March Monthly Newsletter

At St Hilda’s School, we have a significant focus on the academic education of the girls and the growth and development of each of them as a young person. Embedded in our pedagogy is a framework from Pre-Prep to Year 12 that assists each girl to build effective personal and learning skills and attributes.

A St Hilda’s girl is someone who is developing a strong sense of knowing who they are in the roles they fill during their life including as a learner, as a citizen, and as a family member. As the girls begin their educational journey in Junior School, they are introduced to the concept of Habits of Mind as an approach to being an effective student and a productive and positive person. The Habits of Mind consists of 16 Habits that help to develop constructive traits within each individual student. Click here to view the Habits.

During the Junior School years, the girls focus on using the Habits to develop proactive academic traits and to extend their interpersonal skills.

As the girls grow and develop into the Middle and Senior School years, they embrace the Language of Learning which is founded from the Habits of Mind, but additionally they focus on extending each student’s vocabulary to identify and describe the learning traits they are engaging in and exhibiting. The Language of Learning assists to identify their own learning behaviours and provides teachers with a framework to assist students to understand which behaviours they need to use in different learning situations. The Language of Learning consists of five domains; Resourceful, Reflective, Relational, Resilient and Restorative and the students work continuously to embed the language to help them reflect on the domains as learners. The connection between the Habits of Mind and the Language of Learning is explicit so that the students connect their growth from their Junior School years to their Middle and Senior School years.

We are proud of the St Hilda’s graduates as it is evident that the girls grow into competent and confident young women who are persistent, positive, hard-working and creative and who are ready to shape and serve the world around them.

I invite you to enjoy reading our St Hilda’s monthly newsletter which will help you to gain an understanding of the extensive opportunities available to the girls and the incredible work our staff engage in to ensure they have access to a wide range of experiences both inside and outside of the classroom.

Old Girl Connections

Last Friday, Mrs Simone Crowther, Community and Alumni Liaison Officer, and I travelled to Toowoomba to host a function welcoming former, current and potential families to St Hilda’s School. This event was followed by the Old Girls Luncheon with the attendance of past students from the 1950’s to 2000’s. We were pleased to receive more than 30 Old Girls and their families to this very special experience.

A Night at the Star!

Mrs Crowther and I continued our bush Boarding tour on Saturday when we drove to North Star, located southwest of Goondiwindi, to attend A Night at The Star, which raises money to fund the local sporting facility. It was a great opportunity to connect with many current, past and future families.

We wish all our very special St Hilda’s families a wonderful weekend and final week for Term 1, 2023.

Mrs Amanda Shuttlewood
Acting Principal

The Chaplain's Column

Some weeks ago, I was discussing with my Year 12 RE class the problem that theists have with justifying the belief in a loving God with the pain and suffering in our world. One student, in particular, was vehement that the ferocity of the ten plagues inflicted on Egypt would tend to suggest that God was not a loving God. At the time, I didn’t answer her question well, and only on reflecting on it did I come up with what I think is a plausible answer, at least for a Christian. If we take the Old Testament as a whole, God is always portrayed as a just God who expects his people to be ethical and moral. This can easily be seen in the Ten Commandments where the first three are about belief in God while the next seven deal with human behaviour which is ethical, faithful, and honest. God is also shown in the Old Testament as the creator and sustainer of reality, or as the theologian Paul Tillich termed, the “Ground of our Being”.

This understanding of God is not only the background to all of Jesus’ teaching about God the Father in the New Testament but intimately defused through all of it. Thus, Jesus teaches his followers that they are to be more righteous (i.e. ethical) than the Scribes or the Pharisees. Yet the problem of unmerited suffering and pain seems to be a barrier to such a belief and its consequential behaviour. If God demands his people to be ethical, then should not God be ethical? If so, God is therefore ultimately responsible for the pain and suffering we see in this world. It is at this point in our thinking where the story of the Cross is of paramount importance. For the figure on the Cross is God becoming a human being, accepting all the worst of human suffering. The plight of a refugee becomes the plight of Jesus, the tears of a mother, his tears, the pain of cancer, his pain, the death of a loved one, his death. Yet there is more to this story than the suffering and pain. The crucifix of Good Friday becomes the empty cross of Easter Eve before transforming into the empty tomb and visions of the risen Christ on Easter Day.

