Our Learning

Year 11 IB Core Days Reflection

By Ruby Scully (Year 11)

Ruby provides a reflection on the Year 11 IB Core Days that were held in August. Read her article here.

Year 8 Students Let Their Lives Speak

By Lindy Gannon, Co-head of High School

The Year 8 Connections program this year has throughlines of Hope, Courage and Kindness, with the Term 3 days focussing on wellbeing that comes through being active, creative, learning new skills and being strong in service. One activity undertaken by the students made community connections with the 1000 Hearts initiative - a Hobart based kindness project established for the purpose of bringing love and compassion into a world facing turmoil and uncertainty. We now have a jar of pocket hearts ready for sharing and a plan for Year 8s to involve students in other year groups in making hearts through Tutor groups.

Terrapin Puppets Perform at Morris Primary Years

In August our Kindergarten to Year 4 students were enthralled by the creative cast from Terrapin performing ‘The Paper Escaper’, a non-verbal presentation about a book character who won’t stay in his place.

“Benny, the plucky puppet protagonist in The Paper Escaper, knows they are destined for greater things than a simple pop-up book. But in a world that’s trying to squash Benny between its pages – from a monstrous chomping sketchpad to a disillusioned illustrator – Benny will need the help of new friends to achieve their dreams.”

The performance focussed on the concepts of determination, friendship and the power of following your own path. Thank you Terrapin for an engaging and thought provoking experience.

Language Competitions in Term 3

Like every year, students studying a language at The Friends’ School are encouraged to enter competitions. This year, due to COVID restrictions, sadly there was no opportunity for French students to do so. However, students of Chinese, Japanese and German did enter state-wide competitions. Their efforts and outcomes have been amazing!

Pictured above: all Friends’ School participants and helpers of the Chinese Speech Competition.

Pictured above: all winners of the Japanese Calligraphy and Speech Competitions.

Pictured above: winners of the Goethe Wettbewerb.

The World of Mathematics

Term 3 has been a busy time in Maths enrichment. The results of the Australian Maths Competition (AMC) has recently come in with our School achieving excellent results as always. Year 7 student Tobiasz Kozlowski achieved a Prize (top 1% in the nation) and the best in the school (and was also invited to compete in the Australian Intermediate Maths Olympiad). There were a number of other strong performances throughout Years 7-12 with many students receiving a High Distinction (HD) or Distinction (D) for their efforts. 

A summary of these results are as follows:

Year 7 - 1 x HD, 10 x D

Year 8 - 11 x D

Year 9 - 4 x HD, 22 x D

Year 10 - 1 x HD, 16 x D

Years 11/12 - 2 x D

The Southern Maths Relay was run and won on Sunday 25th September with Friends’ receiving a 2nd place in the 7/8 relay (Junior Secondary) and a 1st and 3rd placing in the Senior Secondary division. Thanks to Nicola Collins, Anthony Petty, Katie Stanley and Jeremy Rackham who gave up part of their Sunday to assist our students. 

Teams achieving a podium finish were as follows:

Second placing - Junior Secondary

Tobiasz Kozlowski

Sophie Cole

Angus Mitchell

Marz Kwa

First placing - Senior Secondary

Thomas Wilkins

Tom Petty

Alex Rackham

Emily Lo

Joint Third placing - Senior Secondary

James Wilson

Max Reardon

Daniel Maree

Daniel McKercher

Joint Third placing - Senior Secondary

Charlotte Winter

Ben Stankovich

Andre Chua

Regine Chua

ML Urquhart Competition

This competition is named after the late ML Urquhart who lectured in mathematics at the University of Tasmania from 1947 to 1966.  In 1960 he founded and became the first president of the Mathematical Association of Tasmania.  MAT’s logo includes a Euclidean geometry result widely known as Urquhart’s Theorem. Urquhart discovered the theorem himself in 1964 but was not the first to do so.  The competition is open to all senior students in Tasmania and this year, Thomas Wilkins received an honourable mention for his exceptional work.  Well done Thomas!

Maths is like going to the gym for your brain, it sharpens your mind. Never stop learning!

Outdoor Education in Term 3

By Michael Francis, Outdoor Education Co-ordinator

Outdoor Leadership students planned and independently led an 8-day trip following the Mersey River.  They hiked through the Walls of Jerusalem, rode bikes down to Mole Creek and then paddled for 3 days finishing near Deloraine. An unbelievable trip allowing students to see theory in practice and operate in an independent manner. 

The Overland Track trip this year saw a number of Year 10 students and one Outdoor Leadership student complete the 7 day hike.  We finished the hike with a big dump of snow. 

