Week 2, Term 4, 2025 | Friday 17 October

Speech Night 2025 – Celebrating Excellence and Community  

Canterbury College’s 2025 Speech Night, held this week at the Logan Entertainment Centre, was a fitting celebration of our students’ achievements, academic growth, and the strength of our College community. The evening featured outstanding performances by the Canterbury Chorale and the incredible Trio Bellissimo in their final appearance, setting the tone for a memorable night of recognition and reflection.  

Major awards highlighted exceptional leadership and accomplishment across the four dimensions of a Canterbury education – Academics, Performing Arts, Sport and Activities, and Service.   

We are immensely proud of all our students and their achievements in 2025. Below is a list of our major award recipients.  

The Archbishop’s Award: Corey Rooks and Mehran Afzal 

Quota Club Beenleigh Achiever of the Year Award: Alex Panagiotou 

Beenleigh Yatala Chamber of Commerce Best All Rounder Award: Bear Newsham  

The Ampol Best All Rounder Award: Benjamin Stanley  

The Long Tan Leadership Award Year 10: Noah Meier 

The Long Tan Leadership Award Year 12: Amelia Ryan  

The Australian Defence Force Future Innovators Award Year 10: Rose Pincott  

The Australian Defence Force Future Innovators Award Year 12: Ranudi Attygala  

Entrepreneurial Excellence Award: Ashutosh Vaitha  

The Reverend T Cichero Community Service Award: Grace McIntyre  

Senior School Arts Person of the Year Award: Haydn Li  

Senior School Spiritus Award:Riley Burton  

Senior School Sports Person of the Year Award: Aimee Henry 

Duces:  

Year 7 – Llewellyn Van Eck 

Year 8 – Lily Prewett  

Year 9 – Mikael Sandanayake 

Year 10 – Kaitlyn Bolger  

Year 11 – Ramon Zeng  

Fortior Quo Paratior:  

Year 7 – Ruby Barszcz 

Year 8 – Faith Weier 

Year 9 – Grace McIntyre 

Year 10 – Noah Meier 

Year 11 – Cooper McIntyre  

Year 12 Fortior Quo Paratior and Hayden Prior Memorial Prize – Amelia Ryan 

We could not be prouder of our award recipients and all students who have embraced the opportunities, challenges, and spirit of Canterbury this year. Their achievements are a testament to their hard work, resilience, and the support of the dedicated staff and families who walk alongside them. 

We extend our heartfelt thanks to our entire Canterbury community for your ongoing encouragement, involvement, and belief in our mission to inspire confident, compassionate, and capable young people.  

Some of you may have noticed that I look a little different from last term. I’ve recently returned to school after undergoing treatment for cancer, and while the experience was challenging, I’m incredibly grateful to be back and reconnecting with students and staff. Many of you have asked how I’m doing and wished me well—it’s meant a great deal to me.

Looking back on those weeks, which were at times quite scary, I feel immense gratitude—not only to my family and close friends but also to the many medical professionals who cared for me. From my GP, who first noticed something wasn’t right, to the sonographer, radiographer, nurses, anaesthetist, surgeon, and even the hospital porters—each person played a vital role in my recovery. Their combined expertise and compassion helped me heal from something that, a century ago, might not have been survivable.

What struck me most was that every one of these professionals shared three key qualities:

• Knowledge: They were experts in their fields and could answer any question I had with clarity and confidence.
• Skill: Whether it was a surgeon performing a procedure or a nurse finding a vein with ease, their precision made a real difference to my comfort and recovery.
• Emotional Intelligence: They knew how to communicate difficult information calmly and compassionately, and they took the time to ensure I felt heard and supported.

As I continue to work with our Canterbury students, I see these same qualities reflected in them. I see young people who are working hard to build their knowledge, honing their skills in academics, sport, and the arts, and showing genuine care and empathy in their interactions. It’s not hard to imagine that in 10 or 20 years, patients like myself will be in the very safe hands of many of our current Canterbury students.

Last term, Mr Walker announced the introduction of Canterbury’s Health and Medical Studies Pathways Program. This initiative is designed to support students who are considering careers in healthcare—whether as doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, pharmacists, radiographers, sonographers, or in any of the many other vital roles that our communities rely on.  In addition to teaching our students the subject knowledge they will need, we can facilitate work experience, mentoring from current health professionals, specific advice for tertiary entry and study and provide necessary guidance in many other areas.

This program is more than just a career pathway—it’s a way for Canterbury College to contribute meaningfully to the future of healthcare by nurturing the next generation of compassionate, knowledgeable, skilled professionals.

How do we approach learning in Years 4 to 6?

An exemplary approach to learning encourages curiosity, resilience, and a growth mindset. When students feel encouraged, empowered and supported, they are more likely to take risks, embrace challenges, and persist through difficulties. Beginning in Prep, all students are assessed against the college’s approach to learning rubric. The rubric addresses three sections which relate directly to our College’s values.

