Recently, Aquinians from Years 7 to 9 competed in the Have Sum Fun Maths Online challenge. This competition followed on from last term’s Have Sum Fun Maths Face to Face, where groups of six students worked collaboratively to find solutions to various critical thinking problems. However, the online version of the competition had students solve similar questions, under similar time pressure, as an individual.

This competition was run online, and schools from around the state participated. There were a total of 30 questions, split into three groups, where each question had its own difficulties; whether it was complex diagrams, strenuously long decimals, unnecessary wording or a trick question to muddle with our brains.

Overall the competition was a lot of fun and helped test our own thinking skills without the help of others. The satisfaction of finishing a group of questions or that eureka moment when a tough problem finally makes sense made the challenge so enjoyable.

In our Year 9 individual stage, Aquinas placed highly with the three students in our competition; Jonathan Vinci, David Csontos and myself, Nishok Nimalan finishing in three of the top four places with Jonathan winning first prize in the state. Much of the reason why we placed so well was due to the opportunities we receive here at Aquinas College, through initiatives such as our Academic Scholars Program, we are able to broaden our minds in a creative environment with the chance to apply this knowledge to competitions such as the Have Sum Fun Maths Online challenge.

This term, Mrs Brennan’s Year 9 English class studied the theme of survival by reading Gary Paulsen’s famous novel, Hatchet. This popular story features Brian Robeson, a twelve-year-old boy, who finds himself stranded in the Canadian wilderness with only one tool - you guessed it - a hatchet. With the help of his trusty hatchet, Brian must build a shelter, start a fire, hunt fish and birds, and protect himself from wild animals including moose, black bears and wolves.

Making fire from scratch proved to be a very difficult job for Brian. His hatchet created lots of sparks when hit against a rock, but converting these into fire took days of trial and error until finally, Brian sourced the perfect tinder and applied just the right amount of oxygen to turn the sparks into flames. The fire not only allowed Brian to cook the fish he caught, but it also kept the mosquitoes at bay, deterred animals like porcupine and skunks, kept him warm and gave him hope that should a rescue plane fly over, it would notice the smoke.

Building our own fires without any artificial assistance was the object of Friday’s lesson. Armed with a brilliant tool loaned to us by Mr Paul West of the Science Department, we first sourced our fuel, including tinder, kindling and larger pieces of wood and left them to dry out for a few days. The boys then got to work creating shavings from Mr West’s block of solid magnesium and lighting these with sparks generated from a pocket knife and a flint. In the photos, you can see the boys creating the sparks and blowing gently to turn the tiny flames into fire. (We did cheat just a tiny bit by using a paper towel to collect the magnesium shavings.)

For the remainder of the lesson, the boys enjoyed feeding the fires and toasting marshmallows. Most importantly, we made sure the fires were completely out before we left. I think this is a lesson the boys won’t soon forget.

The Advanced Science and Biotech excursion involved 25 Aquinas students from Years 9 and 10 who took part in the Rotary Science and Engineering challenge. This competition aimed to expose the students to hands-on work that is present in many fields of engineering and to inspire them to pursue a career and future in a particular field that interests them.

This day was no ordinary competition, in that it didn’t involve the usual paper and pen, but incorporated creative ways to explore and deal with topics and issues that are present in our modern-day world. The competition consisted of a variety of different challenges, from making our own hovercrafts to finely crafting a bionic hand. This challenge allowed me to find a passion for the field of engineering and opened my eyes to the vast array of programs our school has provided us. and gave me an insight on how I should not take these opportunities for granted but to get involved with them as a doorway of opportunities will arise.

The teams that we placed forward into this competition would all agree that the day was a major success and the experience and amount of knowledge we learned, with the help of Mr Hitie, was insurmountable. Jonathan Vinci, Nishok Nimalan, and I were tasked with building a hovercraft out of limited resources and had to complete seemingly impossible challenges with it. Not only did our hovercraft fail multiple times, but it persisted to deflate and malfunction every time we attempted the challenges. When finishing the challenge seemed impossible, we managed to put our creative minds together and construct a new hovercraft from our scavenged materials. Only through our teamwork, resilience and determination were we able to push through and complete this challenge with a respectable result.

I believe this reflects perfectly on the values we learn at the college and what we need in our daily lives in order to strive for excellence. With the help of staff such as Cyril Hitie and Megan Monks who made this whole day possible, we were able to be exposed to real-life scenarios and problems that would help us prepare for our future careers.

Our 11-week term is almost at an end and with it comes the culmination of the Technology focus.

