August, 2024

After months of preparations and hard work, the 2024 College Musical “Mamma Mia!” wowed audiences over five sold out performances with each show receiving an enthusiastic standing ovation from rapturous audiences. 

The Marnkutyi Parirna Theatre once again proved to be an outstanding venue for the cast, crew and orchestra to create a truly unique whole College event. The show was an explosion of colour and sound that featured a host of energetic dance sequences and memorable tunes that had audience members toe tapping along and cheering for more.

The cast of 43 students was well supported by a 13-piece student orchestra conducted by Emma Knights and direction of the extravaganza was by Kristy Triantafilakis and Melanie Lavis. Choreography was provided by old scholar Caley Watt (2018).

The production has received an outstanding independent review from Brian Godfrey, for the Theatre Association of South Australia who attended the Saturday night performance.

“I think it says a lot about Trinity College and its students and staff when an absolutely full house give the production a well-deserved standing ovation. Oh, and the Encore is well worth the price of admission on its own.” Read the full review here. 

Congratulations to everyone involved in the 2024 production, you should all be pleased and proud to have created such a successful, entertaining and memorable show. Special thanks also to all the teachers, parents and wider community who contributed to such a fabulous musical!

Trinity College has retained the overall Intercol trophy against rivals St Michael’s College, courtesy of a 3.5 to 2.5 edge in Open sports this year. 

Final results were:

• Open Boys Basketball – Win
• First XVIII Boys Football – Loss
• Open Girls Football – Loss
• Open Girls Netball – Tie
• Open Girls Soccer – Win
• First XI Boys Soccer – Win

Coming into the contest, St Michael’s were favourites in four of the six first-team games to be played. St Michael’s has enjoyed strong seasons in First XI Boys Soccer, First XVIII Boys Football and Open Girls Football. By contrast, Trinity has struggled in their respective season, with less impressive results. Additionally, the St Michael’s Open Girls Netball Team has made the final four in the state-wide knockout competition, having defeated Trinity comfortably along the way and their basketball team made the SAAS semi-finals for the first time in over a decade. The only unknown first-team match-up was in Open Girls Soccer. For the first time in several years, the Intercol trophy looked to be heading to St Michael’s.

Thank you to all the coaches of the teams and the players for the manner in which they competed, as well as coordinators for their help in organising the day. Thanks also to the staff who brought their classes out to watch the action, it definitely created a wonderful atmosphere. A big shout-out to the Trinity College facilities team for the wonderful surfaces we get to play on. Truly the best around.

The Trinity College Open A Boys Basketball Team are SAAS A1 Champions after a strong 57 to 46 victory over a talented Concordia College team on Saturday 17 August.

It was all about the Trinity defence, as they scrambled and disrupted Concordia's patterns to create a 20-point lead in the second quarter, courtesy of some sublime long-range shooting by game Most Valuable Play (MVP) Jordan Durant (18 points) and strong inside work from Deng Manyang.

Concordia didn't wilt however and created enough pressure to force a series of Trinity turnovers to come storming back in the third. The pressure continued to mount on Trinity, who could not find a decent shot into the fourth quarter and suddenly, it was a six-point game with seven minutes to go and Concordia had all the momentum. Timely buckets from Talon Bomford, Shabani Kuyomba and Durant's fifth three-pointer created enough breathing space in the dying minutes to secure Trinity's fifth A1 SAAS title in eight years.

The Open A Team will now move to the State Knockout Tournament quarter finals against last year's champions Glenunga International High School - a formidable challenge.

Congratulations to Mr Clausen and the team of Deng Manyang (Year 11), Jordan Durant (Year 12), Shabani Kuyomba (Year 11), Talon Bomford (Year 11), Michael Herjok (Year 11), Duot Bul (Year 12), Josh Louis (Year 10), Josh Brawn (Year 10), Sseko Waswani (Year 11), Guet Deng (Year 11), Jamieson Schouten (Year 12) and Mach Kuol (Year 12).

Source: Rupert Sapwell, Director of Sports

A group of Year 11 Agriculture students (and 10 merino sheep) recently travelled to the Copper Triangle to compete against local schools from Yorke Peninsula at the annual Copper Coast Show. The first time the College has competed in this competition.

The students participated in Handlers' Class, where they were assessed on their ability to handle and show sheep. They also took part in a Junior Judging Competition, where they were evaluated on their ability to judge sheep.

