Men’s Health Week was started by the United States Congress in 1994, for the goal of heightening awareness of preventable health problems and encouraging early detection and treatment of disease among men and boys on a community and even global level. The council wanted to celebrate this week, as it is often that students overlook and rarely open up and learn about mental health. To celebrate Men’s Health Week the Wellbeing Council planned a series of events through tutor: Meditation, yoga and even an assembly, as well as a fundraiser for Beyond Blue. This allowed students to engage in activities and learn about ways to develop stronger mental health, as well as directly helping fund an Australian mental health and wellbeing support organisation.

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.