THE BLUE AND GOLD - Friday, 10 May 2024 - Toowoomba Grammar School

Dear TGS Families,

Beef Australia and Grammar 150 celebrations

This week, the School sent a delegation of staff to the triennial Beef Australia exhibition in Rockhampton. Beef Australia (formerly known as Beef Week) provides a fantastic opportunity for staff to meet with past, present, and future families, as well as Old Boys, and this year has been no exception.

TGS hosted the inaugural Grammar 150 event in conjunction with Mort and Co. during the exhibition. It was wonderful to be able to acknowledge Old Boy (1979 – 1983) Charlie Mort and his significant contributions to Australian agriculture. His achievements were highlighted in an interview with fellow TGS Old Boy (1985 – 1989) and agriculture legal specialist, as well as Beef Australia Director, Trent Thorne. TGS Deputy Headmaster, John Anderson, discussed the School’s plans for the Design, Engineering, and Technology building, along with the concept for the Agriculture and Industry Centre and future curriculum offerings in this field, which TGS is exploring.

Strategic Plan Review

The School is currently conducting a mid-plan review of our Strategic Plan. The Executive team has been collaborating with an external consultant to evaluate the work completed and identify strategic actions for the next two and a half years. These key points were presented to the Board of Trustees this week. I look forward to collaborating with TGS staff as we continue to implement our plans, which result in outstanding educational outcomes for the boys.

International Nurses Day

This Sunday, 12 May, not only marks Mother's Day but also International Nurses Day. On behalf of the Toowoomba Grammar School community, I would like to express our deepest gratitude to our School Nurses for their unwavering dedication and exceptional care. Their tireless efforts, compassion, and expertise make our School a healthier and safer place. I extend my thanks to our School Nurses for their hard work, empathy, and the countless ways in which they positively impact our lives every day.

Mother’s Day

In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all mothers a very happy Mother's Day. On behalf of the Toowoomba Grammar School community, thank you for all that you do for our boys and all members of our School community. I hope you enjoy a Sunday surrounded by family and friends.

Fidelis in Omnibus

Kind regards

Dr John C Kinniburgh
Headmaster

Toowoomba Grammar School Army Cadets, together with the Toowoomba Grammar School Honour Guard, spent last week commemorating ANZAC Day 2024 with a number of different services. Cadets, parents, students and grandparents from across the country came together to honour the service and sacrifice of our current and former serving members. Thank you to everyone who joined us this ANZAC Day.

See below letter from the Commander of South Queensland Australian Army Cadets:

To all South Queensland Cadets and Cadet Staff,

On behalf of the Army and the Australian Army Cadet Community, I would like to thank you for your commitment and involvement in ANZAC Day activities. As your Commander, I am proud of your contribution and efforts in supporting community Anzac Day commemorations.

This year over 2500 Army Cadets and Adult Cadet Staff supported commemorations for ANZAC Day 2024 across Brisbane, Southern and Southwest Queensland.

For most Australian towns, particularly in our region, Army Cadets provide the only direct link between the community and the ADF. This year, I visited Warwick and Toowoomba for ANZAC Day commemorations and the comments from both veterans and the general public were positive and supportive.

Please pass on this message to all staff and cadets in your unit and across your community (parents/guardians/families).

Well done!

Athanasios ‘Arthur’ Tsamis
Colonel
Commander Australian Army Cadets – South Queensland Brigade

GPS Cross Country Championships

One co-curricular event that occurs during school time is the GPS Cross Country Championships, which all Year 9 boys will attend as spectators on Thursday, 16 May 2024. This is a great school and GPS community event and it is expected all Year 9 boys will support our team. We will send more details to boys and parents via email in the lead-up to the event. I wish all the cross country athletes representing our School the very best at the GPS Championships.

Committing to Co-curricular

At TGS, we are fortunate that participating in co-curricular activities is part of the fabric of the School and is widely supported by parents and the boys as an important element in developing young men of character. I remind families that if a boy commits to a co-curricular activity, he is expected to attend all training sessions and games. If he is unwell or injured, he needs to inform his coach. I wish to highlight to all families that Term 2 sport will run a full round of Tennis and Football on Friday, 14 June. This is at the end of Week 9. Boarding Houses will be open on that night for boys and families wishing to travel on Saturday, 15 June.