Year 7 Winter Skills saw each Connections class spend the day on kunanyi/Mount Wellington learning basic snow safety, hypothermia treatment and safe stove use.  Students spent the afternoon building tunnels, snowmen and snow slides.

Jean Yeates Writing Prize

The winner of the 2022 Jean Yeates Writing Prize is Year 11 student Ruby Scully for her poem ‘Compliance’. You can read Ruby's winning entry and Lily Neyland’s Runner-up entry, as well as the judges' feedback on our website.

Book Week 2022

Dreaming with Eyes Open

By Sharon Ryan, Katie Stanley, Stacey Pryer, Wendy Fiddaman

At Morris, Book Week celebrations kicked off with an invitation for students to participate in some creative challenges around the theme of Dreaming with Eyes Open. 

On Thursday August 25, a ‘Read in at Friends’ event was held at the school. Families and friends joined us at Morris, where they were treated to some guest readers sharing books in the library. They were also able to borrow books from the Morris and Clemes Libraries and share those in spaces in and around the library. It was great to see so many people from our community joining in and enjoying the opportunity to reconnect, while also warming up with some tasty soup and hot drinks.

The next day, linking to the theme, students came to school in their pyjamas. This certainly contributed to the atmosphere as the school was buzzing with anticipation for the activities planned for the day. Students from Early Years to Year 6 participated in Yarning/story circles and experienced books from Australian authors in the form of story walks. Each book was followed by an activity related to the story. Students from Year 5 and Year 6 did an amazing job of leading many of the story walks and supporting younger students as they participated in the activities.

Book Week in the High School was a quiet affair with a lovely display and a Dress-Up day to raise money for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

During Book Week at Clemes, we invited our students and staff to nominate books from the Hobart Bookshop for the Library to buy. This added an array of titles to our collection and those nominating earned first-option to read their book. It was great to meet some Morris families as they came to visit at Clemes and to borrow books during the ‘Read in at Friends’. We were very grateful to Emily and Marisa for volunteering at this event. 

Lab Rats Compete in Subs in School Competition

By Kristi Ellingsen and Charla Sweeney

The High School Science co-curricular group visited the Australian Maritime College in Launceston to compete in the Subs in Schools engineering challenge. Over two terms students have been working busily to solder, wire, drill, glue and lots of taping, materials to build working submarines. In mid-October it was sink or swim time! The students had to demonstrate that their subs could float and sink, then they had to complete challenges collecting rings and a cube, and even finding a hidden code in a submerged wheelie bin. As a bonus we had a tour of the amazing facilities at the AMC. The students and teachers learnt so much together and had great fun!

Zoe Goes to Sydney for 2022 What Matters? Australia National Awards Ceremony

Photos by The Whitlam Institute’s What Matters? National Writing Competition

Congratulations and well done to Zoe Gangell on winning the 2022 'What Matters?' writing competition. 

Inspired by Gough Whitlam's commitment to involving young people in the shaping of Australia's future, the competition asked students to respond to the simple question 'what matters?' on any topic they care about. 

Zoe attended the national awards ceremony in Sydney early in September where she met all national finalists and where her state win was again honoured. 

View Zoe's news story here, which includes a link to the national awards ceremony page and a link to a page where you can read entries of all the winners and runners-up and where Zoe is featured as the Tasmanian regional winner. 

Zoe is a former winner of the Tasmanian regional section of the ABC's Heywire competition and has been asked by 2023 Heywire organisers to be one of the judges for this year’s competition. Well done, Zoe! 

Head Students for 2023

Congratulations to Maeve Bylsma and Noah Everett on their appointment as Head Students for 2023. Together with the rest of the new Clemes Council, it is clear that the year ahead is looking very bright in terms of student leadership at Clemes.

Maeve and Noah will be responsible for being the voice of the students for 2023. Maeve will be drawing upon her many years at the School, having attended Friends' since she was two years old, and as a result, having a very thorough concept and understanding of the School philosophy. Maeve is looking forward to working on the Learning @ Friends’ 24 Plus Program and says "my years here have given me a deep appreciation for the School and I feel a sense of pride and responsibility for what the School becomes. I think a large part of how successful this transition is will be due to students' abilities to voice their opinions and the School's willingness to listen."

Noah is an avid member of The Friends' School community and has been involved in various extra-curricular activities, including the student2student reading program, which showed him the importance of communication and he gained skills in mentoring and enacting positive change, which will be vital in his role as Head Student. He is a very vocal individual, passionate about advocating for others and ensuring they are as supported as possible in all aspects of life.

