparation in anticipation of this event.

Please view the round six results at myChurchie – GPS Sports and Activities.

Cricket

Saturday saw Churchie take on Brisbane State High in the key fixtures for the day, with some supplementary matches against Nudgee, Terrace and BGS.

It was an outstanding day of cricket for Churchie, securing a clean sweep of wins in all A division matches. The First XI then added the icing on the cake, securing a nine-wicket double bonus point win to remain undefeated and move into second place on the ladder.

There were some exceptional team performances, with the Second XI scoring 231 runs in its 181-run win, while 10B, 10A and 11A secured wins with scores above 200. Also, 7A and 9A continued their unbeaten seasons, with comfortable six and eight-wicket wins.

Individually the standout performance of the day came was 10A’s Liam Stieper, who scored an incredible 144*, the highest score by a Churchie batsman at any level for a number of years. The innings were even more impressive given it was a top-of-the-table clash between two undefeated teams.

The First XI produced a clinical performance in their win at Fursden Road, restricting the BSHS First XI to just 101 before chasing the runs down in 19 overs for the loss of just one wicket. Angus Storen enjoyed an outstanding all-round performance taking 4/19 and scoring 44*. The left-arm spin duo of Rupert Bignall (2/13) and Henry Hiller (2/21) again fired with the ball, while Captain Jayden Draper finished 36*.

With so many high team scores on the day, there were numerous outstanding individual performances. Congratulations to the below players:  

• Angus Storen First XI 44* & 4/19
• Jake Arthur Second XI 66
• Riley Wondergem 11A 80* & 2/27
• Liam Stieper 10A 144*
• Jack Gillespie 10B 93
• Kane Kinnaird 9B 4/23
• Shoubhit Jain 8A 68*
• Jake Soo 8C 20* & 3/11
• Alex Watson 7B 71*
• Tully Fuss 6A 52

This week is a huge week for Churchie Cricket, with the annual Pink Stumps Round. The Pink Stumps Day barbeque will take place at lunchtime on Friday 8 March at the Viking Café courtyard. All food and merchandise sales from the weekend will be donated to the McGrath Foundation.

On the field, the undefeated First XI take on Ipswich Grammar School at Main Oval, a match-up between the teams currently second and third on the ladder. The match is a virtual semi-final, with the winner the best placed to challenge competition leaders The Southport School for the premiership. It will be great to get huge support from the cricket community at this match, once boys have finished their own matches.

James Patmore
Director of Cricket

Volleyball

Round six against BSHS was filled with nervous anticipation as many teams contended for premierships. Churchie ended the day securing 17 premierships, including 15 Official GPS titles.

The junior rounds were highly competitive, with BSHS winning all games in the Year 7 age group. Close results were seen throughout the day, although Churchie suffered losses in the 8A, 11A and 10C games. This round proved to be the most challenging so far, with Churchie experiencing the highest number of losses this season against a tough GPS opponent in BSHS. All teams fought hard, and some were unlucky to leave the court without a win.

In the First VI match, Churchie needed to defeat BSHS to keep their undefeated premiership hopes alive. Led by Cooper, the boys put on a dominant performance and convincingly beat a talented and determined BSHS team 3–0. With one round to go, the First VI must win every set to equal their incredible record from 2023 and secure their second consecutive undefeated premiership.

The upcoming round will be crucial, with the last senior games being played at home and junior games at Ipswich Grammar School. Additionally, Churchie’s 8D and 6A teams have the opportunity to secure their premiership hopes this weekend if they emerge victorious against IGS. This would bring Churchie’s tally to 19 GPS premierships in the 2024 season. It’s worth mentioning that Churchie’s Years 5 and 9 cohorts have remained undefeated throughout the season, positioning them as strong contenders for the team of the year title.

Special mention to these young men who have made the Met East teams:

• Daniel Godfrey (12 to 15 years)
• Cooper Sharpe, Ben van Heerden, Luka Sazdov and Wil Fearnley (16 to 19 years).

Don’t forget the End of Season early bird ticket price ends next week.

Good luck to all teams and all those competing across Churchie cocurricular in Round 7.

Carrie Mill
Director of Volleyball

Swimming

It was another podium finish for our Junior Churchie Swim Team on Friday, second to Terrace by only 9.5 points. Our Seniors achieved a commendable fifth place. The 10 to 12 years and under boys successfully secured an additional 33 points compared to 2023. Our 13 years and under to Opens, despite dropping 20 points, remained ahead of TSS and State High by 8 points.

Congratulations to our 10 to 12 years and under athletes for their amazing performance throughout the day:

• 13 athletes placed first in their division events
• 12 athletes placed second in their division events
• 8 athletes placed third in their division events

This shows an increase from the 2023 numbers of top three placings.

