Co-curricular Programs

Within the context of the School’s ethos, the Co-curricular Program is uniquely placed to offer a wide range of activities catering for a vast array of student interests, talents and needs. The Program aims to make a significant contribution to the full development of each student. The central aim of the Program is to broaden the development and interests of each student through the provision of a wide range of purposeful activities in; SPORT, LEADERSHIP and SERVICE, MUSIC, CREATIVE SPOKEN and PERFORMING ARTS, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and OUTDOOR EDUCATION.

• To foster and develop student leadership
• To develop a sense of belonging and school spirit
• To encourage and develop co-operation, responsibility and ‘team’ work
• To establish links with the wider community and develop relations with various groups
• To provide opportunities for parents, ex-parents and ex-students to contribute to the School
• To provide opportunities for students to achieve success in a wide range of areas
• To inspire students to strive for excellence in all areas of endeavour
• Pride and a sense of belonging to their school community

The Co-curricular Program continues to strengthen on the back of our weekly scheduled connect time. That is, every Thursday there is an in-school Co-curricular period. This continues to prove very popular with our students.

In light of the ‘learning from home’ situation during Term 2, Hills Grammar’s Distance Learning Co-curricular webpage was developed. Many of our suppliers and accessible resources allowed the School to implement a Co-curricular Program that could be delivered to students at home during the lockdown. Each newsletter saw a “Virtual Co-curricular” section which listed the top picks for continuing your Co-curricular passion at home during the learning from home phase.

The Co-curricular Department, along with PDHPE wanted to keep students active and motivated. Each student received a parcel in the mail from the Principal with their very own exercise equipment. K-2 students enjoyed a school skipping rope and students in Years 3-12 received a resistance exercise band (both with accompanying exercises). Staff uploaded instructional videos of them using the skipping ropes and exercise bands to challenge students and encourage ideas on how to use their equipment.

In an effort to share some of our school experiences with parents this term we created a different way to showcase our Co-curricular Program with our community. Parents and carers have enjoyed the display of artwork/photos during the afternoon pick up as part of our Co-curricular Drive Through Exhibition.

Featured in the exhibition were samples of the work done by your children in Co-curricular activities such as:

• Vege Patch
• STEM Basics
• Junior Chess Club
• Kids in the Kitchen
• Craft Club
• Lego Minds
• Kindergarten Co-curricular Program
• En Plein Air Art

The traditional Co-curricular Assembly was made into a 2020 Co-curricular Highlights video which students watched during their final Co-curricular Connect period for the year.

Leadership And Service Learning

The 2020 Student Leadership team have been enthusiastic in their efforts, planning several significant established and new events throughout the year only for COVID restrictions to stop them in their tracks. Guided by School Captains Jarrod Dearden and Madeline Kemp, and Vice-Captains Jessica Flynn and Dylan Tran, the Year 11 Leadership Team and SRC have handled the circumstances with grace.   

Outdoor Education

The School’s Outdoor Education Program is set in a variety of environments including alpine, coastal, inland river, bushland and urban. 

Outdoor Education encourages students to work together to develop leadership, problem-solving, resilience and inclusiveness; to learn the value of working towards a common goal and the concept of team. During camp week our students forged the bonds of friendship that often last a lifetime. 

Through the Outdoor Education Program, students learn about their strengths and weaknesses and how persistence in extending oneself can bring success in challenging situations. Our students embrace and develop their potential to create change in their own communities. 

Luckily, we managed to run our Outdoor Education program for most year groups in 2020 pre-Covid. Our Junior School Year groups who did not get to travel to camp in 2020 instead were treated with in-school programs run by Somerset Outdoor Education where students spent time at our outdoor kitchen and participating in team building and bushcraft activities.