We look forward to seeing what our new Head Students achieve over the coming year.

Kindergarten Costume Festival

This special event showcased our creativity, thinking, and connections to our units of inquiry. Our agency and identities were honoured in this process and it was exciting to celebrate that with you. Families danced and had fun together.

Chess

Chess is going from strength to strength at Friends’! The club currently has over 30 members and is open to students from Years 3 - 12. The weekly sessions include a short lesson on skills and tactics, activities and exercises, and games against other club members. During the year, the teams also compete in a number of intrastate tournaments. Ongoing COVID concerns meant our first tournament was online, against schools from across Tasmania, as well as some from interstate. Seven rounds were played throughout the day and the strength of the Friends’ teams was evident as we won both the Primary and Secondary divisions! An easing of COVID restrictions meant a welcome return to face-to-face tournaments, and in September, the teams participated in a tournament at Hutchins. Once again, our Morris team won the Primary division. Ten Morris players and 8 High School players qualified to participate in the State Finals recently.

Peter Jones Peace Prize

Congratulations to Hannah Wigston (Year 10) for her winning speech “Mr Glass Bottle Collector” in this year's Peter Jones Peace Prize. This year the Commended prize was awarded jointly to two students, both of whom entered poems. We congratulate Sahansa Udawatta (Year 10) for her poem titled ‘A Child Sits at a Desk Learning’, and Grace Winspear (Year 10) for her poem titled ‘Our History’. You can read the pieces on our website.

Humanities History Prize Winners

By Mark Allen

We were delighted that Eve Cooper (Year 10) was selected by the judging panel as Runner-up of the 2022 Simpson Prize Competition for Tasmania. Many outstanding entries were submitted and Eve is to be congratulated on this achievement. Below is a picture of Eve with the Federal Education Minister Jason Clare on her trip to Canberra. Read the article on our website.

We also had some Year 10 students participate in the Australian History Competition - which is a multiple choice, skills based test - which focusses on Year 9 and 10 Australian History Curriculum. Zara Fenton (Year 10) achieved a High Distinction and she is pictured below with Nelson receiving her certificate. Charlie Bradford (Year 10) and Emma Sullivan (Year 10) achieved Distinctions. 

Grecian Column Pottery

Year 7 Connections | Ancient Greece

During an intensive day-long program, students constructed a personalised Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian-like column from Terracotta and decorated it in the style of Greek red & black ware. This day is a collaborative learning exercise in response to ongoing studies in Humanities and Art.

Tournament of Minds State Final

Congratulations to our five teams who competed in the Tournament Of Minds Tasmania State Final in early September. The Friends’ team pictured below was awarded Honours in the Secondary Social Sciences division.

Tournament of Minds is a problem solving program for teams of students from both primary and secondary years. Tournament's aim is to enhance the potential of our youth by developing diverse skills, enterprise, time management, and the discipline to work collaboratively within a challenging and competitive environment.

They are required to solve demanding, open-ended challenges from one of the following disciplines: The Arts, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), Language Literature and Social Sciences.

Tournament of Minds is an opportunity for students with a passion for learning and problem solving to demonstrate their skills and talents in an exciting, vibrant and public way. It was an incredible effort from all our students involved.

VET Kitchen Operations Dinner

The VET Kitchen Operations dinner was held in mid-September where students showcased their creativity and food preparation skills by preparing a gourmet three course meal for invited guests. Read the news item here

Year 6 PYP Exhibition

The PYP Exhibition is a significant event in an IB school. As a culminating experience for Year 6 students, it is an opportunity to independently exhibit the attributes of the Learner Profile and identify, investigate and offer solutions to real-life issues and opportunities. It is also an opportunity to demonstrate the essential elements of the PYP program: knowledge, concepts, skills, action and taking agency of their own learning.

Drawing inspiration from the Stockholm +50 initiative, the big idea for this year was “People regenerate, restore, recover, rebalance, renew and reimagine the world through action”.  Students were encouraged to inquire into an issue or opportunity in an area of personal interest. They were encouraged to investigate using primary resources and there was an increased emphasis on taking action. The students considered how they could communicate their learning and chose a creative medium to represent their understanding. 

Year 12 Leavers

Friday 28 October was the last day of school for our Year 12 students. As is tradition, our current Head Students, Shriya and Gryff, presented two plants to the School as a thank you and as a gift for future generations of Friends' students. This year they selected a Calathea and Tasmanian Native Mountain Pepperberry. We would also like to take a moment to congratulate all those students who received awards at our Leavers' Service for 2022 - well done on a successful year. All the best to our Year 12 students for their exams over the coming weeks.