The Junior relay teams were outstanding, with three of our eight teams placing first. Further congratulations to the 10 years and under medley division one relay team for placing second and to our 12 years and under medley division one relay team and their achieved time of 2:22.88, only 4.59 off the record set in 2023.

The highlight of the meet for the reserve boys, as a group, was the invitation to the pool deck to experience warm-up and event marshalling. It was until our relay teams became cold in the marshalling room and our junior reserves leapt into action, gathering warm dry towels from the grandstands and delivering the towels to their fellow teammates in the marshalling room. Well done to our reserves and all the boys for their performance and persistence throughout the meet.

For the first time in 21 years, Churchie unfortunately didn’t have a single athlete achieve a first-place result throughout the 2024 GPS Championship. This was completely overshadowed by the consistent top performances across all age groups. The team of boys produced five second-place finishes, five third-place finishes and six fourth-place finishes in their individual events.

Across the age groups, there were many consistent performances; however, there were four outstanding first-place performances.

• Matty Forrest with a time of 27.23 earning him third place in 13 years and under 50 m freestyle.
• Both Max Cunningham and Spencer Kilimnik: 24.94 and 24.95 placing second and fourth in their respective age groups in 50 m freestyle.
• Boe Duncan once again proved his dominance in the breaststroke with a 34.48 in the 14 years and under earning second place.
• Ethan Norton with a time of 30.11 and a 2024 season PB in the 16 years and under 50 m backstroke.
• All age 200 m individual medley – William Shepherd-Smith, with a time of 2:11.47 just missing a first-place finish by 0.71 to Ike Martinez.

The top highlight of the afternoon was the relay battles. Three out of the 10 Churchie teams placed within the top five placings.

Outstanding relay performance was awarded to the 15 years and under Medley Relay team won and took out third place with a time of 1:59.70. Congratulations to Maxwell Cunningham, Jaden Soh, Flynn Swift and Will Hansen.

We would also like to pay special mention to both Jonathan Ling and Henry Majer for their performances in the 16 years and under relays. Due to illness, both relay team lineups were changed and Henry stepped into the medley for the breaststroke leg and Jonathan raced down from the grandstand to join the freestyle relay during warm-up. Thank you, boys, for stepping up and competing at a moment’s notice.

Congratulations to our athletes for their amazing performance throughout the day:

• In five events Churchie placed second.
• In five events Churchie placed third.
• In six events Churchie placed fourth.

End of season awards

The season concluded on Saturday with the Award Presentations, congratulations to the following award recipients:

Spirit awards

• 13 years and under – Albert Davies
• 14 years and under – Hugh Baxby
• 15 years and under – Henry Wilford
• 16 years and under – Finlay Pollack
• Opens and under – Nick Mattiske

Coaches awards

• 13 years and under – Henry Juniper
• 14 years and under – William Shooter
• 15 years and under – Jaden Soh
• 16 years and under – Henry Majer
• Opens and under – Nicholas Moody

GPS Championship MVP

• 13 years – Matthew Forrest
• 14 years – Boe Duncan
• 15 years – Maxwell Cunningham
• 16 years – Lachlan Evans
• Opens – William Shepherd-Smith

Outstanding team relay performance perpetual

• 15 years Medley Relay – Maxwell Cunningham, Jaden Soh, Flynn Swift and Will Hansen
• Spirit Award Perpetual – Benjamin Forrest

Thank you to the Swimming Support Group for arranging a wonderful event last Saturday and to everyone involved for an amazing season.

Jaye Finocchiaro
Director of Swimming

Rowing

Saturday was the penultimate round of racing before the Head of the River.

One round of racing across all age groups provided the opportunity to put the final touches on crew selection, seating, and race plans as schools fought for all-important seeding ranks going into Head of the River.

Our Year 9 crews set the tone with five podiums and a win for the Sixth quad (Ryhs Pollock, Archie Waller, Sid Ward, Elliot York and cox Will Wang), their third win in a row. The dominant display put them on every coach’s mind during our discussion for the crew of the year.

The Year 10 crews picked up where the juniors left off, going even stronger with six podiums and two wins to the Fourths (Alec Easton, John Bennett, Tom Searle, Jackson Brittain, and cox Sam Morris) and the Thirds (Jack Scott, Hamish De Luca Smith, Jack Townson, Benn Parker, and cox Reed Parker) completing a clean sweep of all regattas. Now they just need to repeat the feat at Head of the River in three days’ time.

Year 11 had a disturbed week of racing with illness affecting the firsts. Once again, we boated seconds and thirds boats which gives us confidence for a strong Open age group next season. Special mention must go to the Year 11 First VIII who finished second in the Open Division 3 race with a composite crew made up of one Year 12 (Marcus Pearce) and a Year 10 boy (Oscar Gray).

