Dear Parents and Carers,

This week the College marked another milestone as we farewelled our third year 12 cohort, the Graduating class of 2020.

It does not seem so long ago that our graduating class walked into JPC. It was 2015 and we were thrilled to welcome our biggest cohort of students so far into the school – yes… 130 eager young people with shiny shoes and brand-new uniforms and bags – ready to take on High school.

In a very short six years, they finally made it to 2020 and to Year 12.

In a year that some have described as hellish, I would like to thank our Year 12 cohort for their incredible care and support of each other and of our school community. They have sort to constantly reach out and make connections with each other and the other members of this school.

They have been the quiet achievers this year but achievers never the less. That they have managed to push through and come out with many successes despite the boundaries placed around them. I applaud them for the resilience and sheer determination that they have developed. 

It has been a privilege to walk with them on their journey. 

We look forward to formally recognises their achievements at the Graduation Mass and Certification ceremony and celebrating with them at the Year 12 Formal.

Stephanie O'Meara
Principal (Acting)

Congratulations to our recently elected Year 12 Leaders for 2021:

This week we formally presented our 2021 College Leadership Team to our college community at the Year 12s Farewell Assembly.  Congratulations to the following students who will fulfill the portfolios of College Captains, Leaders of Justice, Peace and Courage.

College Captains
Campbell Ellison & Caitlin Richards

Leaders of Justice
Cullen Savle & Amisha Sehgal

Leaders of Peace
Emma Bramham & Olivia Mugridge

Leaders of Courage
Cameron Cortes & Lilith Prado

Over the last 4 weeks, our elected leaders have participated in a specially designed leadership discernment process, where they explored many of the features of effective leadership, and in particular, those relevant to the context of JPC as a Catholic school. We turned, as we always do, to the life of Jesus in his model of servant leadership - leading with a vision to benefit the school community; to serve others, rather than themselves; to lead with courage, accepting all others, walking beside them; leading by example and sometimes getting those hands dirty.

Our new team will be formally inducted at our Opening Mass early in 2021, and I know they will contemplate and develop their visions for each of the roles, and consider how they will draw on the example and teachings of Jesus Christ and of our Patron, St John Paul II, to guide them in their service to our JPC community.

Jennifer Tually
Leader of Learning and Wellbeing – Mission and Ministry, Ferré House

Staff and students embraced the spirit of NAIDOC Week, with a raft of activities that fitted in nicely with the theme ‘Always Was, Always Will be’ and Remembrance Day. Traditionally celebrated in July, NAIDOC Week was postponed to November due to Covid, but enthusiasm was still high.

The winner of the inaugural NAIDOC week poster competition was Kiara Petriella, closely followed by runners-up Garv Sidhu & Georgia Johnson, Amisha Sehgal, Skye Bradbury, Tasmyn Houghton & Amity Morris. Congratulations to all entrants, posters will be displayed in the school foyer.

On Tuesday I was privileged to attend a book launch at the National Press Club for the launch of “unbreakable Rock’ by Michael J Bowden, an inspirational author, and Indigenous advocate.

Students enjoyed Pebble Painting for the Bush tucker garden as well as dot painting and crafts on Wednesday and our Aboriginal group decorated plant name markers and planted their bush tucker plants in our native edible garden, with help and advice from Green Thumbalina, Natalie Tarry.

On Thursday the year 10 Hospitality class led by Mrs Hadjuk, cooked and served a bush tucker feast for mentor teachers and their Aboriginal students in the Kamberri room, to revisit goals set earlier in the year and generally celebrate NAISDOC week together. The students also pinned their photos in house colours to their country on the AITSIS map.

The new 2021 Year 10 Indigenous captains were elected - congratulations to Caprice Barnes and Mackenzie Lane!! And we officially farewelled incumbent captains Abbey Lamb and Kiara Allan from the role, although Kiara will no doubt continue in an advisory capacity while she focuses on studies!

The canteen team provided delicious native spiced food all week, challenging students' tastebuds! And many teachers incorporated the culture and history of our First Nation people in their teaching and learning throughout the week.

Thank you to all involved for a week of NAIDOC celebrations and enjoying the rich diversity of culture and talent we have in this school.

Annie Daley
Contact Teacher for Aboriginal and/ or Torres Strait Islander Peoples

Remembrance Day is our time to pause, reflect and honour our brave service people during all wars and conflicts. It’s a time to remember those who gave their lives and those who returned home wounded, be it physically or mentally. Remembrance Day is a time to thank them for the freedom they gave up, so we could have ours. It’s also a time to remember the families who loved, cared and mourned for them. We remember that this free country we enjoy now is due to their courage, their resilience and their fighting spirit. An essence forged during the First World War with the spirit of the ANZACs and continues today with the values of our current Australian Defence Force.

