On Sunday the 15^th of May, three students from Aquinas College attended the 2022 Schools Chess League Competition. Students were invited from the Year 4-6 Chess Club that takes place every Thursday in the Junior School. The students that represented the College were Jamie Lim, Enrico De Santis and Spencer Whitfield. The boys achieved an incredible result, managing to secure 4^th place out of 22 schools. The boys were gracious in victory and defeat and represented the College with pride. We are excited for the next competition which will take place on the 12th of July.

On Tuesday 10 May, the K-3 boys had a rather exciting morning when Brownes Dairy visited the College to teach the boys all about how we get our milk! Along with Farmer Damian were Curly Sue (a Murray River Retriever) and Belinda (a jersey cow).

To start the morning, the boys got to play a game where they tasted various yogurts and tried to guess what the flavours were. After filling themselves with yogurt, the boys moved outside where they met Belinda the cow. Upon meeting Belinda, the boys started firing away their questions; "why does she have horns?", "why are her eyes so big?" and "how old is Belinda?". The highlight of the day for the boys was getting a turn at milking the cow!

A huge thanks to Brownes Dairy for coming out to show out K-3 boys how we get our milk! The boys all had an udderly great time!

The Junior School House Cross Country Carnival was held on Thursday, 5^th April on McMahon Oval. All students from Kindergarten to Year Six competed, with race distances ranging from 250m to 2.5km. The wind provided an issue on the day and the conditions made it tough for the competitors. However, all races were completed before the down pour. Additionally, it was great to see many of the teachers and Middle School student volunteers running with and supporting the boys throughout the carnival.

Final Points

1. Redmond 452 points

2. Clune 508 points

3. Egan 537 points

4. Quinlan 560 points

Congratulations to Redmond for being the Champion House and to the following boys who were named Champions and Runners-up for their year level.

Kindergarten & Pre-Primary
Champion: Darcy Smith (Quinlan)

Runner-up: Jack Rumenos (Clune)

Year 1
Champion: James Murphy (Quinlan)

Runner-up: William Richter (Redmond)

Year 2
Champion: Beau Smith (Quinlan)

Runner-up: Lewis Hales (Clune)

Year 3
Champion: Ben Sprigg (Redmond)

Runner-up: Ashton Smales (Egan)

Year 4
Champion: Jordan Trueman (Redmond)

Runner-up: Grayson Ahrens (Redmond)

Year 5
Champion: Tyson Blakey (Clune) – New course record

Runner-up: Luca Zoiti (Redmond)

Year 6
Champion: Kane Peckham (Quinlan)

Runner-up: Will O’Hehir (Clune)

Special mention to Tyson Blakey who broke the Year 5 course record by a significant margin of 16-seconds. Congratulations on your outstanding achievement.

Congratulations and well done to all boys who represented their House and gave it their all on the day. The boys selected in the JPSSA Interschool Cross Country team will be competing at Aquinas College on Thursday, 23^rd June and we wish those boys the best of luck.

Lastly, thank you to all staff members, ground staff, Holy Ground Coffee, ICT staff, Middle School volunteers and Kate Spencer for all your help and support on the day.

Nathan Eaton
Junior School Sport Coordinator

On Tuesday 5 April 2022, the Kindergarten, Pre-Primary and Year 1 boys were treated to an exciting Australian wildlife experience from the team at West Oz Wildlife who brought along some amazing creatures for the boys to learn about and interact with.

The boys learnt that a bobtail lizards favourite food is strawberries, what the safest way is to move away from a snake, and that dingoes can be yellow, black or white!

There were many brave (and some slightly frightened) faces among the groups as the big snakes were brought out. So many of the students even challenged themselves by holding a snake on their shoulders!

A huge thank you to the team at West Oz Wildlife for an amazing experience! I'm sure this is an incursion the boys will remember for a long time!

Well done to Matthew and Jordan Trueman who competed in the 2022 Swimming WA Junior Long Course Championships over the weekend! Jordan received a Bronze for the 9 Year Old 200m Freestyle while Matthew received Gold in the 10 Year Old 50m Backstroke, 100m Backstroke and 200m Backstroke, Silver in the 10 Year Old 200m Individual Medley, 50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly, and Bronze for the 10 Year Old 50m Butterfly! Another huge congratulations to Year 7 Eli Hickman who came home with 6 Gold and 4 Silver medals and was named a 'performer of the meet'. Way to go, boys! 🥇🥈🥉

The JPSSA Swimming Carnival was held on Thursday 10th March at HBF Stadium. It was a successful event with many outstanding performances - Aquinas placed fifth overall.

Some special mentions to Matthew Trueman and Spencer Whitfield who were in A Division for all races possible for their respective age group and competed strongly. Zac Brockhurst and Jordan Trueman also battled hard for some podium finishes individually, with Miles Auld finishing strong in the Year 4 C Division Backstroke event to claim first place.

