1983 School Magazine

T{EAD GTRL REPORT SENTESTER 2 Schootr resurned on July 12 th for second semester after three weeks of glorious holiday, during which many successful tours were held. These included the combined music tour to north Queensland and two holiday trips to New Zealand and Japan. Most of this first week was spent reminiscing over the holidays and gearing ourselves for a busy second semester. A successful demonstration meeting of the Zenith Club was held on the evening of Friday the 15th. The usefulness of this type of club in a secondary school was very evident, as the standard of speaking was high and nervousness kept to a minimum. The winter fixtures started the next morning and all competing girls had been training hard and their efforts were shown in the winning results aginst St. Hilda's.

At the end of July, twenty senior girls were selected to attend extension science lectures run by the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. These were held at Boys' Grammar with several other schools attending and, over the three mornings of lectures, much was gained in discussion and friendship. Once again the weekend of July 30th brought many sporting matches against Clayfield, but we were also represented in the trnter-Regional Basketball Championships, in which we performed creditably. Those of us who find the intricacies of numbers and theorems interesting were rewarded when the results of the Australian Mathematics Competition were announced. B.G.G.S. received three major prizes, aid 63Vo of our students were awarded a credit or distinction certificate. Four of our Year 8 students also proceeded to the second round of the Mathematics Quiz, and all these results seem to be a fitting tribute to our hard working mathernatics staff. A science survey was heid in the week beginning lst August as our school was randomly chosen to help provide the necessary statistics to improve science teaching in the future. .Another Maths cornpetition was held on the Saturday of this week, with one team of our senior Maths 2 students dispiaying their cornputer skills. Each week of this term our school numbers were depleted as every Year 9 class ieft for one week of canoeing through rapids, hiking through a sea of mud and other "fun". Fortunately they have all arrived back unharmed and hopefully better for their experiences. On the Saturday of the l3th August the Grammar Geriatrics played our A Grade hockey team and many old injuries were re-discovered during the gruelling match. F{owever a barbecue afterwards lifted everyone's spitits and finished an enjoyable morning. The following Monday the hockey players trosted pupils from the English Oakharn school, who were touring Australia to celebrate their 400th anniversary. trt really made us feel inferior to know that thei school was operating before Captain Cook discovered Australia. Ferhaps this was why we were defeated in the hockey match in the afternoon.

The second week saw the beginning of aerobic dance with an enthusiastic band of girls moving into the gymnasium hoping to shed those inevitable extra winter pounds. But moving out of the auditorium at the end of lunch were a sweaty, bedraggled group, whose enthusiasm seemed to dwindle over the next few weeks. The Japanese girls from our sister school, the Hirayama Gakuen, also arrived on Monday l8th and, after some struggling to communicate with their billets, our girls realised that dictionaries would be necessary for the next few days. The assembly to welcome them included a demonstration of a tea ceremony in which Mrs. F{ancock was the star performer, even to the extent of appearing in the Courier- Mail. The Japanese girls were very pleased to see me dressed in a kimono and speaking Japanese, but they tried to tell me politely that the school shoes were not complimentary to their national dress. Wendy Morris and Bridget Johnson were also sworn in as new prefects because of their continued school support during the year. During the weekend starting Friday the 22nd, many Grammar girls were involved in interschool competitions, with a circuit debate on the Friday night and sport against Ipswich Girls' Gramrnar School on the Saturday morning. The prefects tried hard to provide a skit on this week's assembly, but our warped sense of humour didn't seem to have the same appeal to the rest of the school.

i

I

l

16