On Wednesday, JPC paused for one minute’s silence. Defence student Campbell reminded us about the significance of this day and Defence student Luke read the Ode. Thank you to these two students who took the time to lead the College in reflection.

You may have noticed our special Remembrance Day project in recognition of the 75^th Anniversary of the end of World War II, which started to take form on Monday. In reality, this project began two terms ago, when our JPC families began to share the names of their relatives who served during this war. The plantings which took place over the three days was the cumulation of time preparing poppies, crosses and collecting information. Thank you to Mr Rose for taking on the task of cutting the crosses and etching the names on them.

During the last four weeks, our Key Messages has published the stories of our JPC relatives. Our families have been very generous and allowed us access into their family history with their personal stories, photos and war records. Sadly, we have not been able to share all of these stories but I hope that you will continue to pass on your military history with your family members and keep their stories alive. This is how we remember, by continuing the dialogue about who they were and what they did. To not speak of them does a disservice to their memory and their actions. To stop speaking about them means to forget them and we should never forget.

Honour Their Spirit

Vicki Walsh, DSM

On the days leading up to Remembrance Day, red crosses were given out to us in Pastoral Care. We all wrote notes of thanks and gratitude on them to show our respect for all of the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for our country. I feel that this was a great activity to get everyone in the school involved with Remembrance Day, as it’s important to have a reminder of the events of our past. It was so nice to see all of the crosses and poppies on the front of the school for everyone to see as they drive past. This little reminder is so important for us to stay humble and to remember the significance of the Defence Force onto our community. 

I’d love to give special praise to Vicki Walsh, for her time and effort that went into organising this activity and thinking of a fun and creative way to get everyone involved. 

Her presence is, and always will be, appreciated in our school community.

Cameron Pepper, Year 12

St John Paul II College Roll of Honour World War II

This time of the year is always full of stress filled workshops, frantic sewing, ferocious finessing of flavours, hours on Adobe Illustrator and some creative code writing for our Technologies seniors. I am very proud of the efforts put in by all our students, and grateful for the time in which our senior teachers have given up in support of their students to get them across the line.

Ms. Chloe McCallum
Leader of Learning and Wellbeing for Technologies

Year 11 Design and Technology

Students were briefed with creating a game or toy that meets the needs of the user, following guidelines set out by User Centred Design and Nielsen’s Heuristics. Each student worked to develop their own concept, taking into account the data they collected through surveys and research.

Ms. Chloe McCallum

Year 12 Design and Technology

Year 12 students had the opportunity to build a design of their choice, they were challenged to consider aesthetics vs functionality, where is the line and what is more important. Finally, students were encouraged to use their innovation to inspire new and creative ideas suitable for the market in today’s world. Outside of this, for the first time they were given limited constraints which adds a new level of challenge and I am really proud of their efforts this semester.

Mr Beau Nebelung

Senior Food Tech and Hospitality

Food Tech and Hospitality teams have been very creative this year working around Covid. Restaurants were limited to staff and students and at all times, and seasonal ingredients and native spices used throughout. Here are some of the delicious foods created by our classes. Our wonderful senior hospitality team will be missed, especially their barista skills! We wish them all the best.

Mrs Annie Daley

Information Technology

This semester they have been learning to develop websites with HTML and JavaScript.  The tertiary students learnt how to setup a virtual server on their computers and to create a secure login using PHP.

Mrs Rosie Moss

Robotics and Mechatronics

Students were challenged to create either a weather station or a watering system, they needed to find and organise each of the components to create their circuit.

Mrs Rosie Moss

Year 11/12 Textiles

This semester the girls have completed a unit titled – Design for a Purpose

This entailed looking at the different purposes that clothes are made for along with how clothes are made from fast fashion, mass production, bespoke to Couture.

We also looked into fabrics, their construction, their origin and the properties of different fabrics. In looking into the properties, we did some burning of fabrics to see the reactions of both natural and man-made/synthetic fibres. The Design Brief for this semester’s practical item was to design an outfit suitable for a future job interview. The girls then explored various ideas and options that could be suitable for an interview. Once they had come up with their final design, they were to choose one of the items from their outfit to make.

