40 excited students, delicious aromas and a tasting of Chinese yum cha was a great way to celebrate the Olympics and learn about food culture.   The year 10 Design & Technology and year 9 Food Technology students and a few staff indulged in a yum cha lunch.

Yum Cha traditionally means –drinking tea, the Chinese would meet at tea houses for yum cha, they soon decided that it was nice to eat food with their tea so they added “dim sim” – food, to their yum cha so that the people could gather together, enjoy company in a relaxed setting and eat.

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The students partook in 5 different yum cha delicacies – chicken dim sims, pork buns, vegetable gowgees, dumplings and vegetable puffs, all served with soy sauce or spicy plum sauce. All the food was steamed and served fresh as was the traditional way.  The students enjoyed the experience and were enthusiastic to try the yum cha experience further with their friends and families outside school.

Even thought the student ate with forks, traditionally the Chinese would use either chopsticks or for smaller items toothpicks, the toothpicks would them be used to clean food from around the teeth. This was not considered impolite to do in public. There were many other customs we learnt about, one was the one of tapping two or three fingers on the table at the end of the “tea” to show that we appreciated the meal and to thank the host or inviting us. Another is when someone does finish a pot of tea the lid is always turned upside down to indicate this. This custom began when a poor young boy who had just caught an exotic bird which he could sell for lots of money, placed the bird inside the teapot. The waiter lifted the lid of the pot to see if he was finished his tea and the bird flew out, thus resulting on a brawl over who should pay for the boys lost income, thus the sign for an empty pot was to turn the lid over.

It was a great way to learn about the Chinese “yum cha” and a culture that have influence the Australian diet.

Students from Covenant achieved outstanding results when they participated in the University of New South Wales International Competitions and Assessments for Schools. Those students who achievement was outstanding were rewarded with Certificates of Credit, Distinction and High Distinction.

Congratulations to the following students for their wonderful performance. 

Distinction
    * Hayden Tucker
    * Fraser Lawrance
    * Chris Chi
    * Grace Halnan
    * Alex Dandie
    * Josiah Monin
    * Hunter Jourdan

High Distinction
    * Daniel Horton
    * Nathanael Homarwidjaja
    * Mitchell Johnson
    * Immanuel Homarwidjaja

The International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) are developed by Educational Assessment Australia of the University of NSW and are conducted annually across Australia and in 12 other countries. There are over 1.5 million entries worldwide.

One of the special benefits of ICAS is that schools received detailed diagnostic information and their overall performance. ICAS allow students to monitor their progress from year to year and inditify individual strengths and weaknesses.

On a beautiful fresh, spring like day Covenant Christian School took two teams out to Bass Hill to play in the Annual CIS Rugby League Seven’s Gala Day.

Under 15s
The squad was composed of 10 players: Josh Clark, Tom Sheehan, Mitchell Zalai, Toby Tucker, Daniel Campbell, Josh Cooper, Nick Flanagan, Murray Bothma, Daniel Stighter & Jeremy Tie.
The boys first match was against Emmanuel College.  The boys came out firing with excellent tackling from Mitch Zalai and a number of awesome attacking moves where we were metres from Emanuel’s line.  Eventually Daniel Stighter used his lightning speed to get around their defence and score 2 well deserved tries.  Final score was 10 to 6 to Covenant.  Covenants second match was against William Carey college and we got totally outclassed 20 to 0.

The boys were then placed in the second tier competition for the remainder of the day (plate competition) and played some excellent football.  There first match was against Penrith Christian School (The coaches previous school) and due to some excellent work from the boys and some smooth talking from Mr Green to his ex students!!!!!!! the boys came out 10 to 6 winners.  Nick Flanagan was the star of the game with a few big runs, stealing the ball from their dummy half and a quick thinking dummy half run near their line to bust over for a tough try.  Our second game was against Wyong Christian School which ended up being the closest and most nail biting game of the day.  Wyong were first to score and made the conversion to go up 6 to 0.  But we fought back with an excellent team try that saw Daniel Stighter go over the line but unfortunately we missed the conversion and were still down 6 to 4. 

