Year 9 has been super busy. This edition I decided to let the students fill you in on all our news.

NAIDOC WEEK by Millie Thulin

On Monday 12 August, the boys and girls Aboriginal Dance Troupes went out to Orient Point Preschool to perform our dances.

Abbey Teall, George Broome, Tobey Hooke, Will Osgood and myself (other students from other years) had a great time performing for the little preschoolers.

We also had a great time watching the preschoolers singing and dancing a short while.

After all the dances were performed we went off into small groups so the little boys could work with the older boys and little girls with the older girls.

Once in our groups we taught the preschoolers traditional dances. I taught my little buddy Katie the ‘Emu and the Pippi’ dance. 

We then shared time together with a BBQ for all.  When we had finished our food it was time to cut the cake. Before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to our new little friends. I’m sure they enjoyed the day almost as much as we did!            

ATHLETICS by Jade Poulton

Last Friday 16 August, 72 keen students travelled up to Campbelltown Athletics Stadium for the Diocesan Athletics Carnival.  

After an early start to the morning, we arrived at the stadium ready to compete in our track and field events.

Some students only had one or two events to compete in, and if you were lucky you could relax for the rest of the day and watch others compete.

Other students qualified for a lot of events and they were busy all day! 

My favourite event to watch were the relays, there was a great atmosphere of encouragement when everyone was racing, not only in the relays. It was great to see the amount of support we all have for each other in our events. 

Overall the day was a really good experience, with St John’s coming 3rd out of 14 schools.

Anthony De Bruyn broke 3 records in the AWD 100m male open (14.75), the AWD mixed open long jump (3.39m) and the AWD 200m male open (30.26), and Will Maher broke the AWD shot put mixed record (7.05).

11 students qualified for CCC and Hannah Brian, Lachlan Kaszonyi and Tsar Mandavy all won their Age Champion.

A big thank you goes out to Mr Lopez, Mrs Prayetno and Mr Watson that supervised and organised us on the day! 

DRAMA EXCURSION by Madeline Speer

Last week, students from Year 9,10 and 11 travelled to the Roslyn Packer in Walsh Bay Sydney theatre to immerse ourselves in ‘The Lord of the Flies’ production, produced by the Sydney Theatre Company.

This was a truly inspirational experience with dramatic lighting designs, tremendous acting skills and innovative ways of using minimal set.

In this production, the lighting design was one of a kind and never seen before.  They used a bar or pole like lights strung from the ceiling and elevated to a series of heights throughout the production to show a change of sets, scenes, mood and weather.  The actors were also very emotive and truly placed themselves in these characters and it showed in their amazing performance. 

Thank you to Mr Burian for all his support in giving us new ways to experience drama in all it’s forms.