Official party, Mr Warlters, Mr Dempsey, parents, staff and students, we are gathered here today to celebrate your efforts with ‘the Aquinas Middle School Service Learning program.

Before we celebrate the student’s who have made significant efforts with their service-learning commitments. I would like to take some time to reflect upon how privileged we all are - and unfortunately how entitled some of you are.

Please focus your attention on the following video, called ‘The Race of Life’.

Every student in this room would have moved off that line! Private school, access to homework club for free tutoring to name two. Most of you would have been out the very front! Being privileged is not your choice and it is not your doing, it has been given to you. It does not mean you are better than anybody else. It is up to you to make the most of what you have been given. To be entitled - is to NOT appreciate the opportunities you have been given here on the amazing grounds of Aquinas College and to NOT give back to others who aren’t as privileged as you are.

The Service-Learning Program encourages you to give to others! To act in deed OR by doing! I know some of you out there have done no service hours. Be privileged and get involved and TRY everything you can at Aquinas! Don't be entitled!

The young gentleman I am about to present to you are anything but entitled. They have given, in some cases, hundreds of hours to others. I challenge you to ask any one of them who benefits most from service. I guarantee they will say the giver.

The Winter Sleep Out was a new initiative this year and proved to be very successful.

80 students braved a very cold winters night to sleep rough on the College grounds. The aim was to give students an appreciation of what it would be like to sleep on the streets, we had a talk from St Vincent De Paul volunteers and the students were fed the food offered to the homeless at night in the city. It was very cold and the students didn’t get very much sleep. They left in the morning without any food, so they would be tired and hungry when they got home.

We raised over $11,000 on the night. I would like to highlight James Bergin and Cooper Hopkins who combined raised $2,400. One of them even managed to stream videos of his experience to the residents of his street, who had donated much of the money. A big thank you must go out to the staff, mentors and students involved in the night and I am already looking forward to next years event.

I will now get Mr Dempsey to award the 2021 Service awards.

The first awards are for students who have completed 30 hours of service within the last 3 years and of those 30 hours 15 are CORE hours where they are directly helping someone in need.

This year’s recipients are:

• David Acaro
• Joshua Acaro
• Tremaine Baxter-Edwards
• Zachary Bower
• Declan Connell
• Dillon Harris
• Cooper Hopkins
• Orlando Iacano
• Lynkon Kenna
• Dominic Lomen
• Nishok Nimalan
• Luke Patak
  
• Harry West

The second group of award winners are receiving service colours. To receive service colour’s, you must have completed 60 hours of service with at least 30 of those hours being CORE hours.

This year’s recipient is:

• Perth Otero

Finally, we have 4 recipients of Service honours. To receive service honour’s, you must have completed over 100 hours of service throughout your time at Aquinas. 50 of those hours must have been CORE hours. We rarely give these awards out in middle school as it means that these students must have completed over 33 hours per year, for 3 consecutive years. This is a significant and very generous amount of time to have dedicated to serving others.

This year’s recipients are:

• Charlie Backhouse

Charlie has been involved in the bush care program, Clean up Australia, The Red shield appeal, beach clean-ups, Aquinas Bushcare, Blue Gum Lake tree plantings, Legacy Appeal, winter sleep out and purple bra day Appeals.

• Max Backhouse

Max has been involved in the bush care program, Clean up Australia, The Red shield appeal, beach clean-ups, Aquinas Bushcare, Blue Gum Lake tree plantings, Legacy Appeal, winter sleep out and purple bra day Appeals.

• Johnathan Vinci

Homework club, Clean-up Australia Day, Motor Neuron Disease appeal, Alter serving, Academy of Combative Martial Arts -where Johnathan assists other young adolescence to develop self-confidence and belief in themselves, not to mention self-defence skills.

• Edmond Whyte

St Pius Churchyard clean up, Aquinas Bush care, Aged Care - Bingo and Anzac Services, National Tree Day South Perth Council, Altar Serving, Clean-up Australia – River clean-ups

Thank you for paying attention and please remember:

The 2021 Middle School Music Night was like no other as it coincided with Telethon. Our very own Oliver Lim, who is heavily involved in the music program, was one of the telethon kids so we had to make it big!

From the concert band to the classical guitar, the Schola choir to the jazz combo, it was a night to remember. There was a balance of musical ensembles, choral music and individual performances but the highlight of the night was when the music students came together to sing ‘Oh Happy Day’ lead by Oliver. We were surprised when the staff, dressed in choristers gowns, joined us on stage with the singing.

Oliver gave a heartwarming speech about what he’s been through and you could tell he was truly grateful for all the support Aquinas has given him. As this was my last Middle School Music Night l could not have thought of a better way to have spent it.

Thanks to Oliver and all the talented students, it was definitely a night to remember.

Another busy term is over! We have managed to fit in 7 units this term with a few outside competitions and a HUGE THANK YOU to Mr Grant Haggerty, Mr Paul West and outside expert Mr Richard Tonello from Astronomy Education Services. I will leave it to the boys who have taken part to explain some of the units they have taken part in this term:

The Project-Based Learning (PBL) tasks this year have been a great way for students to enhance their creativity, work ethic and collaboration whilst still learning about some of their favourite subjects. What English provided us was no different as we were tasked to direct, write and act in our very own interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. I enjoyed this task as it put a lot of the work into our own hands, which worked in making no video the same as any other group; and also showed us just how much work gets put into the behind the stage aspect of your favourite movies and TV shows. By far though, the best part of this came at the end, when each student cast in their vote for which recreation won a variety of different categories, including best actor, best adaption and best film. For me, the English PBL was an exciting way of nuancing our Romeo and Juliet knowledge while still having fun with our classmates.

