New Early Learning Centre starters

At the start of the term we enjoyed welcoming a number of children into our Early Learning Centre as they start their educational journey. It has been very exciting to see our mid-year classes commence, which has a flow on effect of creating space in the Early Learning Centre for a new group of students to commence their time at Westminster.

We have welcomed Enzo Agostino, Seb Bankes, Anvita Bhat, Claire Borgese, Quinn Bristow, James Buchiw, Shanaya Chavan, Darcy Collett, Hugo Eastgate, Hamish Felix, Sid Ghosh, Ethan Han, Monique Jacobs, Bailey Jarrad, Sravani Kristipani, Crispin Macrow, Harvie McCarthy, Addie Mignone, Axel Nitschke, Edward Patritti, Peyton Schneider, Gurbaaz Sidhu, Violet Swalling, Elisabetta Tassone, Isabella Tassone, Ashna Venugopal, Sophie Wong, McKinley Wuttke, and Kerrison Yu.

We hope that the students, and by extension their families, have enjoyed becoming a part of our Westminster community.

The range of activities that Westminster students undertake knows no bounds.

Students on the slopes

Last holidays a number of Westminster families travelled to the snow fields of Falls Creek and some talented students took to the slopes to compete in SASKI week. SASKI week was held from Monday 15 to Friday 19 July and included the South Australian Snowsports Interschools competition. There were 177 entrants from 20 schools. The Westminster Snowsports Team had seven members, with some competing for the first time!

They all did an amazing job in some fairly challenging conditions and should all be proud of their efforts. Several team members have qualified to participate in the National Interschool Snowsports competition to be held this year at Mt Buller.

Jack Green (Year 5 Charter) and Shalin Bigwood (Year 8 Heaslip) formed a Division 3 team and won the gold medal. Jack did a great job competing in the secondary school Division 3 rather than Division 5 to allow Westminster to have a team entry. This meant he was racing against people several years older. Individually Jack won silver and Shalin gold, with Shalin also taking out the fastest secondary school men’s trophy.

Jasmine Parry (Year 8 Carter) won gold in the Division 3 Women’s Snowboarding, Jemima Green (Year 7 Charter) achieved 4th in Division 4 Women’s Alpine Skiing and Kai Bigwood (Year 10 Heaslip) won gold in the Division 2 Men’s Alpine Skiing.

Several other schools were very well represented. The overall school championship trophy was taken out by Cornerstone College. Interested families would be more than welcome to join the Westminster delegation in 2020.

Debaters are making their point

One of the many, many co-curricular activities that we offer students is Debating. Currently the Preparatory School students participating in Debating are doing really well in competitive debates.

Westminster's Green Team which consists of Suhavi Sethi (Year 6 Crown), Rhea Dinesh (Year 6 Charter), Diya Patel (Year 6 Wesley) and Sara Zeitouneh (Year 6 Wyvern) actually lead the overall, all teams grade.

Two of the three Westminster Debating teams have won four out of four debates and are looking like finishing in the top eight and making the 'finals'.

State Representatives

Westminster Preparatory School has more than held its own in providing South Australian teams with quality students in the sporting field. So far in 2019 the Westminster students who have been selected as State SAPSASA School Sport representatives at various competitions around the nation are:

Axel Tucker (Year 5 Wyvern) - Swimming, Wednesday 31 July to Friday 2 August, Melbourne, Victoria
Tim Alver (Year 6 Abbey) and Coach Mr Stuart Burns - AFL Football, Saturday 3 to Saturday 10 August, Mandurah, WA
Andre Lim (Year 7 Charter) - Basketball, Saturday 10 to Friday 16 August, Bendigo, Victoria
Sam McClarron (Year 6 Mace), Zachary Tucker (Year 6 Wyvern), and Adelle Parkinson-Need (Year 5 Abbey) - Cross Country, Friday 23 to Monday 26 August, Kembla Grange, NSW
Jazz McKay (Year 6 Wesley) - Netball, Saturday 14 to Friday 20 September, Canberra, ACT
Tim Alver (Year 6 Abbey), Sam McClarron (Year 6 Mace), Gerard McGinley (Year 5 Mace), Jeremy Shepherd (Year 6 Charter) and Adelle Parkinson-Need (Year 5 Abbey) - Athletics, Wednesday 18 to Tuesday 24 September, Darwin, NT

Resource Rhymes

Last term each Year 2 class wrote and performed a rap about how we can care for the environment. This tied in with their learning in Science, HASS and English. They each entered their poems into the Resource Rhymes Competition.

The poems from different schools are now live and they can be accessed at this site. www.youtube.com/resourcerhymes

If you are interested, they would like to encourage as many people as possible to vote for the rhymes created by our clever students. Voting closes on Sunday 15 September. To vote for the videos, viewers need to click on the ‘like’ button, (the thumbs up) underneath the video.

Diary Dates

ABODA Band Festival, Westminster School - Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 August
Prep School Parent/Teacher Interviews - Monday 19 to Friday 23 August
Book Week – Monday 19 to Friday 23 August
Prep School Photographs – Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 August
Grandparents’/Special Friends’ Day – Friday 30 August
Show Day Student Free Day – Monday 2 September
ICAS Science Competition – Wednesday 4 to Friday 6 September
Whole School Open Day – Friday 6 September
2019 Music Night – Friday 13 September
Year 5 Camp, Ballarat – Monday 16 to Thursday 19 September
KIDZ Biz Education session (Year 4 and Year 6) – Monday 16 September
Prep Music Tour, Port Vincent - Wednesday 18 and Thursday 19 September
Prep Japan Tour Departs – Monday 23 September
Year 3 Camp, Victor Harbor – Tuesday 24 and Wednesday 25 September
Term 3 concludes, 1.00 pm - Friday 27 September
Code Camp – Monday 30 September to Wednesday 2 October
Term 4 commences – Tuesday 15 October

Grant Bock
Head of Preparatory School