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We have a jam packed newsletter this week showcasing many of the wonderful things have been happening at John Therry. Our College is always full of life and this newsletter showcases many of these wonderful events and activities we are involved in. 

We are very excited to announce that Clover will be arriving into the care of our community tomorrow morning! Clover was named after a number of surveys, and almost doubled the next highest name in the final survey. It will still be a little while before Clover makes it into school regularly but we will keep everyone updated on social media about how Clover is progressing.

Year 12 Graduation is the highlight of next week and we look forward to celebrating the culmination of 13 years of schooling with our students. Year 12 have been finishing their time here very well, with a very respectful enjoyment of their final few weeks. The hard work of preparation for the HSC continues through the holidays with exams commencing in Week 1 of Term 4.

I had the pleasure of attending the Bishop's Student Excellence Awards on Thursday 7th September, where one Year 12 student from each Catholic College in the Diocese is acknowledged for their contribution to catholic life and education. With an outstanding Year 12 group and many very worthy students who could have been nominated, we congratulate Olivia Wolczak who received the award for John Therry.

I was joined by Mrs Phillips and Mr Barton to celebrate with Olivia Wolczak and her family. Congratulations Olivia on this most significant achievement.

A reminder that the first day back next term will be a pupil free day. This was provided by the Government to support the implementation of the new syllabus documents that are being implemented from next year. 

There has been a lot of discussion in the media regarding mobile phones in schools, and the Department of Education has recently implemented a policy that bans mobile phones in schools. The policy developed actually very closely reflects our rules and guidelines that exist here at John Therry, yet we still find that mobile phones can be a significant barrier to learning for some of our students.

Today we will focus on our classroom rules to clarify our policy. We have recently implemented phone tubs to support students manage their phone in the classroom.

Every classroom has a phone tub and students have the option of placing their phone in the tub at the start of the lesson so it does not distract them, or they need to ensure it is kept out of site and is not heard throughout the lesson. If the phone is seen or heard, students will be asked to take the phone to students services and collect the phone in the afternoon before leaving school.

PHONE TUB RULES

• Phone must be turned off.
• Phone is to remain in the tub for the whole lesson.
• If you have not put your phone in the tub and are found to be using it through the lesson, it is to be handed in to Student Services for the remainder of the school day.

If there are ever emergencies and you need to contact your child, our office can prioritise our runners to collect students, or pass on messages if needed. Students are also welcome to go to the office to make a call if they need to contact parents throughout the day. Our policy aims to balance the need for contact, with the significant impact on learning phones can have if we do not have clear and consistent expectations here.

Students Gather to Listen, Learn and Love

Each year the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference releases a Social Justice Statement on Social Justice Sunday that explores important justice issues with the hope of provoking thought and action throughout the following year. This year’s theme is LISTEN LEARN LOVE - A New Engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Recently secondary students and their teachers from across the Diocese of Wollongong gathered to explore and unpack this Social Justice statement at the annual See, Judge, Act Workshop.

The day began with a Smoking Ceremony where all were invited to walk through the cleansing smoke acknowledging our connection to country and the First Peoples of our land. This acknowledgement was then deepened by the Aboriginal Cultural Dance students from John Therry Catholic College, Rosemeadow who proudly shared their talents, experiences and deep pride for their culture with the gathering.

We then moved into a yarning time with prayer and ritual inviting all into a spirit of listening, learning and loving. The keynote speaker was Maddy Forde Senior Advisor – Ministry
Catholic Education South Australia who shared her wisdom and experience in a most engaging and inspiring way. There was then an opportunity to read through the Social Justice Statement, reflect on and discuss it and then consider how they might listen, learn and love back in their own school communities and in their own lives.

The day culminated in an artistic activity that represented the students’ responses to the call to action of the statement. In the final ritual, each secondary school was gifted a special message stick with the words Listen Learn Love to take back to their communities as a reminder of the challenge we all have to journey together in a spirit of recognition and reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and all Australians.

On Thursday the 17th of August Year 9 participated in a Pastoral Day. This event was designed to further explore the pastoral theme of “Achieving our full potential using our God given talents”. While focusing on this theme, aspects of the day also aligned with the concept of Stewardship and our Marist Value of Simplicity. 

