These Precious Moments
As the end of school draws near – only six more days of class including House Island Day! – this is the time to make the most of our moments together. We’ve embraced challenges and discovery as we pushed the boundaries of learning and collaboration. After an exciting, intense school year, it is wonderful to see students taking some time to relax and simply enjoy each other’s company before exams.
Down-time has immense value, in and of itself. For our driven and engaged students, it is especially important to step back and make the time for it. Over the last two weeks of school, students are taking part in annual UTS traditions, some new and some old, and it is a beautiful thing to see our students relax and just enjoy being together.
Last week, we launched our expanded community-building program for our Foundation and Middle school students with the M3 Dinner. Laughter and general excitement filled the Multipurpose Room as the students enjoyed lasagne with their friends, as well as musical performances from M3 and S5 strings players. The excitement ramped up after dinner with a friendly quiz game of Kahoot! (for this party, a cell-phone exception was granted). UTS students take their trivia very seriously and there was much jumping, wringing of hands, clapping and cheering for their friends as students vied to top the leaderboard. After the Kahoot! came Karaoke. Amid fits of laughter, students (and one staff) belted out the words to Spice Girls’ Wannabe, John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads, many Rosé and Ariana Grande songs, and more.
As our students came together in chorus – sometimes as many as 17 students singing at once – the audience joined in and a sensation of irrepressible joy took hold among our students and staff. This is it! These are the moments we cherish together.
On Monday this week, students gathered outside the school for the annual Fajita Fiesta, a decades-long UTS tradition. The aroma of fajitas and the sounds of electric guitar wafted over the sunny plaza as singers and student bands took to the stage to entertain their peers. Students enjoyed eating fajitas in the sunshine, while marvelling at the vast depth and range of musical talent in our school community. Special thanks to our new 2025-26 School Captains Max and Angela, Student Council and staff who organized the event, in community collaboration with the UTSPA Parent Volunteer Group, who did the most important job – serving the fajitas. These moments of collaboration strengthen our community and help make the Fajita Fiesta one of the highlights of our year.
The fun continues: tonight there’s S6 Prom and next week is House Island Day on Wednesday. Later in June, more Foundation community events will include F1 Community Reflection Week (as they don’t write exams), the F1 Birthday Party and the F2 Dance, where our students will make more memories together. We also have the pinnacle event of the UTS experience: Graduation Day.
All of this goes to say learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom. We also learn from the friendships we forge and the moments we share that become memories to last a lifetime.
