Trinity Anglican School: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Dear Boiling Point Participants

We live in Cairns, Australia, which is in the South Pacific. Cairns is in Queensland. Actually, we live in the Far North Queensland, which is sometimes known as the Tropical North because of the tropical weather. Cairns has a rapidly growing population and is the third largest city in Queensland behind the Capital, Brisbane. The latitude of Cairns is 14.46 East and the longitude is 16.55 South.

Australia consists of six states and two territories. The states are Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. The territories are the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.

Our school is called Trinity Anglican School - shortened to TAS. Our school is a private Anglican school and is fourteen years old.

Trinity Anglican School, better known as T.A.S opened in 1983. The school first opened as a High School from Grades eight to twelve, but is now running a Junior School which is from Preschool to Grade Seven.

T.A.S is one of the two only private schools in Cairns, which consists of a Junior and High School. The education at T.A.S is of a very high standard. The subjects include Maths, Science, English, Social Studies, Chemistry, Biology and many more. In Junior School it is compulsory to do many of these and also Drama, Art, Music Phys Ed. and R.E. In High school it quite different. Some subjects you do are not compulsory and there is a choice.

Students from Japan travel over to Australia to attend Trinity Anglican School and learn English. To make them feel more comfortable during their years here, we have recently built a 'Pond of Peace' in the centre quadrangle of the junior classrooms. The students stay at 'Windmill College', north of Cairns. They are of all ages and one is in our class.

We are in Year 7 and there are 19 students in our class. Overall in both Year Seven classes there are thirty-six children taught by two teachers. Most students in Year Seven are twelve years old but five or six are thirteen. Cairns is a very small community compared to most places, but it is a very busy place and there are many exciting things to do. A new shopping centre called, 'Cairns Central' has just recently opened and it has six cinemas. By the way, when we say that Cairns is a busy, don't think that we are saying that it is like New York, because it is really a small city Also, most of Cairns' population live in houses, not in apartments, flats or units.

Cairns has a tropical climate and it never, ever has snowed here, and we really doubt that it ever will, because it is really hot. But there is a lot of rainfall each year, which keeps all the grass and trees from drying out. Cairns is very different from other places because our climate is very different. Many farmers in the Cairns area grow sugar cane, obviously for sugar, and own cattle for milk and meat. There are also heaps of trees in Cairns, especially palm and coconut trees. Cairns has many beautiful beaches and we all love going there, but in a certain part of the year, we can't swim in the sea because of jellyfish.

On weekends, most of the children in our class play a sport against other school teams. The sports we play for the school are, soccer, softball, hockey, football, and out of school we play cricket, basketball and netball. We would like to tell you about the other interests of Cairns. One reason that Cairns is actually where it is now is because of the industry of growing sugar cane. Many years ago, people came here because of the inlet, which is a bite out of the land because it was easy to bring in the larger ships. When they found that the soil was fertile they planted sugar cane, and the sugar industry boomed. Other people went past the mountains that surround Cairns, and found many metals in the ground. There were many mines. Now sugar cane is a huge industry in Cairns, and there is a big mill in a little town south of Cairns called Babinda.

The tourism industry in Cairns is booming. Many of the tourists are Japanese. The Japanese come to Cairns to explore the Great Barrier Reef one of the many features of Cairns.

The Great Barrier Reef is one of Cairns's biggest tourist attractions. You could maybe even say that it is one of the reasons Cairns was made. The Great Barrier Reef is situated just off the coast of Queensland but Cairns is one of the main outlets into the reef. There are many companies that run trips out to the reef. Most people have been to the reef many times because it so amusing and you literally swim with the fish. The reef contains many interesting marine life and attractive corals.

Just before the waters edge lies some of the most beautiful rainforest in Australia. This rainforest is called the Daintree. In the Daintree there are many tracks that lead you to the centre of the rainforest. The Daintree is a national park of Australia and is protected so that the species of animal life is not in danger.

If you would like any other information about our school or anything else in particular please write to us at:

tonys@tas.qld.edu.au
school homepage http://www.tas.qld.edu.au

Yours sincerely
Grade 7S Trinity Anglican School.