Edition 5, Term 3 2021
MENU: From the Principal | From the ELC | From the Junior School | Senior School News | Music News | Chaplain’s Chat | Community Engagement
From the Principal
Senior Chaplain
I am delighted to announce that we have appointed a Senior Chaplain to commence from the start of the new year. Emerging from a strong field, Reverend Bryn Jones is currently Chaplain of Trinity College Albury, where he has worked across the Senior and Junior Schools as Chaplain, as well as teaching RAVE (Religion and Values Education), English and History to various year levels. We look forward to welcoming Bryn and his wife Jenny to our community soon.
Retirements
I have received notice of some significant retirements taking effect from the end of this year. As well as long-serving staff members Rohan Brown and Michelle Stanic, whose announcements I have already made, Miss Kate Hall will finish up after 35 years. Kate was appointed by Don Marles and started in 1987 as a member of the English Faculty. Amongst other roles, and after having been a Head of Year, in 2001 Kate joined the school’s ‘Staff Executive’ as the Director of Daily Administration, the variations of which she has continued to serve on and in since. Kate’s passion towards TGS, and the care she offers our students and staff are palpable. Her contribution to the life of our school has been most significant.
Whilst it is looking difficult for us to hold significant community functions amongst COVID realities to farewell these staff members after extraordinary contributions to Trinity, we are committed to doing so.
Mr Noel Adams also retires at the end of the year after 22 years of wonderful service at Trinity as a Chemistry teacher and a past Deputy Head of Year 12. Noel has been on Long Service Leave this year.
Ms Sue Stradwick will also retire at the end of the year, having joined as a well-respected Junior School classroom teacher in 2011.
Partnering with Parents
Last night’s ‘Partnering with Parents: Consent, Sex and Technology’ with Susan McLean (cyber safety expert) and Michael Carr-Gregg (psychologist) was equally challenging and uplifting. No punches were pulled and some parents, and teachers, could have felt some discomfort around some of the matters raised; however, the sense that there is a visible ‘groundswell of good young men’ came through strongly. Thanks to Susan Hill and our new Head of Counselling, Justin McNamara, for hosting.
Adrian Farrer
Principal
From the ELC
Over the past week our ELC students and teachers have read the book All the Ways to be Smart by Davina Bell. This picture story book is a celebration of what childhood can be. The pages share a message of celebration of all the things that make us us, of the strengths that we all have within ourselves – whether we are dreamers, adventurers, readers or artists. Children often see the world in a different way to adults as they discover everything for the first time, learning, interpreting, making sense of and imagining.
Over the past week our ELC students and teachers have been highlighting the different ways that we are smart. We have each created a video of the different things that we are good at, can do well, or enjoy. Through this learning we have looked at the different ways we can express ourselves and our interests and talents. Some of us are good at LEGO, others at riding scooters or hoverboards, making popcorn, puzzles, knowing things about dogs, cooking, drawing, playing the piano and many other things.
The students have come a long way during our periods of Distance Learning; they are confident and capable of sharing information about themselves in many different ways, including through digital media. Watching and listening to our ELC students interact with us on screen has allowed us to learn many new things about our students, their bikes, scooters, instruments and somersaults, including all the tricks they have been showing us.
We wonder what you are good at?
Naomi Wright
Director of the Early Learning Centre
From the Junior School
At the weekend, I hope it was possible for you to spend time with the amazing partners and dads in your lives to celebrate your love for them and their own special contribution to your family. Where you couldn’t be physically with them, I am sure digital devices were put to good use reaching out to see beautiful faces or hear familiar voices.
Teamwork is a super-important element of how we get things done in the Trinity community, and perhaps it’s even more important when you consider how we have continued to adapt on the home front with longer working hours, Distance Learning and the significant limitations placed on our daily movements.
There is also a lot to be grateful for and pausing every now and then to reflect on that can be an incredibly helpful way of coping with hardship, in whatever form it presents.
Last week, we introduced changes to uplift synchronous learning designed to create greater engagement and contact time with our students. We thank our parent community most sincerely for their feedback, and our staff for making the requisite changes to help keep the boys on track.
We have revamped our Distance Learning program to align ourselves with the normal school timetable and the feedback we have received from parents, students and many of our staff has been extremely positive. I thank those families who have taken the time to write to their teacher or to the school with words of encouragement. Small acts of kindness such as this go a long way to lift the spirits of our staff.