The second half was very close with failed chances from both sides but with about 2 minutes to go a well built up play saw Tom Sheehan go over for a deserved try.  Once again our conversions let us down but we were up 8 to 6.  Wyong had about 1 minute to score and after great defence from the covenant boys they were down to their 5th tackle but only 5 metres from our line.  Wyong spread the ball wide and it was down to Mitch Zalai and a guy twice his size heading for the corner.  Mitch with a heart of gold put the shoulder down and started driving his opponent towards the side line but as he was about to be pushed over the line the attacker swiveled and put the ball onto the grass.  This was when the controversy started as without any touch judges, video referees and a referee who was at least 20 metres away from the action called a dubious try and Wyong went up 10 to 8 as the siren sounded.

With the top 2 teams going through to the final Covenant ended up tying second with Wyong but due to that controversial loss earlier they missed out even though they had a better goal difference.  Despite the disappointment and emotion involved in the loss the boys took the bad news well.
All in all a great day was had and to the boys credit the team that they beat in their first round of the day was the team that won the plate.

Opens
Our team this year had struggled for numbers and was made up of Year 10, Year 11 and Year 12 students, however our performance on the day was arguably one of the best ever.
Our first game was against Penrith Christian School and although we turned over a lot of ball we still managed to come up with a 12-10 win. Josh Calman (Year 10) never took a backward step, taking some of the big fellas, front on at least 2 occasions. Our next game was against Christian Community High School which was quite an arm wrestle. Both teams had solid defense scoring only once in the first half. But the deadlock was finally broken by Blake Middleton who scored an outstanding solo try from dummy half running 40metres. Final result was 12 -6.

As we had won both games we had made it into the upper tier of the competition (Trophy Division) where we met Wyong Christian School. Wyong played bravely, even though they played with one less man due to injury, and it was in this game that we found some outstanding form. Daniel Leach was sensational, running over the opposition and off loading at will. Josh Apin threw some creative passes (for a forward!) leading to some backline tries and Marco Setiadi score a great solo try.

Our final game was against Hunter Valley Christian School who were the favorites in the competition and had beaten most teams by over 20 points. Amongst their artillery they had a gun CIS five-eight  and an Australian School Boys’ hooker.  Covenant started slow allowing HVCS to score a couple of easy tries. We then matched them try for try from then on. Ben Zalai’s hit ups and tackling were inspirational and the sounds of the collision between the forwards could be heard back in Belrose. Even better was his final 20m cut out pass which lead to Nick Worsley scoring in the corner. Unfortunately we ran out of time and the final result was 14-20 to HVCS.

All up, it was a wonderful day and it was a fantastic effort from all those involved.

Well done boys,

Mr Monin and Mr Green

This year in addition to the funds raised through students who participate in the 40 hour famine, we are holding a few fund raising activities. Our goal this year is to raise $15,000 overall which would help 3,000 children for a month or 250 children for a year! The activities will be held over the next couple of weeks and include:

Biscuits Are Here:
Covenant’s inaugural Biscuit Appreciation Society will be making homemade biscuits to delight our taste buds. These will be sold on Wednesday 10th September from 9.30-11am near Café Covie and are available for secondary students, parents and staff to purchase.

Mess With Your Head:
On Friday 12th September the whole school is encouraged to wear a crazy hat, beanie, wig or do something fun with their hair (no colouring or dye please). We are asking students who participate to bring a gold coin donation.

BBQ of all BBQ’s:
On Wednesday 17th September secondary students can feast on mouth watering sausage sandwiches which will be on sale at lunch.

It is so encouraging to see so many of our students concerned for children, like themselves, yet living in poverty and want to do something about it. Our grateful thanks go to all students and families who have helped and participated in the 40 hour famine this year.

Mrs Deb Redwood
40 Hour Famine Group Leader