By Aidan Fisk
A photo of the 2020-2021 Prefect team, who lead the SRC and planned a significant number of the events held in 2020- 2021, and most recently completed their HSC exams despite the hard year. Well done! (Courtesy: Pittwater house Instagram page)
Swimming carnival
Despite the ongoing COVID pandemic, we were able to hold a swimming carnival at the start of the year, on Wednesday the 17th of February for the College, and Thursday the 18th of February for the Grammar school. Unfortunately, this carnival was somewhat restricted, with the event being optional for students, meaning the atmosphere of the event was not quite the same as previous years. Despite this, both carnivals were extremely successful, each holding a wide variety of events for students of all different age groups to compete in for house points. Outside of the pool for both events, it was a very encouraging environment, with each house cheering for their members in each race. Even though this was an optional event, the results for this event showed outstanding results, with Orrock with 601 points, Butterworth with 692 points, and Morgan achieving the outstanding result of 826 points. Well done to everyone who was involved!
Morgan College students passionately cheering on their teammates at the College swimming carnival, held on Wednesday the 17th of February. (Courtesy: Pittwater house Instagram page)
Head above water community events
In 2021, Pittwater house continued its ongoing partnership with the Head Above Water charity, a charity aiming to reduce the number of suicides on the Northern Beaches through mental health services. However, this year, in addition to taking part in the annual 24-hour-swimathon, Pittwater house Grammar also held a compulsory “Big Bros/Head above water swim event”. Here is a summary of both of these events:
At School
The school “Big Bros/Head above water swim event” was held on Tuesday, March 30th and included Grammar students from years 7-12. It was an all-day event, with each year group having a designated time to swim (Due to COVID restrictions) throughout the day. The aim of the event was to get participants to swim as many laps as they could or were comfortable with swimming in these allocated times, with each lap swam raising money for Head Above Water’s various programs. To add to the excitement of this event, this was made a friendly competition between students, with the top three students in each year that swam the most laps receiving various prizes, such as gift cards. Some notable winners were: Conner Maggs, Jasper Scamps-Magro and Oliver Allesch. Well done everyone!
A group of students tired after swimming an exceptional number of laps in the “Big Bros/Head above water swim event”, organised by the Pittwater house 2020-2021 Prefect team. (Courtesy: Pittwater house Instagram page)
Outside of school
The 24-hour-swimathon was held from 12:00 pm on Saturday the 20th of March to 12:00 pm on Sunday the 21st of March . During this 24 hour period, a significant amount of the Pittwater house community got involved in the Swimathon to raise funds for Head Above Water, including the 2020-2021 Prefect team, students, and teachers. They did this by swimming laps in the pool, and then registering them at the Pittwater house tent, that was up from 9am to 5pm on the Sunday. Altogether, Pittwater house was able to swim over 1000 laps in the 24-Hour-Swimathon. Well done everyone who got involved!
A group of students participating in the Head Above Water 24-hour-Swimathon with members from the maths faculty, raising money for Head Above Water. (Photo supplied by Ellis Plant).
Athletics Carnival
On Friday the 18th of June, the annual Athletics Carnival was held at Narrabeen Sports Centre. Fortunately, the Athletics Carnival was unaffected by COVID, so all of the athletic events could go ahead as planned and no additional restrictions got in the way of the event . It was a great day filled with Athletic events such as: High jump, Long Jump, track events, shot-put, and many more, each managed by members of the teaching faculty. The day was a massive success, being a huge competition between the houses for house points. The final house point standings for the day were Butterworth with 1347 points, Orrock with 1468 points, and Morgan with 1614 points. Well done to everyone who participated!
A group of students getting ready to start the 800m track event, each competing for house points, as well as competing against each other (courtesy: Pittwater house Instagram page)
Co-curricular roundup
Despite the challenges posed in 2021 due to COVID, we had a successful year (or semester in some cases) of co-curricular activities, some of which included year 7-12 boys and girls basketball, Year 7-12 soccer, Year 7-12 rugby, Year 7-12 Girls Netball, Year 7-12 touch football and the Board riders program. In these co-curricular activities, Pittwater house has seen great successes, with the TPHS Year 11A Boys soccer team doing an exceptional job representing the school in the Peninsula Cup, a significant number of TPHS basketball team achieving outstanding results in their Manly Warringah Basketball Association competitions, along with many more sporting successes.
Moving over from sporting news, the TPHS Cadet Unit has also seen a lot of success this year, with a number of promotions, most notably SUO Jared Buckton, CUO Sasha Huby-Stewart, CUO Jamie Stoddart and RSM Rory Connors. Well done everyone who got involved in co-curricular activities this year!
A group of year 9-10 girls who were able to join a CDSSA Netball team through the school’s netball program. Their Netball team was fortunate enough to be able to represent the school at the AICES (Association of Independent Co-Educational Schools) Netball Championships. Their team managed to come first in the competition, an outstanding co-curricular result for the school. Well done! (courtesy: Pittwater house Instagram page)
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