Student & Parent Matters

Learning Poster #5

Year 9 2019 Elective Subject Information Evening

RoboCup Junior St Pius X Event​

Kokoda Expedition, Callan Services Immersion and Tribute to Mr Tim Long

2/33rd AIF Infantry Battalion Commemoration

Snowy Hike Expedition 2018 - Information Night

City to Surf

Debating

RIP Mrs Valda Corbin

LAST CALL:  Fundraising for Callan Services PNG

FREE WORKSHOP:  How to teach a Learner Driver​

Learning Posters

Around the College, parents and students will notice an array of stimulating and thought provoking posters that align with our College’s Learning Statement. These posters were inspired by our Learning Prefects, Daniel Aposhian, Oliver Stewart and Isaac Fong under the leadership of our Innovative Learning Coordinator Mrs Anne Gripton.  Below is the fifth in a series of five posters.

Intelligence is not giving up

We want our students to develop personal and social capability as they learn to understand themselves and others, and manage their relationships, lives, work and learning more effectively.

We want them to be able to develop the resilience to persevere when facing challenges and to think creatively and critically to solve problems.

Any student who is able to do this displays intelligence.

Our St Pius X Community consists of critical and creative thinkers who are

resilient and passionate about learning.

The Touchstones and Values provide the foundation for our learning.

Mr A Damo - Assistant Principal Teaching & Learning​

Year 9 2019 Elective Subject Information Evening

Parents/Carers and Students of Year 9 2019 are invited to an Information Evening on ‘Choosing Elective Subjects’ on Thursday 9th August.  The program is as follows:

5.00pm - Elective Subject Information

Elective Subject Coordinators will be available in the Gymnasium to answer questions that parents and student may have about specific subjects. Parents and students will be able to move from one subject area to another as they wish.

6.00pm - General Information

• Outline of Stage 5;
• Choosing Electives;
• ​followed by further opportunity to ask Subject Coordinators questions.

The Year 9 2019 Course Information Booklet will be distributed to students before next Thursday.  Students are able to choose any three of the following electives.

• Commerce
• Design & Technology
• Drama
• French
• Geography (elective)
• History (elective)
• Industrial Technology (Woodwork)
• Information and Software Technology
• Languages (Chinese, French and others)
• Literacy
• Music
• Philosophy
• Photographic and Digital Media
• Physical Activity and Sport Studies (PASS)
• STEM
• Visual Arts

Mr A Damo - Assistant Principal Teaching & Learning

RoboCup Junior St Pius X Event

RoboCup Junior is an international competition open to our Year 8-12 Robotics Club students. The competition has three main areas of challenge including On Stage Performance (dance), Rescue (line following) and Soccer. Our students normally focus on the Soccer event.

On the weekend, Workshops and a Coaching Clinic ran for students in preparation for the State event to be held later this month at UNSW. St Pius X College hosted the event for the Sydney regional area. The event was attended in excess of 170 students from more than 20 schools. Referees and mentors were available to give advice about the competition and there was a free exchange of ideas between teams to help to improve student and robot performances. Old boy Denis Webber ran a workshop for the more advanced students planning on competing in the Light weight and Opens events.

A big thank you to the RoboCup committee, the Leadership team, the P&F for their support and to Mr Lai, Mr ten Seldam and Denis Webber for their time and enthusiasm working with our students.

Competition Dates

State:             20th and 21st August

Nationals:    5th - 7th October 2018 in Melbourne (unsupervised)

Mr P de Silva - Robotics Convenor

Kokoda Expedition, Callan Services Immersion

and Tribute to Mr Tim Long

At Monday’s assembly we celebrated the success of our Kokoda Expedition and Callan Services Immersion. Coinciding with Papua New Guinea Remembrance Day, and appropriately, the date of the 76th anniversary of the Battle for Isurava Village, where Lt Colonel Ralph Honner, the 39th Militia, and 2/14 AIF Battalions held off a highly experienced and numerically superior Japanese Imperial Army, our commemoration was a fitting one. It commenced with Nick Bendall (Year 11) paying due respects to Country, the Cameraigal people of Chatswood, and the Oro people of the Owen Stanley mountain ranges, who were dubbed the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels for their care of wounded Australian soldiers during the Kokoda Track campaign.

