Success as we know may be measured in many ways and it’s not always about the ranking in a competition. On Torrens Park Campus we have numerous opportunities to see success and importantly to also learn from our not so successful endeavours. However, the last two weeks have been a special time for our community, and I’d love to share and reflect upon some of the highlights of campus life. 

Although the whole-College event “One Table” was a brilliant night, it started as a pretty ordinary autumn day with heavy rain and strong winds.  As evening emerged from the afternoon sun it was transformed to a fabulous party and coming together of community. Natalie Felkl and her team worked tirelessly to make the evening spectacular. A huge vote of gratitude to all involved. The importance of bringing our community together can never be underestimated.

Around 200 people enjoyed an amazing concert at a Sound of Scotch Strings. There has been an intentional decision to grow this area of our music offering in recent years and at this event we were able to witness 80 students collectively perform a range of delights! Congratulations to our Head of Strings - Catherine Hannaford and her amazing team who have nurtured and developed a love of symphonic music in our students. I am sure this section of our orchestral program will go from strength to strength in the coming years.

Last weekend the Head of the River was a remarkable day punctuated of course by our Girls First VIII winning convincingly the title of best schoolgirl team in the state. All our crews gave their best, resulting in us becoming the highest achieving coeducational school overall and the most successful boat club at seasons end. One of the important moments for me was seeing crews from rival schools come to congratulate our crews on their performances and vice versa. The importance of the competition staying on the water and the camaraderie around a sport is the real measure of success. 

On Monday our boys First XI cricket proved they are one of our strongest teams in recent times. Following on from their stunning win over PAC in the T20 competition for independent schools at the end of last year, the boys backed it up by winning the state final T20 final against Brighton High. This on the back of their achievement of being ranked 3rd in the longer 40 Over competition for the summer season is a fantastic accomplishment.

Today we have held our annual House Athletics Sports day and what a ripper it has been. The weather was kind to us, and many personal bests have been witnessed and house spirit was the winner on the day.

But it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the overall victors... Douglas!

A huge thanks to Mark Heard and the canteen crew and Amanda Burgan and the P&F team for keeping us well fed and race ready or at least able to relax and enjoy the culinary delights as spectators.

There have, of course, been many other events to create and grow our dynamic campus life. Harmony week was a great success and Jenny Pham our Student Action Team leader put together a fun filled week of activities and we had a great student led assembly followed by Friyay! Students have organised quality speakers to present in various forums this term, including Peter Malinauskas leader of the State Labor Party, Sam Ackland entrepreneur and founder of Build Clean, Isobel Marshall Young Australian of the Year and Travis Head Australian cricketer. 

Congratulations to Year 11 student Winter Birkett who is an outstanding student and for the second year in a row has been selected for the State Debating Team. We will recognise Winter’s success early next term at our awards assembly.

But all good things must come to an end (or at least a short reprieve!) and after our Easter service next Thursday students and families will no doubt take a break from all things Scotch and enjoy the break! This term by any measure has been a great success for Torrens Park Campus students and staff. We are looking forward to returning and getting stuck back into all the activities that make this school a great one.

Thanks to all parents for your support of our endeavours – it was great to see so many of you on campus today. Have a safe and wonderful break!

Dale