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
- To provide opportunities for excellence in all areas of endeavour
- Appreciation of democratic processes and an ability to contribute to the development of society.
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 proved very popular with our students.
Along with this, the implementation of a Co-curricular Holiday Program was well received by the Hills Grammar community. This resulted in holiday programs such as Art Camp, Coding Camp, Chess Academy, Cooking workshop and NIDA Drama Camp being held on-site at the school, whilst other offerings such as baseball camp, BMX camp, surf camp and mountain bike camp are held at outside venues
Leadership and Servce Learning
Leadership and Service has established an extensive set of activities and experiences for students aimed at developing and extending 21st Century leadership skills. We are confident that the program will prepare students for life beyond school, setting them apart from the ordinary.
Outdoor Education
This year we saw the completion of the Outdoor Kitchen and can now become a home for outdoor education day programs. The kitchen is surrounded by beautiful flora and fauna. This creates a wonderful backdrop to teach the younger children about Australia’s diverse bushland. Now we can finish with afternoon tea and taste some wonderful damper which the students have made themselves.
Music
The Music Co-curricular Program provided opportunities for a wide range of students, including instrumental and choral ensembles, in both junior and senior schools in 2019. All music ensembles rehearse in the out-of-hours program and worked towards performances at events including the Annual Music Showcase, held at the end of Term 2, the Term 4 Music Ensembles Concert and the Annual Presentation of Awards. Students in Years 5-11 were also invited to take part in the Senior Music Camp in Term 4, which catered for approximately 65 students. A group of 21 students and 3 staff also took part in the 2019 HICES Music Festival Years 5-8 and Jazz Academy where both Owen Nelson and Eric Hutchens were involved in leadership positions.
In 2019, there were 13 instrumental ensembles and 5 choral ensembles involving approximately 185 students, many of whom were members of multiple ensembles. These groups were conducted and directed by a combination of academic music staff and music tutors. In 2019, there were 10 staff involved on a weekly basis taking between 1 and 3 ensembles. All rehearsals were held in the music department, with multiple groups rehearsing at the same time. The busiest session is on Friday morning between 7:45am and 8:30am where there are three instrumental ensembles rehearsing in Mu2, Mu3 and Mu5 that cater for between 60 and 80 students.
An annual survey was implemented in 2018 that was modified and distributed to parents towards the end of Term 4, 2019. Below is a selection of comments from the survey:
‘Have been at various schools and Hills Grammar should be proud of the high standards and quality of the music program.’
‘It is good for junior school students (Years 4-6) to have the opportunity to attend performances of the senior school students.’
‘Enjoying the high standard and quality of the performances. A reflection of the music education excellence upheld by the music staff at Hills Grammar.’
Constructive feedback was also received, including suggestions regarding communication of information, repertoire selection and program organisation that will be taken into consideration in the future.
Sport
2019 has proven to be a very busy year in sport, with a number of notable performances in both individual and team sports.
A new and improved sporting competition was implemented within the Hills Zone Sports Association and this has, in turn, provided a more competitive and structured competition for our primary school students. The new format allowed our school to implement trials and training within our own sports program and this kicked off in Term 1 with close to 60 boys trialling for the competitive football teams. Our girls netball was also hotly contested with only one team being selected across both Year 5 and 6.
This competition for positions transferred into the Year 3 and 4 teams. All four teams from Years 3-6 made the grand final and our boys football teams were successful in winning their competitions.
In Semester 2 a similar format was adopted, with the sports on offer being basketball, touch football and AFL. Again through a trial process and regular training we were successful in making the grand final in three of the four sports, with our Year 3 and 4 basketball teams, and our Year 5 and 6 boys touch football. Both the girls basketball and boys touch football won their competitions.
At the start of the year it was a strategic goal to improve our positioning in the overall standing of the HZSA Association schools overall points table. I’m pleased to say that we actually won the shield for the first time ever. Out of a possible 8 Division 1 grand finals Hills Grammar qualified for seven of those grand finals, and ended up winning four out of seven. Not only was our effort to playing and training above average, but we also had the best support out of any school, with the final of the basketball replicating a NBA crowd with the noise and excitement of the rest of Year 3 and 4 who attended, which creating an awesome sense of school spirit.
Congratulations to all students and the teachers who took on the role of coaching, notably Mr Price, Mr Good, Ms Pearce, Ms Midson, Mr Johnson. We also had a number of student coaches, who gave up their lunchtimes to train teams.
In recognition of the school's achievement, Hills Grammar won the Jessica Clarke Shield for the champion school in the Hills Zone Sporting Association for 2019.
The change of culture of competitive sport that has been building for a few years, pleasingly transferred into our senior school students this year, and for the first time in a number of years we felt competitive enough to enter teams into the HZSA weekly futsal competition, having a Year 9-12 team and a Year 7 and 8 team. Whilst the older boys were in a very tough division A, they still managed to be competitive during the season and finished 5th overall. Our Year 7 and 8 team qualified for the final in Division A, a special note goes to the boys for their weekly commitment to training and to their coaches Mr O’Neil and Mr Muir.
Our school netball had an amazing year with the introduction of the Netball Fast 5 during the Co-curricular period and we saw a rise in interest particularly from the boys for netball this year. In May we entered the local schools' cup and flooded the competition with more than ten teams. We had a number of successes with three teams going onto the next stage of the competition, our Year 8 boys team then won the Sydney regional tournament qualifying them for the state championships. On this day the boys made the final only to go down by 5 goals to a very tall team from Lismore.
The netball club that plays in the weekly Saturday competition also had a successful season, after a successful 2018, most teams went up a division and with two teams making grand finals this year we continue to improve as a club, with the girls playing in a stronger association, as a club we are very competitive. Congratulations to the Under 17 girls who comprehensively won their grand final on the day.