In the Handlers' Class, seven of our students made it to the final heat out of approximately 40 competitors and three students reached the top five. Sam Rough placed fifth, Ethan Hite placed fourth and Lachlan Oldfield placed third, receiving a ribbon.

In the Junior Judging Competition, four of our students made the top six. Unfortunately, we missed out on ribbons, achieving fourth, fifth and sixth place. These students were Eve Stoakes, Eliza Roeger and Courtney Jacka. Despite this, if it came down to numbers, we were still successful.

Evelyn Scheffers, Sian Sumner, Jake Adkins and Sienna Halling were also involved and did a tremendous job handling and judging. Fred James (Year 12) and Luca Manno (Year 9) also assisted throughout the day and competed in the Cattle Junior Judging Competition.

Well done to all participants for their outstanding efforts and for representing the College so superbly. 

Source: Chad Ramsey, Head of Agriculture

On Saturday 17 August almost 600 old scholars, parents, current and former staff, volunteers and friends of Trinity gathered in the Adelaide Convention Centre for an uplifting community dinner to celebrate the College’s 40th Birthday. 

Festivities kicked off with a medley of ABBA songs and a high energy dance performance by cast members of the 2024 Whole College Musical – Mamma Mia! The students set the tone for a fantastic celebration and were followed by international cabaret royalty and old scholar Libby O’Donovan (OAM) - an alumnus from the Class of 1993, who injected real energy into the party with her performance of the Tina Turner hit Simply the Best followed by the Cyndi Lauper classic Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! all while being ably supported by the band All Soul’d Out that also includes a number of old scholars. The energetic performance had guests on their feet and dancing within minutes. 

Social media accounts had plenty of content thanks to a number of photo booths, with a 360-spin camera capturing much of the fun. Guests also had the opportunity to reminisce as they wondered through an archival photo display as well as enjoying (in keeping with the birthday theme) the talents of some roaming balloon artists. 

A particular special highlight of the evening was the presentation of the inaugural winners of the Trinity College Old Scholar Lighthouse Award. Established this year, the award seeks to acknowledge and celebrate the diverse talents and achievements (both professional and personal) of our past students. The award recognises significant contributions made by old scholars in their local or global community within their field of work including entrepreneurial, business or academic achievement, in community service or for their ability to provide inspiration to current and future students.

Inaugural recipients are Glenn Docherty (Class of 2001) for impact in the field of local leadership, Sheree Sullivan (Class of 1995) for impact in the field of entrepreneurship at a state and national level, The Reverend David MacGillivray (Class of 1996) for impact through living their faith in the Trinity community and Libby O'Donovan OAM (Class of 1993) for impact through the arts at a national and international level. Read their full citations here. 

Guests also had the opportunity to purchase raffle tickets to win one of seven donated prizes. Over $5,000 was raised through raffle sales, all of which will go towards supporting the Trinity College Foundation Spirit of Trinity Fund that supports students in a tangible way to continue their schooling at Trinity College. 

The evening was a stunning success and we thank all in the Trinity College community who supported the event!

Platinum Sponsor

Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

Bronze Sponsor

On Wednesday 14 August, Sarah Cowburn (Year 12), Daniel Hlinak and Logan Phillips (Year 11) joined other students from the northern suburbs of Adelaide to participate in a leadership seminar presented by Mr Tony Piccolo MP Member for Light at Parliament House. 

Three guest speakers addressed the group; Dr Rodrigo Praino, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, spoke about democracy and its inner-workings, local lawyer Natasha Jones discussed how to solve and deal with difficult problems and, political process advocate Lauren Conceicao spoke about how to make a difference within the political process.

The seminar builds on the leadership programs schools have developed and introduces real-world experiences from political issues to showcase different avenues students can take to solve problems.

The students were able to engaged with the speakers, learn new skills and gather ideas for future pathways. 

Trinity College won the 2024 Best STEM Programme in Australia at the Australian Education Awards held in Sydney on Friday 9 August. 

This award recognises the most outstanding STEM-based project or education program implemented by a school in Australia during the 2023 academic year.  When judging this category, the following criteria is considered:

• Demonstrated school leadership and support of STEM education.
• Consistently high standards of STEM teaching.
• Staff participation in professional learning and collaboration to improve STEM education. 
• Evidence of student engagement and outcomes in the 2023 school year.

The Trinity College STEM Programme is called – SPARK. The curriculum spans Early Years to Year 10 and is committed to creating holistic STEM experiences that foster lifelong learning, incorporates innovative technologies and illustrates how the union of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics will drive future innovation and change.   Incorporated within the SPARK Programme is an immersive 5-day experience for students in Year 7. 