Pastoral Care Initiatives

In Week 4 of this term, we will complete our second round of the Steer Tracking wellbeing assessment. As mentioned in a previous newsletter, it is not always easy for us to know which students need our help as they don’t or can’t always tell us, even though we ask. Sometimes we only know something is wrong when we see a change in their behaviour or a dip in their learning. We want to know which students need our help, as early as possible, even if their needs are hidden or masked, and what we can do to help. Steer Tracking assists us to address this with the boys by identifying any biases that they have and flagging these with mentors. Follow-up actions are generally simple yet effective plans that mentors carry out during Pastoral Care Groups. This might be an activity or discussion with the whole group that aims to address the bias of a small number of boys in that group.

On Tuesday, 21 May the Year 9 boys will travel to The Glennie School to do a relationships education workshop. This will include students from The Glennie School and Fairholme College with Daniel Principe conducting the boys' workshop. Michael Hall (Head of Pastoral Care) and I will write separately to Year 9 parents with the details of the day.

TGS will be participating in a research project with the University of New South Wales and the International Boys’ Schools Coalition. The project aims to investigate the educational practices that support students' learning and wellbeing in the classroom and in their co-curricular activities. Our involvement will be asking all boys to complete a survey. We will be sure to share the results of this project in the coming months.

Year 12 References

Year 12 boys and their parents will receive an email from me this week regarding School References. This will also include key dates for end of Year 12 activities. Should Year 12s require a school reference for university, work or an accommodation application, then they must email their Head of House requesting a reference.

Uniforms and Haircuts

School Uniform

I reminded the boys last Thursday after assembly that they are not to wear crocs, slides or deck shoes with their PE or sport uniforms. This includes while travelling on buses. They should have sports shoes/joggers on when wearing their PE uniforms.

Hair

It’s that time of term when some boys are due for a haircut. A reminder of the School’s regulations concerning haircuts:

The hair must be above/off the collar and must be neatly shaped at the back of the neck.
The ears should be visible and sideburns must not extend past the middle of the ear.
Fringe must end before the eyebrows.
Extremes of style are not permitted and include, but are not limited to, mullets, shaved at a number one or lower, skin fades, undercuts, patterns and stripes cut in the hair and the use of colours and dyes.
Minimum blade length is a number 2 blade (5mm).
The back and sides must be blended with the length of the hair on top.

It is expected that student’s hair is always neat and presentable.

School SunSmart Policy

Queensland has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. Given students are at school during peak ultraviolet radiation (UVR) times throughout the day, between 10:00am and 3:00pm, schools play a major role both in minimising a student’s UVR exposure and in providing an environment where policies and procedures can positively influence student behaviour. As children will spend a portion of their day outdoors, we are committed to protecting them from the harmful effects of the sun. With this in mind, Toowoomba Grammar School realises the need to protect children’s skin and educate the boys about SunSmart behaviour, thus reducing the risk of skin damage from exposure to the sun.

As part of our SunSmart Policy we will:

Attempt to ensure that all boys wear their Akubra hats at all times they are in uniform and outdoors.
Require that all boys wear sports hats or their Akubra hats and sunscreen at all other times when they are outside.
Provide approved sunscreen at a number of strategic locations around the School.
Encourage students without adequate sun protection to use shaded or covered areas at recess and lunch times.

Mark Oliphant
Head of Senior School

As we enter the middle phase of Term 2, the busyness of school life settles in for many families, particularly if your child is involved across a number of co-curricular programs. These are wonderful pursuits to be involved in and bring much joy to your children and your family as a whole, but also can create very full weeks. This term there will be upcoming events like Eisteddfod where all students are involved, in addition to their regular co-curricular activities, school excursions and daily learning program. The best guidance I can offer for supporting your children through these activities is to build in regular family routines that help to organise the mornings/evenings, create healthy sleep routines and look for opportunities to have some downtime where possible also.

