Surf's Up at TSS Preschool

at Preschool Surf's Up

Coming to Preschool is terrific fun, and now each day includes a visit to the ‘beach’ and a tour of duty in the life-saving tower! TSS has unveiled a brand new Preschool playground, championing the important theme of surf safety. Preschool Coordinator Karen Humphreys said “We wanted to encapsulate the biodiversity of the Gold Coast, with its extensive range of unique and precious natural landscapes and wildlife habitats, from our hinterland ranges to the coast and wetlands.

“The beach plays an important role in the makeup of the Australian psyche, especially here on the Gold Coast. Our boys spend many hours of their free time enjoying our beaches and many of them enrol in Nippers with their local surf clubs,” Mrs Humphreys said.

“We place incredible importance on our boys’ understanding of water safety. The Australian surf lifesaver has become synonymous with the beach, and in particular with safety at the beach.”

TSS Preschool has formed a relationship with a number of Gold Coast surf clubs and lifeguards visit regularly to discuss beach safety with students.

“It seemed only natural that the theme of beaches and lifesavers came through in our project.”

The boys have fully embraced their new play area, particularly given it is familiar to the environment they spend time in with their families.

“They often link experiences from outside of Preschool with the new area, such as fishing with dad, and then they reenact that activity in our playground boat,” Mrs Humphreys said.

“A recent heart-warming moment, as an early childhood educator, was to see at the end of a school day, one of our boys taking his dad to see the boat and then sitting in there together.”

TSS educators have worked hard over the last six years to develop an outstanding early childhood friendly environment. The introduction of Bush Preschool, with support from our local Indigenous elder Uncle Boomerang in 2016, linked our Preschool environment with our hinterland and rainforests. “We wanted to follow on with this aspect and together with Andrew Brenchley from local company Everything Outside, we were able to successfully incorporate this into the boys’ new play space,” Mrs Humphreys said.

TSS Cyber Team in action: (L-R) Samuel Stevens, James Walden, Richard Kim, Mitchell Wood and Lachlan Christie-Adams

TSS Cyber Team: (L-R) Samuel Stevens, James Walden, Lachlan Christie-Adams, Mitchell Wood, Taisei Fujii (captain) and Richard Kim

TSS Cyber Team 2: (L-R) Coach Mr Anthony Wolfenden, Richard Kim, Mitchell Wood, Taisei Fujii (captain), Samuel Stevens, Lachlan ChristieAdams, James Walden and former mentor Mrs Angela Foulds-Cook.

The Southport School National Cybersecurity Champions

TSS are national champions following a dominating win in the finals of the inaugural CyberTaipan competition, held in Canberra on Saturday 16 March.

The team consisting of Taisei Fujii (captain), Lachlan Christie-Adams, Richard Kim, Sam Stevens, James Walden and Mitchell Wood, represented the school impeccably in all areas of the competition and were held in high regard by competitors and officials alike.

TSS Cyber Team coach Mr Anthony Wolfenden, said he was incredibly proud of the way the boys conducted themselves throughout the competition.

“As a father at the school and an IT professional, it has been a pleasure and an honour to coach and mentor these young men from TSS.” Mr Wolfenden said.

“The lads have demonstrated the teamwork and skills expected of experienced IT security professionals as well as the manners and sportsmanship I have come to associate with TSS students.”

CyberTaipan is an Australian cyber security competition that puts teams of high school aged students in the position of newly hired IT professionals, tasked with managing the network of a small company.

Over a four or six-hour period, each team must identify cyber security vulnerabilities, receiving points for hardening multiple systems while maintaining critical services. Time limits and point loss for errors creates the stress that makes the competition life-like. The challenges become more difficult with each round, and the finalists need extensive IT knowledge and experience to be successful.

Mr Wolfenden said individuals that compete successfully in the CyberTaipan competition are far more likely to: • Pursue STEM education after high school • Pursue 4-year higher education than their peers • Feed into the cyber security and technical workforce • Enter a competitive workforce with highly valued skills “The TSS Cyber Team have previously competed in three international Cyber Security competitions never finishing lower than 52nd and most recently 33rd out of over 6,500 teams globally (in the top half of 1%). “As individuals, TSS team members are highly dedicated, motivated and skilful, collectively as a team, they are most formidable,” he said.

The team was also announced as the winner of the international portion of the US CyberPatriot competition, and placed 33rd globally.

From left: Sam Bowen, Harry Crooks, Jake Gray, Peter Lynch, Finley Smith, Nick Farley, Alexander Walker, George Nield, Giulian Grasso and Connor McGregor.

Legal Studies Head to Court

In Term One this year, two groups of Legal Studies students were involved in excursions to the various courts in our local area. The Year 11 class visited the Southport Magistrates Court where they sat in the arrest court, witnessed a District Court sentencing, and puzzled over the never ending flow of procedural matters. We were also lucky enough to go behind the scenes and have a look at the holding cell, and the boys were able to talk to some of our TSS parents engaged in a professional capacity at the courts.

Subsequently, the Year 12 legal studies class visited the Supreme Court in Brisbane. Students were very interested in the variety of civil and criminal cases they witnessed on the day, and ended up observing several sentencings.

All the boys commented on the deference displayed to judges in the courts, and also the silence in which the court rooms operate (which is very different to what the Year 11s had observed two weeks prior at the Magistrates Court).

During this excursion, students also had time to make use of the Law library at the Supreme Court in preparation for their Term Two assignment. This task is open-ended and allows the boys to explore an area of law they are interested in. Currently, students are looking at diverse topics such as online privacy, provocation as a defence, the reinstatement of the death penalty, euthanasia, and the ability of children to consent to medical treatment, when their parents don’t wish it to occur.

All students found the trips to the courts very interesting and informative, and we look forward to visiting the Supreme Court later on in the year, as we begin the exploration of civil law.

Ms Jessica Prouten

Head of Department Business and Enterprise