Last Thursday the boys were treated to a wonderful reptile show for Science. The show was led by Ranger Mick from the Australian Reptile Park. For those who enjoy Australia’s Got Talent, this is the same Ranger Mick who had his alligator (Rosey) kiss Kyle Sandilands – the same alligator (which I suspect was just out of therapy after the Sandilands experience) joined Mick here at Joeys.

Ranger Mick had an incredible ability to tell the story of how reptiles have evolved in a captivating way. His personality added to the show and I doubt there would be any boys who didn’t enjoy the experience.

Ranger Mick brought with him a cane-toad (which he licked in order to prove that their skin was not poisonous), lizards, goannas, turtles and alligators – all of which the boys were able to hold at the end. He also brought along a funnel-web spider and shot down the myth that they could jump. How does a man like Ranger Mick shoot down such a myth? Well … put a cup containing the funnel-web up to his eye of course!

It goes without saying that the crowd favourites were the snakes. Unfortunately I was not able to stay for this part of the show due to prior commitments, however, the boys animation coming into lunch and talking about it later was a clear indication that they were great! The photos speak for themselves!

Ranger Mick has been coming to Joeys for over 10 years now and each year manages to keep the boys entertained while at the same time teaching them a huge amount about the history and biological characteristics of the reptiles in Australia. This show has always been a highlight of Year 7 … there is no doubt that this year has been no different!

Pictured in Photo 1: Ranger Mick with a cane toad.

Pictured in Photo 2: Harry Dodd (Tathra) holds Rosey the alligator.

Pictured in Photo 3: Tom Wright (Coogee) holds a snake.

Last term, the English department ran a competition during Literacy Week for all boys in Year 7, 8, 9 and 10. They needed to complete a 50 word short story and they had to use the stimulus word “Cerise” as part of it.

Although short, this is far from easy and boys need to be able to write succinctly while showing a good use of the English language and grabbing the reader’s interest.

These stories were judged by Mr Lee MacMaster (Year 7 boarding staff member & the Director of Teaching and Learning) with a first, second and third place being awarded. On Thursday, our Head of English, Mr Matthew Bentley, joined us at our Division Meeting to present the three place-getters with a certificate and prize.

In third place was Jack Renshaw (Northbridge). His story which is below was entitled “William’s Amazing Fight”.

William the Knight embarked on his journey to the lands of the dreaded Klashkalar and arrived there in two days. When he arrived the Klashkalar was waiting for him. William fought to the death with his enchanted cerise sword against the fire breathing monster. He was eventually victorious against the beast.

Lachlan Boyle (Longueville) was awarded second place with his short story entitled “Imagine”.

Imagination is something people underestimate.
It’s something one can not abbreviate.
Imagine cerise toadstools decided to awaken,
And attack and destroy all the bacon.
But the bacon awoke, and in one single stroke,
The toadstools flew away.
But the toadstools returned
And with all glory earned
They fought to victory

And a big congratulations to our Year 7 winner, Harrison Fricot (Glebe) who wrote a wonderful short story entitled “The Coming of the Mediator”.

During the final days on Earth, cerise light glowed through the dying air of the atmosphere. Earth’s clock was ticking. The Redeemer came. For he would be the salvation for humanity. He was a flood of light and evil washed off the Earth and into the void.

Well done to all the boys who contributed stories for this competition. They certainly have shown an enthusiasm towards their writing and without any doubt – plenty of talent!

Pictured: Harrison Fricot (Glebe)

Term 3 saw the start of the DIRT reading program in Year 7. This program (which is an acronym for Daily Independent Reading Time) is designed to get the boys reading more consistently. Something that we believe will benefit the boys in all of their subjects.

As a Mathematics teacher, I can say that beyond a doubt, one of the biggest obstacles for boys in their senior years is the literary demands of examinations. I suspect that teachers of other subjects would see the same in their students. As a result, the DIRT program is something that the whole school is behind.

You would have received information about the program in the mail earlier in the term and on the whole, we are very happy with how the boys have embraced this program and kept their log books up to date. The boys who sleep the night at Joeys have at least 15 minutes reading time before they go to sleep each evening and in speaking with the boys, it has been great to hear how boys are excited about how many books they have read. One boy told me that he had never finished a book before – he finished two in Term 3!

For boys who go home each evening, we do ask parents to keep encouraging their sons to read for at least 15 minutes each night. It is amazing how quickly the benefits of regular reading become noticeable and we certainly do believe that if boys are to achieve to their academic potential, consistent reading will be one of the keys.

