FROM THE MIDDLE SCHOOL
Time as your friend!
As we prepare for the end of Term 2, it provides an opportunity to use time as your friend. Time to refresh, relax and recharge. Time to reset, refocus and reinforce your goals. During a busy term, often time is not our friend, it is part of a pressurised feeling of never-ending commitments, due dates and deadlines for tasks. I hope that all students, staff and families enjoy the chance in coming days to reconnect with time being your friend so you can deeper connect with learning, your relationships and your world.
Looking ahead Term 3 will certainly be an exciting time for our Middle School. The life that our EY8 projects will bring into the community will be significant, these projects motivate so many others around our College and the greater community. The upcoming Inter-House Singing competition will be a great showcase of collaboration and student-led leadership. SOC2City will be a major part of the learning program for Year 7 in Term 3, exploring the ‘liveability of Launceston’ with many investigations in and around our city. There is so much to look forward to, it will be rewarding to see our students continue to connect to these and many other learning opportunities.
#beyou!
Ben Green
Head of Middle School
Readers’ Cup 2022
The Northern Secondary Schools Readers’ Cup was held this year on Thursday 16 June at St Patrick’s College. The Cup requires teams of up to six students to read a set of six books to develop a thorough appreciation of all aspects of the stories. Teams then develop a four to six minute presentation in response to three or more of the set books, being judged on their creativity, relevance, quality of performance, adherence to the time limits and evidence of teamwork. They also undergo five rounds of quiz questions to test their knowledge of the texts. The challenge requires students to work collaboratively over a period of approximately six weeks without any external assistance.
After beginning the process with four Scotch Oakburn teams, we narrowed them down to two and then our representative team was chosen. Year 7 students Gina Kumar, Sammy Randhawa, Gomanth Lokesh, Nathan Abbott, Isaac Dhanaraj and Hudson Bonham, delivered a really insightful and engaging performance on the day, which effectively combined drama and poetry in a play reading, enhanced by some well-selected costumes and prop items.
Congratulations to the team, who did a fabulous job preparing for the event despite a rather interrupted lead-up, coming fourth overall in this year’s Cup (narrowly missing out on third by half a point!). The day was a whole lot of fun (including lollies and a pizza lunch) with lots of positive and creative energy in the room.
Well done also to the Year 8 team on their fabulous sock puppet presentation, and other Middle School students who participated in this year’s Readers’ Cup in different capacities. I am very much looking forward to coordinating this again in 2023! Thanks also to Mr David Morris for all the work he does in organising the event, through the Australian School Library Association. The event is also supported by the Tasmanian Branch of the Children’s Book Council of Australia.
Gina Slevec
Coordinator of Extension and Enrichment
Year 5/6 Sport
Today concludes our Friday afternoon Winter sports competition. Throughout this Semester, students from Year 5 and 6 have had a wonderful opportunity to interact in a team environment, fostering our learner attributes of cooperation and collaboration.
Students have participated in a variety of sports including hockey, AFL, soccer, netball, badminton and table tennis, with weekly competitions against different independent schools in Launceston. Thank you to all staff who have been involved in Friday afternoon sport.
Esther Croft-Elliott
Year 6 Coordinator
Year 6 Buddies
Year 6 students had an opportunity to meet with their buddies from Early Learning Erina (4-year-olds) this week. The smiles and laughter spoke volumes, conveying the importance of building cross-campus relationships. We are looking forward to organising more activities with our buddies next term.
Meg Hughes
Teacher
Japanese Calligraphy
Year 7 students of Japanese this week hooked into the Year 7 theme of “water” by inking the characters for “water”. Using real ink and brushes requires courageousness as once the first stroke is made, you are committed to complete! Year 9 students of Japanese also had the opportunity to hone their calligraphy skills.
Jenny Banbury
Coordinator of Japanese