Junior School News 

• From the Junior School 
• Junior School Sport

From the Junior School

REFLECTION

Traditionally, the Catholic Church dedicates each month of the year to a certain devotion. The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary, one of the best known of all Catholic devotions. October includes the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7.

You might like to find opportunities in the remaining days of October to pray The Rosary as a family.

Hail Mary

Hail Mary, 

Full of Grace, 

The Lord is with thee. 

Blessed art thou among women, 

and blessed is the fruit

of thy womb, Jesus. 

Holy Mary, 

Mother of God, 

pray for us sinners now, 

and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

This week, I joined a Year 6 Religious Education lesson where students were comparing and contrasting the Creation Story as told in the Bible against one that is recounted in Indigenous culture.  I also spent time in a Year 6 Mathematics class where the students were using their knowledge of “length” to solve increasingly complex word problems. Students’ digital literacy and critical thinking skills were needed to calculate distances covered over a multi-destination route, and to then find the travel time by dividing the distance by the average speed of the vehicle.  It was wonderful to see your deep thinking and collaboration Year 6!

WORLD TEACHERS’ DAY

Teachers at St Pius, like their colleagues around the world, have shown great resilience during extremely challenging times, all so they can give their students the best future possible.  On Monday, the College will celebrate World Teachers’ Day with a special assembly and morning tea.  You might like to encourage your son to think about what his teacher/s mean to him.

SATURDAY SPORT

We woke to the sound of the 6.00 am alarm, praying that we would see a repeat of the Round 1 weather.  Whilst the skies were not as blue or cloudless, we were thankful for the break in the rain that allowed us to get all our games underway.  This week, I headed to Riverview with the Blue A Touch team who put on a spectacular display of fast-paced touch footy.  There were brave breaks out of dummy half, length-of-the-field tries, and the introduction of “Operation Maverick”.  Special thanks to Mr Sobey for stepping in as coach so that I could concentrate on watching the game, patting all the dogs, and catching up with old and new friends on the sideline.  The boys played well as a team and were rewarded with a big win over our Lane Cove rivals.

See Mr Carroll’s full wrap up of this week’s Sport below.

DEBATING

Our debaters represented the College with distinction at the IPSHA Gala Debating Day last Friday.  They faced some tough competition and came within only a few points of pulling off a win. Thank you to the boys for their commitment and congratulations on your results.  Thank you to Mr Cummins for his coordination of SPX Junior Debating.

SPX Junior Debating Team:  Xavier L, Jacob L, Zach F, Julian K, Ben M, Charlie W, Dylan G, Lachlan Y, Oscar C, and Liam O.

NSW PRIMARY SCHOOLS SPORTS ASSOCIATION (PSSA) ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

Last week, Zach F and Cristiano C competed at the NSW PSSA Athletics Carnival at Sydney Olympic Park.  Both boys had top ten successes in their events, with Zach earning himself a spot representing NSW in the National Discus titles in Brisbane later this year.  We can’t over emphasise how proud we are to have a National and State champion walking the halls of the Junior School!  Zach will have the whole of the college behind him when he competes at the National titles in November in Brisbane.

ORIENTATION

Our two Junior School Orientation events take place at the College tomorrow and Saturday.  Tomorrow, the new Year 6s will meet the current Year 5s before spending the day with Mrs Iwatani and me, and on Saturday, all the new 2023 students and their families, will be at the College for an information and orientation morning. We look forward to meeting our new families and making them welcome.

YEAR 5 FAMILY EVENT

DATES FOR THE DIARY

Tuesday 8 November – Kokoda Memorial Walk (Year 5)

Thursday 10 November – Swim/Surf program begins

Tuesday 15 November – Year 7 Transition Day (current and new Year 6s)

Tuesday 22 November – Year 7 Information Evening via TEAMS (for current and new Year 6)

Friday 25 November – Founders Day at Oxford Falls

Tuesday 29 November – Year 6 Reflection Day at Oxford Falls

Tuesday 6 December – Closing Mass, Junior School Sport and Academic Awards, Semester 2 Reports issued, last day of school year for students.

Mrs Jill Greenwood - Head of Junior School 

Junior School Sport

Thursday Sport: at Oxford Falls. Summer training continues for Basketball, Cricket, Softball, Tennis and Touch Football. Just a reminder that our departure time has been brought forward to 2.10 pm, so any parents wishing to collect their children from Oxford Falls need to arrive by 2.05 pm. Any students who have not been collected by 2.10 pm will board the final bus back to Chatswood.

NSW PSSA Athletics: I am proud to announce that Zach Fourie (6 Red) finished 3rd in Discus to clench a spot in the NSW team. Zach will compete at the National Carnival taking place in Brisbane next month. Zach threw a PB last week, only narrowly falling short of first and second place. The good news for Zach is that he is feeling very optimistic and confident that he still has room for improvement. We wish Zach all the best with his preparation for the ‘big dance’ next month in Brisbane. 

I would like to acknowledge Cristiano Calcarao (5 Red) who also competed in the carnival last week. Cristiano placed 5th in the 800m and 7th in the 1500m, narrowly missing selection for the National team in both events. Well done Cristiano on your impressive Athletics campaign this year.

Term 4 Swim Program: Thank you to the many families who have returned their forms regarding our Term 4 Swim program. I will be liaising with both organisations at the end of this week to discuss the needs of our students. If you haven’t sent through your son’s details, please do so ASAP. 

• Macquarie Uni Grading Form (Year 5 students) – a hardcopy form has been distributed to students and a digital copy has been emailed to parents.
• SEA Australia Waiver (Year 6 students) – Year 6 parents only, please click below: 

Results - Saturday 22 October:

Softball - Saturday 29 October:

Touch Football - Thursday 27 October:  Please note change of day

Basketball - Saturday 29 October:

Swimming Squad Training – Term 4, 2022: 

Training continues this week.  The details are as follows:

• 7.10 am at Fitness First, Chatswood (24 Endeavour St, Chatswood) 
• Suitable swimwear, goggles and swim cap are all essential (no cap, no swim)
• Students wear PE/ Pius Sports Uniform to the sessions. At 8.15 am the boys are walked back to school by staff. They then change into school uniform. A snack/breakfast is also recommended at this point.
• Training days/dates:

Mr Glen Carroll - Junior School Sports Coordinator

NSTA Tennis

What a great start to the season, the weather was perfect for tennis, not too hot and not too cold and lucky the rain held off for us. There were some amazing shots and great sportsmanship all round. Everyone was ready and raring to go at 8.00 am, with Pius winning 6 of the 7 matches! It was great to see some new players to SPX tennis enjoying themselves and so many friendly games being played. Thanks must go to Riley Seeto, Ethan Li and Jack Fairbanks who helped to umpire and guide our younger green ball players. 

The 10.00 am games seemed quite chilled, everyone was enjoying the games and some great results were seen. In division 5 Alex Dal Molin and Will Scaiff, a new pairing displayed some excellent skills on the court winning all 18 games. Manni Costello and Daniel Harper also had and excellent stat to the season beating Redland 18 games to 4.

UMPIRES & MENTORS FOR ROUND 2: Yuri Kim, Luke Mortimer and Matthew Lee

Mrs Samantha Iwatani - NSTA Convenor