The event began with a reflection, led by Mr Steve Robinson, Religious Education Coordinator, which set the scene for the theme of the Pastoral Day. He explored the idea that our talents can be as simple as showing kindness, empathy and courage, to name a few. Year 9 began session two with Soul Drummer, African Drumming experts, who provided each student with a Djembe and led us in a team building exercise of rhythm and percussion, challenging the group to work cohesively to create music in synchrony. This was a great group energizer. With smiles on all faces Year 9 moved into an enthusiastic House Cup competition. Students competed in house groups facing “minute to win it” challenges, and the very memorable Lip Sync Battles. This fun filled Session 2 ended with Conolly house as the winning house. After lunch students broke off into their elected activities. Some highlights for the afternoon included participation in community service at OLHC primary school and Kilbride Nursing Home. Our Year 9 community service students represented the college with great pride and embraced their opportunities for stewardship. Another highlight was the afternoon Oztag session run by NRLW players, Emma Tonegato, Ellie Johnston and Quincy Dodd. A fantastic opportunity to train and refine skills with professionals. The athletes were humble in sharing their gifts and talents and allowed the Year 9 students to dream big, with Emma Tonegato beginning her sports career representing the Wollongong Diocese. The other two afternoon activities included joining together with other like minded students, building upon existing relationships and forging new friendships with people with common interests and a shared experience. This included board games and mindful art activities and colouring and an electronic gaming competition. The energy and healthy competition in the gaming activity was absolutely amazing and Year 9 are lucky to have Mr Borg who brought so much enthusiasm to it. The success of the day and the activities are credited to the commitment of the Year 9 Learning Mentors who were so important to the planning and facilitation of the day.

Year 9 embraced this event with great energy and a positive mindset. The participation and contributions of Year 9 students throughout the day was fantastic and enabled the event to run smoothly and successfully. A goal for this event was to have students work collaboratively with each other to build year group connections and strengthen friendships. We hope that the memories of the day will stay with Year 9 for many years to come and the lessons learnt will give them strength and partnership throughout their college years together.

Year 10 have been working on a group project in PDHPE where they have been investigating major health issues within Australia. The driving question for the task was “How can we improve the health and wellbeing of young Australians?” With this in mind, they had to create an initiative that addressed the specific health issue. Some of these included sun safety, drug use, relationships, mental health, risky behaviour, exercise, appropriate use of technology and healthy eating habits. 

As part of this task, they were required to market and promote their product to a panel of Teachers and include elements that were engaging and persuasive. Students presented a creative display using models and their ICT skills. Some of these included recipes, websites, applications, podcasts, brochures and other forms of advertisement. See some examples of the projects below.

On Thursday August 31st , we celebrated the talents of our HSC Creative Arts students in Drama, Music and Visual Arts. There was standing room only for both the Drama and Music performances which  took place in the lower hall, and F block respectively. After these the Visual Arts bodies of works were exhibited in E3 and E4. 

For these students the sometimes-daunting experience of creating a body of work, performance or project is intellectually rigorous, time consuming and demands a healthy dose of bravery-not to mention a substantial amount of resilience. All skills that are lifelong lessons as students move into their post- school life. This Showcase represented a wide variety of expressive forms from individual performances, group performances and exhibitions of submitted works. It enabled students to challenge themselves and embrace areas of creativity that ignite a sense of passion and awe. The enormous value of creating, the important role aesthetics and the significance of expression are all bound up in this same experience.

Our students in Creative Arts know the value of it. They know they can transform ideas into

physical representations and as such reflect their capabilities as thinkers, learners and creators.

The final result is inspiring and truly worthy of celebration as exemplified in our annual HSC Showcase night. 

I would like to thank all those in our Creative Arts faculty and in particular our other HSC teachers;

Mr Alexander Hayden (Drama) and Mr Scott Macdonald (Music). Finally, I wish to congratulate each student for completing such accomplished, sensitive and thought-provoking performances and practical submissions.

Mr Stephen Peters
Creative Arts Leader of Learning Year 12 Visual Arts teacher

Earlier this term, Year 11, Sports, Lifestyle and Recreation 2 Unit students were fortunate enough to go on a three day outdoor recreation camp. Students in the class have been studying a unit called ‘Outdoor Recreation’ and have used their theory and practical lessons leading up to the camp to plan for this experience. 

Students were required to plan and bring appropriate equipment and resources for camping. Students spent their first night in Bungonia, where they were dealt with ideal camping weather of 1-2 degrees. The second night in Shellharbour was much nicer, and students were able to get more out of their camping experience at this campground.

Throughout the camp, students participated in night time caving in Bungonia, a high ropes adventure course in Nowra and orienteering through Killalea National Park. These activities were quite unique and put students in difficult scenarios designed to challenge and test them. They should be commended for their attitude and resilience throughout the camp. 

Students were able to gain a deeper understanding and respect for the outdoors and the highs and lows of camping. 

Thanks,

Mr Bodeker

Penelope O’Connell-Milner- a Year 7 student

I was invited back to my Primary school St John’s the Evangelist Catholic Primary School to speak to the Year 6 students about what life is like in high school. I gave the students an opportunity to ask their very own questions by delivering a question box to the school prior to my visit. The students were most excited to know about how many teachers they would have, if they would still see their friends, but most importantly, “how long does lunchtime go for?" When I asked them at the end how many were going to John Therry, about half of them raised their hands, so we can expect lots of new and eager students in 2024.

Got SWAG?

R v Macbeth 
8.2 - English

JTCC SPORT UPDATE - Term 3 Week 9

Our Term 3 MISA season has come to an end, with John Therry performing well across multiple sports this term. 

I on behalf of the sport faculty would like to acknowledge and thank the 2023 Year 12 cohort for their contributions to sport at John Therry. We have been blessed with some fantastic athletes and their enthusiasm and commitment to sport will be missed. I hope you have enjoyed your time representing John Therry and I wish you all the best for your future endeavours. 