Our Kokoda Expedition was the 2014 brainchild of Mr David Reay, member of staff and commissioned Major in the Australian Defence Force, so it was fitting that he was able to complete this trek after missing the 2014 and 2016 incarnations. Organised by Mr Paul de Silva, the 2018 Expedition included 30 students in Years 9 -11, parents, uncles and staff. All contributed to the success of the expedition and must be thanked for their positive input and endurance.

Mr Greg Growden is a renowned Sports and Rugby journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and now ESPN, and author of “Gold, Mud n Guts”, “The Wrong Un” and many others.  Along with his son Angus (now in Year 12) Greg was a member of our 2016 Expedition.  Greg’s most recent book titled “Wallabies at War” was launched last Wednesday.  Greg has dedicated this book to our Primary School Principal Mr Tim Long who he credits with saving him “during some very tough moments on the Kokoda Track”, along with our On Track Expedition guide Bobby Hale.  This  heartfelt expression of thanks was extended to Mr Long at Monday's Assembly.

Mr Long has himself invested a lot of emotion into the Kokoda Expedition, following as we were in the footsteps of his father, Lt Bruce Long, 3rd Militia Battalion, who as a 20 year old, led a platoon of “Snowy River men” over the Track in 1942.   

Expedition members Thom Hardman (Year 11) and Will Oner (Year 10), explained the emotional and physical challenges of the 100km trek over the treacherous mountain-jungle route, steeped in a history of the Courage, Mateship, Endurance and Sacrifice, where many young men carried their weapons into an uncertain future in the immediate defence of Australia, their mates and families. This was just weeks after the Midget Submarine attack on Sydney Harbour. Charlie Cullen (Year 10) then explained the work of our Immersion Team with Callan Services, Edmund Rice Education Disability Services, as well as Cardinal Ribat’s initiative to educate the street children of Port Moresby using multi-national orders of Nuns, and Jubilee Catholic Secondary School where 58 co-ed students study conscientiously in local Br Francis Toliman’s, crowded Year 11 Physics Class. The sounds, sights and smells of Port Moresby during State of Origin week defy belief! Gifts and flags from our Kokoda, Br Phil Grundy and Callan Services outreach partners and Principal Belinda Sosa were presented to Mr Couani.

Appropriately Daniel Halverson (Year 10) explained and recited The Ode to the assembly, which was co-recited in PNG Pidgin by Euan Mendoza (Year 11) and Angus Ningiga (Year 6) both PNG born. While Lachlan Chue  (Year 12) played both the Last Post and Reveille as Daniel explained its significance. We also thank Expedition parents Mr Liam Benson and Phil Paterson who were in attendance and Mr Martin Brannan whose 1942 Willies Jeep provided the ideal backdrop to fuel student interest in the learning assembly and indeed our proposed 2020 Kokoda Expedition. 

Appropriately, we presented a photo of our Expedition Team at the grave of St Pus X College ex-student Jacob de Sisto. The only son of an Australian family of Italian descent from Roseville, who at the age of 19 was Killed In Action on Bougainville in December 1944. It remains a tragedy for his family and surviving sisters who will join us for our November Remembrance Day Ceremonies.

He is buried among 3000 Allied comrades in Bomana War Cemetery Port Morseby. There is a plaque dedicated to him in the Junior Playground and our Foyer Honour Board is dedicated to him and Flt Sgt Anthony Gillespie KIA France 1945!

Vale Jacob de Sisto and Anthony Gillespie RIP.

Mr S Brannan - Head of Student Services

2/33rd AIF Infantry Battalion Commemoration

Following our educational links and connections with The Kokoda Campaign we have been honoured to be invited by the 2/33rd (NSW South Coast) Battalion to a commemoration at the ANZAC Memorial Hyde Park South at 11am on Friday 7th September.

The 2/33rd Bn were formed in England in 1940, distinguished themselves in the Middle East, Syria and Egypt before returning to Australia to fight their way Northwards over the Kokoda Track to the Northern PNG Beaches in 1942.

Tragically as the reinforced Battalion awaited air transport from Port Moresby to the Battle of Lae, Northern PNG, in the early morning of September 7th 1943, a fully loaded US Liberator Bomber, crashed on takeoff into the Battalions transport trucks killing 60 Infantrymen, 2 drivers and all 11 Aircrew. It was and remains Australia’s worst air disaster.

The names of the 73 who perished 75 years ago to the day will be read in the ceremony and a plaque commemorating the battalion will be placed in the Hyde Park ANZAC memorial.

