We are thrilled to welcome back our sister school from Japan, Honjo Higashi High School, to A.B. Paterson College!
This is their first visit since 2019 and we are excited to be hosting 20 senior high school students along with their tour leader, Mr Mark Itoh.
During their 10 days with us, the Honjo students will be taking English lessons at our college whilst also joining their host students' homerooms each morning and attending some academic classes throughout the week.
It was wonderful to meet and welcome the students to the college at our welcome assembly on Monday afternoon where they were treated to a fabulous dance performance by our Year 10 dance group.
The students have been having a wonderful time with their host families, sightseeing and enjoying everything the Gold Coast has to offer. On Wednesday, they enjoyed a half day excursion to Top Golf with their host students, before enjoying a typical Aussie BBQ on Friday afternoon when we farewell our guests.
We are so pleased to have Honjo students back at our college, it provides a truly wonderful and enriching experience for all the families involved.
Prep Celebrate 100 Days!
Visiting the Prep classrooms and playground on Wednesday, you might have thought you had stumbled into a retirement village! Not a young preppie to be seen, only much older and wiser 'oldies'.
Dressed as centenarians, complete with glasses, wigs, and canes, our preppies celebrated being 100 days wiser as they have now completed 100 days of prep.
A fun and memorable day, full of laughter and learning as they marked this special occasion.
What a fantastic morning we had catching up with the class of 2023 over a coffee and breakfast last Friday! It was lovely to see so many familiar faces back on campus and to hear all about the exciting new adventures you have embarked on since leaving the college grounds.
Talk of university life, travel and ambitions for the future whilst flipping through the 2023 Banjo, brought memories flooding back, along with plenty of laughs!
Here is to the amazing journey you have all embarked on and to many more reunions in the future.
Stay in touch, stay connected and keep shining class of 2023!
Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD)
Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about support provided to students with disability. These relate to legislative requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, in line with the NCCD guidelines (2019).
Information provided about students to the Australian Government for the NCCD includes:
year of schooling
category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional
level of adjustment provided: support provided within quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substantial or extensive.
This information assists schools to:
formally recognise the supports and adjustments provided to students with disability in schools
consider how they can strengthen the support of students with disability in schools
develop shared practices so that they can review their learning programs in order to improve educational outcomes for students with disability.
The NCCD provides state and federal governments with the information they need to plan more broadly for the support of students with disability.
The College will provide data to the Australian Government in such a way that no individual student will be able to be identified – the privacy and confidentiality of all students is ensured. All information is protected by privacy laws that regulate the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information. To find out more about these matters, please refer to the Australian Government’s Privacy Policy (https://www.education.gov.au/privacy-policy).
If you have any questions about the NCCD, please do not hesitate to reach out to our Learning Enhancement Faculty.
Charlotte Brook | Deputy Principal
Year 10s Return from Outback Queensland
The Year 10 Winton Tour returned Friday last week, with near on 120 weary teenagers and 12 staff returning with a stack of stories, laughs and many hours of sleep to catch up on!
The journey began with an overnight bus ride – arriving at 8.00am the next day. Setting up, breakfast, walking and stretching around town before some much-needed downtime and rest.
We picked the afternoon up with an amazing race around town, connecting the dots as to why various A.B. buildings and spaces are named on campus, and understanding some of the historical landmarks in the middle of Queensland!
A night at the Royal ‘Open Air’ Theatre, watching Gold Stone (Set in Winton) which the students are studying in the English classes through this term.
Day 3 was spent at the Opal Festival in town, followed by the much-anticipated Semi-Formal event. The backdrop for the evening could not have been any more stunning! The students had an afternoon helping each other get ready and a night of great food, dancing and campfire stories was one to remember!
Day 4 was jam packed with the Dinosaur Museum, Waltzing Matilda Centre and Gondwana Stars Observatory.
Day 5 was a much-needed rest in the morning. Students led the day activities with some sport round robins, mini games, cleaning and re-organising base camp.
We were off to the Combo waterhole on day 6. A significant place where it’s understood Banjo first penned Waltzing Matilda. A rendition from the students (that needs a little work) and brief history lesson, students returned to camp to write a letter to their future self, one that will be opened on their Year 12 camp in 18 months’ time!
Day 7 and 8 were in Longreach – Camden Park station (whip cracking/shearing stories/homestead gardens/orienteering and a student made camp oven dinner), Qantas Luminescent Light Show, Thompson River cruise, Indigenous heritage sights and Stockman’s Hall of Fame! The students also enjoyed the State of Origin, with Dan Walker (the station owner) producing a massive screen and function room for the event!
Day 9, and we were on the home straight! The Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame, understanding the balancing between opportunities and preservation in the vast Australian landscape!
We finished the evening in Barcaldine. The students visited the Tree of Knowledge, had a town history tour, learned about the importance of community and the role that charitable organisations can play in small towns, before making boomerangs and dancing up a storm with ‘Aunty Cheryl’.
The bus ride home was difficult, but the memories are keepers!
The objectives of our Year 10 Camp are to build capacity in our students and signal a rite of passage into their senior years. The camp was an overwhelming success and that was a credit to our students and staff.
I would like to thank the following staff who gave up time with their families, children, pets and friends and went above and beyond to give our young people the opportunity to experience such an amazing camp!
