Peter Corkill
Principal
Dear fellow members of the JMSS Community,
I trust this finds you all well and no doubt looking forward to the mid-year break. Now that the exam period has finished, I hope our Year 10 students are enjoying their Work Experience and our Year 11s lucky enough to be in far North Queensland on the Reef and Rainforest trip are enjoying this iconic experience. Meanwhile our Year 12s, remaining Year 11s, and staff are finishing the last week of a very busy term 2 with plenty of energy.
JMSS Win the 2024 Singapore International Mathematics Challenge
Hopefully everyone was able to catch up with the article I posted recently on Compass regarding JMSS’s win in the prestigious Singapore International Mathematics Challenge a month or so ago. I was lucky enough to attend the closing ceremony with my wife, as we were returning home from six weeks of long service leave and happened be in in Singapore at that time. It was a fantastic achievement by our three students Douglas Shuttleworth and Janneke Delhey Peters in Year 12, and Joel Tan in Year 11, as well as the many teachers both at and prior to JMSS who have guided and taught them so well.
Our Deputy Secretary Dr. David Howes penned the following tribute on behalf of the Department of Education and Training. I thought it worth sharing with you all:
Dear colleagues
This has been a term characterised, as always, by continued hard, high-quality work across our schools. There have also been some very significant challenges and important developments.
I want to first highlight a success that has not been widely reported.
Students at one of our government schools, the John Monash Science School (JMSS), won the 2024 Singapore International Mathematical and Computational Challenge.
At a time when we are, rightly, considering how we can best strengthen numeracy outcomes to achieve some of the improvements we have seen in literacy outcomes, this is a reminder that our teachers are helping students scale remarkable heights.
The Singapore International Mathematical and Computational Challenge is one of the most prestigious global school mathematics competitions, and to have a Victorian government school win this event is brilliant. JMSS’s win is a timely reminder of the excellence as well as the equity pursued and achieved by our schools.
Congratulations to the staff and students of JMSS, and also to the teachers at the primary schools our winners attended that clearly gave them such a strong base in mathematics.
Here are a few pictures of the event:
International Earth Science Olympiad
Congratulations to Joel Tan for being selected to represent Australia in the International Earth Science Olympiad being held from 8 to 16 August 2024 in Beijing, China.
The Olympiad students attended the 2024 Australian Olympiad Teams Announcement ceremony on Monday 24 June at Parliament House.
You can read more about the event here, Introducing the students selected to represent Australia at the 2024 International Science Olympiads!
You can watch the 2024 AOTA Ceremony here on the ASI YouTube channel.
Regional Exchange 2
I would like to sincerely thank all of our JMSS families who have offered to host one of the regional students in the second Regional Exchange for 2024. This is one of our major outreach events and gives chances for several young people from all over Victoria a chance to experience life at JMSS, and especially both the science onsite and importantly inside the University. Our first exchange ran smoothly and the students all had a memorable time. I trust this one will run just as well. Our regional visitors will arrive at JMSS early in Term 3.
I would like to conclude by congratulating everyone on another outstanding term’s work. There is no doubt that 11 weeks represents a longer than usual term, but the huge number of highlights and events this term, together with the outstanding engagement of our students in the life of JMSS, has given us all some incredible memories. I would like to wish all students and staff a restful and rejuvenating break, and I look forward to seeing everyone up and about for a no doubt busy term three.
Kind Regards
Peter Corkill
Principal