The SPARK curriculum is strategically structured as a learning continuum, ensuring that at each developmental stage the program;

• develops inquiry skills, digital literacy, computational thinking and creativity;
• aligns with the Digital Technologies National Curriculum;
• promotes cross-curricular connections; and
• empowers a collaborative learning community amongst educators. 

Establishing a professional learning exchange across Trinity College, The University of South Australia and the wider education community is what makes the SPARK program rigorous, innovative and impactful.  To promote wide-spread STEM teaching and learning, professional development is strategically scheduled and staff are invited to co-construct learning objectives, experiences and team teach with College STEM leaders. 

The SPARK Programme is evidence based and informs contemporary educational research. Student self-reported attitudes towards STEM subjects are regularly measured by researchers from the University of South Australia. Over the past 12 months, the lead STEM educators at the College have presented the following professional development opportunities to local and national audiences:

• Assessment Design in the Age of AI.
• Promoting Creativity and Critical Thinking with AI.
• Creative Communication with A.I.
• Integrating Technology authentically across the Middle School curriculum.
• STEM Educator Series.
• Curriculum Mapping: A Cross curricular approach.

The SPARK Programme has had wide-spread impact on the way technology is embedded by staff across the College. By strategically prioritising collaborative planning and staff professional development, there has been increased teacher capacity, enabling STEM opportunities to evolve beyond the SPARK curriculum.  For example, Virtual Reality creation and drone flying is now regularly utilised in Geography, Artificial Intelligence supports creatively communication in Science and 3D Modelling is applied in Mathematics to assess student learning of probability concepts. See a full list of national winners here.

A number of Trinity College ensembles competed at the annual Balaklava Eisteddfod in August. It was a wonderful day with our students achieving some outstanding results!

The Gawler River Middle School Choir received second place in the intermediate section and the North Vocal Ensemble received an Honorary Mention. Congratulations to all the students and to Tricia Hart and Steph Cole for their hard work preparing their choirs. 

The Blakeview and Gawler River Junior Choirs performed in the workshop section and were involved in a wonderful learning experience on stage. Thanks to Amanda Cox for giving this opportunity to the students who all performed beautifully.

The Jazz Vocal Ensemble performed in the highly competitive and large senior division achieving second place. A remarkable result given the exceptionally high standard amongst competitors. 

While the Wind Quintet did not win a place, the students gave a fantastic performance that received wonderful comments from the adjudicator.  

Of special note the Senior Clarinet Ensemble continued their winning streak taking out first place in the Senior Instrumental Ensemble section as well as being awarded the Champion Ensemble Trophy for the best ensemble of the day!

Congratulations to all the students and staff for their amazing work leading up to the event and during the competition.

Source: Kristy Triantafilakis, Director of Performing Arts

Former Olympic cyclist and bronze medalist Alex Porter visited Trinity College on Wednesday 7 August to speak with students about his experiences as an elite athlete as well as host a workshop for student leaders. 

Alex shared with students his journey to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 where he won a bronze medal. While his path to the Olympics was exceptionally challenging, Alex shared that one of his darkest days actually occurred during the 4000m men’s team pursuit qualification, when the handlebars of his bike snapped at around 1200 metres and he crashed into the floor of the velodrome at 75km/h suffering friction burns to his face, arms and legs and only narrowly avoiding more serious injury. 

After he passed a concussion test the team was allowed a second attempt at qualifying only 20 minutes after the accident but, the shock of the incident, combined with the distance they had already ridden meant they finished fifth in qualification and their gold medal dream was over. Despite this major and unexpected setback, Alex and the team rallied and went on to win the bronze, the highest medal possible after their fifth place in qualifying and the only track cycling medal Australia would win at Tokyo.

Alex spoke to students about how to be the best version of themselves in the classroom, the sporting field and at home and that while unexpected obstacles and setbacks can and will occur, not to give up and keep working towards their goals.  

Students responded positively to Alex’s message and were intrigued by his personal story and how it might apply to them.

Alex also had the opportunity to meet a group of students participating in the College LAP Program who for the past three weeks, have held their own LAPlympics. The students have engaged in various events together building their connections, relationships, resilience, creativity and teamwork among other skills. They were excited to have the opportunity to ask Alex questions before a group photo.

All the students and staff send their thanks to Alex for being such an inspiring athlete and presenter!