From Girls’ Boarding 

Makybe Edwards | Girls’ Boarding Captain & Alivia Sharples | Girls’ Boarding Vice Captain

We started with a very full house welcoming back new and old girls for the beginning of Term 1. With such large numbers, we introduced boarding family groups, where each senior girl was given the opportunity to lead a small group of girls across the different grades. With our families, we have been able to have a family night, sitting together at dinner, offering support and someone to chat to and we have plans to extend this to games nights and other activities throughout the year.

Throughout the course of this term, we have all been lucky enough to do many boarding activities such as the South East Queensland Boarding Schools Touch Football Competition at Marist College, going to the Warwick cinemas, a trip to Leslie Dam, ten pin bowling in Toowoomba, the Warwick Show, and many barbeques and activity days shared with the Boy Boarders. One of our main highlights of this term was watching everyone get involved with the Touch Football Competition in Brisbane which involved many boarding students – boys and girls – from different schools. It was a great opportunity to meet people from different schools and we hope to be able to do this again in the future.

To conclude this term, we celebrated Easter in-house with a variety of activities where the girls competed against other grades within the boarding house. Many laughs were had over the egg and spoon race and easter bonnet competition. We hope to continue the fun throughout this year, and we can’t wait to welcome the girls back in Term 2.

From Boys’ Boarding

Adrian Titus | Boys’ Boarding Captain & Hank Zammit | Boys’ Boarding Vice Captain

Term 1 in Boys’ Boarding Houses has been eventful, to say the least, with lots of activities, sports and spending time with our friends – both on weekend leave and at combined activities with the girl boarders. We started the term well with a great bonding activity between both boys’ and girls’ boarding houses in Toowoomba, taking on ten-pin bowling – a game of skill and expertise that gave everyone the chance to have a laugh and relax.

In Week 5, we held our first ‘Adopt a boarder’ weekend where almost all of our boy boarders went on leave with different families and friends. These weekends are really important to boarding students, as they give us a short break from the boarding house and allow us to get to know our friends outside of the school context. While we love our time in boarding, it’s nice to get out and spend time in a family environment.

Just recently in Week 8, both boarding houses went down to Brisbane to participate in an inter-school touch competition.  This was great fun for all age groups, especially the Opens boys team who experienced great success throughout the day, winning over teams like Churchie, Brisbane Grammar and Marist College.  This was perhaps a highlight for all of us – it was really enjoyable to get outside and have fun for the day. Our local Warwick Show provided a great way to end the term, with both boarding houses getting a chance to get out and experience the Show and spend time in our community.