Last Friday, the Middle School students gathered in the Brother Paull Centre for the eagerly anticipated final between Bryan West and Treacy East. The topic was one that everyone in the audience had an opinion on

Together, the Sustainability Council and other interested students willing to dive into rubbish accomplished a College Waste Audit on Friday the 17th of September. This not so glamorous research provided an opportunity for the Council to collect data on the type, volume and location of waste across the college. You are probably wondering how this was done, and no students were not just pulling rubbish out of the bins and randomly sorting it — quite the opposite thanks to Rosie from Waste Wise Schools. The Waste Wise schools van pulled up with all the equipment we could ever need: tarps, many many tubs and buckets, tongs, gloves, soap and of course cleaning equipment for the end clean up!

Whilst some were setting up the scene other students were going around selecting a diverse range of bins from across the College. We settled on 7 wheelie bins emptying them onto the tarp for the many hands/tongs to sort through. Emptying the bins onto the tarp was not a pretty sight at all! Waste was sorted into 3 main categories — undegradable, recyclable and organic waste, which within them had separate sections such as snack wrappers, food scraps, paper and cardboard, aluminium, and plastic.

Sorting the waste took roughly a period and went fairly free of too much mess apart from the occasional stray projectile burger inbound for the food scraps bucket. During the sorting process, the boys found it very easy to fill the snack wrapper, plastic and general rubbish buckets already giving some insight before the data had even been collected. Once the mountain of waste was sorted into the various categories the true purpose of the waste audit came about, because after all, nobody wants to just sort rubbish for fun, we began collecting data.

From the data collected, food waste is the largest by weight and then general and plastic waste following closely behind with many little bundles of glad wrap. Surprisingly and even more so shockingly, whole unopened chip packets were discovered, whole packets of Oreos, many whole sandwiches and fruit, as well as drinks and, aside from food, Tupperware containers were also discovered – sorry parents these were not all the disposable kind! This data is hopefully going to be used by the council to pitch to the college systems to put in place to reduce waste, but this responsibility also lies with the students – they are the ones who need to take action on reducing the waste in our College.

So what can you do? It is fairly simple — be responsible consumers, not wasteful, only buy what you will eat and if you don’t eat it - take it home and let your parents know you don’t like certain things rather than throw them out. In short, think before you throw something out – offer it to mates or leave it for another day!

The House Triathlon is a great event that isn’t seen as a conventional sports carnival but is just as important in terms of the house spirit and camaraderie that is built between the boys. The day before the event there was talk of cancelling due to prospects of stormy weather. However, on the day itself, the conditions could not have been more perfect, as the sky was clear with the sun shining. Boys have the option of taking on the daunting task of the individual race or as a team. Triathlon is an event with a swim, bike and run so the boys doing the individual had to be adept in all three to achieve success. However for boys not brave enough to take on the task of an individual they could do it in a team. It may not sound as impressive as the individual but the results of the teams make all the difference when it comes to final scores. This is what ended happening this year. Just like a cross country race where the lowest points win, competitors were given points corresponding to their placement. After the day’s events had finished Glowrey ended up with the win.

House Results

• 1^st Glowrey
• 2^nd Bryan
• 3^rd Edmund
• 4^th Treacy

This term, 12 Aquinas students (Years 9 and 10) took part in the PSA Model United Nations. It is the second time the PSA has held this competition, this year the UN Youth have become involved which has only improved the event! Model United Nations or MUN is a competition that simulates the United Nations Security Council, where teams of three are assigned a specific country and hope to pass new resolutions into international law. Each PSA school was assigned a different country as can be seen below:

• Aquinas- UK/Niger/Malaysia/Estonia
• CCGS - Ireland/Vietnam/Tunisia
• GGS - United States of America
• Hale- India, St Vincent & Grenadines, Spain, Bolivia
• Scotch - Russia/ New Zealand
• Trinity - France, Mexico, South Korea, Australia
• Wesley - China, Norway

This competition was so enjoyable as we were able to take on the persona and policies of the country we were representing. MUN incorporates skills such as negotiating, public speaking and teamwork. In the PSA MUN we had to pass two resolutions about; Artificial Intelligent Weapons and Privacy of Data in Sport. Although the Council failed to pass both of these due countries such as Russia and China exercising veto power, we still had an amazing experience.

In addition to this the Year 10 team of Matteo Conte, Ethan Dixon and Matthew Vinci won the competition as they were awarded the number one team on the evening! I was also awarded ‘best helper’ for my role on the evening assisting my teammates throughout the course of the events in various ways. This competition allowed all the PSA schools to compete in something that wasn’t a sport which led to a different dynamic and arguably more competitive side for all of the Aquinas students. We all had a great time and we hope more teams can get involved next year!

A major assignment for Year 8 Veritas is the Advocacy Presentation.

This involves every Year 8 student working in a group of 3 to collaborate and create a ‘Justice and Advocacy Presentation’ to be presented in front of family and friends.

This project is a strong contributor to the growth journey of a boy at Aquinas College because:

• it allows boys to learn about Justice Issues in the world,
• boys learn about and experience ‘advocacy’,
• students get to demonstrate learning in front of peers & family,
• public speaking and presentation skills are developed in students,
• it builds an even more informed and compassionate Aquinas College community.