It is God the Son who dies taking responsibility for all the suffering and pain of humanity and God the Son who takes that humanity into the divinity of God. This is the core of the Christian faith in a loving God. As St Paul wrote: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2: 5-11)

Fr Patrick Duckworth
School Chaplain

Middle/Senior Sports Overview

QGSSSA Swim Meet - Wednesday 1 March 2023

Thank you to those who came to support us and a massive congratulations to all our swimmers. Well done girls! It was so great to see the enthusiasm and hear the roar from all girls and parents. Lastly, thank you to the coaches, Jon and Alex for supporting us, we couldn’t have done it without you!

We received some amazing results from the night, you should all be so proud of yourselves. Special mention to Holly Warn who broke four records amongst all four 50m events in the Multi-Class division. Also, congratulations to the 14 year girls 4x50 Free Relay Division A who also won.

Once again, well done girls! Let’s keep up the effort for all the years to come!

Swimming Captains – Tylah Crabtree & Collette Lyons

School Sport Shout Outs

2023 Tennis Interschool Challenge – Congratulations to Dayna-Whiteley-Hall and Sarah Bigg who won the Senior School Competition of the Inter-School Tennis Challenge. St Hilda’s also made the final in the Junior Competition and were 3^rd in the Middle School Competition. Well done to all our Tennis players and our coaches!

QLD Softball Championships – Congratulations to Maddison and Isabella Hallinan who both competed in the South Coast team at the recent State Championships. Throughout the tournament their team had 6 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss which had them finishing 2^nd on the leaderboard after the round games. Unfortunately, they were defeated in the semifinal but are hopeful to come back stronger next year and go further. Well done girls!

QLD Tennis Championships – Congratulations to Elise Virr who competed for South Coast in the 13-19 years State Championships. Elise played extremely well in the hot and humid conditions winning all bar 2 matches which is an incredible result. Well done Elise!

Regional AFL Trials – Congratulations to Chloe Templeton, Cleone Halsall and Charlotte Wormald who all competed as part of the Hinterland team at the recent Regional AFL trials. All girls played extremely well with Cleone and Charlotte being selected into the South Coast team which will compete in the State Championships in May. Well done girls!

National Triathlon – Congratulations to Isla Hawkins who placed 18^th in the individual event at the National Triathlon. Well done Isla!

Summer Fixtures Round 4-Cricket

We all worked great as a team and a had lot of fun against St Aidan’s. We would commend Olivia’s performance with her bowling, Lucy for adapting so well to being the wicket keeper and Stephanie for her batting performance.

Cricket Captains – Lucy Corish & Jessica Walton

Summer Fixtures Round 3 - Senior AFL

AFL Captains – Sophie Sendall & Amy Symons

Summer Fixtures Round 4-Senior AFL

We had another very successful round of AFL this weekend which was great to see. It was also great to see the support from all our other girls who were out playing. Thank you for that and let’s keep it up each week. Only 3 weeks to go, let’s make the most of it! A huge congratulations to the Opens teams who dominated both their games against St Aidan’s and Ipswich, coming home with wins such as 69 nil. Also well done to the 10A’s who also won both their games. Both Senior A’s and B’s came home with one win each. Let’s keep these results coming!

Thank you to everyone who showed up in the correct uniform right from bus arrival. Once again, thank you for such an amazing weekend, we look forward to seeing the results from our third round.

Summer Fixtures Round 5- Senior AFL

Summer Fixtures Round 6 - Senior AFL

Another great round of AFL. We want to thank everyone for their continued efforts to be in uniform both on and off the field as well as the continued comradery and sportsmanship. We’re setting a great example for the junior season, and we are really proud of how we are all representing ourselves as a school.

