Junior School News

• From the Head of the Junior School 
• Junior School Sport
• Junior Resource Centre News

From the Head of the Junior School 

PRAYER

TREES AT FIRST LIGHT WHEN IT IS WELL BELOW ZERO

God of first light,

We thank you for the trees that have stood patiently all night

Ready for when the birds begin to call at their unseemly hour.

We offer you this day.

All its prayers, works, joys and sufferings.

Guide us to where you need us.

We thank you for the gift of our lives and the world within which we lead them.

We thank you for the small moments of beauty and wonder in every day.

May we listen to the words of Jesus.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God and trust in me.

Amen

CONGRATULATIONS – TO OUR PUBLISHED AUTHORS AND ILLUSTRATORS

Year 5 boys participated in the Willoughby Council ‘Our local wildlife short story competition.’ We have four boys who have been selected to have either their story or their illustration published in the storybook. The presentation is normally held in Chatswood Library to congratulate the children whose work is being published in the storybook.

This year the  Book Launch will occur via Zoom, on Thursday 19 November at 1.30 pm. The Mayor will read her favourite story and hopefully some family members will be able to log on to this Zoom Assembly. 

Congratulations to Michael Chung, Lucas Tubman, Nickolas Cheung and Alexander Parissis who will be published. Well done gentlemen. This could be the beginning of a career.

ASSESSMENTS

Please ensure you have looked at the Assessment Schedule.  We have various assessments occurring in the next few weeks such as Year 6 Maths tests this week and Year 5 Maths tests at the end of next week.  I would recommend that the boys revise their work.

THURSDAY - SUMMER SPORTS TRAINING

The boys will leave after recess and if you wish to collect your son it will be in front of the Christian Brothers Centre (CBC Gym) at the bottom of the carpark at 2.10 pm - 2.20 pm.

SWIMMING PROGRAM

Please note that due to COVID restrictions our Year 5 booking at Macquarie Pool was affected so Mr McBrearty has managed a great alternative where we alternate between Macquarie University and Fitness First Chatswood.  Please note that Macquarie University pool is outdoors so a ‘rashie’ is recommended. In the past we have received rash t-shirts from the surf safety school but just in case I would recommend Year 6 parents also pack a rashie.

In Week 8 we will be back at Oxford Falls, which will be Mr Patterson's last day at Oxford Falls.

BOOK WEEK PARADE

The Book Week Parade was a great success.  Thank you for your assistance in helping your sons to be involved in this fun activity.  Thank you to Mrs Martin (the Mad Hatter) for her organisation and for all the teachers who got involved.  In fact, I’m not sure who had the most fun, the teachers or the boys.  Thank you to Mr Simpson, our MC, who was Davey Crockett.  Mr Couani was there as Dumbledore and Mrs Brady (Mr Couani’s PA) and Mr Munday (Maintenance) were flowers for Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.   Well done to all the boys who got dressed up and participated in the fun because that is what it is all about.  Congratulations to all the prize winners. 

It takes quite a few people to make this successful.  Thank you to our judges, our Senior Drama Teacher, Mrs Lindley, and our Senior Librarian, Mrs Keighery.  Thank you to Mr Stephen Cummins who was "Mr Music" and Mrs Bradley who was the photographer. Thank you to our ICT team for the filming and Mr Darbin (Maintenance) for the props. 

AUTHOR TALK TODAY

This morning, James Foley, an author from Western Australia spoke to us in through TEAMS in the Year 6 Period 1 Literacy classes.  A big thank you to James as he was speaking to us at 6.10 am in Western Standard Time.  He has written 17 books and currently working on his 18th book.  He was interesting, engaging and the boys enjoyed the experience.  James spoke about his writing career from Kindergarten all the way to today.

Yesterday, Year 5 had an online session with Willoughby Library. It could be a good conversation starter for the dinner table.         

FUTURE EVENTS

• Thursday 29/10  - The boys will watch College Leadership Investiture via TEAMS.
• Friday 30/10 – World Teachers' Day – the boys will attend the whole college assembly during morning administration time (before Period 1- weather permitting.)
• Saturday 31/10 - Yrs 5-6 (2021) Orientation Morning online – videoed speeches and then live online question and answer session.
• Thursday 5/11 – Swim program commences.

THOUGHT TO PONDER

At the beginning of the school day, the Year 5 classes were visited by the senior boys for Wellbeing Wednesday.  During the administration time, the students participated in a short meditation.  With that thought, I have selected a quote from a book entitled, ‘The young person’s guide to a calmer life - COOLMIND’ by David Keefe.

