News and Excursions
what has been happening around JMSS
Young ICT Explorers (YICTE) Competition
JMSS had amazing results in the Young ICT Explorers (YICTE) Competition. In the Victorian division they won the first and second prize for the year 9-10 category, and they won the first, second and third prizes for the year 11-12 category.
The YICTE Competition is designed to encourage students to solve real-world problems or express their creativity using technology. The students can either work individually or in teams of up to four students. They must write a report and then present their project to a panel of judges. The projects are judged on four criteria: creativity, difficulty, quality, and presentation. The judging panels include industry experts and university academics from the digital technology sector.
This year Tayyab Tahir, Aditya Desai, Jap Deol and Jerryl Kidagan (2nd prize, year 9-10 category) developed ARIA (AI Retail Interaction Assistant) an advanced AI-powered chatbot to revolutionise customer service for online retail businesses.
Andy Zeng, Brian Leap, Mor Yang and Adam Wong (1st prize, year 9-10 category) project ShallowExplore investigated an AI approach for predicting Cardiovascular Disease.
In the year 11-12 category, Jinglin Yang and Jacob Poon (3rd prize) produced a platform for short educational videos called Brian Grow AI. Arnav Bagal constructed an educational website called Eco Solve (2nd prize) where users can learn more about the environment and make more sustainable choices.
The final project, Finger Linkage Tracker (1st prize) was produced by Ryan Wee, Ayden Yak and Jian-Yu Lee. This project created an accessible recreational and educational technology to track the position of fingertips relative to one’s hand.
These projects highlight the creativity and skills of these students, and the judges were truly impressed by the complexity and quality of all these projects.
~ Dr David Albrecht
2025 Chess Finals participation by JMSS
The JMSS chess team performed with distinction in 3 separate interschool chess state finals in October. Each student had previously gained entry for the finals by excelling in qualifying tournaments earlier in the year. This is a short summary of each tournament:
The Northern Star Chess Open State Finals, for all students regardless of gender, took place at Xavier College. JMSS finished in a credible fifth place out of a total of 71 competing schools. Notable performances came from Khoi Nguyen and Felix Lopata (both finished on 7 points out of 9); Adithya Shyam (6.5 points); Jayden Kurniawan, Jonathan Moroshko, Mor Yang, Selby Thompson, and Gabriel Das (6 points); Alex Fischbacher (5.5 points).
Full results are available in the link below:
Northern Star Chess Open State Finals
The separate Northern Star Chess Open State Finals for Girls took place at Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School. Our sole JMSS representative, Damaris Augustine, finished on an amazing 6 points (out of 7) and tied for second place in the individual standings.
For the full results, see the link below:
Northern Star Chess Open State Finals for Girls
The highly competitive Chess Australia Open State Finals took place at Brighton Grammar. JMSS finished in 13th place overall in the school standings. Brandon Zeng and Felix Lopata played excellently to finish on 6 points out of 8. Credible performances came from Khoi Nguyen (4 points), and from Selby Thompson and Mor Yang (both on 3.5 points).
Full results in the link below:
Here are some photos from the tournaments:
Chess Australia State Finals
Chess Australia State Finals
Northern Star Chess State Finals
2025 Secondary Chess Open Tournament - Camberwell Boys Grammar
~ Tuan Le
Achievements in Athletics - Jonathan Firth
Jonathan Firth has participated in and placed well in the EMR Athletics, State Athletics and All School Athletics tournaments. Please see his remarkable results below:
EMR Athletics 13 Oct
1st place in 100m, 200m, long jump and triple jump.
State Athletics 20 Oct (Government schools)
1st 100m
4th long jump
All Schools Athletics 26 Oct (Private, Independent & Government)
1st 100m
Jonathan will go on to represent JMSS and Victoria at the Nationals in December.
Jonathan Firth (centre podium)
~ Greg Whyte
Intermediate boys table tennis
The intermediate boys table tennis team competed in the eastern regional competition and came runners-up (behind MWSC). They are looking forward to a rematch in next year's senior competition.
Players were:
Andy Zeng, Mor Yang, Flynn Zeng, Advik Palta, Brian Leap, Ho Ming Leung.
~ Dr Penelope Hale