Results-wise, congratulations to all the Saturday wins but also a shout out to those who no matter the result persisted with high spirits and an open mind to feedback for next week. Big mention to the Opens team who remain undefeated, who even after a tough game against Moreten Bay College, manage to push away in the second half to win 49-8.

Thank you, girls, for continuously showing up to both trainings and games with high spirits and always being keen to get involved and try new activities. Our only ask is if during training we could show some more initiative towards helping pack up. This could be as simple as picking up cones or packing the balls into the bag because we have had a couple of times when one or two girls are left collecting equipment. Thanks girls and have a great week.

AFL Captains – Sophie Sendall & Amy Symons

Summer Fixtures Round 5-Cricket

Cricket Captains - Lucy Cornish & Jessica Walton

Summer Fixtures Round 7 - Senior AFL

AFL Captains - Sophie Sendall & Amy Symons

Summer Fixtures Round 8- Senior AFL

Summer Fixtures Round 9-Senior AFL

Autumn Fixtures Round 1- Basketball

With a 6-point difference, the Opens girls had the closest scoring game against the Ramsey's in a few years. The girls led in the first and second quarter, and although they didn't come home with the win, they put in loads of energy that resulted in a terrific outcome!

Basketball Captains – Liliana Allen & Paige Le Gassick

Autumn Fixtures Round 1 - Football

On Friday afternoon Ella Woodbridge scored two goals against Clayfield. Our strikers did amazing and our girls in defense managed to block multiple goals. A special thank you to Jessie for all your saves as goalie, especially in the wet weather. The Intermediates and Juniors both had a great win with both goalies stopping heaps of goals and a special mention to Amelia in the Juniors team for going above and beyond and leading the team to victory.

Football Captains – Saffron Williams & Zoe Kitchin

Autumn Fixtures Round 1 - Touch

Last Friday we had our opening game for the QG season against Clayfield College with just our Opens team playing and coming away with a win of 10-1. Shout out to Lucy Nash for contributing 4 tries to this and opening our season up with the first try. The girls played well to kick off the first game of the season but looking forward to more improvements within the team over the season. Great to come away with the first win of the season and looking forward to hearing how all other QG touch teams go throughout the season.

Touch Captains – Holly Smith & Cilla Monie

Summer Fixtures Round 6- Cricket

The basketball teams overall achieved great results against Somerville. The Senior A’s team had an awesome dominant performance taking the win over Somerville. For the Senior A’s, Misha had her first ever 3-pointer to start the season off. For the Open girls, many girls stepped up and contributed when they needed to especially Olivia's hustle after the ball and defense.

Basketball Captains – Liliana Allen & Paige Le Gassick

Autumn Fixtures Round 2- Football

On Friday, our Opens team played very well and ended the game against Somerville House with a draw. All the girls put in tremendous effort and energy, especially Poppy and Isabelle Mitchell who were extremely fast up and down the field, managing to turn around the ball on numerous occasions. The girls from the Juniors and Intermediates teams also played great and were tough competition for the opposition. A special mention to Annabelle in the Juniors for scoring an amazing goal and Madeline for putting in that extra effort on the field.

Football Captains – Saffron Williams & Zoe Kitchin

Autumn Fixtures Round 2- Touch

Another successful round of touch for our girls this week where we saw 5 of our teams come away with the win, and a draw for the 9A’s. Despite the heat, all the girls made a spectacular effort to keep team spirits up and strive for the win. Another big win to our Opens of 9-0, as well as the 8A’s winning 9-0 and our Senior B’s and 7A’s also keeping Somerville to nil. A couple of special mentions must go to Isla Hawkins who scored a full field length try and Olivia Hodges from 7A’s with a spectacular diving try. We look forward to this coming week's fixtures against Brisbane Girls Grammar.

Touch Captains – Holly Smith & Cilla Monie

Club & Non-School Sport Shout Outs!

Branch Championships - Congratulations to Lola Wight who competed at the Branch Championships and was first over the line for the 1km beach sprint and second for the 2km. Lola’s relay team also received a silver medal. Well done Lola!

State Surf Life Saving – Congratulations to Isla Hawkins for placing 8th in the individual 2km beach run and 5th in the 2 x 1km beach run. Isla’s team also made the final in the team event. Well done Isla!

