Magis report

John XXIII College fielded Year 11 and 12 teams teams in the WADL’s British Parliamentary Debating Competition at Bob Hawke College last Sunday. Senior Magis leaders Ben Linsten, Alex Panther, Nick Brennan, Lorian Marshall, Bella Pether and Eve Cullity all performed very well with our two Year 12 teams both recording a  first place in one of their three debates on the day (There are four school teams in each debate). Congratulations to all ten students who represented the college admirably over the past two weekends, committing full days to this prestigious event.

This week saw the Year 11 and 12 section of the final Magis House Championship Academic Challenge, Language and literature.  Again there was a terrific response with 63 Year 11 and 12 students participating. Loreto Year 12’s  had a fine win at year ahead of Loyola, with Loyola winning from Ward in Year 11.  Julian O’Rourke won the Year 12 competition ahead of Aerin Chai and Maddison Lucas, whilst Eve Cullity was the top Year 11 student ahead of Grace Barbour and Oscar Hegge. Years 7 to 10 compete this coming week, and then the House Academic Challenge Shield will be presented at Secondary Assembly in week 8, along with medallions for the top students in each year. The medals will be awarded for the top aggregate points over the five competitions that have formed the new Magis Academic Challenges program this year. Full results from last week’s STEM Challenge can be viewed by the link below.

Eight Year 7 Magis students will participate in the 2020 Curtin University Innovative learning Global Goals Challenge to be held at Servite College from 8-10 September during these school days. Students will work in collaboration  with other schools exploring a range of diverse issues including climate change, poverty, inequality and other pertinent issues.  Mr Miller, Mr Haines and Mr Connellan will be the supervising teachers on the three days.  Warmest thanks  to the many excellent students who applied.

The WA Creative Edge Thinking (Opti-MINDS) Challenge Teams have just completed their long-term and impromptu challenges which were  filmed in the GBLT  this Friday.  Year 7 and 8 teams competed in the Charles Dickens Challenge in Language & Literature, and a Year 7 Science-Engineering team designed a Trebuchet.  Because of COVID-19  the event could  be held at Curtin University – hence the filming. Special thanks to Mr Damien Connellan for his excellent work with the Science-Engineering team, and to Mr Sam Tout and Ms Lisa Martella who produced the video entries for the competition. Congratulations on to all your hard work, creativity, talent and initiative. A full pictorial report will be in next week’s newsletter.

Jim Miller

Magis Gifted and Talented Program Coordinator