As such it is fitting that a number of our Kokoda participants take up the invitation to commemorate the 2/33rd Bn, in what is likely to be their last ever ceremonial reunion, in order to recognise the Courage, Mateship, Endurance and Sacrifice of a generation of Australia’s finest.

Mr Reay and Mr Brannan will accompany a small group of students to the event to represent the College and pay our respects. Please contact Mr Brannan if you would like to attend.

Mr S Brannan - Head of Student Services

Snowy Hike Expedition 2018 - Information Night

• Information Night:  Thursday 9th August 6.00pm in the Sarto Centre
• Expedition Dates:  30th November – 6th December 2018
• Who can attend:  Any student that is currently in Year 11 at the College
• Expressions of Interest:  to be done via a Google Doc. emailed to the students
• School Contact:  Mr P de Silva (pdesilva@stpiusx.nsw.edu.au)

The Information Night for the 2018 Snowy Hike Expedition will take place in the Sarto Centre on Thursday the 9th of August 2018 at 6.00pm. The purpose of the information night is to give an overview of the timelines, journey, student preparation, equipment and risks associated with this type of activity. Parking in the College will be limited due to another activity at this time.

The Expedition is planned to take place in the last week of the school calendar year.

Mr P de Silva - Outdoor Education Coordinator

City to Surf

Due to popular demand, greatly enthused by Mr Couani’s return to Terra Australis, the College has entered a team in the City to Surf and all members of the College Community are invited to join the albeit, so far, pedestrian 15 person team, on Sunday 12th August for the City to Surf Fun Run.

The Team has been entered in the Mixed Open category under the Team name: St Pius and password: SPX.

Considering start arrangements; https://city2surf.com.au/start-details/ we will meet at Chatswood Station at 6.45am, or at Hyde Park North at the Archibald Fountain at 7.30am. We will run at own pace from the colour start groups and report in to College Community members on the grass slope at the Southern end of the Bondi Beach Pavilion, just to the right of the finish area (as per the map below), before travelling home in stages.

If you would like Mr Brannan to collect your bib on the afternoon of Friday 10th August please contact him by email sbrannan@stpiusx.nsw.edu.au In my absence on Year 7 ski expedition next week Ms Amanda Fileman will have access to Basketball/ Athletics singlets for those running in SPX Colours. Please contact her via the College Admin staff.

Please contact Mr Brannan via the College Admin staff for further information.

Its got to be easier than the Kokoda Track!

St Pius X College finish assembly City to Surf (see photo map below)

Mr S Brannan - Head of Student Services 

Debating

Our Year 10 debaters won the Semi-Finals CSDA comp and will be competing at

CSDA Finals this week.

Debating information from Mrs Waterson can be found in the document below.

Mrs M Waterson - Debating and Public Speaking Convener

RIP Mrs Valda Corbin

The College was saddened last week to hear of the passing of the passing of Mrs Valda Corbin, Great Grandmother of Liam Chang (Year 9) and Jacob Chang (Year 7).  Valda was the mother of three sons who went through St Pius in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mr S Brannan - Head of Student Services

LAST CALL:  Fundraising for Callan Services PNG

I would like to highlight our Fundraising for Callan Services in Papua New Guinea (see article below).  Can I encourage you to take the time to read the article and to either make a donation or share the link on Facebook: https://give.everydayhero.com/au/spx-kokoda-callan-services-fundraising 

Many thanks to those who have already made a donation to this very worthwhile cause.  

There has been a large amount of interest from parents and the College community in relation to fundraising for Callan Services in Papua New Guinea as part of our Immersion and Kokoda Track hike which was held at the end of Term 2.

Callan Services is part of our global Edmund Rice network and provides education, health & community based rehabilitation services for people with disabilities in PNG. Since its establishment in 1991 Callan Services has expanded and there are now 19 centres. Its work is having transformative and destigmatising effects on children with disabilities. In particular, its work in early detection and an inclusive education model can successfully integrate and transition some students with disabilities into mainstream classes – with some outstanding results.

The College community’s support of Callan Services assists them to continue their work in transforming the lives of those living with disabilities as well as their families.  Donations can be made online through the EverydayHero link below.

https://give.everydayhero.com/au/spx-kokoda-callan-services-fundraising 

If you have any questions or suggestions for further fundraising please contact me or Jane Higgins at the College.

Mr P de Silva - Outdoor Education Coordinator

FREE WORKSHOP:  How to teach a Learner Driver