Here is a selection of what our parents have shared with us:
‘I wanted to pass on our thanks for the staff’s tireless efforts. My son has been more enthused (and relaxed) about remote learning than we have seen before. He’s said it’s much more like sitting in class. I’m sure the staff are exhausted, but it has made a huge difference in our house.’
‘The staff have been doing an amazing job. We’ve also really appreciated the enthusiasm in getting books to the kids and the morning Up and At ‘em sessions. This stuff makes the days easier.’
‘I also just wanted to say that we really appreciate the thought and effort put into finding ways to teach our kids in a way that is as close as possible to the style of learning they are accustomed to when physically at school. I can imagine this is a very trying situation for staff and appreciate the humility with which feedback has been taken.’
The inclusion of regular brain breaks, and wellbeing periods distributed throughout the week has been essential to help balance the amount of screen time children and staff have been subjected to. The boys also really enjoy the ‘Fun-Friday’ activities scheduled for Friday afternoons in place of the Year 3 to 6 sport.
Last week, there was cooking, pop-up cards, basketball skills, a quiz time, an opportunity to learn Auslan (sign language), and the most popular of all was Minecraft (we needed an additional two staff to assist with this over-subscribed activity).
To finish the term, we will also have a drawing activity, making your favourite paper planes, and a Hip-Hop Dancing incursion with Proactivity. Boys are encouraged to book in early to avoid disappointment.
Please stay connected, and safe, for this last week of school term. I know that everyone is looking forward to taking a break and some much-needed time to rejuvenate in the school holidays, ready and refreshed for Term 4.
German Poetry Competition Regional Finals
Junior School German Teacher, Jillian Reid, reported that, in an Olympic-worthy effort, nine intrepid students donned the green and gold to represent Trinity in the Inner Eastern Regional Final of the annual German Poetry Competition which was held online on 11 August.
Despite the myriad challenges the lockdowns threw at their preparation, Year 6 fielded a full team. Harvey Devlin, Gus Syme, Gabriel Irani, Oliver Brydon and Lucas Coburn competed in the DaF category, with Max Waschl in the native-speaker Open. Year 5 German was represented with equal enthusiasm by James Morgan, Felix Cantale and Alexander Hrysomalis (DaF).
Each student demonstrated admirable commitment to German and his learning, as evidenced by the time spent practising the poems alone at home and attending lunchtime and online training sessions. During the competition, each student managed the additional stress of Zoom waiting rooms and online performance with aplomb. Each student did his best.
There were also prize winners. Max took out a magnificent gold medal (Open 1st place). Lucas won DaF bronze (a valiant 3rd place) and Gabriel, a well-deserved Honourable Mention (4th place). James, Felix and Alexander Hrysomalis all received Honourable Mentions (equal 4th place), a fine result for our Year 5 cohort.
Grant Nalder
Head of Junior School
From the Senior School
While Term 3 is officially concluding on Friday, there will be ongoing study commitments for students completing Unit 3/4 subjects. I wish these students a productive time during the holiday break as they prepare for their upcoming VCE exams.
Trinity Family Connection and Care workshop series
Trinity Counselling will be running a series of workshops for parents over the holiday break, called Trinity Family Connection and Care. The aim of these sessions is to provide a space where Trinity Counselling can support you in looking after your young person at this very challenging time. The workshops will cover themes such as emotional regulation, positive and effective communication, distress tolerance and mindful parenting. They will provide an opportunity to talk and get support from Trinity Counselling. The sessions will also be a chance to connect and get support from other parents.
The workshops will be run once per week over the three-week break and in an evening time slot. Trinity Counselling will be sending out details of the workshop series this week to parents, together with information on how to register. If you have any enquiries about the workshop series, please contact mcnamaraj@trinity.vic.edu.au
AGSV – Boys’ Winter Representative Teams
Although the annual Winter Representative event against the APS was cancelled. Due to the extension of the 2021 winter season, the usual process for the selection of a representative team was maintained with teams selected on merit. The following Trinity students have been acknowledged for their consistent performance in the competitions that were able to be held in 2021. A special mention is due to Liam Henderson, who was appointed Co-Captain of Hockey and to Spike Mananov, who was selected for both Basketball and Football – an exceptional achievement.
