We have had eight teams compete in the first two rounds of the Sutherland Shire Schools' Debating Competition from Years 7-10. Six teams have progressed through elimination to the third round, which will be held in the first few weeks of this term. Congratulations to all our students for their work thus far, and all the best to our teams still in the competition.
Year 7 Debating
Our internal debating competition for students in Year 7 will commence this term. All students who have nominated an interest in this competition will be sent a note with further information in the coming weeks.
Sutherland Shire Public Speaking Competition
Last Wednesday 25 July, Elizabeth Atkins (9W) attended the second round of the Sutherland Shire Schools' Public Speaking Competition. Elizabeth did a fantastic job presenting her prepared speech entitled Make it work, talking about the impacts of unsustainable fashion trends on workers in the developing world. She also spoke on an impromptu topic, Commiserations, highlighting some of the dangers of social media.
Elizabeth was one of three speakers in her heat to progress to the grand final to be held at Sutherland Entertainment Centre next Tuesday evening. Congratulations to Elizabeth and all the best for next week!
Mr Lloyd Ruz, Debating & Public Speaking Coordinator
On Tuesday 24 July, 27 Year 10 students and two teachers attended the Science and Engineering Challenge at the University of Wollongong. The day consisted of hands on experiments where the students designed products such as bridges, catapults, string highways, electrical circuits, turbines, a model hand and communication systems and had to test them to gain points towards a certain scenario or challenge. The day was the definition of STEM in action. With each scenario and challenge the student’s products were put to the test and marked to specific guidelines in order to gain points as they were competing against four other schools. The following students attended: Maddison Brymer, Norreigne Catbagan, Kye Childs, Sebastian Cincotta, William Corcoran, Daniel Costandi, Patrick Crehan, Danny Dang, Anna Dau, Daniella Janji, Juliette Jones, Sophia Khouri, Isabelle Lathlean, Mitchell Lee, Jonathan Leong, Julia Mamo, Nicole Marzolla, Emma Mason, Ronan Mauro, Christopher Meyer, Benjamin Moss, Billy Norris, Zara O’Mahony, Amy Parkinson and Jonathan Varga. Most of our products scored in the top two for our categories. A special mention to the bridge builders, the bionic hand team and the electric city teams as they scored the highest points on the day. We won first prize for our challenge day. This challenge is run across the State at various venues and total points go towards a Super Challenge Day. I have just received news we did not make the Super Challenge final but have been shortlisted in case another school is unable to attend. Congratulations to this group of students for getting so close to making the Super Challenge final. Well done for this outstanding achievement. Your ability to communicate as a team, be creative with your problem-solving skills and to critically think to adapt your designs to each challenge or scenario was admirable. The St Patrick’s community is proud of your efforts.
On Thursday 3 July, 24 students from our feeder primary schools - St Patrick's Primary School Sutherland, St Joseph’s Primary School Como/Oyster Bay, St Catherine Laboure Gymea and Our Lady Star of the Sea Miranda came to our annual Newman Immersion Day. This is a day for students identified by their teachers to come to the College and experience life as a Newman student for a day. After a getting to know you exercise, students were involved in poetry writing with Mrs Oxnard. They explored the cinquain form, writing cinquains about the universe, their life and the world. Students from 7W - Sophie Wainwright, Ronan Conroy, Tait McKay, Natasha Beard, Karla Jones and Sophie Perkins worked with the primary students to support them with their writing, later teaching them to annotate the poems ‘Island Man’ and ‘Blessing’. After morning tea students worked with Mr Hair, who challenged them with a series of mind-twisting code cracking exercises. They also learned about the binary system and the ‘Order of Operations’. Our 7W Mathematics students Ella Briscoe, Jade Henderson, Jed Loader, Sienna Biggs and Marc Karlos Arrogante worked together with the primary students throughout these exercises. After lunch, we focussed on science with students donning lab coats and safety goggles to take part in a practical science experiment involving the separation of a salt water solution. The energy was high and Mr Mahony and Ms Ming inspired the students with their scientific expertise. 7W science students Sienna Biggs, Miriam Sinnerbrink, Amy Davis, Isabella Romano, Thomas O’Brien and Kian Carrabin effectively supported the students throughout this very practical science experiment. Special thanks to the primary teachers for bringing their students along for the day, and also to teachers Mr Hair, Mr Mahony and Mrs Ming for contributing their time and expertise to support this Newman initiative to provide insight to students from our feeder schools.