Pictured in Photo:  Sam de Courcy (Greenwich)

During Term 3 we have taken further steps to ensure that the boys are given high levels of support each night during evening study. As you may know, each night on study there are three supervisors who each specialise in different subject areas. In Year 7, we are particularly lucky with our supervisors who are not only incredibly experienced but also diverse in their subject areas. We have Mr Lee MacMaster (Director of Teaching and Learning and a Technology and Religion  teacher), Mr Mark Williams (The Dean of Studies and a Maths teacher), Ms Michelle Tinta (Head of Visual Art), Mr Peter Ross (Academic Coordinator and a Technology teacher), Ms Anne Reading (English Teacher) and Mr JP Elias (Studying Law at University). In addition, Mr David Hill (History) and I (Maths, PDHPE and Religion) are also available. Therefore, all year the boys have had access to assistance across a huge range of subjects.

Term 3 has seen us extend this by employing Mr Jim Hartnett as an extra assistance for the boys. Mr Hartnett is a teacher at Knox College of vast experience. He has taught both History and English across all age groups both in NSW and also interstate. His pastoral care experience is also incredibly valuable in ensuring that the boys can organise and plan their assignments.

All the boys have access to ask Mr Hartnett questions at any time during night study and from speaking to the boys, I know that he has been incredibly supportive for them. In less than one month of working with the boys, he has assisted on over 190 occasions.

Peter Ross and I are continually encouraging the boys seek assistance if they need it. Jim is not responsible for anythiny else in study apart from homework support … therefore the boys simply need to put their hand up and go and see him! The addition of Jim to our staff each night in study gives the boys ample opportunity to get help whenever they need it.

Pictured in Photo 1:  Nick Rowell (Collaroy)gets assistance from Mr Jim Hartnett.

Written by Ms Veronica Bressi
(Acting Assistant Head of Mathematics)

Year Seven participated in the Reach for the Stars activity during National Numeracy and Literacy Week in Term 3. St Joseph’s students participated in a shuttle run competition amongst 77 700 other Australian students where nearly one million shuttles were dropped into containers.

Each class was divided into four teams and each team member in turn ran 20 metres to place a shuttle (paddle pop stick) in a container and then ran 20 metres back to their team. The shuttles were run across three intervals: 2 minutes, 4 minutes and 6 minutes. Over 2500 shuttles were dropped by the boys at Joeys.

All classes made a serious and concerted effort on the day. Some classes were running in wet conditions whilst other classes ran in the mud. Despite the weather, the boys enjoyed the challenge of aiming to be the best school in Australia. Evidently, every class in year 7 beat the average number of shuttles for each period of time.

The purpose for participation in this event is that the boys now have access to all the data from the national results and can use this large amount of data to make a significant analysis of this data and discuss the mathematical relevance of it during class time.

Pictured in Photo 1:  Lochie Simpson (Chifley), Lachlan Walker (Balmain), Tom Wright (Waverley)

Pictured in Photo 2:  Sam Reimer (Killara)

Visual Arts is one of our incredibly dynamic subjects here at Joeys. It is an opportunity for the boys to express themselves in many different ways and there is absolutely no doubt at all that we have some awesome talent here at Joeys when it comes to Art.

Coming up in just under a month is our Student Art Exhibition and shortly you will receive an invitation to this wonderful event in the mail. In the meantime, however, we thought that you may enjoy a small taste of what the Year 7 boys have been up to so far this year in their Art classes.

The video below is a short presentation of some great Year 7 artwork. If you have a fast Internet connection the you can hit the HQ button on the video player to see more crisp images. You may like to try going full screen (the little box in the bottom right corner of the video player) to get the best experience … especially if you are in High Quality mode.

Enjoy!

Written Mostly by Hamish McDonald (Hunters Hill), and some by Dom Maurici (Hunters Hill)

Today Year 7 attended the Sydney Symphony Concert, at the Sydney Olympic Park Sport Centre in Homebush Bay. Here we saw the talent of many young yet experienced and incredibly talented musicians. In-between the performance, we were also able to see all the technical aspects of a symphony. Several other schools also attended the performance with us. Due to the concert all the boys had to give up three periods of normal classes in order to attend.

During the performance, a couple of us were invited up on stage to conduct the symphony. This was particularly entertaining for everyone! The original conductor Warwick was a very energetic conductor who liked to get the crowd involved in the performance in order to make it a much more entertaining performance.

The symphony included the Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, Base Drum, Snare and many more exceptional instruments. The teachers who kindly accompanied us were Mr Ellis, Mr Cox, Mrs Bell and Mr Ross. We also had three of our new Gappies (Sebastian, Max and Dermot) come along with us which was great.

