2017 School Magazine

BEWARE THE BEAR

The 2017 Beanland mantra ‘Beware the Bear’ aimed to encourage each Beanland Bear to embrace their house spirit and have a blast at every interhouse event. Term I kicked off with the annual Beanland House Party, which successfully exhibited this year’s theme. Decked out in every shade of pink, each year level competed in a gruelling obstacle course to win the ultimate Beanland Bear award. The entire house was then thrown into the deep end at Interhouse Swimming, where we won the teachers and students lifesaving race. The Beanland Bears once again proved their spirit at Interhouse Cross-Country. Term II consisted of weekly House Assemblies that included activities such as ball games, trivia quizzes and a particularly active ‘Just Dance’ to raise the House spirit. In Term III we saw the return of Ms Christopherson from visiting Bradford Girls Grammar School, where Miss Sophia Beanland lived and taught before sailing to Australia. As the founder of our house, her educated, confident and independent mindset is reflected in the Beanland girls today. Open Day was a huge success as students, parents, and future Beanland Bears devoured our famous fairy floss. Alongside this, pink and purple ribbons were sold in honour of our 2017 house charity, Girls Not Brides. The cold winter winds saw the advent of Interhouse Athletics, which showed a drop in the house spirit. This was redeemed by Year 12 Beanland Bears’ admirable accomplishment of winning the annual Interhouse QCS competition.

In Term IV, the house competed in the Interhouse Choral Competition, singing ‘Pompeii’ by Bastille, led by Beanland’s Choir Captains: Clare Crawford; Cailtlin Trout; and Lillian Ma. We have a few Beanlanders whose achievements outside the classroom this year have been extraordinary. Notably, Maia Martin (Year 11) for outstanding achievements in karate including being the youngest girl in Australia to have achieved her second Dan Black Belt and Year 12 debater, Isabel Nolan, who captained the Queensland state team and was named sixth best speaker at the 2017 World Schools Debating Championships held in Indonesia. Year 12 swimmer, Minna Atherton was selected to represent Australia as part of the Youth Transition Squad in Japan at the 2017 Japan Open competition, where she came away with a win in the 50m and 100m backstroke. In October, she won the 50m backstroke at the Australian Short Course Championships in Adelaide, breaking a new All Comers Record! This year for all Beanlanders would not have been such a success without the help from Head of Beanland House, Ms Christopherson as well as Ms Coughlan, Mr McGarry, Ms Miles, Ms Belich, Mr Huppert, Mr Larkin and Ms Byrne. Thank you. CATRINA GU AND SOPHIA WONG HOUSE CAPTAINS

06 | HOUSES | BRISBANE GIRLS GRAMMAR SCHOOL 2017