Parent & Student Matters 

• Science
• History
• English
• Lights Camera Pius! Film Festival 2023
• Splinters, Splashes, Sounds, Snaps, Stage and Stories
• Textbook Requirements for Year 12 2024
• Kokoda Expedition 2024 Expressions of Interest

Science

In Week 6, from Monday 21 to Wednesday 23 August, we celebrated SPX Science Week at lunchtimes. The theme for this year was Innovation - Powering Future Industries. The students who attended enjoyed a variety of Innovation-themed activities including: building a wind turbine and powering it with a motor; building a balloon-driven water pump; and competing in an Innovation Quizziz.

There were food prizes each day for the first 10 - 20 students arriving, Lucky Door prizes on Monday and Tuesday, and prizes for students that placed in the Quizziz.

Congratulations to the following students:

Day 1 Lucky Door Prize recipients - Cooper T, Lucas H and Samuel F

Day 2 Lucky Door Prize recipients - Noah E, Zac N and Liam B

Quizziz winners - Luke M, Marcus E and Harry C

Thank you also to all of the Science staff who assisted each day and the following Year 12 students: Lucas W, Oisin W, Jack L, Lachlan G and Ben W.

Mrs Joanne Schuster - Science Coordinator

History

Two weeks ago we congratulated Michael Cheah for his outstanding result of being State and National Champion in the Australian History Competition. Since then we have received all the marks for the Year 9 and 10 students who participated in this. Some more excellent results were achieved by the following students:

High Distinction in Year 9: Daniel Harper, Aiden Kiem, Jack Manning-O’Donnell, Dominic McLachlan, Benjamin Tan and Nicholas Wennen.

High Distinction in Year 10: Ronan Earle, Aidan Seifert and Sebastian Blane.

Congratulations to these students who were ranked in the top 5% of all participants.

Mr Pat Rodgers - History/Legal Studies Coordinator

English

Last week, the winners of the Microfiction Competition were announced to begin Literacy Week at St Pius X College. The competition invited students to compose their own tiny tale of no more than 100 words, providing a great challenge for students to write in exciting, economical and engaging ways.

Congratulations to Anthony Parissis of Year 10 for winning the competition, as well as Cooper Anderson and Jack Harrison for finishing in second and third place respectively. 

Rory Rapa of Year 6 deservedly won the Primary School Prize, while Daniel Staal was bestowed the Principal’s Highly Commended Award as Mr Ronchetti’s favourite story. Jackson Byak of Year 7, Joshua Wang of Year 8 and Louis Forbes of Year 9 were also recognised as Special Merit winners.

Thank you must also go to the P&F for the generous donation that funded prizes. The four major winners received gift vouchers for Dymocks and Westfield!

The winning stories can be read in the file attached.

Lights, Camera Pius! on the big screen!

Last Thursday we held our annual Lights Camera Pius! Film Festival.  It has become a cultural tradition at the College, a chance for students to showcase their skills and creativity. Thursday’s Festival was a definite raising of the bar.  Seeing the work of students from the Junior School to Year 12 on the big screen was truly amazing. Many of the film entrants had worked on films during weekends and the holidays.  The time and effort it takes to make a film can never really be understood until you have a go yourself. Congratulations to all our entrants.

Winners

Year 12 First Prize  ‘Clapped Man’   Freddie Johnston and Alex Regan, Year 12

Years 10 and 11      ‘Solving the Obvious’    Michael Krizan, Year 11

Years 6 to 9              ‘Day in the Life of a St Pius T-Rex’    Jayden  Kwok , Year 6

Ms Fryar Judges’ Special Prize

‘Rotten Tomatoes’    Jake Swan, Noah Watson, Hugo Moran and Harry Moran,  Year 8

Mr Quilty Judges’ Special Prize

‘Dream Scape’         Nelson Elliot, John Badger Rahme, Connor Joy and Lachlan Mitchell,  Year 10

Eamon Boyle Judges’ Special Prize

‘The Bounty’             Joshua Hourigan,  Year 7

Thank you to the Film Festival Committee who began work on the festival several months ago, attending lunchtime meetings to arrange advertising and promotional material including posters, videos, assembly presentations and visited classrooms and liaised with Mr Casey. Preparing the footage for the big screen took much time and effort and we are very grateful to Mr Daniel McGowan from IT for his hard work in organising the films, creating opening and closing footage, credits and ensuring the sound was consistent. He was helped by Mr Stephen Cummins from the Performing Arts Department and we thank him also for his hard work.

Committee Members

Year 8            

Jake Swan, Hugo Moran, Harry Moran, Noah Watson, Luca Basso, Nikolai Hurrell, Sebastian van Vuuren, James Bone, Leo Ward-Harvey, Alexander Dowley

Year 11

Fergus Fung, Noah Elms, Zeke Reynolds, Eliot Sanders

Year 12

Luca van Vuuren, Zavier Domenici, Luke Sarkissian, Jonathon Webster, Caleb Hanrahan, Alex Regan, Robbie Sapuppo, Freddie Johnston

Ms Frances Doyle - Visual Arts Coordinator

Splinters, Splashes, Sounds, Snaps, Stage and Stories

You are all invited to view the  online exhibition of Splinters, Splashes, Stage, Sounds, Snaps and Sound that showcases the remarkable major projects of our HSC Class of 2023. 

Be inspired by the ingenuity and innovation of our creative students; celebrate and appreciate their wonderful accomplishments. 

Congratulations to all our students on an outstanding collection of creativity. 

Mr Alex Damo - Assistant Principal, Teaching and Learning

Textbook Requirements for Year 12 2024

As we draw to the conclusion of Year 11, it is time to consider textbook requirements for Year 12.

You can choose to purchase textbooks from any source. The most common suppliers are as follows:

Campion Education

The college has nominated Campion Education as the preferred supplier for new texts.

Orders can be placed via www.campion.com.au  using the following  access code:

                MX8M

The booklist for Campion is attached and also available from their website and will soon also be available on the  Year Level CANVAS page. 

Parents wishing to take advantage of the Pre-Packaged Delivery service will need to place their orders by 13 September.

Books are still able to be purchased and delivered after this date. 

The Sustainable School Shop

www.sustainableschoolshop.com.au

The St Pius X College P&F Association on behalf of the College community has kindly subscribed to the services of the Sustainable School Shop. 

There is no charge to parents when using their services.  

A user guide is attached.

ISBN - Second Hand Books  

When purchasing second hand books, you can verify the correct version by referring to the ISBN.

A list of the ISBN for Yr 12 Textbooks is attached. 

If you have any questions regarding Textbooks for specific courses, please contact the relevant Subject Coordinator as listed below.

Mr Alex Damo - Assistant Principal, Teaching and Learning

Kokoda Track Expedition 2024 – Expressions of Interest

After a very successful information night, we are now taking expressions of interest for participation in our 2024 expedition and anticipate training to begin later in the year. The dates for the expedition are:

Monday 1 July – Thursday 11 July 2024.

The expedition is open to all students who will be in Year 9 to Year 11 in 2024 and their families.

In the past we have had fathers and sons, mothers and sons, uncles, brothers and sisters.

Expressions of interest can be made via the following link.

Mr Paul de Silva - Outdoor Education Coordinator