A standout for our Open division boats is the Open Second VIII; they had their best row of the year, pushing TSS right to the line to claim second and overlap on the TSS boat for the first time this season. Let’s see if they can take that final step this weekend. The Open First VIII came back from a poor start in their race with a few mishaps; some additional time at the dam post-regatta gave them the chance to run the course over several times and build confidence in their race plan for this week.

Tyson Sholl
Director of Rowing

Debating

Churchie’s fine performances in debating continued without pause in week six, with some strong wins across both our GPS and QDU teams.

On Wednesday, our Year 9 and 11 QDU team ventured into the competition, with the Year 9s venturing some distance to reach Ormiston College on a school night for 8 pm debates! Undaunted, both Year 9 teams came away with wins, as did our Year 11.1 team, who have thus far also been undefeated in all five GPS debates, and thus are a real standout amongst all of our strong teams vying for premierships. I have very high hopes that they can maintain the victories through their last two debates in the competition.

GPS round six was always going to be our toughest round. Brisbane State High School has featured strongly in the overall GPS placings in the last few years, and this was reflected in all three speakers of their Senior A side having made the top 12 of the Queensland State Debating Team trials process. However, the same could be said for us, with state team members Felix Mutinelli and Caelan Smith (and top 12 triallist Dario Lim) matching wits with State High for one of the most humorous, engaging and high-quality debates that I’ve seen in years. To a full crowd, the boys handled a feminism topic with sensitivity, respect and nuance. Despite winning over the crowd with devastating points of information, they went down in a narrow 2–1 split loss. Despite this, we still exited the round with more wins than losses, taking out 9 of the 16 debates on the evening. Well done to those successful teams—and in particular, also to 9.2, who are still unbeaten. I look forward to seeing our Year 7s, 8s and 12s debating in the QDU round this week, and for another afternoon of fun with the round seven matches against Ipswich Grammar School.

Finally, we are putting plans together for what we hope makes for an incredibly fun bye-round show debate and case-prep competition for all our GPS debaters. The Debating Support Group will be supplying pizzas for a gold coin donation, which will contribute to future debating events. However, up for grabs on the afternoon will be chocolate Easter prizes for the best team cases, which will then be capped off with a cracking show debate by our seniors Caelan Smith, Dario Lim, Bill McCart and George Samios, up against the considerable might of National Schools Debating Championship winner Harry Rae, Matthew Bond, Tom Morgan and Emmanuel Samios. We look forward to seeing all of the GPS debaters there.

Rebecca Hewitt
Director of Debating

Chess

We heartily congratulate  Sravan Renjith IM on being selected for the New Zealand Open Chess Team for the upcoming 45th Chess Olympiad to be hosted in Budapest, Hungary, 10–23 September 2024. He joins Churchie Old Boy and current senior coach as the only other member of the Churchie Chess to represent their country of birth in this international forum. This fantastic news was shared with our Secondary Interschool team as we competed in the Brisbane South Secondary School Chess competition held this term at Ipswich Grammar School.

Of the 20 students who travelled to this competition, over 50 per cent received commendations or medals. Nicholas Bond’s team won the A Division, with Sravan Renjith, Jayden Ooi and Ryan Xing placing first, second and third, respectively. Michael Lacey won the B Division with the highest personal score, resulting in our Year 7 team placing third overall. Our other teams also placed significantly in the A Division.

We have two more open chess tournaments this term before we select our teams for the GPS season in week three of term two. Our Fide Blitz competition is on Saturday 23 March and our primary chess team travels to Iona College on Tuesday 26 March.

As a community, we congratulate our current chess players, especially Michael and Sravan, for their recent personal successes.

Max Condon
Director of Churchie Chess

Sporting Achievements

Congratulations to the following students who have achieved representative success in their sporting pursuits:

Track and Field

On 24 February, Churchie athlete Adam Beiers ran 47.3 sec for the 400 m at a meet at QSAC. This time is a Churchie school record, breaking the 47.47 set by Huey Dieu that has stood since 2010. This time also places Adam as the number three, Under 18 time over 400 m in the world this year. Well done, Adam, on an outstanding performance.

Cross Country

In Cross Country news, Churchie Old Boy Charlie Moore (2023) finished second at the Australian Trials for the World Junior (Under 20) Cross Country Championships on 1 March. This means Charlie is an automatic selection in the Australian team to contest the World Junior Cross Country Championships in Belgrade, Serbia on 30 March.

Congratulations Charlie on this wonderful achievement.

Basketball

Andrew Watene, Samson Kent and Ethan Hoy have been selected to represent Composite District 13-16 boys basketball team at the Metropolitan East Trials.

