Victorian Snowsports Interschool Champions

Congratulations to our St Catherine’s students who competed in the House and Interschool Snowsports program this year. Our competitors were crowned Champion Senior Girls School and Champion Junior Girls School at the Victorian Interschool Snowsports Championship at Mt Buller last week. Our Senior School has held onto the overall Secondary School Championship since 2014!

Victoria Senior Girls Champions

This was a phenomenal achievement for the girls. They all competed with great determination and a fulfilling sense of team spirit, unified in their St Catherine’s blue uniforms. The strength of our team and the winning results are a direct result of the girls’ ability to compete across a range of disciplines: Skiing, Snowboarding and Cross Country, all contributing points towards our School’s overall total. The wins by our Junior School crowned Victorian Primary Girls Champions and our Senior School crowned Victorian Senior Girls Champions were described by many as ‘punching well above our weight.’

Victoria Junior Girls Champions

Thank you to our Senior School Snowsports Captains Arabella Hall and Pippa (Pippi) Shergold, and the Junior School Snowsports Captains Camilla Aberdeen and Annika Gill for their leadership and support of their fellow competitors across the season. Thanks also go to the significant parent support provided through our Snowsports Auxiliary.  

As is the case in many junior sports, ensuring the logistics and safety of the competitions relies heavily on the volunteerism of many parents. The cold conditions experienced at Mt Buller do not necessarily invite a plentiful supply of volunteers – so thank you to those willing and generous parents who participated.  

The Snowsports Auxiliary also provide a wonderful connection point on the mountain for new families to the sport and the Snowsports Swap has a wonderful tradition established over many years, ensuring growing children can be clothed and equipped with ski gear at less than retail price. Once again, it has been a wonderful season for the School and great to see the competition return after the COVID induced hiatus. We look forward to building on the success of this year under the guidance of Mr Tom Crebbin and Ms Oliva Cody. Olivia provides a wonderful summary of the individual and team successes during Interschools in her Blue Ribbon report here.

We wish the students who are travelling to Mt Perisher for the National Championships the very best in their respective competitions. 

To view a comprehensive gallery of images from the Snowsports Championships click here.

Fathers’ Day

It was a pleasure to welcome over 150 attendees to the 2022 Father Daughter Breakfast, celebrated this year at the Royal South Yarra Tennis Club. Guest Speaker, Mr Kevin Sheedy AO, regaled the audience with many stories from his long career in the AFL.  

As the author of seven books, Sheedy drew upon his many interviews and conversations with Australia’s sporting greats during his keynote address. Keen to inspire the student audience, he drew our attention to conversations and the achievements of Ashleigh Barty AO, Jessica Watson OAM, and Michelle Payne OAM encouraging all to be suitably impressed with their remarkable accomplishments that have inspired and shaped his own views and values. Most notably, Sheedy wrote the book: Football’s Women: The Forgotten Heroes in 1998 and some 25 years after it was first published, footy for girls is the fastest growing sport in Australia today.  

Kevin Sheedy has arguably one of the most enduring and imaginative minds in the history of the Australian Football League. Whilst he weaved away from some key questions about topical coaching contracts, he entertained us all with good humour and positive messages for the girls to ensure a positive attitude to all their endeavours. 

I wish all fathers and grandfathers in our School community a wonderful day on Sunday. At the Breakfast this week, I drew on the research of author and journalist, Madonna King, author of Ten-Ager and recently released, Thirteen. 

King shares her research from interviewing over 3,000 students, teachers, principals, and parents to highlight the complexity of the father-daughter relationship. Girls look to ‘take on’ their dad’s intellectually, all while trying to work out how their mind works and what values they are establishing. In many ways, young girls are simply thinking aloud.  

The Thinking Agenda at St Catherine’s certainly instils in our students the need to have convictions, to analyse different sides of an argument, to find supporting evidence and then prosecute it with passion and clarity within the school context, in debating and public speaking. Our St Catherine’s dads are also encouraged to engage in this dialogue, and whilst the girls should be respectful within the exchange, their willingness to ‘take on’ dad intellectually is to be enjoyed as an opportunity to assist in shaping their values as young people. 

You can also access and download photos via MyPhotos – Click here to enjoy an image gallery from the Breakfast event.