"There is a saying:

Trees can’t grow strong roots in a storm.  

So you need to practise the art of relaxation when the weather is good 

so you can use it when the weather is bad!”

Stay Safe as we are all in this together

Thank you for your support

Mr Tim Long - Head of the Junior School 

Junior School Sport

Junior School Sport News:  Saturday fixtures for this weekend are listed below. Please note - occasionally there are changes to the draw. Current, correct and confirmed times and locations are published in Woodchatta. If there are discrepancies to the initial draw published in Woodchatta, this is due to a change to the initial draw.  The information in Woodchatta supersedes the initial draw. Please ensure you are at the venue 30 mins prior to the start of you match. 

Thursday Sport:  Training for Basketball, Cricket, Tennis & Touch. Pick-up time from Oxford Falls of 2.10 pm - 2.20pm. 

Waivers for Swim Program:  Please would you ensure you complete the waivers for the swim program by Thursday 29 October. 

Y5: Fitness First and Macquarie Uni (Paper forms)

Y6: https://www.seaaustralia.com.au/school-waiver-form

Basketball:

Basketball Training Week 4:  Due to exams in the gym, training will be slightly different for Weeks 4 and 5. Please see below for Week 4 training times and locations: 

Week 4:

• A, B teams: Monday afternoons from 3 .00 pm – 4.30 pm: Nets
• C, D, teams: Tuesday afternoons from 3.00 pm – 4.30 pm: Nets
• E, F teams: Tuesday afternoons from 3.00 pm – 4.30 pm: Cancelled
• G, H teams: Monday mornings from 7.30 am – 8.30 am: Nets
• I, J teams: Tuesday mornings from 7.30 am – 8.30 am: Nets
• K, L teams: Monday mornings from 7.30 am – 8.30 am: Cancelled

Year 6 Cricket Training:

From Week 4 (Tuesday 3 Nov) for the remainder of the Season (Term 1 2021) cricketers in Year 6 will have training on Tuesdays. The boys will take a supervised bus departing 3.20 pm from Archer St (outside OLD) to Oxford Falls where they will train until 5.00 pm. Any boys not picked up at Oxford Falls by 5.00 pm will return to Anderson St Chatswood and be available for pick-up at approximately 5.30 pm. 

Swimming Squad Training 2020/21

Location: Fitness First, Chatswood (24 Endeavour St, Chatswood)

Requirements: Suitable swimwear, goggles and swim cap.

• Students wear PE / Pius Sports Uniform to the sessions. They then shower and change into school uniform at 8.15 am before returning to school. A snack/breakfast is also recommended at this point.

Monday mornings (7.15 am – 8.15 am) Starting 19 Oct until 23 Nov (6 sessions)

Resuming 8 Feb until 8 March (5 sessions)

Tuesday mornings (7.15 am – 8.15 am) Starting 20 Oct until 24 Nov (6 sessions)

Resuming 9 Feb until 9 March (5 sessions)

Friday Mornings - *Term 1 2021 only* (7.15 am – 8.15 am)

Starting 12 Feb until 12 March (5 sessions)

Touch Football

Mr Benn McBrearty - Junior School Sports Master

NSTA Tennis

With overcast skies all players took to the courts and were able to play some excellent tennis. It is especially pleasing to see the players in the lower divisions giving umpiring a go. At 8.00 am an exciting doubles match was played between Daniel Harper and William Fiore, SPX 19 and Ethan Auer and Matthew Lee, SPX 17 with a final score of 5-6 to SPX 17. Congratulations to Ryan Seeto and Adam Fitrzyk, SPX 16 with a clean sweep against Redlands 27, not a point lost! 

At 10.00 am, congratulations to Ryan Fong and Rory Cooper, SPX 4 who played Redlands and despite dropping one set won overall by 2 games. Oliver Wilkowski and Edward Yangoyan, SPX 7 again won all 3 sets, 18 games in total!

Thank you once again to Mrs Keighery, Mr Webster and Mr Garvey who did another wonderful job running the tennis at Talus St. 

Please ensure that you are checking your weekly scores, rankings and draw on the xpoint site: https://www.xpointsports.com/region/325/currentEvents.

Mrs Samantha Iwatani, NSTA Convenor

Junior Resource Centre News

This week's Highlights: 

Friday was a wonderful celebration of the world of literature, as the St Pius X Junior School community participated in the 2020 ‘Curious Creatures, Wild Minds’ Book Week. Our teachers and Primary students enjoyed parading as their favourite characters from well-loved books, sharing how these characters and their stories inspire us.   Please see the banner from this Junior School News for the picture of our overall winners.

