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.

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”.

I am currently studying on the uniPATH – LOGOS pathway which is run at Notre Dame University Australia (UNDA). From Monday to Friday I come to Aquinas and study Maths Methods, Physics, Chemistry, Literature and Physical Education Studies ATAR. However, on Friday I study at UNDA, completing a first-year university unit in Philosophy. My thoughts prior to starting the philosophy course were thinking of how good an opportunity this course is, and that I didn’t want to miss out on it. Initially, I was more focused on getting an idea of how university life really is, for example, the style of learning. Each week we arrive at Notre dame for a 9:30am start. We start with a lecture, going through PowerPoint slides, on different topics for the first hour. After a short break, we would go into a Socratic dialogue, where we would split, work in groups and share different points of view about the learnings.

After getting used to LOGOS, my preconceptions of it changed and I started finding some large interest in the different topics, mainly ‘What is Truth’. This lesson focused on the three theories of truth, different types of truths, different methods of reasoning and types of propositions or statements. After being a part of uniPATH-LOGOS, I believe it is a really good way for students to get early insight into university life. Not only the way that assessments are conducted, but also how to manage time to fit in the vodcasts from our teachers. It encourages students to better plan their timetable of where and when they can do work.

Another aspect of LOGOS that I really liked was how much deeper the thinking was. For me, I think it would have been a waste not to do the program, as what we have learnt has been very interesting, and different to what we learn at school. It was also a really fun experience to hang out with your friends in Fremantle over lunch before we got to doing the vodcasts for our Aquinas College ATAR courses.

Catch up on the events of the Middle and Senior School Houses for the past few weeks.

Read a brief overview of the past few weeks as written by the Heads of School.

Aquinas myFUTURE provides an enrichment opportunity for Aquinas College students with a direct link to real-world experience through our Internship partnerships.

The asynchronous nature of our Aquinas myFUTURE blended learning model allows for the flexibility to conduct these Internships as an embedded element of a student’s Senior School journey.

Many of our current Year 11 students have recently submitted an expression of interest for this exciting and valuable opportunity. In the coming weeks, they will be put in contact with our partnered organisations and to finalise the details of their placement.

One of the strengths of this model is the flexibility to meet the needs of our students and modern workplaces. There are two models which will be the most common arrangement for our Internships being; on Fridays during the term, or as an intensive vacation experience similar to what many university students experience. Establishing these networks early and gaining invaluable real-world experience puts our students ahead of the curve in such a competitive marketplace. Some of the placements secured for our students exist in the following occupations:

• Accountancy and Business
• Property and Asset Management
• Agricultural Business
• Events and Marketing
• Agricultural Science
• Law
• Architecture
• Orthopaedics
• Engineering
• Robotics and Technology

As a community, these Internships are an outstanding opportunity for our students and we are very grateful to those organisations who have offered to take on a student or small group of students.

If you have any questions relating to this Aquinas myFUTURE Internship model, please make contact with Graham Powell, Director Aquinas myFUTURE.

BREAKING NEWS 🎥

Mr McFadden has been murdered!

No...not really. He's fine. But members of AC TV gathered the other week to undertake an intensive training session - led by BBC Producer (and wife of Mr McFadden) Mrs Eastman - where they learned to craft a news story based around the tragic murder of our College Principal.

Take a look behind the scenes.

Catch up on the latest sports news.

The uniPATH IPQ course has been an intriguing and insightful experience so far.

The experience began during the final weeks of Term 4 2020, where the full uniPATH cohort travelled to the University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA) Campus on a Friday to undertake a Research Skills and Methods class. In this class, we learned about many of the fundamental skills useful in the research and construction of a report. This included ideas such as the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve and the need to take notes on sources, authoritative and non-authoritative sources and how to distinguish between them, and how to use text strings to find relevant sources using an online database. To put these skills to the test, our final assessment was a report on an aspect of one of the United Nation’s Sustainable Goals. My report centred around Sustainable Goal Seven, which is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”. I chose to focus my topic on solar microgrids, which are a system of solar panels installed around a region, where electricity can be traded amongst its residents. This technology experimentally used in developing nations to provide clean and affordable energy. I enjoyed the research thoroughly, as I love to learn about engineering and its application to solving problems such as this. Overall, the experience with UNDA and their Research Skills and Methods course was informative and very obviously applicable to future university courses that I will embark on.

After this, the uniPATH group split into a Cambridge IPQ group, consisting of Ashton Teixeira, Rourke Barlow, Seth Hambley, Zayn Buhkari and myself and a LOGOS group. On a Friday, we go to the University of Western Australia (UWA) Crawley campus, where we work with mentors there to write a 5000-word research report which we submit to Cambridge by the end of the year. The topic is open to your own choosing, which allows us to engage in something we are passionate about. The question I formed during Term One ‘is our technology advanced enough to create a probe capable of interstellar travel?’ has me specifically looking at propulsion methods and fuel types, telecommunications, automation of the probe, and the ability to gather electrical power. I will also consider other critical challenges, such as time. Our ability to travel freely to the UWA on a Friday not only helps us with our research projects but also allows us to engage with the facilities there to assist us with our school work. Through the course we are given the freedom, not only to pursue what we are passionate about but also to excel inside of the classroom. This is what makes the experience great.