Congratulations and well done to all boys who represented the College and displayed great sportsmanship and effort on the day. Thank you to all staff members including Chris Twomey and James McPherson for all of your help and support on the day.

Nathan Eaton
Junior School Sport Coordinator

This year’s Christmas Appeal remained focused on the needs of the poor and homeless who arrive at the various ‘Drop-In’ Centres in Perth as well as those who are sleeping rough. These Centres rely on donations of items to assist people with their personal needs as well as non-perishable food. This year our Junior School was extremely generous in providing a large variety of items that included food, toiletries, and toys.

With less short-term accommodation available due to the growing number of abandoned people, there is a need to look after those who suddenly find themselves with nothing. An increase in those with mental illnesses is also adding pressure to housing and emergency services.

All donations have now been collected by Vinnies allowing the season of Advent for distribution.

Thank you very much to families who got into the spirit of giving and generously supported the Christmas Appeal and to the Junior School Leaders who promoted and collected for this event. Thank you also to Mrs Bevan and Mrs Rive for assisting and monitoring the safe storage of items throughout the term.

I really loved doing all levels of Ignite Award. The main reason was because I got to do all the things I love doing like being outdoors and pushing myself to do fun and exciting things.

At level 4, I did an overnight hike on the Bibbulmun Track Foundation. This was my first ever time to stay overnight, and it was such an adventure. I even cooked my own dinner on the mini gas cooker. However, apart from all the adventures, I loved the volunteer bit best. I did various things to help, but my most rewarding was the beach clean ups. I really felt happy that I was doing my bit to not only clean up, but to know I was helping to save the ocean and helping the environment. I also got to learn about microplastics on one beach clean up, and now I know how much we need to do as people to stop plastic coming onto our beaches and our oceans.

At my school, I was asked to gave a talk at assembly about my achievements with Ignite. I wear my badges on my school uniform with pride.

It seems as the end of every year approaches, we think ‘how did that happen, where did all that time go?’ And then taking a little time to reflect on all the activities the boys have been engaged in, we quickly realise there have been few periods of repose!

A quick look in the rear vision mirror reminds us we have embarked on investigations into aspects of Australian Art history through the 9 x 5 projects across the Junior School Art program, attempting to bring the Australian Impressionists into a more contemporary context. Local and international artists were employed in that endeavour, from Howard Taylor to the American Jasper Johns. Coincidentally one major artwork commemorating the recent reopening of the State Art Gallery is one of a local artist – Christopher Pease with work from his ‘Target’ series. In this series he quotes Jasper Johns’ work, demonstrating Art doesn’t happen in a vacuum, we must always be seeking a wider context, we inform others, they inform us.

As the Year 6 students prepare to depart the Junior School for the Middle School they have been working on some Steampunk self-portraits. They have had to consider shape and scale as they use mechanical imagery with a Victorian aesthetic in completing their design. In years to come, the Teck Deck self-portrait they have completed will hopefully act as a time capsule evoking memories of their time in Junior School.

Manipulating soaked cane into shapes reminiscent of the Marshall Islander’s Ocean-going maps has been the area of investigation for the Year 4’s; learning that the properties of tensile cane can be modified by soaking in water, shaped to the desired form, and left to dry maintaining the new form. The Year 4’s have borrowed techniques and materials used historically to make their own contemporary artworks.

The Year 3’s have been working on colour, using a colour wheel to help inform and guide their colour choices as they represent the Aquinas College Campus viewed from Google Earth. It has been a joy to watch the myriad colour combinations so enthusiastically explored!

Wearing safety goggles has been a novelty for the Year 5’s as they use soft Aluminium wire to represent tools, hand tools and power tools. Drawing in 3D using wire as line provided a suitable challenge, the students having to problem solve how to depict a substantial volume using an insubstantial material!

Exploring negative and positive space inspired by the artist Sarah Robey and her painted artworks has been the focus of the Year 2’s. They have experimented using 9 different media to produce 1 painted piece interpreting the Art Element Space.

Inspired by African Mud Cloth, the Year 1 students are exploring Shape, Pattern, Repetition. They are exploring different painting techniques to produce a single painting on cloth.

One of the last major events on the College Calendar is the Senior School Art Exhibition, this year once again including Design and Technology and Media and the Junior School. For the Junior School, the exhibition is doubly poignant. The younger students are always so excited to see the work and ideas embodied in the work of the older students. But for us the Junior School teachers, we see bygone students doing amazing work, extending and developing in ways inconceivable when we saw them in Year 5 for example!

Once again, the Jacaranda Trees are in full bloom across the campus, bejewelling the trees in soft mauve, this heralds the end of the year, and what a year it has been!