THE RESULTS FOR TERM 3 ARE AS FOLLOWS:

MISA- Finals, Term 3

Grand Final Win against MCCC 22-0

What a unique season! For the first time, John Therry entered into a competition with just one other team in the first division (Mount Carmel) where we played a State of Origin series. Given there were only 3 games, we were required to train for most of the term. We were able to work on our skill sets and develop other aspects of our game. We won the first game and lost by a significant margin in the second. The boys stewed on this and showed up to training to ensure this didn't happen again. We started the first half strong with Kale and Sullivan taking some tough carries out of our half to get our sets started. Benji and Moni led the way by their enthusiasm and the rest followed. Despite the position changes, each member of the team fulfilled their role through their workload and communication, resulting in JT taking home the chocolates. Well done on a great season boys!

Mr McGrath and Mr Tran.

TERM 3 PREMIERS - U15s Boys Rugby League - Mr McGrath and Mr Tran

Term 4:

MISA Trials will begin next week (Week 10) and continue into next term (Week 1). Term 4 kicks off our new sporting year now that Year 12 have departed. Our Term 4 sports are as follows;

A reminder that Students who are in Sports Detention THREE times in a term for poor behaviour or uniform issues will be issued with an afternoon detention. 

Another reminder of the expectations during sport;

• Students are expected to behave appropriately and show respect to their classmates and teachers during sport.
• Students are expected to wear the John Therry sports uniform to sport (White socks and athletic joggers). 
• Students are expected to participate in sporting activities unless they have a note from a parent/guardians stating others.
• Students who are injured and have a note from a parent/guardian are able to complete homework/assessments during Sport time (Sports Detention/Injury)
• Students ARE NOT permitted to have food or drinks on our sport buses. We have had too many students leaving rubbish on the buses.

If you have any issues or questions regarding sport, please email me - bodekerl01@dow.catholic.edu.au.

Upcoming Events Term 4 2023:

A reminder to check the Compass Portal for upcoming sporting events and their respective closing dates.

NSWCCC Teams

Remember that there is a new way to nominate individual sports for NSWCCC. This portal is open now and all students wanting to trial for Southern Country and NSWCCC representative teams are to ensure they register by the appropriate CLOSING DATE.

This information, including registration closing dates can be found on the website:

https://csnsw.sport/

Please note that some sports are selected by individual trials, and these can be held throughout NSW. Individual nominations require students to make their own way to and from selections. 

Selection in the following sports: Swimming, Cross Country, Athletics, Touch Football, AFL (Boys) and Football are done through the Wollongong Diocese carnivals by way of representing John Therry at these respective carnivals.

Selection in the following sports: AFL (Girls), Baseball, Basketball, Cricket – Girls,  Golf, Hockey, Netball, Rugby League, Rugby, Softball, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball will need to be done via individual nomination and selections.

You can also access the Wollongong Sport site for more information throughout the year.

https://www.dow.catholic.edu.au/sport/diocesan-sport-news

SPORTING ACHIEVEMENTS:

If your child has had an outstanding high level, sporting achievement outside of school, we would love to hear from you. Please email me so we can celebrate  their achievements with the JTCC community.

Yours in Sport,
Mr Jamie Cook & Mr Luke Bodeker

(cooka01@dow.catholic.edu.au bodekerl01@dow.catholic.edu.au)

One of the most important influences in the lives of men is the relationship they had with their father or significant father figure.

The encouragement and affirmation that this relationship could, and should, provide is a key ingredient for how young men view themselves and embrace their gifts as they take their place in the world.

Don’t miss this life-changing father and son weekend! Spots are limited to just 25 fathers with their sons aged between 12 and 16 years. This is a unique opportunity for dads and their sons to embark on a quest of discovery with Robert Falzon and the team from menALIVE at Cataract Scout Camp, Appin. Register here.

Held at Guntawang Catholic Youth Centre - Woolgemai Campground near Picton, this weekend is growing in popularity and bringing Catholic families from around the Diocese together for food, fun and fellowship with camping and bunk room accommodation options. For more information and bookings follow this link: Compass: Catholic Family Camping Weekend.

Year 7 Vaccinations will be on 20th October this includes second doses and a catchup for 1st dose.

If your child is in Year 7 or Year 10 this year, you can now provide consent for their school vaccinations online.

In Year 7, students are offered vaccines for diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (dTpa) and human papillomavirus (HPV). In Year 10, students are offered the meningococcal ACWY vaccine. 

By providing consent for your child’s vaccination online, you can:

• easily update your child’s details 
• get SMS and/or email notifications when your child has received their vaccinations
• more quickly see their vaccination records on the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR). 

Ask us about providing consent for your child’s vaccinations.

Need more information? Visit:  

https://nswhealth.service-now.com/school

health.nsw.gov.au/schoolvaccination

Please find below a link to the latest Parish Bulletin

https://www.olhcrosemeadow.org.au/bulletin/