The video of the parade will be available on the Portal at a later date.  

Congratulations also go to Julian Wallace who won a special award from Mrs Lindley for Book Week 2020.

Inspiration was also found in our Virtual Visiting Author, James Foley, who shared his writing and drawing journey and the importance of storytelling in our world.

As we instill a love of reading in our students, we adhere to Tim Winton’s view:

Readers are leaders.

Readers are friends.

Readers are dreamers.

Readers are weirdos

Readers are rebels and I say thank goodness for readers.

For where there are readers there’s hope.

Bookmarks with Tim Winton’s quote are available in the JRC.

‘With a little bravery, you can be anyone’ – Wizard of Oz.   

Book Week Guessing Competition for Term 4  Week 2 – 

The Book in the jar was …… Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

And the Winners Are:

Blaise O’Brien, Angus Gibson, Josh Barrell, Keiran Yu, Archie Turner, Andrew Buskens, Aidan Lam, Finley Lonsdale, Dan Carroll,  Liam Spatola, Marcus Kruger, Aiden Kiem, Noah Watson and Julian Wallace.  Congratulations to all.

Halloween Festivities in the JRC – A guessing competition – Guess the eyeballs in the jar! 

Inside this jar there are many eyeball lollies. Your challenge is to guess how many are in the jar! Pop into to the library, take a guess and the winner will get a gruesome prize during our Halloween activities. Don’t spoil the fun if you can guess!! #halloween2020

Halloween arrived this week in the JRC. The boys completed the Halloween Escape Room PowerPoint.  Most classes managed to escape the haunted house! The boys also worked on their Jack 'O' Lanterns ready for Halloween this weekend.

Horror calls you! Yes YOU! 

Hunter and Collector by S. Carey – 

Are you looking for something a little scary to read? Look no further! In the Junior Library, you will find some of the creepiest thrillers. As you wander further into each terrible tale, fear will grip you, fright will freeze your brain and you will not want to turn the page. But you must! Because the horror will call irresistibly to you. It will say, 'Come, see how petrifying I am!" Imagine the ghastliness of what is about to happen! Turn the page! Turn the page!           

Where Am I? - Competition Number 4

This week I am visiting a place that has been on my go-to list for a l-o-n-g time. 

This place is part of a larger World Heritage site which has a number of national parks, marine reserves and interesting sites including the most westerly point on the Australian mainland, which was discovered by Dutch seafarer William de Vlamingh in 1697 .

The particular place I am visiting offers me a chance to see dugongs, sharks, turtles, rays and a lot of other fish species in its pristine waters but they are not the key attraction which brings so many visitors each year.

Sixty years ago in the 1960s fishers started to share their catch with the resident bottlenose dolphins, soon building up a trust and a unique attraction. But sadly, researchers found that young dolphins being fed in this way were not surviving as well as their wild counterparts . Eleven out of every twelve babies born to hand-fed females died because of a combination of overfeeding, indiscriminate feeding and mother dolphins spending too much time at the beach rather than caring for their calves.  

So since 1984, while the experience I have come here for is still available, it is carefully regulated by the rangers - they are now fed only at irregular times in the morning with fish they will find in the area and only get a third of what they need each day to survive. Only females are fed because the males get too aggressive and only a handful of carefully selected dolphins are in the program at any one time. 

Nevertheless, this has been the most wonderful experience for me.

Where am I?

Where am I? If You Know where I am, pop into the library and drop your answer in the gold box, located on my desk. Prizes on offer.

Chatswood Library Zoom visit with Year 5.

Year 5 participated in a Zoom meeting with Chatswood Library. Here they discussed the CBCA Eve Pownall Award shortlisted books; Yahoo Creek by Tohby Ridle and The Encyclopedia of Ugly Animals by Sami Bayly.

James Foley, Virtual Author visit for Years 5 and 6.

We celebrated Curious Creature Wild Minds with James Foley author /illustrator extraordinaire! He discussed the sequel to My Dead Bunny… THERES SOMETHING WEIRD ABOUT LENA. He also described the process he uses with his illustrations and text.

Mrs Martin’s Book Trail: The Grandest Book Shop In The World by Amelia Mellor.

Wowza! I love this book. I was always fascinated by the famous Cole’s Book Arcade that opened in Melbourne in 1883. Amelia Mellor has weaved a magical tale around this real bookshop. Fast paced. Great characters. Great puzzles. Mellor is a debut author. You will love this book. Ideal for good readers aged 8-14.#mrsmartinsbooktrail2020

Mrs Elena Martin - Teacher Librarian, Junior Resource Centre