News and Excursions

what has been happening around JMSS

Australian Geography Competition

In mid-May over 200 students participated in the AustralianGeography Competition.

The Australian Geography Competition is a contest for Australian secondary school students. It consists of multiple-choice questions testing students’ geographical knowledge and skill. Each participant receives a certificate and outstanding students at each year level win a prize, special certificates and medals.

The top Year11 students are invited to the annual Geography’s Big WeekOut, which consists of a five-day event which focuses onfieldwork, spatial technologies and analytical skills.

The last couple of years the competition has been held online and, this year, was no exception.

The school has been fortunate enough to have had Year 12 student winners in the past, however they have not been eligible for the Big Week Out.

This year we have a Year 11 student who has come first in Victoria and who has been invited to participate in the Big Week Out which will be held in Jindabyne and in Canberra.

Congratulations to Dylan Mathew of Flannery for an outstanding effort!

~ Adriana Abels

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 watch the 2024 AOTA Ceremony here on the ASI YouTube channel.

~ Peter Corkill

Japan Exchange

Mr Cussen and Ms Xie, along with 8 lucky students, headed off to Kyoto for their Japanese Exchange with Ritsumeikan High School.

~ Abby Goff

What a great group of young people to go travelling with!

Everyone was so supportive and considerate of each other. Plus you were a happy bunch of travellers, talking and laughing together, sharing food and snacks, and your homestay experiences. I wonder if there were any Japanese sweets you didn't taste !

It was great to see your willingness to get involved in all the school classes and excursion activities.

Thanks also for sharing your talents, whether at the piano, performing on the shamisen, creating lovely calligraphy or organising the group when in Kyoto. It was nice to see you were all having fun and looking out for one another.

Although it was a little short and hard to say goodbye to your fantastic host buddies, you have made some new friends at Ritsumeikan, deepening your understanding and connections with one another as well as your Japanese families and school friends.

~ Daniel Cussen

Interschool Chess Tournament Report

Eighteen students (16 boys and 2 girls) participated in the NSC Secondary Open Zonal interschool chess tournament at St Leonard's College.

JMSS emerged in second place in the team standings after 7 exciting rounds in a competition comprising nine different schools and almost 120 players.

Following some excellent play, Brandon Zeng (6 wins, 1 loss) finished in shared second place in the individual standings of the Open Section.
Four students finished on 5 points (Damaris Augustine, Khoi Nguyen, Douglas Shuttleworth and Aaron Baker).
Damaris won the gold medal in the Girls Section and Khoi took home the bronze medal in the Year 9/10 category.
Finishing on 4.5 points were Sammy Jenny, Jayden Kurniawan, Noah Barrett and Alex Fischbacher.

Congratulations to all of the above-mentioned students, for they have qualified for the State Interschool Chess Finals championship which is due to take place on October 11.

Special thanks to the JMSS Chess Club captains, Aaron and Douglas, for registering and organising the school chess team.

Commendations should also go to Rhea Fernandez (Year 10) for her grit and determination to finish the tournament with three straight wins, after a winless start in the early rounds of the competition.

The full tournament results can be found here:

https://northernstarchess.com/pyrus/?tournament_id=240621_StL_SO

~ Tuan Le