Samford Tennis Championships -Congratulations to Elise Virr winning both the singles and doubles events. Elise played an epic 2.5 hour doubles match with a winning score 6-7 7-6 10-8. In over 36 degree heat Elise played one match on Saturday and a staggering 6 matches on Sunday, starting at 7.00am and still on court at 7.30pm. An unbelievable effort winning every match. Well done Elise!

The St Hilda’s Sport Team regularly receives school sport results and achievements. The Sport Team loves to be kept up to date with our girl’s achievements across a wide range of club and non-school sports. Please email [email protected] with any sporting news that we can recognise and celebrate!

For all enquiries relating to Middle/Senior Sport at St Hilda’s please email [email protected] and ensure that you have downloaded the isthildas app for all our sporting notices.

Mrs Mel Lilley
Director of Sport and Coaching

What have our musicians been doing in the last month?

Ash Wednesday saw the debut for 2023 of Senior Choir, where they produced one of the best new year performances ever, with their rendition of “Can You Hear?”, a gospel inspired ballad centered around concerns for the welfare of the children of the world.

Our first Twilight Concert of 2023 got underway on Tuesday 28^th February where we began the evening in the Bev Philben Room being entertained by Junior Strings and Junior Concert Band before moving to the Chapel to hear spirited performances from Years 4-6 Choir and other soloists from both Junior and Senior School.

Twilight Concert No. 2 on Tuesday 14^th March was presented in progressive mode as well, opening with Middle/Senior Concert Band, Senior Strings and Big Band and followed by soloists (from Years 5-11), well prepared to show their developing musical skills. This included Flora Yang (Year 11) performing the 1^st movement from the Shostakovich Cello Concerto, which she will be presenting as a finalist in the 2023 Qld Symphony Orchestra Young Instrumentalist Competition in Brisbane on 1^st April. Best wishes to Flora for this big event.

Play Out 2023 was also held on Friday 3^rd and Saturday 4^th March. Our string and band musicians had the opportunity to rehearse intensively and present a culminating performance for the gathered crowd of parents and supporters as a finale on the Saturday in Langford Theatre.

Freaky Friday - Friday 5 & Saturday 6 May

Rehearsals for Freaky Friday are progressing well as the performance dates creep ever closer. Our cast, musicians, set constructors, designers and costume makers are all working feverishly towards the final goal.

We are therefore pleased to announce that tickets are now available for all to purchase.

Ms Janette Kelly
Head of Music

Click here to view upcoming events.

St Hilda’s Foundation Race Day

On Saturday 25 February, we held our annual St Hilda’s Foundation Race Day event at Aquis Park Gold Coast Turf Club.

This year’s A Day at the Races saw its biggest turnout of attendees, 190 guests with representatives from local businesses and our events sponsors JSW Powersports, Morgans Financial Limited, Stone Group Lawyers, Surgery Gold Coast Weight Loss Surgery, Lory Construction, St Genevieve, Gold Coast BMW, Ramsay Health, The Lash Spa and Sanctuary Cove Golf and Country Club.

The event raised funds throughout the day, thanks to our generous raffle and auction sponsors. All proceeds going directly towards supporting our young women to dream and to achieve. Without the generosity of our community, we would not be able to achieve what we do to support our young women.

A big thank you to everyone who attended and made this event a huge success.

St Hilda’s Foundation Work Grants

Congratulations to the following students who were successful candidates of the 2023-2024 St Hilda’s Foundation Work Grants:

Holly Bertwistle – Gold Coast Suns

Tharangini Thirumurugan – News Corp

Ava Manton – Triple Eight Engineering

Judy Zhang – Qscan Radiology

These experiences are an opportunity to gain valuable experience in their industry of interest.

Festival of the Arts

18-19 August 2023

Get ready to immerse yourself in the world of art at St Hilda's Foundation Festival of The Arts (FOTA)! This exciting community event is not just a showcase of creativity, but also an opportunity to support the dreams and aspirations of our young women.

