Today, our Year 7 students returned from an unforgettable five-day ‘Valley Life’ Education Outdoors experience at our Valley Campus in Fingal. Living in their tent Mentor-class communities, students embraced the challenges and opportunities that camp life offered.

Highlights included a memorable survivor night, sleeping under tarps and flies, as they camped on the river flats, and an exhilarating day at the Hollybank high-ropes course, a clear favourite among many. Students also worked together to build rafts, paddle canoes along the South Esk River, and enjoyed games and reflective […]

This term, Penquite has introduced WELLIO lessons into our weekly pastoral program.

WELLIO is an Australian, evidence‑based wellbeing and social–emotional learning platform for students from Kindergarten to Year 12. It supports schools to deliver engaging, consistent wellbeing lessons using a large library of curriculum‑aligned content, short student surveys, and simple data dashboards. All lessons can be taught with or without devices.

What WELLIO Offers

• 600+ psychologist‑designed lessons on mental health literacy, healthy relationships, resilience, online behaviour, empathy, vaping and substances.
• Short wellbeing surveys that give the College insight into student needs and emerging issues.
• Flexible lesson sequences so […]
  

Celebrating Lunar New Year, Lent and Ramadan in 2026

This year, our Scotch Oakburn College community has the privilege of witnessing an extraordinary global convergence. For the first time since 1863—and not to occur again until 2189—the Lunar New Year, the beginning of Lent, and the first day of Ramadan have all unfolded within the same 24 hour period. This rare alignment invites billions of people worldwide, and our own diverse College community, into a shared season of renewal, reflection, and hope.

On 17 February, communities across East and Southeast Asia celebrated the Lunar […]

Thursday 20 February 2026 saw the running of the Middle and Senior School Inter-House Athletics Carnival at the Northern Athletics Centre. With a full day of competition and smooth event flow, students from Years 6–12 participated across track, field and novelty events. Conditions were very warm and windy after a chilly start to the day. This didn’t deter strong performances and excellent participation across all Houses.

Two record were broken.  Isla Powell-Dean broke the U13 400m with a time of 1:09:00 (previous record 1:10:07, 2010)  […]

The Elphin Campus is excited to share that our StudentVoice@Elphin program is now underway for 2026. Over the past week, each class has nominated their Student Voice Class Representative, with students thoughtfully selecting peers who they believe will represent their class with respect, responsibility, and a genuine commitment to sharing student ideas.

Our first StudentVoice@Elphin meeting will be held this week, bringing together class representatives from each class in Year 1 – 4. During these initia; meetings, students will begin exploring how they can gather, share, and elevate student perspectives to help shape positive initiatives within our school.

The role of each […]

Rowers take a sweep of awards

Fantastic results for our senior rowers at the Tasmanian Club Rowing Championships, winning nine Club Championship events and a number of non-championship events.
The highlights from the weekend included the Senior Boys squad winning the U23 Men’s Eight and Senior Girls squad winning the U19, U21 and Open Women’s Eight Championships; the first time a school crew had won the Open Women’s event since 1999.

Overall our wins included the State Championship in U19 Women’s Pair, U21 Women’s Pair, U19 Women’s Coxless Four, U19 Women’s Coxed Four, U21 Women’s […]

We are pleased to provide a community news section in our news highlighting events in the wider Launceston community that may be of interest to families. Included this week:

• Performing Arts 2026 sessions – something for all ages
• Hockey Come and Try Day – all ages and levels
• NETSETGO – netball for 7-10 years

Go to community news

It has been wonderful to see so many students return from the holiday break with a positive mindset and a genuine sense of excitement about the year ahead. The energy across our campuses has been uplifting, with students reconnecting with friends, peers and staff, and settling back into the rhythms of school life with enthusiasm.

Over the holiday period, I had the opportunity to read ‘Stolen Focus’ by Johan Hari, a thought‑provoking book that explores the factors contributing to a decline in our ability to concentrate. Hari highlights a range of […]

Our Principal, Ross Patterson, welcomed our community back to school at the end of the first week. In case you missed it.