The Andy Thomas Space Foundation Week 2022

Girls in the Year 9 Robotics and Space classes attended the 14th Annual Space Forum at the Adelaide Convention Centre this week. The forum was supported by the Australian Space Agency, the South Australian Space Industry Centre and SmartSat CRC. The aim of this event was to share information about emerging technologies, generate ideas and provide opportunities to network with influential space sector leaders.

Tournament of Minds

Following their win at the Tournament of Minds state final, the Language Literature team travelled to Canberra during the holidays to participate in the International Final. Year 7 students Bella Pasin, Madeline Perry, Seraphina Sun, Ava Cabot, Bella Nguyen, Hannah Elsbury Sun and Saanvi Khanna had three hours to respond creatively to set challenges and can be very proud of their polished presentation.

The girls made use of all the available time by visiting the National War Memorial, Parliament House, Questicon and Floriade. Thank you to the families who travelled to Canberra to support the girls and to Miss Alison Short and Mrs Bess Smith, who accompanied the girls to Canberra.

Shine Parent Information Session

Thank you to Naomi from Shine SA for her interactive and informative session with the Year 9 parents last week. We will again offer Shine Information Sessions next year for interested Middle School parents. Shine SA also plans to host four Parent Webinars next year, which will be particularly useful for boarding families who may find it hard to attend these in-person sessions. We will publicise the dates of these webinars next year in Life in the Wilderness.

REALISE - Core Group 3

Please enjoy a short recount from Shayla Retnaraja and Tehreem Zafar regarding their recent REALISE experience:

At REALISE, you are isolated from the rest of the world. Stranded without technology or external distractions, you are able to be present, to appreciate the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that REALISE is filled with. When at REALISE, time stops. You lose sense of the rest of the world, revelling in the bubble that has been created for and by you. What once was a far-fetched thought, becomes mundane experiences, and those mundane experiences, become the memories you miss most: waking up early for fitness, cooking breakfast, participating in exhausting – yet rewarding – activities, making lunch, making dinner, cleaning … all of it becomes ordinary.

REALISE gave us a chance to appreciate our current friendships and make new, heartfelt ones. With this independence thrust upon us, we were challenged by new experiences and forced to navigate those adversities. Being in such a foreign environment, our mindset became even more critical in determining the experience we had. Making that choice of whether we wanted to be negative or positive when facing a hardship became crucial. Did we want to be upset? Or did we want to laugh? REALISE taught us to laugh.

These opportunities are ones that we will never get again—whether that be kayaking around the Coorong, faced with utterly perfect weather, soaking in the unrelenting beauty of the sand dunes, as we push ourselves physically and mentally; or pitching a tent, with swarms of bugs invading our every move, motivated by the setting sun and comfort of each other. It could be experiencing a day of wholesome joy, as we attempted to surf against the uncompromising nature of the waves; or having a day to reflect upon the valuable lessons REALISE taught us in complete solitude on solo night, where we were able to take a break from our exhausting schedule and appreciate the memories we made and the experiences we endured. And now, we are left to reminisce over these bittersweet memories, looking back at them with an everlasting fondness, incomparable to that of any other.

Important Dates

Please see the list of important dates for the term.