Magis report

The John XXIII College Public peaking grand final was held this week and there were many outstanding performances.  Congratulations to all 20 grand final competitors plus the 47 fine speakers who represented their houses and gained house points although not reaching the final. Three outstanding Alumni, Tom Paparo, Rory Hewson and Charlie Richards, were our judges for the grand final, and the excellence of all speakers made their job a particularly difficult one. Warmest thanks to them and to our Principal Mr Rob Henderson and Vice Principal Mrs Kath Negus for their wonderful support of the event and presentation of the awards.  Skye MacMillan from Year 11 chaired the evening with great professionalism. Thanks also to the many students and staff who contributed significantly by judging the lunchtime heats over four weeks leading up to the event. 

Campion House won the championship narrowly from Koolyangarra and Loreto, but all houses had some very fine speakers. Here is a link to the results and the action photo collage.

On Friday after John XXIII Day the Year 7 and 8 camp will be held at the beautiful Point Walter Campsite in Bicton.  There will be workshops by two outstanding external presenters, David Catelellani from Alpha Motivation and Kathy Boyatzis, the WA Director of Opti-MINDS and Creative Edge Thinking.  In addition four senior Magis leaders, Ben Linsten, Alex Panther, Nick Brennan and Genevieve Fergusson-Allen will deliver keynote addresses, and there will be a range of other items on the program including a Quiz Night and a Talent show. Warmest thanks to Mrs Alison O’Connor who will again be assisting me at the camp. There are links to the parent version of the Camp handbook below. Students have received a hard copy of this and the list of what to bring.

The final two Magis academic challenges, STEM and Language/Literature will commence in week 4, and we look forward to further great participation from all homerooms. The challenges are part of the house championships for the first time this year, and the three events held so far have averaged nearly 170 students from Years 7 to 12, a fantastic result. Meanwhile our four Opti-MINDS teams are working well. Special thanks go to Mr Damien Connellan for his great work with the two Science-Engineering teams. The Literature-Communication teams have a challenge involving creating of a play which must incorporate four different characters from four different Charles Dickens novels.  The Magis option classes have started on their personal projects and completed a goal-setting assessment.  There were some excellent performances on Friday when they tried their hand at past Creative Producers Challenges from the Da Vinci Decathlon.

Jim Miller

Magis Gifted and Talented Program Coordinator