Secondary

St Georges Cathedral Art Exhibition

Congratulations to year 12 ATAR Visual Arts students, Isabella Agostino, Cooper Gordon, and Siobhan Waller on having their artworks selected for exhibition in the prestigious St Georges Cathedral Art Awards. The exhibition opens to the public on the 15 July and runs until the 23 July, at St Georges Cathedral on St Georges Terrace, Perth.

Kiri Moore

MAGIS

There have been many exciting opportunities offered through the College Magis program this semester. Year 7 Magis students have been busy with an elective subject, as have Year 8 Magis students. Both year groups presented their research projects in an afternoon tea in the Library on Wednesday afternoon. There has been a special maths extension offered in Year 9 with a link to astronomy through the University of Western Australia. Our students have been successful in Mock Trials and Debating, with our Magis Debating team travelling to St Ignatius College, Adelaide on 2 July to compete in the Jesuit Schools’ Debating Carnival. A small group of Year 10 students spent a fascinating day at Harry Perkins Medical Institute learning about cancer cells. The annual Year 6 Art and Philosophy day was held at the Art Gallery of Western Australia where students from over 30 primary schools explored philosophy with a program initiated by our College. Tournament of Minds is well under way and the Robotics Club has been meeting regularly. The Astronomy and Philosophy Clubs have also met regularly and on 22 June the Magis Carnival was held luring students from seven Catholic schools to discuss complex philosophical ideas such as: “Agriculture is a mechanised food industry divorced from nature”.  Students finished the evening contemplating the nature of reality in a social media saturated world.

Dr Annette Pedersen

Head of Magis and Ignatius Centre Learning Areas,

Year 8 News

Year 8 students have had a busy end to Semester One. There was great support for LifeLink which was established by the Archdiocese of Perth and supports agencies that reach out to help more than 34,000 Western Australians every year. All Year 8 Homerooms collected money and goods for donation and Campion House also held a very successful Bake Sale. Year 8s raised over $800.00 which was a great effort! Well done to the Student Leaders that drove the initiative.

The Year 8 Magis group presented their research to parents and friends. People could walk around and ask the students questions about their research findings. Some very interesting presentations indeed!

Year 8s were also fortunate to experience FLYBZ.  Fablice a.k.a FLYBZ, continues to be an amazing Ambassador for ‘Jesuit Social Services’, speaking, rapping and performing at more than 50 schools around Australia about the hardship of being a former refugee and child soldier and his ''joy'' at arriving in ''paradise'' Australia. Student loved listening to his story of survival in the civil war that affected both his homeland of Burundi in East Africa and Rwanda. He was orphaned at 8 and by 11 he was given a gun and trained to be a child solider. Fablice has also toured East Timor, where he appeared at the new Jesuit school at Kasait. He was honoured with being awarded the Victorian Young Achiever of The Year. This is an amazing achievement and the first for a young Burundian.

I wish everyone a safe and restful break and have encouraged all Year 8s to set some personal goals for Semester Two.

Rita de Faria

Assistant Deputy Principal – Year 8

Year 9 Social

The Year 9 Social was a great time to have fun with friends especially as it was the last week of school. Everyone looked really great all dressed up in their clothes to suit the vintage/ op-shop theme and all the decorations set up by the SRC really brought the exhibition centre to life. The smoke machine, the lights and the DJ music provided ‘mood’ to the evening. It was awesome to dance with friends, eat and play some games. People brought their best moves, singing voices and even limbo skills to the party to share a few laughs and make the social one to remember! Everyone joined in, including the SRC and teachers, and it was a fun way to interact with the whole year out of school hours, and was an exciting way to end Term Two.

Jas Collins

FLYBZ

On Wednesday, we were payed a visit by the incredibly inspirational Fablice Manirakiza also known as FLYBZ. He came to speak with our students about how young people can really make a difference in the world. FLYBZ grew up in a small African country called Burundi where civil war had broken out. He was orphaned at the age of eight and abducted to become a child soldier at the age of eleven. He eventually escaped Burundi and lived in a refugee camp where he was after a lot of hard work was able to get to Australia for a new life.

He is now a well-known Rapper who raps for peace and love. He has sold many singles performed with many famous artists such as Paul Kelly. Despite all FLYBZ has been through in his life he still has retained a positive outlook on life which he is looking to teach many young people about. He taught us to treat one another as we would like to be treated and that our generation is going to be the generation for change. After telling us his life story the fun came when he got the whole crowd involved with his music deeming John XXIII College the most enthusiastic crowd he has had yet. The students all thoroughly enjoyed listening, dancing and singing along with FLYBZ and we all cannot wait until he comes back next year.

Adam Smith

Debating

Debating has been one of the best experiences that I have had the chance to be a part of since coming to John XXIII College in Year 7. It is a co-curricular activity that is available to all students in the secondary school.   We meet on Monday after school in X15 where we brainstorm ideas on the topic we will be debating. We generally get two training sessions in before we present our debate at Christchurch against various schools from the region including St Hilda’s, MLC and of course Christchurch among others.

In each debate we know who we will be competing against prior to the debate itself and what we will be arguing for or against, unless you are doing impromptu, which is on the spot debating. Our teams have had to debate on a range of topics, some of these being; whether we should introduce a no body, no parole rule, whether we should or should not tolerate civil disobedience, if religious charities are doing more harm than good in developing countries, and if we should regret the role of celebrities in the 2016 US presidential election.

Each topic has been a challenge and each team has persevered each time.   We have developed strong bonds with our team mates and have even found new friends. We are proud to say that despite it being the first year for our Year 9s they have performed very well, with each team winning at least one debate and it is fair to say that they have improved astronomically. Of course none of this would be possible without the help of both Ms Wooltorton who organises training, afternoon tea, extra practises and anything else that comes up, and our wonderful coaches  Anna and Will. Both Anna and Will are John XXIII Alumni who give up their time to help us.  It is because of them that we have not only improved our skills at debating, but we have also developed lifelong skills, varying from good sportsmanship to general politeness.

Debating has been a wonderful experience for not only me, but for my team mates as well.  I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is up for some fun!

Nicholas Brennan