This year's festival is centered around the theme of 'Flourishing with Dignity', which embodies values such as human dignity, respect, and peacemaking. Through mesmerizing displays of art, we will explore how we can all grow and thrive while honouring these fundamental principles.

We warmly invite you to join us for an unforgettable weekend filled with inspiration and hope.

Mrs Karen Minahan
Foundation Officer

Athlete Visit

Jessica Borg – Taekwondo Australian Representative visited the Athena students to share her journey as an elite athlete recently. Jessica’s inspirational story told us about how she came to be involved in taekwondo as a young girl and worked up to be an Australian Champion prior to being selected to represent Australia at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Jessica has had to overcome some serious injuries and work hard to return to full strength. Jessica is now preparing for 2024 Olympic trials in two sports – boxing and taekwondo. Her advice to Athena athletes includes:

• Enjoy the butterflies.
• Enjoy being naive.
• Enjoy the pressure you place on yourself and others.
• Enjoy the process on the way to the top and enjoy climbing back up after hard times.
• Enjoy meeting new people in sport.
  
• Stay focused on your end goal.

Congratulations

Congratulations to the following Athena students on competing in the Swimming Regional Trials – Zoe Ball, Lilly Geddes, Tribeca Liu, Millie Simm, Holly Warn.

All of these students have qualified for the State Championships to be held at the end of March. We wish these students all the best for their competition.

Coco Marshall (Year 12) competed at the Queensland Diving State Championships in Brisbane placing 2^nd in the 3m Springboard, and 3^rd in the 1m Springboard and Platform event in the girls 16 – 18 age group. She will now head to Sydney to represent Queensland at the National Championships in these events and the synchronized diving event.

Elise Virr (Year 8) competed at the State Titles in Townsville in extremely hot and humid conditions playing some outstanding tennis. Last weekend Elise took out the Singles and Doubles event at the Samford Under 14 Championships following an epic 2.5-hour match in the final – 6-7, 7-6, 10-8.

Flora Yang (Year 11) received her 2023 AMEB Associate Diploma for Cello recently at the Conservatorium Theatre. Congratulations to Flora!

Mrs Lisa Cleverly
Head of Athena

The above quote resonates with the Women in Leadership theme that has driven the range of events and activities that our Boarders have engaged in throughout the month of March. 72 of our Boarders provided service for our environment during ‘Clean Up Australia’ day. The Day Girls and The Southport School joined us to provide a large contingent of people willing to dedicate their time to improving the conditions of our environment.

Uniting with The Southport School on various events allows our community to build a much stronger commitment towards our shared visions and supportive goals. The Alcohol Rights and Responsibilities seminar that took place a few days later provided understanding for our Boarders on how to support our friends and how making good choices about alcohol and the law can lead to greater influence over others.

Our School motto Non Nobis Solum (Not for Ourselves Alone) was demonstrated clearly during our Women in Leadership event. How wonderful it was to hear from several of our Old Girls and we were privileged to have them join us to celebrate our leaders and support the positive community experience that St Hilda’s provides. Our Year 12 Big Sisters were awarded their badges on the night to recognise their commitment to our younger students. Our House Captains and Student Council were announced, and I congratulate the following students for building a positive atmosphere amongst our community members: Ella Ramsay, Gretel Le Lievre, Jess Hawkswell, Meg Norman, Sathvika Alla, Isella Fernandez, Lila Kelly, Harriet Sweetland, Zoe Maher, Zanthea Iland, Jane Henning, Eliza Mackenzie and Chloe Lane.

The inaugural South-East Qld Boarding School Touch Tournament was a great success, and we were so proud to be involved. Both of our teams advanced to the semi-finals and the live stream allowed our parents who are in various locations to tune in to our Seniors final and what an amazing final it was with our girls making an extraordinary comeback. Well done!

Lastly, I would like to thank our community for getting behind the Australian Boarding Schools Facebook Competition, although we were overtaken on the last day, our community provided the likes required to stay in the running right until the last few hours. Thank You!

Mrs Amanda Rigby
Head of Boarding