Secondary School News

Dean of Teaching and Learning, Ms Kathy Paul

It has been a busy end of Term 4 with many student activities, events and celebrations to conclude the year.

Year 7 Overnight Encounter

Year 7 students celebrated the end of year with their student led and run camp at Manjedal Activity Centre, Karrakup. The Year 7 Overnight Encounter encourages the students to develop resiliency and responsibility for their own camp. The Overnight Encounter is a student-driven experience which allows the group to choose-their-own adventure for the two days and enjoy the company of their peers in a relaxed environment before the end of their year together. The Year 7s thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to cook their own barbeque, play frisbee golf and experience a very special night walk to the Bush Chapel. The students are to be commended for their resilience, organisational skills and positive attitude. Thank you to Ms Fowler, Ms Fisher, the Year 7 Teachers and to everyone who assisted at the Encounter. What a memorable way to conclude Year 7! 

First Lego League Success

Congratulations to our teams of students who recently participated in the First LEGO League (FLL) Challenge. The First LEGO League Challenge enables students to enhance skills in creativity, critical thinking, develop STEM based concepts and build habits of learning. During the Challenge, teams participate in an Innovation Project to identify, engineer and solve a relevant real-world problem.  Our three JWACS teams achieved exceptional results with each team bringing home a trophy. Team FLARE won the Motivational Award, Team WALL-E won the Best Design Robot and Team CPUS came second overall on the day. Teams WALL-E and CPUS will be participating at the FLL National Championship West, held at Curtin University on the 9 December. Thank you to Mrs LeValliant, Mr Fox and the Science Department for all their work and support with the teams to achieve such great success. Thank you also to Year 10 student Marley Bassett for her continued support and mentorship throughout the competition as a previous member of our World Championship team. Good luck to our JWACS teams as they compete in the FLL National Championship West this weekend. 

Year 10 Hospitality

The Year 10 Hospitality class recently completed their croquembouche as part of their Certificate qualification. Students spent several lessons making choux pastry buns, filling them with creme patissiere and then assembling and decorating their work with spun sugar. Thank you very much to Miss Lambert for supporting our students with their culinary pastry creations and for providing this terrific way to conclude the first year of their Certificate.

AISWA Middle Leaders Program

On the 27 November, John Wollaston hosted the Association of Independent Schools Western Australia (AISWA) Middle Leaders program for teachers across the State who are either aspiring or new to middle leadership positions. Selected Primary and Secondary staff conducted a series of professional learning sessions on a range of topics to support the participants’ educational leadership journey of collaboration, exploration and reflection.  This immersive experience was an immense success for the participants of the AISWA Middle Leaders program and we look forward to hosting further leadership experiences with AISWA in the future.

As the academic year draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all students and their families a Merry Christmas, and a safe and relaxing holiday. I have enjoyed being a part of this caring and compassionate learning community and I look forward to staying connected to John Wollaston next year as the Director of Teaching and Learning for the Anglican Schools Commission. Finally, we look forward to welcoming students back to school in 2024.

Best wishes

Kathryn Paul

Dean of Teaching and Learning