Respect

Effort

Integrity

In Years 4 to 6, students have started the term looking closely at our approach to learning rubric and how this relates to them as learners. These grades have all spent time developing some learning expectations for their classroom and themselves as individuals as they strengthen healthy learning habits moving towards the transition to 2026. In review of their approach to learning from Terms 1-3, students have been challenged to self-assess their approach to learning and set some targeted goals to make improvements and further enhance their application to school life.

Throughout the Term, students will revisit their goals to evaluate their personal success towards their goals.

The focus of this approach is to help students to develop some independence and intrinsic motivation, identifying themselves as key stakeholders in their personal academic success here at Canterbury College.

What can you do to support at home? Have regular conversations with your child in Year 4 to 6. Allow them the opportunity to identify how they feel they are going. Have regular discussions with them when things don’t go right in their learning and share your own words of wisdom.

Strengthening How We Communicate

As we continue to improve how Canterbury shares information with families, I’m pleased to share that a refreshed Communications Team has now been established to support this important work.

This new structure brings together specialist roles across Content and Communications, Design and Creative Production, Digital Marketing and Performance, and Events and Alumni Engagement. Together, these roles will help us deliver clearer, more consistent and engaging communication across all platforms.

Our goal remains the same: to make it easier for families to know where to go, what to expect and how to stay connected with Canterbury life. The team is now focused on building stronger foundations for our communication channels, refining our tone and presentation, and ensuring our brand and community messaging feel unified and purposeful.

You’ll start to see the team more visibly across College life as we:

• Attend more school events to capture and share stories from our community
• Strengthen our social media presence and explore new ways to share content
• Improve how information is delivered through MyCC, the College App and other platforms
• Ensure our digital channels reflect Canterbury’s values and vision

Reporting to Principal Dan Walker, the Communications Team is guided by Canterbury’s commitment to continuous improvement, learning, refining, and growing together. As Dan shared in his Term 4 message, this is a time for reflection and connection, and our focus is on communicating in ways that bring our community even closer together.

Pushing, Pulling and Playing with Science in Year 1

Written by Year 1 Teachers

This term in Science, Year 1 students are diving into the exciting world of forces, with a focus on ‘push and pull’. We have begun our exciting investigations by sorting everyday objects based on whether they require a push or a pull to move. This hands-on activity helped students understand how forces are used in daily life.

Students love to explore with their hands. It’s learning through play while engaging in trial and error experimentation just like a real scientist. We will be exploring how toys and playground equipment move, and how we use our bodies to apply force. Think of all the fun we can have with swings, seesaws, and toy cars moving them by pushing and pulling.  Students will also investigate how different forces can change the motion and shape of objects.

These discoveries will lead into some exciting STEM activities, including building straw rockets to observe how force affects speed and direction, and creating push and pull toys to demonstrate how forces work in action. Later in the term, we’ll explore how force is used in sports, encouraging students to think about how they kick, throw, or hit objects to make them move.

Throughout the unit, students will be engaged in scientific investigations, making predictions, testing ideas, and recording their observations. It’s a wonderful opportunity for them to develop curiosity, teamwork, and critical thinking skills while having lots of fun! You may like to ask your little Year 1 scientists at home how many household objects they can find require push or pull forces to work?

Celebrating Excellence: TPAQ Psychology Awards for Year 12 Students

The health sciences faculty has recently recognised a selection of students in its annual submission to the Teachers’ Professional Association of Queensland (TPAQ) Psychology Awards.

These awards proudly recognise outstanding achievement in senior secondary education through its annual Psychology Awards for Year 12 students. These awards celebrate academic excellence, critical thinking, and a passion for psychological science among Queensland’s emerging scholars.

Open to Year 12 students who demonstrate exceptional performance in Psychology, the awards aim to encourage deeper engagement with the discipline and highlight its relevance in understanding human behaviour and mental health. Recipients are selected based on academic merit, innovative research projects, and contributions to school or community wellbeing initiatives.

Winners receive a certificate of achievement and are featured in TPAQ’s communications, inspiring future cohorts to pursue excellence in the field. The awards reflect TPAQ’s commitment to supporting educators and students alike, fostering a culture of recognition and professional growth.

Of note is that this year is largest number of students Canterbury has ever submitted for the award with 13 students being recognised. Their efforts to obtain academic excellence across IA1, IA2 and IA3 is a testament to their living the schools values and being World Ready.

Students who received a confirmed 47/50 or above are eligible to receive this certificate of excellence.

Congratulations to the following students:

• Amelia Anderson
• Charlotte Austin
• Georgia Barlow
• Chloe Booth
• Sienna Burnham
• Charles Cooke
• Kevin Dizon
• Jacob Kriletich
• Makayla Mothobi De Sousa
• Lara North
• Corey Rooks
• Amelia Ryan
• Morgan Watt

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