Music

The Music Department has continued to provide a range of performance opportunities for students in both Junior and Senior Schools during 2020. The vast majority of concerts moved online via Zoom in Term 2 in both the Senior School and our Junior Instrumental Program concerts. This continued into Term 3 with online events for Years 11 and 12. In Term 4, we had a raft of concerts with the Years 2, 3, 4 and 5 Instrumental Programs, all of which were delivered online to our ever-patient but still enthusiastic audience, some of whom have joined us for the first time from overseas destinations at all hours of the day and night. Our musicians in Years 7 and 9 have were featured in Term 4 with two Live@5 concerts featuring a range of solo and small ensemble items. The music staff have assisted in keeping this aspect of our school life going through difficult circumstances and we will be looking into ways of combining our modes of delivery for the future, which is very exciting. During 2020 when singing in groups was not possible, students also learned the National Anthem in Auslan - acquiring a new skill they may otherwise never have had the opportunity to learn.

Sport

2020 had promised so much, after such a successful few years in the sporting arena for our Hills Grammar teams across both the Junior and Senior school. However, like all schools, our momentum was seriously halted due to Covid–19.

Where possible we amended the program, and it was pleasing to still be able to allow our students to participate in all three major carnivals. We also had teams participating towards the end of year in the local Hills Zone primary and secondary competitions. Our Hills Grammar Sport clubs were able to get in a full season of netball and football and basketball has started its season and is running at normal capacity.

Our highlights for the 2020 year go right back to December 2019, where our Under 15 boys’ volleyball team competed at the National Volleyball championships. This tournament happens in the week after all other students have broken up for the year. It is a strenuous week with up to three games each day, culminating in finals on the weekend. The boys tested themselves in Division 1 and in an amazing show of fightback qualified for the final against one of the very large Queensland schools. With a home crowd advantage for their opponents, it proved to be test of mental and physical strength, and very pleasingly the boys won in three sets to take the Gold Medal, a first for Hills Grammar at this level. 

Congratulations to all students and staff who were involved in our club sport this year, it was a huge shift for everyone involved to comply with Covid- 19 protocols for training and matches and the entire community including parents are to be commended for their approach to the situation knowing that it was for the benefit of the kids being able to participate and enjoy their sport in a safe environment. Both our netball and football clubs were very close to playing a full season of matches and we had some excellent results in both clubs. Our under 17 netball team went through the season undefeated on the back of last season’s premiership and our under 14 boys football team qualified for the grand final, only narrowly going down 2-0.

The Football club continues to develop at the grassroots level with our T3 program growing in numbers and a large proportion of the club now involved in the summer program as well. Our T3 development teams have been competitive in higher divisions of the local competition, and it is inevitable that we will start to see some of these students go on to higher representation in years to come.

Our basketball club has been able to start up for the 2021 summer season and after all finals were cut short last summer season, it is hoped that we can see all teams get a full season, including some finals appearances, at the end of Term 1 next year.

In Term 1 this year our Intermediate touch football girls entered the Barker Invitational competition, and after some indifferent results to start the competition, the girls then committed to training and started to get some excellent results. This led to a grand final appearance against Mt St Benedict’s and our girls were victorious to take out the title. This group of girls are really improving and are now playing in the HZSA school competition.

Our touch football program continues to grow, and we have now established the Hills Grammar Touch Football Academy, which is being coordinated by our own Mr Good, current Australian Touch Football Men’s Team captain. Having his expertise available to our students is a huge advantage and any students interested in Touch football are strongly encouraged to join the program next year.

The Hills Zone competitions for both our primary and senior teams is providing a great opportunity for a number of our students. We have had to run trials for all of these teams, and it has resulted in all of our teams being very competitive in football, touch, basketball and Futsal. It is hoped that in the coming weeks a few of our teams can finish off 2020 with final appearances.

We look forward to seeing sport return to normal next year and being able to provide a much wider range of opportunities than what we did this year.

STEM

Our after-school STEM program continued to grow as students from K-6 enjoyed Young Engineers and our Co-curricular Connect program saw several STEM based groups run at maximum numbers across Years 1-12. STEM activities were posted online in our Virtual Co-curricular page to keep students engaged throughout the Distance Learning period.

Creative, Spoken and Performing Arts

Debating students were involved in a National Debating Competition via Zoom - challenging teams from all over Australia – an experience they may never have had in a ‘normal’ school year! 

Drama performances were filmed, live-streamed and zoomed to the school community.