A PATHWAY FOR ALL
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“Open girls captain Tyler Shaw, who herself is a North Queensland schoolgirls representative and the school’s very own North Queensland Cowboys Academy representative, April Major, have both been instrumental in the boost in female participants.
“The girls were asking about rugby league and wanting to be a part of competitions, so as a coaching group we set the girls the challenge of spreading the word and they delivered.”
The Southern Cross girls will have the opportunity to play in their first competitive carnival, when the Under 15 and Open girls travel alongside the Under 15 and 1st XIII Boys to Cairns in Week 10 to compete in the St Mary’s Catholic College 7s Carnival and the O’kane Cup.
The Southern Cross Catholic College Rugby
League Academy was established late last year to promote and develop self-discipline and leadership through the team sport.
The academy aims to develop the physical and mental strength of all participants, while also providing a genuine pathway to higher levels of the game.
The rugby league program has gone from strength to strength at the college and initially fielded teams in the Year 5/6 primary competitions, Under-13 boys, Under-15 boys and 1st XIII Open boys.
The girls rugby league squads now have almost 40 students, which brings the overall number taking part in the sport to well over 120 students at Southern Cross.
Head coach Mr Whittington said it was all about making better people, not just better players. “Our priority for rugby league at Southern Cross is inclusiveness, no student will be turned away from having the chance to
A NEW leadership course at Pimlico State High School is not only cultivating strong young leaders but also a greener school.
The school has introduced a Certificate II course in Leadership for Year 11 senior students.
The course is designed to develop skills for the future and create a generation of leaders who, once graduated, will succeed in whatever careers they choose to pursue.
In order to start this journey, a Year 11 class has planted more than 40 trees around the school.
The plants and mulch were donated by Townsville City Council.
Students have planted the natives twice a week over the past month and water them twice a day.
They are hoping to bring birdlife back to the school and create shade. train, develop and play the greatest game of all,” Mr Whittington said.
“There are no trials or excellence-only, but just a clear pathway for any student to be involved in rugby league.
“School sport has always been about inclusiveness and a chance to try something different and we celebrate developing our own students and enjoying the benefits of team sport across the school community.”
Southern Cross principal Greg Cameron said that he was proud of the school’s rugby league program.
“The coaching group at our college is exceptional and have brought their vision of engaging students in rugby league into alignment with the college’s mission of inclusivity and self-development through a growth mindset,” he said.
“The expansion of our program to include students from both our primary and secondary school and both male and female teams has been well supported by our students and families and this is a tribute to the hard work of our sports leaders and academy coaches.”
The college has acquired the expertise of a number of high-quality coaches.
Mr Whittington is a current North Queensland Cowboys Academy coach, Townsville Blackhawks Mal Meninga Cup (U18) assistant coach, a part of the Queensland Under 18 (NQ) women’s coaching staff and has experience within the Queensland Country Under-16 pathways.
Mr Whittington said he aimed to deliver students a genuine pathway in rugby league, without students having to leave the Southern Cross Catholic College community.
He is supported by a number of coaches with years of school rugby league experience, including Harley Foley, Matthew Roberts and Matthew Knight.
DID you know that India is the third country to have more than two million COVID-19 cases, behind only Brazil and America?
Major cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai are badly affected, hospitals are struggling to accommodate critically ill patients.
The surge in infections follows a two-and-ahalf month India-wide lockdown that began on March 25 and severely disrupted the economy and livelihoods but this was only the first lockdown.
India went on as the largest lockdown in the world, with over 1.3 billion people were asked to stay home. Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted these measures to “win the battle” against the COVID-19 pandemic.
A large number of the country’s workers were left wondering if their wellbeing was also accounted for with the hasty decisions of the government.
Many of my family members living in India have been going through from one lockdown to another like the people in Victoria.
Most people are fed up with staying in their homes, because not all people in India are privileged to have a continuous supply of electricity and sources of entertainment like phones, computers, TVS and video games, unlike us in Australia.
India is doing a smart thing that not many countries are doing. In India, they have many railway carriages. Five hundred railway carriages were made into 8000 hospitals beds for patients with coronavirus.
Given the sheer population size of India, the country has the largest number of students in the world, with close to 30 per cent of India’s population below 17 years.
It is estimated that around 350 million are school goers. Providing online education for that many students is a challenge hard to imagine.
This becomes even more difficult in rural areas and villages because not all students have electronic devices.
If they do have one, it is a luxury and they would have to consider themselves very lucky.
The digital divide is vast in India which creates a further problem for schooling.
Only privileged children have a phone or laptop to do online school work.
In villages and rural areas, most children do not have the luxury of owning a phone or laptop. The internet connection, if available, might not be reliable and stable.
There is no airconditioning in most schools and weather can be extremely hot for them.
Despite all the preparations and having multiple lockdowns in all the states, the COVID-19 cases are doubling each month, which is very scary.
Most of my family live in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu where the state is still reeling from partial lockdown.
The good news in all this is the recovery rate from COVID-19 in India is healthy at around 68.32 per cent.
SADIA SHAREEF, YEAR 8 ST MARGARET MARY’S COLLEGE
MADISON CUSUMANO, YEAR 11 ST MARGARET MARY’S COLLEGE