In the classroom, Term 2 is where we typically see leaps forward in student learning also. They’ve settled into their new year level at this stage and lifted their learning expectations to meet the step-up that moving up a grade provides. Students might not immediately recognise their leap forward in progress themselves, but with some targeted feedback from their teacher or their parent they can make the connection. Showing earlier work samples is a great way to do this, particularly for children in the early years. These leap forward moments can come in many forms depending on the age level, but some examples you might notice in your son could include:

using a wider variety of punctuation in writing
becoming more fluent in their reading
increasing responsibility to manage their belongings
walking themselves down to the classroom from the drop-off area
problem-solving using multi-step algorithms
delivering a speech with expression.

I like to make reference to these leap-forward moments because at first glance they might not seem like noteworthy moments to acknowledge but I feel they could be. Teachers every day try to pass on these types of feedback to students, often it's done informally with a comment or short note on a students work. These quick moments in class are wonderful for a student to make the connection that their effort and progress is recognised, and they themselves can see the improvement also. The impact of a parent noticing these improvements and progress is incredibly powerful also. So in amongst the busyness of Term 2, with all its wonderful activities to get involved with, if the opportunity presents in a ‘downtime moment’, ask your son what sorts of things they feel like they are making little leaps forward in (you may need to prompt a little). I think these are great conversations to have.

Readers Cup

This term, all students in Years 3 to 6 are invited to participate in Readers Cup activities. These are reading challenges from set texts and quizzes organised by our Teacher Librarian Mrs Worthington. Celebrating a love and interest in reading is something we always value and we have this built into our daily routine with every class participating in DEAR (Drop Everything And Read). The Readers Cup this term provides an avenue for students to really stretch their reading skills across different genres and build their comprehension skills to demonstrate their understanding for what they have read. Even if your son is not actively involved in the Readers Cup directly, we are still promoting and celebrating the value of reading this term and noting how many books we have read.

If parents are able to support this from home also with nightly reading prior to bed, perhaps 10-15 minutes depending on your child’s age, this provides a lovely connection between home and school for reading. Don’t underestimate the impact of your child/ren seeing you read also. If you have the opportunity to engage in shared reading, these are wonderful experiences for your child to hear and see their parent reading. As parents we often read to our children when they are very young and learning to read themselves, but once they are able to independently read we let them take over. This is great but there is still value in us reading to our children throughout their primary school years. Where you can, this is a great opportunity to share a good book together and if you’re looking for a text that will interest you both please feel comfortable asking our Librarian, Mrs Worthington for some suggestions, she’d be delighted to recommend something for you.

Finally, in appreciation for our Mothers as we approach Mother’s Day, this weekend we will all say “Happy Mother’s Day” and “thanks for everything you do” to our Mums and significant mother figure roles in our families. For the boys in the Junior School though, recognising mums has a special significance. With younger children, their whole world experience is between the people at home and at school, so generally their parents, teachers, siblings and classmates occupy the largest part of their day-to-day experience. Days like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day connect those two worlds together in a very special way. The Junior School represents a family stage of close connection between home and school which we hold dear and recognise with a Mother’s Day stall, so that boys can select a small gift for mum themselves, and the Mother’s Day breakfast on Friday morning in the Junior School Hall. This experience isn’t just special for the Junior School boys, mums will remember these moments forever also. Happy Mother’s Day this Sunday.

With warm regards, and thanks

Ken Raven
Head of Junior School

The Easter Holidays was a very busy period for the Football program with two Blazer holiday clinics in the form of the Skills Academy and Goalkeeper Camp. Week 2 of the holidays followed with two teams travelling to the Southport School for the TSS Cup which saw five U15 Teams and 14 Open Teams compete in this prestigious pre-season tournament. The U15s were blessed to be led by a returning Mr McLeod who provided boys with outstanding support which will bode well for the coming GPS season. Mike Mulvey took an extended squad to the Gold Coast this year as he sought to give boys a final opportunity to cement their place in the squad for 2024.