Badminton
Frederick Zhao (Year 10) and Alex Gao (Year 9)
Basketball
Spike Mananov (Year 12 ) and Dihan Wiggett (Year 12)
Cross Country
Murray Lovass (Year 12)
Hockey
Liam Henderson (Year 12 Co-Captain) , Christopher Cohen (Year 12), Dex Kelly (Year 11) and Samuel Rusjan (Year 11)
Football
Spike Mananov (Year 12), Angus Plowman (Year 12) and Luke Teal (Year 11)
Soccer
Niv Gill (Year 12) and Dante Siccita (Year 11)
Mathematics News
Our students continue to excel in many areas. Please see below the results of the Melbourne University Mathematics Competition:
Senior:
- Hadyn Tang (Year 12) – Equal First Prize
- Enda Han (Year 11) – Outstanding Award
- Tim Le (Year 11) – Merit
- Cinque Howells (Year 12) – Merit
- Winston Zhang (Year 11) – Merit
Team A: Rahul Doloi, Michael Fan, William Johnson, Daniel Marcou
Team B: Andrew Liu, Alastair Murphy, Dulnith Samaraweera, Jacob Zhang
Intermediate:
- Andrew Liu (Year 10) – Merit
- Alastair Murphy (Year 10) – Merit
- Edward Peng (Year 9) – Merit
Junior:
- Philip Liu (Year 6) – Outstanding
- Michael Wu (Year 8) – Outstanding
- Eason Yang (Year 8) – Merit
- William McDougall (Year 8) – Merit
- Matthew Lo (Year 8) – Merit
Over 40 schools participated in the Year 10 Virtual Statewide Maths Games Day run by the Mathematical Association of Victoria. Trinity Team A placed 2nd and Team B came 6th. Congratulations to the boys for their teamwork, collaboration and achievement!
Statewide German Poetry Competition
German Teacher, Maria Hohlweg, reported that on Saturday 28 August, Yida Fang and Noah Bonhoefer (both in Year 7) competed in the prestigious Statewide German Poetry Competition with great success. Yida came 6th in the DaF (German as a foreign language) section and Noah won himself a silver medal in the Open (German for native speakers) section. Both boys had competed in the Regional German Poetry Competition earlier in the month, when Yida won a silver medal and Noah a gold medal in their respective sections.
Both boys are to be congratulated for their fine achievements. There is much competition in the Statewide German Poetry Competition as students from schools throughout Victoria participate.
Susan Hill
Deputy Principal, Head of Senior School
From the Music School
The Blessing: A Unique Collaboration in Time of Isolation
Student musicians from over 25 Anglican schools recently gathered in a virtual environment to create a performance of The Blessing by Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes and Steven Furtick. This heart-warming and emotive song has become a source of comfort for millions during this pandemic – a global movement of cross-denominational worship through song. Once again, music has shone like a beacon with its intrinsic power to connect us as humans.
Over 30 boys from the Senior Strings submitted a recording as part of a quarantine project, in what turned out to be a Blessing for all involved. The recording also features four singers from Trinity – Henry Smith, James Blanch, Josh Simos-Garner and Ben Reynolds.
The virtual recording of The Blessing can be found here:
Kevin Kelley
Head of Choral and Vocal Music
Chaplain’s Chat
The Word
John 1: 1-14
In his book Muddied Oafs: The Soul of Rugby, Richard Beard describes a little town in the Scottish West Highlands called Mid-Argyll. It is a tiny town but it has a rugby team. The team was about mateship, physicality, even spirituality. The one thing that held it together was ‘turnout’, when they gathered to watch a game. Their chief means of communicating ‘turnout’ was word of mouth, the power of the word!
This brings me to the text today, ‘and the Word became human and made His dwelling among us.’
John is describing Jesus as ‘the Word’ – why does he do this?
John was communicating to a community (the Greek community) that held the concept ‘logos’ (the word) as paramount. Without words the community could not communicate, it could not learn, it could not grow in wisdom and truth. They worshipped the concept of the word.
So in order to explain who Jesus was John calls him ‘the Word’. Even better, he was ‘the Word’ in human form, one all could understand.
Understanding this story in John’s Gospel is a little like discovering a piece of beautiful art or experiencing that moment when you work out a Maths problem or enjoy a really good book. The whole of Chapter One is full of surprises, ideas, thoughts and concepts like:
’In the beginning was the word’, ‘The word was God’, ‘The light that shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it’, and ‘The Word became human’. The Word, it is implied here, brings light into those dark places of evil and injustice and it overcomes them. What does this all mean for us?
