Dear Parents and Guardians,

‘Sustainability – it’s a thing and it’s important’. That has been the theme at Newington this week, and the work of both boys and staff has enlightened us about what we are doing well, what we should be doing better and what we should not be doing at all. 

Sustainability co-ordinator Ms Cat Troncone provided some important insights about sustainability at the professional development day last week. Our senior boys hosted a Sustainability Conference on Tuesday evening with students from Marrickville High School, Kambala, PLC and Ascham, and we were privileged to have the Head of the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney, Professor Phil McManus, and the Sustainability Coordinator at UTS, Mr Seb Crawford, as guest speakers.

The topic was covered for all students at assembly on Wednesday.  Headmaster Mr Michael Parker addressed the boys and Woojin Lee (11/MO) and Oscar Liu (11/ME) then made sure we had been listening to their presentation about what can and can’t be recycled by asking Headmaster, Mr Quinane and me to tell the whole school what piece of rubbish went where.  Thankfully we passed the test with flying colours.  I believe the take home message from these events is “think global, act local”.

Some of our initiatives at the College include:

• Building management systems to turn air con and lighting on and off in classrooms
• The roll out of more efficient LED lighting
• Installation of solar panels on the Taylor Sports Centre
• More efficient heating and cooling systems

Our middle school production of Breaker Morant opens tonight.  Our Year 9 and 10 boys have spent hours rehearsing to perfect their performances.  Please come along tonight, tomorrow night or Saturday night to show your support.

Congratulations to our intermediate theatresports team who were successful in their recent finals and will now compete in the grand final on Sunday 23 June.  Good luck to our senior theatresports team who will compete in their final this Friday evening.

Saturday is the first round of the GPS Rugby and we are at home against Joeys.  During the day there will be a collection for promising rugby player Alex Noble, a student from Saint Ignatius’ College Riverview, who injured his spinal cord in a training session last year.  The collection is a student initiative – please support it if you can.

It has been another great week at Newington.