Music

Congratulations to Dominic Longhurst (10/JN) (featured) who over Easter was again awarded the Junior Brass Champion of Champions at the National Band Championship Solos in Melbourne. This is the second year in a row that Dominic has won the competition. He also placed third out of 18 contestants in the Open Cornet event with a score of 94.

Athletics

Winning gold at the AAGPS Carnival wasn’t enough for Morgan McDonald (11/MO), who has been selected in the National Under 17 Athletics Development Squad for 2012. Morgan will train under the auspices of the AIS throughout the year, aiming towards selection into a national squad to compete internationally next year!

Theatresports

Last week, Newington’s Intermediate A Theatresports Team performed in Heat Number 7 of the Theatresports Schools Challenge. Held in the Old Chapel, the heat consisted of eight schools from the Inner West and surrounding area, including St Joseph’s College, Newtown Performing Arts High School and Sydney Secondary College—Leichhardt and Balmain. Newington performed extremely well, placing second overall.

Whether it was exterminating an infestation of insects, taking samples from a volcano or telling the tale of a superhero who had given up hope, we all had a great time improvising in front of a large audience.

A highlight for us was the ‘Commercial’ challenge in which the team was given a random product, and then asked to improvise an advertisement for it. In our case it was a ‘fur car’ and this proved to be both an enjoyable and difficult challenge.

Our second placing means that we are through to the semi-finals of the Theatresports Schools Challenge, and we look forward to seeing many Newington boys there!

Erol Gorur (10/LE)

Geography

Last month, several of the Year 9 and 10 Elective Geography students took part in the Annual National Geographic Australian Geography Competition, run by the Geographical Society of Queensland. It is a nationwide competition involving many multiple choice questions, testing the students’ basic skills and advanced knowledge in the field of geography. Over 80,000 students nationwide took part in this years’ competition and it is with great pride that we can report that two Newington student received placings in the  competition. Erol Gorur (10/LE) has come equal fourth in the NSW Intermediate level and Yianni Van Gelder (10/MA) has been declared State champion. Yianni will now attend the National final to be recorded on the National Geographic Channel at Foxtel Studios, North Ryde on 18 July. If Yianni is successful, he will represent Australia at the World Championships in St Petersburg, Russia in July 2013. The students’ impressive performances have seen Newington ranked sixth in Australia in the Australian Geography Competition and I’m sure we as a school community will get behind Yianni and wish him all the best for his upcoming final.

Australian Under 20 Rugby

Congratulations to Hugh Roach (ON ’10), Apolosi Latinipulu (ON ’10) and Alan Alaalatoa (ON ’11) on their selection in the Australian Under 20 Rugby Squad. The team will contest the IRB Junior World Cup in South Africa in June this year. All three of our boys were members of our GPS Championship winning rugby team which was undefeated in 2010. Hugh and Apo were also members of the 2011 Australian Under 20 team which contested the IRB Junior World Cup in Italy last year.