With iPad coding apps working overtime, the students have completed entire Codespark programs, reached higher scores in Scratch screen tapping games than ever before and designed more Bloxels gameboards than any year before. I am constantly amazed at how quickly and confidently boys adjust to new digital platforms and programs, and this term has been a testament to their ever-improving abilities. But whilst the lure of the iPad is tempting, it’s always music to my ears to hear students ask if they can build, either with recyclables or Lego, and to see what they create. Technology has provided us with not only super cool activities on the iPads, but with the theme for design projects, critical thinking about how camouflage is a natural form of technology, as well as the ability to create animated advertising campaigns for our very own Holy Ground Coffee van (stay tuned for these!).

As we start to move away from the electronic versions of technology, students will enter the Engineering term, and use structural and design elements as their technology to create Rube Goldberg machines, roller coasters, animal hybrids and engineered foods for Science Week. Have an amazing break over the holidays and we look forward to getting back into the Collaboratory next term.

Year 10 Parents and Students learned about the plethora of Senior School pathways available in the Aquinas myFUTURE program. John Van Dyk, Head of Senior School, outlined the rationale for this 21^st approach to education as the College is leveraging asynchronous education through blended learning to provide more opportunities to our boys. This was followed by both student, staff and external partners voices as Mr Gellin, Director of VET, outlined Industry & Enterprise pathways prior to allowing students to liaise with the College of Electrical Training, Diamond Fitness and Curtin University to name a few. Mr Brendan Chapman, Head of Academic Studies, and representatives from UWA and UNDA outlined how boys can extend themselves through uniPATH. Mr Powell, Director of myFUTURE, shared the many microcredentials, service and career focused learning available on ATAR+. A huge thank you to the students who shared their stories with the parents and Year 10 students; Charles King, Lachlan Drake-Brockman, David Russell, Alik Papaphotis & Kurtis Tanna.

The introduction of our Junior School extended day program has been a roaring success and students have readily engaged in many club opportunities. Towards the end of each term, we give students the opportunity to nominate to try different clubs for the coming term. Here are some short wrap videos of some of the clubs in Term 2, 2021.

In the first two weeks of Term 2, Year 11 & 12 VET students undertook Workplace Learning in the examination break. From electrical to carpentry, cabinet making, automotive, marine mechanics and many more, VET students got to mix with employers from their chosen industry area to complete workplace learning hours mandatory for their pre-apprenticeship qualifications.

Feedback from employers was outstanding, with many willing to hire or take students on for further work opportunities.

For many boys getting up early and adhering to the employer, expectations can be quite an adjustment to the luxuries of school. Joseph Norrish, Year 11, mentioned, “I had to go from boarding to Canning Bridge Train Station out to Beckenham Station for 7 am each day to get to work with my electrical employer. Electrical is what I have wanted to do all my life and the chance to put my training at TAFE into action has made this year worthwhile”.

The Year 8s at Aquinas College are Minecraft mad at the moment. Perhaps they’ve been Minecraft mad for years, but there was no doubt that the prospect of using Minecraft as a learning tool in Religious Education during Term 2 this year tantalised the minds of our Year 8 students.

There’s no question of Minecraft’s appeal, especially to Middle School aged boys. Whatever you make is only really bound by your imagination. It’s those endless possibilities that make Minecraft Education Edition an ideal tool for learning in Religious Education this term, as we look at the themes of Creation and Stewardship.

The engagement by our Year 8 students has exceeded expectations. Students were informed that they would be placed in groups at random in their respective Religious Education classes, as a means to help develop their Collaboration and Communication skills, two of the five twenty-first century learning skills that teaching staff across all learning areas will continue to develop in Middle School through Project-Based Learning. Being placed in groups of three or four at random did present an initial challenge to students as it meant being placed outside of comfort zones. This was done primarily to dissuade students from a “play” mentality. Minecraft, at its core, is a game. In order to move from a “play” mindset to a “project” mindset, placing students in groups at random was a necessary step. This is not to say, however, that our Year 8s will not be having fun. Fortunately, this has borne much fruit. It has been very pleasing to see our Year 8 students working collaboratively and using their maturing communication skills to achieve a common goal and see the bigger picture.

Students were given the freedom to choose between a number of Creation stories: The Fall, The Tower of Babel, Cain and Abel, and Noah’s Ark. In each of these stories are valuable lessons about the responsibilities mankind has towards creation, namely as regards our relationship with God, each other, ourselves, and the rest of creation. The students’ objective will be to - through their builds and subsequent presentation using iMovie - convey these learnings.

So why Minecraft? The creative aspect of Minecraft will encourage students to care for what they have had a hand in making, and there will be a sense of satisfaction that stems from tracking the progress of their work and subsequently completing it. Creativity and Accomplishment are core elements of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, i.e. Self-Actualisation and Esteem. Students become more efficient learners when given opportunities to be creative and when progress is tangible. When the bigger picture becomes more apparent, students will be able to clearly associate their creative and collaborative experiences with syllabus content.

Our Year 8 students will produce something of substance and spectacle. It is hoped that a number of student projects will go on display for the entire College community to see.