Magis report

Tuesday night’s Interschool Debating saw John XXIII win five of our eight debates at Christ Church Grammar School, with our younger students being particularly impressive. It was great to see excellent parental support, and special thanks to coaches and managers Ms Dawson, Mrs Glass, Mrs Lumley, Alex Panther, Charlie Richards and Ben Negus for their splendid work with the teams. Round 4 will be on 1 June, except for our Years 11 and 12 teams who should be debating each other but this debate has been moved to the make-up round in Week 11 because of the exams in Week 7. This coming week is therefore a full training round for all other teams.

The House Academic Championship series has been most successful, with overall numbers of 270-310 for each of the three challenges so far, a fantastic result. Loreto House won the Academic Spelling section, St Louis the Mental Mathematics, and Koolyangarra the Arts and Humanities. St Louis leads the championships narrowly overall, but all Houses have achieved some excellent results. The current leaders from each year group for the champion student award for the Academic Challenge series are:

Finn O’Loughlin (Year 12)
Natalie ong (Year 11)
Daniel Doran (Year 10)
Thomas Syminton (Year 9)
Marco Zammuto (Year 8)
Elise Kwei and Ollie Syminton (Year 7)

The leaderboard with the top 12 students from each year group is attached. All have performed superbly leading against up to 40 other students from each year.

Nominations remain open for three major gifted and talented events, Creative Edge Thinking (OPTI-minds), Tournament of Minds, and Famelab. Famelab is an opportunity for one strong Year 9 science student to compete at the Heath Ledger Theatre in August. This event is for girls only. We now have several very strong Creative Edge Challenge teams nominated, and there will be a special workshop conducted by the WA Director of Creative Edge late in June. Our Year 12 Speak For Faith representatives, Caitlin Green and Oscar Hegge will compete in this excellent event on Saturday 12 June at the Catholic Education Office.

Jim Miller

Magis Gifted and Talented Program Coordinator