Autumn, and early Winter have been very dry in Sydney but this was a bonus for the 2018 St Patrick’s College Athletics Carnival. It enabled us to have a successful day and contributed to a high participation rate. Thanks to Mrs Franke and Mr Kelly who co-convened the carnival, their efforts to manage the track and field were appreciated, as the College had a very tight time schedule to complete all events on the day. We were grateful for the five Athletics NSW staff who assisted us at the carnival. Thanks to all the teachers in managing the track and field events, as well as crowd control in and out of the grandstand; it is very much appreciated. A special thank you to the House Captains who generated spirit. It was a successful day with a lot of colour, cheering, competition and the motivation to gain points for their House. It was also a highlight for Year 12s to show their musical, dancing, costumes and cheering skills in the House Cheers competition and set the tone of the carnival. The 'get up and have a go' attitude with their House students was great to see. Mr Livesey and his team of Year 10 IT students did a wonderful job with computerised data entry. They were inundated with over 300 events on the day and completed all entries, despite the timeline pressure, to an exceptionally high standard. Congratulations to Nagle House for winning the House Champions. Nagle is traditionally a powerhouse in swimming but this is the second time since 1997 that they have won the Athletics Carnival. There were 9 records broken - congratulations to the following students: Thomas O’Brien in 12yrs boys 800m, 1500m and high jump, Alexis Dimon in 17+ yrs girls shot put and discus (held since 1992), Casey Mood in 14yrs girls 1500m, Michael Mackey in 16yrs boys shot put, Iram Palma in 16yrs boys triple jump and Brittany Robertson in 16yrs girls javelin (held since 2002).
On 13 June, Rose Neilson and attended the Year of Youth Luncheon to meet the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher at St Mary’s Cathedral with Mr Donohue. The lunch was at 12.00 noon, starting with the Angelus. Rose and I were seated on one of four tables with students from De La Salle Catholic College, Caringbah, Clancy Catholic College, West Hoxton and Mary Mackillop Catholic College, Wakeley. As the Archbishop entered the room he was met with applause as he sat down at the nearest table, Table 4. Archbishop Fisher led us in saying Grace, then because he was on our table, we were privileged enough to be first to select our food from the buffet followed by the other tables. Next, each table was challenged to come up with a question to ask the Archbishop. Our table asked: “How is the Catholic Church helping the youth through discovering their faith?” In response, Archbishop Fisher acknowledged that at our age we are vulnerable but we must question and doubt everything we hear, as every person does, but this shouldn’t stop us searching for our faith. After each table had asked and received the answer to their question the day was concluded with photos. It was an amazing experience meeting Archbishop Fisher and many students from other schools.
Nathan Smith, 11C and Rose Neilson, 11M
St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal
Thank you to the families who have donated to our annual Winter Appeal for St Vincent de Paul. The first collection has been dropped off to the Sutherland St Vincent de Paul chapter group who will take the donations to needy families in the Sutherland Shire. We have also taken a collection for our Night Patrol visit to the city (as seen here with our Social Justice Leaders - Maxwell Porter and Lauren Forrester). We are still asking for the following donations to assist the St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal. It is not too late to donate: beanies, scarves, socks, men’s and women’s underwear packs, nappies (particularly toddler boys size 10-15kg). Alternatively, we will happily accept donations for our St Vincent de Paul Night Patrol program. Once a month, a team from St Patrick’s College visits the homeless in the city and provides them with food, tea/coffee/hot chocolate and company.
We ask each year group to bring in the following items: Year 7: Noodle cups and cup of soups, eg Fantastic Noodles, Continental Year 8: Individual snack packs of chips (eg potato, Shapes, Tiny Teddy) Year 9: Any biscuits Year 10: Muesli bars and small tins of tuna Year 11: Fruit juice poppers and chocolate share packs Year 12: Toiletries
Please bring any donations you have to the RE office on Nagle Campus. Thank you for your support for the 2018 Winter Appeal.
Mr Declan Donohue, Director of Religious Education
St Patrick’s College is a dynamic faith and learning community that serves to educate children of families in the Sutherland Shire. The College has an enrolment just over 1200 and caters for boys and girls in Years 7-12.