Swimming

Jacob Choi, Tully Fuss, Lucas Pollock, Xavier Ringholt, Harris Shonhan, Nash Walker and Henry Zhao have been selected to represent 10 to 12 years Metropolitan East Swim Team competing at the State Championships in Brisbane later this month.

Boe Duncan, Matthew Forrest and Jaden Soh representing 13 to 19 years Metropolitan East Swim Team competing at the State Championships in Brisbane later this month.

Volleyball

Daniel Godfrey was selected to represent Composite District 12 to 15 years boys volleyball team at the Metropolitan East Trials.

Sam Cooper, Cooper Sharpe, Ben Van Heerden, Luka Sazdov and Wil Fearnley were selected to represent the Composite District 16 to 19 years boys volleyball team at the Metropolitan East Trials.

Trent Goodrick
Head of Cocurricular

Churchie Old Boys’ Association

Book launch – A Running Life

Tony Booth OAM, a renowned athlete and athletics coach, was born in Toowoomba in 1929. Tony was a champion schoolboy athlete and Open Queensland champion for 100 yards (1949 and 1950) and 440 yards (1955 and 1957). For over thirty years (1956 – 1989) he coached athletics, cross country, swimming and rugby at Churchie. He later coached athletics at Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School and Brisbane Grammar School.

Tony has written his autobiography, entitled A Running Life which covers the many years of his athletics career and his involvement in GPS sports, QGSSSA carnivals, UQ track and field, ‘Tony Booth Sports’ and retirement. It runs to approximately 650 pages and will be printed in two, hard-covered volumes.

In celebration, a book launch will be held in the Brenan Pavilion at Churchie on Thursday 21 March 2024.

Date: Thursday 21 March 2024
Time: 4 to 6 pm
Location: Brenan Pavilion

RSVP: Friday 15 March 2024

$220 per two-volume set

To confirm your attendance at the Book Launch and pick up your order, please click here.

You may attend the book launch without purchasing a book, however, please register your attendance for catering purposes.

To purchase the book only, please click here. Please note that postal charges will apply and that orders will be dispatched after the book launch.

Pixevety

Pixevety – a photo platform for Churchie images

Pixevety is Churchie’s photo platform, where photos from across the School will be uploaded on a weekly basis. Students are recognised by the system so parents can simply click ‘myVIPs’ and see their son’s photos in one easy location.

Families new to the School may not see ‘myVIPs’ yet, as new student ID photos are still to be processed in the system. However, you can still browse the galleries.

Watch the video below to learn how to use Pixevety.

For more information visit the Pixevety page on myChurchie or email news@churchie.com.au.

Churchie Shop

Term 1 opening hours

Parent Connect

Parent Connect is the school-wide parent community support group focused on nurturing the fun and family-centric side of school life. We provide valuable support services through formal and informal networks across the School. We intentionally communicate, connect, coordinate services and facilitate wellbeing support for our families and the greater community. Click here to access on myChurchie.

Join Parent Connect

It is a long-standing initiative of the Churchie parent community to enable the sharing of contact details for those who opt in and provide consent. Joining the Parent Connect database is easy. Join here. Once you have joined, you will receive communication from your parent coordinators and access to your cohort’s parent contact list.

Year and house parent coordinators

Each year and house has a parent volunteer who is the friendly peer contact for parents to help navigate school life, host social connections, and assist with the administration of the private Facebook groups.

Parent Connect services and volunteer engagement

Any member of the Churchie community (parents, old boys, friends, and staff) can participate in these services or make a confidential request for wellbeing support. Click here to volunteer or request support.

Meals on Wheels Parent volunteers needed

This is a service that requires the involvement of parents to be the volunteer drivers for boys from Biggs House and Gerald House on a Friday to provide meal delivery services for Bulimba and Carina Meals on Wheels. The commitment is approximately two hours once a term. Stacey Lacy is the Parent Connect Coordinator she is a current Year 10 and Grenfell House parent. Click here to volunteer.

Upcoming events

Coffee & Connect
Friday 8 March
The Arches
After drop-off

Parent Chapel Service
Friday 8 March
Canon Jones Memorial Chapel
9:30 am

Parents and Churchie Staff Morning Tea
Friday 8 March
Morris Hall
10:30 am

Boarding and Day Mothers Afternoon Tea
Friday 8 March
Brenan Pavilion
1:30 – 3 pm

Tuckshop news

Viking Café volunteers

We welcome mums and dads to volunteer at our tuckshops. Please contact the Tuckshop Volunteers Coordinator for more details if you can spare some time during the term to help in our busy tuckshops.

• Viking Café volunteers please contact via email.
• Prep Tuckshop volunteers please contact via email.

Upcoming events

View the school calendar on myChurchie for all scheduled events.

Follow Churchie

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• Churchie on LinkedIn

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