Sophie chose to make a very formal style business shirt with self-made black trim, hidden front buttons and long sleeves with a buttoned-up cuff. Emily decided to make a jacket that could be worn with most outfits that will be very warm, and especially appropriate for Canberra. Larni focused on a fully lined skirt that consists of 6 panels, waistband and an invisible zip which could be worn to an interview/future job. The girls have worked tirelessly these past few weeks, even staying after school and coming into the textiles room during their frees just to finish on time. I’d like to wish them all the best for the future and thank them for being a joy to teach.

Mrs Sue Paton

Year 11/12 Graphic Design

In Graphics, students had to work with their very fussy clients (thanks Mrs Smith, Ms Mostyn and Ms Donoghue) to develop an entire ‘new’ collection of promotions for an existing brand. For the first time, students had to work to the expectations of someone else, rather than what they wanted. They should be so proud.

On Tuesday afternoon, an energetic and slightly nervous group of performers (and teacher!) welcomed a COVID safe audience into the theatre for an hour of entertainment. The Senior Drama class presented the final assessment piece, a self-devised piece of verbatim theatre, as did two groups for the 9/10 Drama class, who presented an interpretation of the script Ruby Moon by Matt Cameron.

This semester, we have been studying a unit titled Community Theatre. The focus is on identifying and addressing an issue of relevance for a specific community group. With this premise, a particular style of theatre studied is called ‘verbatim theatre’. Verbatim theatre uses the responses from interviews to create the dialogue of the theatrical piece. As a result, the exact wording - the ‘ummms’ and ‘ahhhs’, the stammers and stutters, make the final cut for performance, hence the term ‘verbatim’. The actors Broke the fourth wall, changed characters in front of the audience through costumes and mannerisms to highlight the style verbatim theatre.

Students decided to explore a topic close to them being that of the college experience in 2020 - the expectations verse reality, and titled “College 1010”. They have interviewed themselves and their peers to gain an insight into the world of a college student. The unique voice prints of each interviewee were heard and an exploration of different performance styles to bring these responses to life on stage were seen. The entire piece was completely a result of the students’ vision and response to verbatim theatre. The script, staging, characterisation, lighting and audio is all of their creation. Congratulations to them. They were challenged and have risen to the expectation.

A special thank you to the tech crew who have supported the performers literally to shine on stage. They gave up their time to bring the student directions from script to stage. Thank you to Jordan Skerritt, Owen Kelly, Aiden Bavinton and Alex Rose.

A huge congratulation to the group of performers – Ella Colqhoun, Jacqui Koina, Lilith Prado, Kate Jenkins, Justin Johnson, Jaysie Nielsen, Sequoia Felizardo, Natasja Shearman, Lachlan Harrop and Mackenzie Lane. They performed with flair and energy, well done and CHOOKAS!

Mrs Sarah Smith
Drama teacher

During NAIDOC week Food Technology classes incorporated bush tucker flavours into their recipes this week and loved their homemade pesto pasta using garden greens and native bush tomato.

Annie Daley
Food Technology and Hospitality Teacher

ANU H Courses – Y10 Students can now apply!

University of Canberra – Fast Forward Program

Congratulations to Year 11 student Campbell Ellison who was accepted in the University of Canberra’s Fast Forward Program, receiving a conditional offer into a Bachelor of Secondary Education/Bachelor of Science degree in 2022. The UC Fast Forward Program is an exclusive club for 25 stand-out Year 11 students, helping them prepare for University life. Well done, Campbell!

School’s Recommendation Scheme Applications

Congratulations to our Year 12 students who were offered entry into University courses yesterday through the School’s Recommendation Scheme!

CIT Virtual Open Day

Saturday 14^th November https://cit.edu.au/news/cit_open_day_2020

There have been a large number of students making contact with their parents and asking to be collected from school, as they are feeling sick.

Could you please remind your child/ren if they are feeling unwell to go to First Aid and not contact you?

We have a duty of care to monitor all students and we will contact parents/carers if necessary.

Thank you for your support of this.

College Office

Welcome to the 2020 Vinnies Christmas Appeal, which was launched in Australia recently, and will be supported here at JPC. You can contribute to this fantastic work by donating to the Christmas Food Hampers which will be distributed at Christmas time by our Holy Spirit Parish to people in need from our local area.

Next week, we will place a 'Giving Basket' in PC rooms with a list of items that we would like PC groups to contribute to make up a hamper.

Please nominate yourself to bring in one or more of the items, and do so by Thursday of Week 7, when the baskets will be collected.

On behalf of Holy Spirit Parish and people in need, thank you.