Over all Year 7 enjoyed the performance greatly and would love to see another production like this. It was a great chance for us to see a symphony but also learn a lot about the instruments and also what it is like to be part of such a wonderful ensemble. Thank you to the teachers and Gappies that attended the concert and a special thanks to the musicians and conductor who made it such a wonderful experience!

Pictured in Photo 1: Hamish McDonald (Hunters Hill) conducting the symphony.

Pictured in Photo 2:  Tom Cullen (Tennyson Point), Jack Campbell (Gladesville), Charlie Smith (Bellata) and Cain Nelson (Putney).

Written by Mrs Judy O’Connell

On Wednesday evening the College welcomed Richard Newsome, author of the “Billionaire’s Curse” Series, to make some awards, and also inspire boys  with his enthusiasm for writing.  In the audience were boys from the “Write-a-Book-in-a-Day Competition”, plus boys from Year 7.

After a successful visit to the College last year, Richard was approached and willingly  volunteered to be the Judge of the Joey’s entries in this national competition –  launching our own annual “Write-a-Book-in-a-Day competition”.   

We are very honoured to have had his support – particularly since Richard provided detailed feedback on the writing of each book!!

Richard had the Year 7 boys sitting on the edge of their seats, as he told the story of how he had his first book published – finally!!  The tale of intrigue included many rejection slips, an eventual entry into an Australian competition, calls from his mother-in-law that really were interrupting his wait for THAT magical phone call to say his book was to be published. 

FINALLY – the phone call came, and at that point all of Year 7 spontaneously burst into applause (even though the ending was clearly obvious!).   Boys asked great questions, and happily lined up to buy signed copies of Richard’s two books: Billionaire’s Curse and Emerald Casket.

Even better was to see the spiral-bound exercise book, with the pencil draft of Book Three – that never leaves his side.  Boys had a real chance to see the first draft of a book that will be published next year! 

Pictured in Photo 1:  Rob Webb (Lindfield), Tom Quirk (Year 8), Oliver Sumsky (Alexandria) and Nick Kovacs (West Pymble).

Pictured in Photo 2:  Mitch Frater-Baird (Killara), Tom Flitcroft (Epping) and Dylan Russell (Glebe).

As a Mathematics teacher myself, I am willing to admit that one of the more common questions that we get asked, particularly by junior students is “where is this going to be useful in life”. Many may think that this is a question we hate being asked … I don’t agree as being asked this question only gives us an opportunity to brag about how important Maths is in almost everything that we do. This question allows an opportunity for us to get off task for a while and explore Maths at its best … that is … in a practical way.

After saying this, there is no doubt that some students do find the link between Maths and what they perceive important in life very vague.

The 14th March is International Pi Day each year (for those who wonder why it is on this day – it comes back to the numbers 3.14 … the 3rd month and 14th day). This year, our Head of Mathematics, Mrs Katina Sweeting, asked all the Maths teachers to focus on Pi in their classes on Tuesday the 16th March as we were away on the Monday. To go with this, the morning tea for the boys was a scrumptious cup-cake with the Pi symbol across the top … there was no escaping Pi on International Pi Day … especially when your Boarding Coordinator is a Maths teacher!

On the night of the celebrations, I quized a few boys on what they had learnt about Pi. Below are some of the responses I got:

“Pi is from ancient history and the symbol is the 16th letter in the Greek Alphabet.”

“Pi is the circumference of a circle divided by the diameter.”

“Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day – even though it didn’t exist then”

“There’s a lot of numbers after the decimal point”

“Without Pi we would not be able to understand circles properly and make use of them as we do today”

“Pi never repeats”

“Pi is good because without it we wouldn’t have got big cup-cakes for recess”

In addition to learning about Pi, there was a competition run to see which student in the school could memorise the most decimal places of Pi (a ratio which has an infinite number of decimal places).

In Year 7, the winner of this competition was Mac Waugh (Balmain). Incredibly Mac has memorised and can recite 50 decimal places of Pi! Don’t believe me? Well check out the video below of Mac reciting the values at Div Meeting in front of the whole form!

But Alas! I have just re-watched this video and have noticed that in fact Mac has done it to 55 decimal places!!!

Well done Mac and a huge congratulations to the Year 7 Maths teachers who had all the boys excited and talking about Maths outside the classroom … even if it is only for one day a year!

Pictured in Photo 2:  Spencer Wilson (Willoughby), Ben Williams (Hunters Hill) and Ryan Lyne (Roseville)