Events
Science Exhibition Night
On Thursday 17 May, JMSS opened it's doors to parents, students, members of the public and science enthusiasts of all ages - inviting them to see the school in action at our annual Science Exhibition Night.
The evening was a tremendous success, with over 800 attendees visiting the school and observing displays from Year 10 elective sciences, Year 10 core science and JMSS outreach programs, including 'Big Science, Little Scientists' - an initiative that sees JMSS students teach scientific concepts to students from local primary schools.
Congratulations to all students and staff involved - a fantastic night of science and learning at JMSS!
JMSS Athletics Carnival
On Monday 23 April, under brilliant conditions for track and field, JMSS held it's annual student athletics carnival.
An exciting day of sport and athletic prowess saw many school records broken across all age categories, while a number of exemplary individual efforts resulted in a number of students write themselves into the history books of JMSS as multiple record holders.
As always, competition between the houses was fierce - with each house vying valiantly for the champion's trophy in an incredibly close contest. It was, however, Blackburn House winning the day and lifting the athletics cup, with a total of 3585 points, followed closely by Flannery (3562), Wood (3029) and Doherty (2393).
Congratulations to all students for participating with enthusiasm and sportsmanship, and in particular to those students who now hold JMSS school records in their respective events!
Singapore International Mathematics Challenge (SIMC) 2018
John Monash Science School took a team of three students, Vinh Ngyuen (Year 12), Andy Zhang (Year 11) and Amitav Madan (Year 11), to the seventh Singapore International Mathematics Challenge hosted by the National University of Singapore High School of Mathematics and Science (NUS) and Singapore’s Ministry of Education. The students were accompanied by teacher, Rowen May, and school principal, Peter Corkill.
The Mathematics Challenge involved some of the world’s most prestigious and best performed schools in Mathematics and Science, including NUS itself (the overall winner), the North Carolina School of Mathematics and Science, Raffles Institution Singapore, Ritsumeikan High School Japan, Mahidol Wittayanusorn High School Thailand, Lycee Descartes, Tours, France and The High School affiliated to Renmin University, China. JMSS was the only school from Australia invited to take part.
The competition questions, all requiring mathematical modelling and proof, were set by Professor Imre Leader, the Chief Judge, and colleagues from Cambridge University, and based around the broad theme of communication. The questions were completed by the student teams over the course of 30 hours, with limited access to other teams or teachers. The questions allowed access to all teams in the early stages but soon became more complex, and challenged students to think creatively and work together constructively.
All teams were asked to provide a full written report of their solutions at the end of the allocated time, and then to present their findings to a different judge and an audience of teachers and students on three separate occasions.
The John Monash Science School team obtained a Commendation Medal in the event, placing them in the top third of schools in the competition. This is an outstanding achievement, and one of which the students themselves and the whole JMSS community should be extremely proud.
They were coached most ably by former JMSS students YiJie Neo, Ethan Payne, Orion Zymaris and Alex Socha, who represented JMSS at the last event, with Head of Mathematics Luke Bohni looking after the team before they went Singapore.
Well done team!
Future Minds Conference
by Jessica Tan
On Friday 27 April, eleven Year 11 and Year 12 leaders from Student Parliament had the opportunity to attend the Future Minds Conference at Melbourne High School.
Future Minds is a club that was initiated at Melbourne High School with a focus on student empowerment and leadership, encouraging students to problem solve, and think how we can lead to make change locally and internationally to impact our future for the better.
The Future Minds Conference was an event hosted by Melbourne High School that aims to empower youth to create a better future and teach personal advocacy skills. In collaboration with MacRobertson Girls’ High School, John Monash Science School, Nossal High School and Suzanne Cory High School, the conference centered around the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN’s SDGs) where students had the opportunity to meet and engage with students from other schools that share a similar passion.
There were a range of guest speakers from UN Youth, Global Citizen and YGAP and students began participation in the Hackathon, where they formed groups based on their interest in one of the SDGs and began a longitudinal project over the next 8 weeks. The project was to create a business pitch for an idea that can make change to one of the SDGs, where they’ll hopefully be able to return to Melbourne High School and pitch their social enterprise and business ideas to judging panel from NAB and UN Youth to mention a few, with the chance to secure connections, mentoring from founders of successful startups, work experience placements and funding to proceed with their projects.
It was a really fun, enlightening and inspiring experience, and I hope that if this event and club continues throughout the year, students from our school will be able to continue attending, leaving the event with new friends, new ideas, and new mindsets to leadership.