Magis

The Magis Year 7 Camp  held at Point Walter over the weekend was a wonderful  success, with four outstanding presenters, David Castellani from Alpha Motivation,  Kathy Boyatzis from Creative Edge Thinking, plus brilliant presentations from Year 11 Lorian Marshall who spoke on Leadership, and Year 9 Alice O’Sullivan who focused on overcoming adversity. Completing the emphasis on development of Magis leadership was Year 8 Daniel Doran who organised the Talent Show.  Warmest thanks to these superb presenters, to the students whose enthusiasm enhanced the camp enormously, to Mrs Alison O’Connor for her great work assisting with organisation and supervision, and to Mrs O’Sullivan for her valuable assistance. A full separate colourful pictorial PDF report including results of the camp academic challenges is attached.

Magis captain Rory Hewson excelled to win third place in the grand final of the Secondary Catholic Schools’ Speak For Faith competition at the CEO on Monday.  Rory was the only male student to reach the grand final and performed superbly against the five outstanding girls in the final.

Our Year 7 debating team of Meg Derbyshire,  Wesley Soares, Hannah Johnson and Maya Mintz, which won their division in the WADL division at Christchurch, was defeated by Hale in the Octofinals at Perth College last Tuesday but are to be congratulated on a wonderful season.

Warmest thanks also to Mr Peter Mazur has been working hard with the Year 7 Opti-MINDS Science-Engineering team.  Good luck to the John XXIII Tournament of Minds and Opti-MINDS teams as they prepare for regional finals on 31 August.  The Current Magis Academic Challenge running at present is Creativity which involves brief mini-challenges from these prestigious competitions.

The three John XXIII College World Scholar’s Cup teams are currently competing in the Global round in Sydney. The students are from Years 7-10, and Ms Kirralee Dawson and Mr Christian Thompson are assisting me with this event. There will be a full report in next week’s newsletter.

Two other exciting Magis highlights coming soon will be the famous Bell Shakespeare Company who will perform at the College on 28 August, and the John XXIII College Chess Championships. Full details will be distributed when I return from Sydney.

Jim Miller

Gifted and  Talented Program coordinator