The football club continues to develop new programs that improve the skill and development of our players and coaches. This year we had close to 10 senior students either involved in coaching or refereeing and we are proud to say that we are upskilling our students and providing them with skills and work opportunities whilst at school and development as an individual for when they leave school.
The most pleasing initiative being the introduction of the T3 Academy, this academy is designed to foster the development of those students who want a serious pathway in their football career, with training in the offseason and competitive games against other academies and then following up with the entering of teams in the local division one competition we see this as a great way of being able to attract more players to the club but also look to keep our talented players who might otherwise look to go elsewhere as they get older.
The basketball program seems to be going through a golden patch with a number of students playing for the first time and joining the club, this has transferred to some very competitive teams and last year we had two teams win their local competitions. As previously mentioned our primary teams have dominated the HZSA competition and both the Year 3 and 4 team have won their respective competitions. Josh Hill in Year 8 has continued to represent at the highest level for Hills Hornets and our senior basketball team were again the HZSA champions but this year went onto win the AICES championships, becoming the best AICES school in the state, this qualified them for a top-four shoot out against the other associations, our game was against Riverview college the champions of the GPS competition. Although not winning, we proved that our school can match it with these larger independent schools and for the first time ever we had our school ranked as 4th in the state for all schools.
For the first time in close to ten years we entered a team into a NSW schools event in fencing, and Brent Mei finished a very credible 6th. Our fencers continue to grow with their expertise under the guidance of our master of fencing Andrew Szurdanzki and we are hoping to see more students join the program in years to come.
The equestrian riders again continue to represent the school with skill and poise in different carnivals during the year. Jess Callus representing at the Nationals again proves that despite moving into the senior school she is proving to be a very talented rider against older competitors.
The school continues to look to provide new opportunities to our students and this year we are pleased to say that we were able to offer rowing for a small group of students, at this stage we have had students travelling out to Nepean rowing club to try out the sport and we are hoping that as interest grows we will start to enter competitions against other schools. It’s a small step in what could be become a very popular sport for our students.
Our boys and girls volleyball teams continue to impress in the schools' cup gala days and our boys again were very successful during the season winning one championship and placing in two others, this again has seen them qualify for the national schools competition. At the Nationals, the boys were entered into Division 1 and after a gruelling week of competition, the boys went onto win the Gold medal, a first for the school and an extraordinary achievement at a National competition. Kynan Leong and Yuji Hashimoto both represented NSW and CIS and a number of the other boys are now playing competitively for their clubs and representing their local association.
Touch football grew this year particularly amongst our girls and it was pleasing to see the girls entered into the Barker invitational competitions and competing in the NSW schools gala days, and the local Hills Hornets competitions, each year we attract more players and we will look to continue to grow the touch football among our girls and boys in the coming years.
In the pool, Felicity Chan continued her success by winning Gold medals at the state championships, breaking records for the 50m and 100m breaststroke and a new record in the relay.
Her commitment to swimming during her school life has been above and beyond and we wish her all the best as she starts to extend her career after school.
Another individual with rare talent is Rebecca Hancock; it's not often that a school can say that we have a world champion athlete and that is what Rebecca is for sailing.
Our cross country runners again were very competitive and under the tutelage of Mr Donaldson we had students representing CIS and competing at AICES, HICES and CIS athletics carnivals for middle-distance events. We introduced a new athletics coach and Maddie Smith was a very enthusiastic teacher to our Junior School students in particular and we were able to again have some outstanding results. Caitlin Russell placed 4th at CIS and Daniel Zhang represent at NSW PSSA athletics for 100m sprints.
Connor Hendriks represented NSW for hockey and also represented at a number of other carnival and individual events, showing that he is very much an all-round sportsman.
The Co-curricular Program continues to offer sports in its weekly Thursday session and students are able to get a taste of different sports which is starting to lead to more students interested in different sports, our dance groups continue to grow and we now have external sessions, with students competing in local eisteddfods during the year.
We attracted 33 students to attend the Fiji sports tour next year and we will compete in netball and football whilst having a cultural experience that the students will never forget.
There never seems to be a day or week that there is not a gala day, or an event that our students are competing in and therefore it shows the breadth of the sports department that caters for all students across the School. We will look to provide as many opportunities as possible for both boys and girls
We look forward to seeing as many students back on the courts, ovals, in the pools, on the track, where ever it might be competing or participating in some form of sporting activity in 2020.
STEM
2019 saw a surge in the popularity of STEM activities both during the Co-curricular Connect Period and in the after school Co-curricular Program. The year saw the introduction of Lego Minds where students use Lego to problem-solve real-life experiences. Coding Club and Science Clubs continued to fill up fast, with students eager to explore how the world works. The Junior School students were especially keen to increase their exposure to STEM-related activities and 2019 saw the introduction of STEM Basics for Year 1 and 2 along with the commencement of Young Engineers, our after school STEM program that uses Lego as a base to demonstrate scientific and coding concepts.
Creative, Spoken and Performing Arts
In 2019, highlights in Drama included the Senior Drama Ensemble production of The Tempest and the Junior Drama Ensemble’s production of Luke Lloyd- Alienoid. Both plays featured strong casts made up from different year groups and demonstrated just how well an ensemble of students can work together to create interesting and exciting plays. The Tempest was a real high point, with strong performances from Year 12 students, including Jasmine Mandla as Prospera and Rebecca Hancock as Miranda. Lachie Neville, Melanie Dobson and Damian Hempstead were outstanding as the three clowns.
In debating we were able to send eight teams to compete in the HICES Debating Championships. Five of the Hills Grammar teams went on to get through to the final rounds. Two Hills Grammar teams represented at Ipsha Debating and performed extremely well.
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