TSS Cup

Week 1 of Term 2 was hectic but we were fortunate to have a home draw against our old rival, Brisbane State High School. This rival GPS school has always brought plenty of energy to the competition as they draw from a wide catchment and have strong teams. The result of the day saw our First XI run out 4-1 Winners, however, the result flattered to deceive as our Goalkeeper Max Lomas was the standout performer stopping three tremendous opportunities which otherwise would have brought the contest much closer. Across the School, we saw three victories, three draws and 14 losses.

On Monday, 22 April the School hosted the Bill Turner Cluster Day where 12 schools across the district came together for this Nationwide U15 competition. The Darling Downs Region is gaining momentum as many schools invest resources into their football program. TGS qualified for the next round after completing five games in the pool of six going undefeated. The district semi-final is due before Friday, 7 June with the DD final occurring before Friday, 21 June. Area finals (Brisbane West) must occur before the Friday, 26 July.

Week 2 of GPS saw TGS visit Ipswich Grammar School (IGS) on a glorious day in the Autumn sun at Brassall Flats. The buzz around the School had been strong all week and we were hopeful of following up with a robust performance across the School grades. The big winners on the day were the 8As who pulled off a magnificent 3-1, showing how far they have come in such a brief time under the influence of their high-performance coach, with Darcy Haywood pulled the man of the match award for his gritty performance.

The main game saw two evenly matched sides go toe-to-toe in a battle royale which produced high drama and was an entertaining game to watch. TGS matched IGS for speed and strength and their high and aggressive press led to TGS taking a first half lead when they forced an error with their keeper in possession. IGS, however, are made of stern stuff and over time their influence on the game grew stronger. An equaliser lifted their tails and after that, their influence and confidence grew. Eventually, the constant pressure forced the error and IGS took a 2 – 1 lead which would prove to be the final score. Head Coach Mike Mulvey was pragmatic as always and agreed that the better team won on the day and that we would regroup and go again in Round 3.

Week 3 has got off to a flyer with our U13s having Monday off for the inaugural Football Queensland, Darling Downs, School Futsal Tournament which occurred all week at the Lockyer Valley Sports Centre in Gatton. The U13 Boys led by Alexander Duncan produced some champagne FUTSAL, winning all their group games before progressing to a final against Mary Mackillop High School. The final game saw TGS take a 2-0 lead but fortune would not go our way and Mary Mackillop initiated a fabulous come-back to take the trophy and the regional title running out as 4-2 winners. Both teams in the final have now qualified for the State School Championships which will occur in Brisbane in Term 3.

Later in the week, the U15s with a combination of boys from Year 8 and Year 9, and the Open team from Year 12, also took part in the competition and I am delighted to announce that they both ran out as DD school boy champions.

Week 3 culminated with a visit from The Southport School who arrived up the mountain with their spirits high following a decent start to their own season. Across the School we saw some tremendous games take place. The results for round 3 showed eight victories across the competition with the 6As taking the Team of the Week award having beaten a very high quality TSS side. The score ran out to 1-0 to our Year 6s. Other notable victories went to 3^rd XI who ran out with a 4-1 win. Progress is starting to show with our Year 8 cohort with the 8A going up 3-1, 8B 3-4, 8C 3-1 and 8D getting up 2-1. Not to be outdone, our 9As showed some steel with a 4-2 victory and our biggest winners were the mighty 7Cs who delivered a 6-1 victory.

The First XI were left hugely frustrated following a 2-1 defeat to a more accomplished opponent. All the momentum sat with TGS who took a first half lead but as the match went on, TSS started to impose themselves on the game. The final score of 1-2 was nothing less than we deserved, and it leaves us with plenty to consider as we enter Week 4 to take on a much-fancied ACGS away.

Nigel Fanning
Head of Sport (Football)

Date	Event	Location	Time
Wednesday, 15 May	Fireside Chat Series: Beyond Currency	Old Hall	7:00pm
Sunday, 19 May	Boarder Week Closing Celebration	Old Boys' Memorial Oval	2:00pm
Friday, 24 May	Grammar Boy for a Day Year 7	Senior School	8:45am
Friday, 24 May	Mackintosh House Year 12 Mother and Son Dinner	Gip's Restaurant	6:00pm

THE BLUE AND GOLD - Friday, 10 May 2024