Senior School

China study and cultural tour

During the September holidays, 14 students from Years 9 to 11, along with three teachers, spent 12 days in China. The students spent the first seven days in Shanghai at our sister school, Shanghai Yan’an High School. They had the opportunity to attend classes and experience a homestay.

Students also visited the beautiful Shanghai Yu Garden and the Oriental Pearl Tower and enjoyed a cruise on The Bund. From Shanghai, students boarded a high-speed train to Beijing and visited China’s famous tourist sites—The Great Wall, The Forbidden City and The Summer Palace. Students and teachers enjoyed Chinese cultural activities such as character blocking, martial arts and Chinese paper cutting, as well as sampling a Beijing duck dinner and attending a Chinese acrobatic show. Students were able to use language skills learned in the classroom in the real world, forming memories that will last a lifetime.

Winnie Edwards-Davis
Head of Modern Language Faculty (Years 7 to 9)

Interhouse Singing 2024

The Interhouse Singing competition took place on the final Thursday of Term 3. To the theme of Motown, all 11 houses delivered renditions of classic hits ranging from ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’ to ‘ABC’.

On the day of the competition, Gerald House was adjudged the winning house, ahead of Casey and Hillary, respectively. However, these preliminary finishing positions do not include attendance scores.

Hearty congratulations, therefore, to Goodwin, Grenfell, Kingsley, Mansfield, Mawson and Nansen, where over 90 per cent of the house was in attendance and especially to Casey and Hillary, where more than 95 per cent of students took part in the competition.

The final placings for the Interhouse Singing were as follows:

1. Casey (24 pts)
2. Gerald and Hillary (22 pts)
4. Goodwin (18 pts)
5. Kingsley (16 pts)
6. Mansfield (14 pts)
7. Grenfell (12 pts)
8. Nansen (10 pts)
9. Mawson (8 pts)
10. Biggs (4 pts)
11. Magnus (2 pts)

Berian Williams-Jones
Deputy Head of Senior School (Years 7 to 9)

Year 11 IB Mathematics

Currently, Year 11 students in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme are beginning their internal assessment, which will be moderated by the IB. The first subject to start this process is group five (mathematics). In the IB, there are two separate mathematics courses offered at both higher level and standard level, Mathematics: applications and interpretation and Mathematics: analysis and approaches.

The internal assessment contributes 20 per cent of a student’s final score, and students are given between 10 and 15 hours of teaching time to work on this task.

Ultimately, the internal assessment is a mathematical exploration. Students choose their own topic focused on a particular area of mathematics. Some of the current topics include:

• exploring the likelihood of playing a major chord on the grand piano by chance
• optimising the surface area of a rocket
• calculating the best angle to shoot a three-pointer in basketball.

While working on their exploration, students are encouraged to work collaboratively during various phases, such as generating ideas, sharing resources and seeking peer feedback.

Thank you to our teachers—Owen Foster, John Krasniewicz and Jessica Ross—for their support and guidance throughout this process. Best wishes to the students as they work on their explorations in the coming months.

Year 11 IB CAS ‘Tea and Trumpets’

One of the distinguishing features of the IB Diploma Programme is the core—three areas that help develop the whole student. The core is made up of the extended essay, theory of knowledge (TOK) and CAS. CAS is organised around three strands: creativity, activity and service.

For Churchie students, many of the sporting, cultural and service activities they already engage in can be used for CAS. During the IB programme, students participate in a CAS Project, a task that involves working collaboratively on one or more of the CAS strands to achieve an outcome.

In Term 4, Year 11 IB students—Jack Booth, Alex Ma, Alex Mou, Noah Oxenford, Luka Roberts and Clancy Wardle—are organising their CAS project and focusing on an area they love: music! The group has started a jazz ensemble, ‘Tea and Trumpets,’ and will be performing jazz music during the TOK exhibition at the end of the term to raise money for the Australian Children’s Music Foundation (ACMF).

Best wishes to the group as they prepare and rehearse.

Catherine Prosser
Dean of International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

Year 11 Agricultural Science excursion

Written by Year 11 student Ned Schmidt.

The Year 11 agricultural science class went on an excursion last week to various agricultural businesses around the Scenic Rim and Brisbane.

On the first day, we visited Kalfresh, a company that packages carrots, corn, beans and onions and we toured their carrot and corn packaging sheds. The carrots arrive in truckloads and are sprayed to wash them before being loaded onto conveyor belts. They go through multiple washing stations until they are ready to be sorted into sizes for sale at Aldi, Coles and Woolworths. In the corn shed, we watched as fully automated robots x-rayed, sorted and packaged the corn. Kalfresh also organised for us to visit a carrot farm, where we spoke with Churchie Old Boy Ed Windley (1995), an agronomist and farmer. He grows a mix of conventional and certified organic crops and has started adopting robotics on his farm, particularly for organic cropping. We even pulled a few carrots and ate them straight from the ground!

We then toured Summer Land Camels’ production area and milking station, learning about the weaning, breeding and milking processes of camels, which differ significantly from those of cattle and sheep. We also saw where they make camel cheese, cream and gelato. We got to taste camel milk, cheese and salami. The milk had a slightly salty and sour taste due to its zero lactose content. We stayed for lunch, which was camel chilli sausage on bread, followed by camel gelato for dessert.

Our final stop was BEC Feed Solutions, a leader in nutritional advice, premixes, feed ingredients and stock feed commodities for both the Australian and international stock feed industries. We listened to presentations from three employees, including Churchie Old Boy William Hume (2020), who explained how precise they need to be with the ingredients for each feed bag and pallet. Any mistakes in the formulation could hinder the performance of an entire herd.

On the second day, we visited the Austrex offices on the 10th floor of a building on Eagle Street. We had presentations by CEO Justin Slaughter (1988), who is a Churchie Old Boy, and Oliver Thorne and Jessica Philips. They spoke about live export and the complexities of export regulations and food standards in different countries. It was fascinating to hear about their experiences in various countries inspecting facilities and meeting clients.

Afterwards, we visited the Port of Brisbane, where a number of agricultural commodities are exported. During a bus tour around the port, we saw the wood chip, bitumen and oil storage areas, the coal depot for trains and many ships unloading cars and coal.

Our final destination was Modular Farms Co, which operates vertical farming systems above Eat Street. These systems can produce fresh, healthy plants anywhere in the world, regardless of the climate. While we were there, they were growing lettuce and basil.

Wellbeing support: Partners in Parenting (PiP) with Headspace

Parents are the most common source of emotional support for young people, but it can sometimes be difficult to know what to do, what to say or where to get information. Headspace and Monash University have launched an online parenting programme to equip families with the confidence to care for their young people’s mental health.

Learn more about PiP via this link.

Lisa Andersen
Educational Psychologist