Words are great conveyors of meaning. They describe colour, image, concepts and even understanding. They are, after all, how we communicate; without them we would be lost.
So I want to pose a serious question for you today!
Do we value words? We use words every day in every subject here at school. We think in words, we speak in words, we create with words, words are vital to education, leading and learning.
When we speak, our words become part of us.
When people hear what we have to say, they assume we mean what we say and that we intend to act on what we say. If our deeds don’t match our words, people will judge us. Our integrity depends not only on choosing our words wisely but choosing to act wisely and with integrity.
Words can change the way people think, they can change lives, they can change the way people act. Our words, given the right context, can change people’s lives.
I would like to leave you with two thoughts:
Firstly, make the most of your opportunities here at school to become an expert in using words: words as thoughts, words as speech and as the written word. Become an expert in using them in all your subjects, you will never regret it.
Secondly, Christians have always believed that God is involved in the world. Here John is clear that the Word (Jesus) became human. God (the Word) is in the world and calls us to follow a life which reflects basic human dignity. We are called by God to bring to an injured world, peace, justice and equity.
These two points complement each other. Your challenge is to equip yourselves with the skills and intellectual understanding so that you can help to heal the parts of the world that are broken. This is your life, this is your world – take care of it!
Reverend Chris Leadbeatter
Acting Senior Chaplain
Community Engagement
As we round the final corner to the end of term, if you are like me, you have caught your breath at how quickly it has come around. Although it has been a difficult term for all the obvious reasons, the TGS community continues to do what it does best, help one another.
These last few weeks have seen our parent Class Representatives work towards creating care packs for our Year 12s. These packs, which provided a much-needed boost in 2020, include snacks and gifts funded by donations from the Year 12 parent body and the PA. They are prepared and packed by volunteers and will be delivered throughout the upcoming holidays. Thank you to everyone who contributed towards making these last few weeks of school for Year 12 as special as possible.
We have also been negotiating the COVID restrictions tightrope for events in Term 4, with Plan B through to Z mapped out for our key events like the Year 12 Valedictory and the Oaks Day Lunch. We continue to do what we can to make these events a possibility and will update you closer to the events to advise about any changes.
We hope that our recent Father’s Day packs and emails that were sent out last week provided an opportunity to come together and connect as a family. We love to hear about how you and your family are coping during lockdown so please feel free to share images and stories that reflect your experience. Please share to: communityengagement@trinity.vic.edu.au
A special reminder to check out the Parent Business Directory on MyTGS to discover ways you might be able to support members of the TGS community through your take-away order or online purchases. Let us know if you would like to be added to this list.
Lucy Cohen
Director of Community Engagement
Trinity Loving Community (TLC)
Thank you everyone for your interest and support this term, it has been truly amazing!
Throughout the Trinity quarantine period and the lockdown, your generous cash donations have enabled us to purchase vouchers and hampers for the school to distribute to members of our community affected by COVID and also anyone facing challenging times.
Once restrictions ease and students return to on site learning, we’re hopeful of being able to go back to providing care packages from the school freezer as well as continuing to use donated funds to purchase vouchers and hampers. We will be back in touch then with the link for the Term 4 roster so that the freezer can be restocked.
As always, we are keen to provide TLC for any staff or families in our community in need. If you are aware of anyone who would benefit from some extra kindness, please get in touch with Liz Acabado, TGS Community Engagement Coordinator. Alternatively, please contact your son’s Head of School, Head of Year or Form Teacher.
Please be assured that delivery of all vouchers, hampers and care packages is coordinated via either the Community Engagement Team or the Senior Leadership Team, ensuring complete discretion and confidentiality of recipients.
There’s never been a more appropriate time for this service to be available in our community and we are so grateful to you for helping us to make it happen.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us via email pa@trinity.vic.edu.au if you have any questions.
Thank You.
TLC Community Support Group Committee
Alice Noonan and Angela Gill (Co-Convenors)
Heidi Pfeffer and Lisa Williams (Committee)
Important Dates**
Friday September 10
Term 3 concludes
Year 12 (2022) Leadership House Interviews conclude
Boarders Exeat 3.30pm
Monday September 13
VCE Exam Preparation Collection, 9.00am
Tuesday September 14
VCE Exam Preparation Collection, 9.00am
**Dates are subject to change following Government announcements on COVID-19 lockdown protocols.