Beth Claydon, Andrew Sole, Emma Gann, Rebekah Brodie, Kate Jacobs, Avril Wood, Deanna Anderson, Lana Milton, Terri Wagstaff, Gina Fulton-Kennedy and Craig Aitkin.
Liam Burke | Deputy Head of Senior School
Reader's Cup Results
Teams of voracious readers from Year 5 to Year 9 have recently competed at the Gold Coast regional round of Reader's Cup. This state-wide competition, run by the Queensland branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia, encourages teams of four or five students to read a selection of books and answer quiz questions about them. It's fiercely contested amongst the competitors, and while the competition encourages reading, it also fosters collaboration and teamwork.
On 4 June, the Year 7/8 team competed at Saint Stephen's College. They came 5th out of 15 teams from across Gold Coast schools. The Year 9/10 and Year 5/6 competitions were held on 23 July at Hillcrest Christian College. The Year 5/6 team came 13th overall in a very large competition of 22 teams. The two teams of Year 9 students placed 4th (only four points behind first place!) and 7th from 16 teams.
Congratulations to all our competitors on their commitment to reading some incredible junior and young adult fiction this year.
Year 5/6 team: George Hu, Maxim Nadezhdin, Oliver Tomlinson, Oliver White, Hugo Whittington.
Year 7/8 team: Ethan Asquith, Scarlett Fisher, Alyssa Fu, Lucas Liu, Sahishnu Sriram.
Year 9/10 team: Siena Bulmer, Phoebe Corin, Rose D'Alisa, Caitlyn Howe, Hira Junaid, Sabrina Middleton, Tianlu Shen, Chloe Wang, Seyara Welagedara.
Kelly Whiteway | Head of Library Services
Year 4 Visit St Helena Island
On our Year 4 excursion to the St Helena Island penal colony in Manly, we had an educational and immersive experience. The tour guides, dressed in roles of a warden and convicts, led us around the island and shared stories about the daily life and hardships faced by the prisoners. This role-playing approach made the history come alive, providing a vivid and engaging way to understand the past.
To become a trusted prisoner, we learned that you had to be on the island for a minimum of 14 years with a good record. If you misbehaved on the island, punishment was harsh varying from being whipped with a cat-o-nine tails to being locked in solitary confinement for up to three days.
We had a great day exploring the island and by the end of the day, became very thankful for all of the luxuries that we have today! The excursion was both informative and memorable, giving us a deeper appreciation of this significant historical site.
Student Quotes:
We had lots of fun at St Helena Island. One of our favourite things was listening to all of the tour guides stories from the graveyard and exploring the prison. Annika Khosla and Carlie Ge
St Helena was really fun. I love the role play and getting to see what convicts would eat and how they live. Alexis Macanovic
St Helena Island was a real treat with lots of joy, we learnt a lot of cool stuff and it was the best experience we have ever experienced!! Calliope Kriketos, Mya Exelby, Asha Standfield, Savannah Murray
St Helena Island was fun. We did an activity where we had to spot the number on the grave. We learnt a lot and we got to roam around. Overall, it was incredibly fun other than the toilets about which we don't talk. Omar Sadique
When I went to St Helena Island I learned so much about convicts. When they came to the island they were all given numbers to represent how many people had arrived and they were all given jobs like cutting bamboo. Yara Elgobashi
I really enjoyed the ferry ride and I also liked the end when ‘Prisoner 3 2 1’ got whipped with the cat-o-nine tails. I also liked it when we were able to see in the houses. Kai Payling
I liked St Helena because we learnt about historical prisons and the jobs, roles and buildings. I loved it also because we got to ride a boat there and it was a cool experience for me. Harrison White
I enjoyed St Helena Island because I learned all about a convict's life. The guards, who worked at St Helena when it was a prison, sounded very cruel. They treated people like slaves and made them work all day. It was interesting when I found out about people cutting their fingers off to get out of work! I really enjoyed St Helena Island. Mishka Upadhyay
I really enjoyed the bus and ferry ride to St Helena island. When we got there, I liked going around the place. It was funny how ‘Prisoner 321 got whipped’ and how ‘Prisoner 3 and a half’ (Patrick Ballantyne) was whipping the pole. Daniel Kouzmenkov.
Zoe Truss-Michaelis, Kelly Harker, Kate Lewis & Tim Collins | Year 4 Teachers
Presentation by Adair Donaldson
An amazing, engaging, and at times confronting session with Adair Donaldson on Monday.
Thank you, Adair, for spending the day educating our students, teachers, and parents on critical issues and the law.
Your presentations on harassment, cyber safety, consent, digital technologies, and social media for adolescents were the first to really resonate with our students.
Their feedback speaks volumes: "he was awesome," "didn't just tell us to delete all social media," and "kept it real!"
Navigating adolescence today is complicated, and it's essential for students to access engaging, relevant, and relatable information. Your insights into the legality of issues affecting young people's lives in the current social climate were invaluable.
An invaluable resource for growth and development.
City of Gold Coast Junior Council
As the world counts down to #Paris2024, the Gold Coast's future leaders are looking ahead, with the Junior Council marking 8 years until the Brisbane 2032 #Olympic Games.
The City of Gold Coast Junior Council, where more than 140 students from 37 Gold Coast schools take part each year, convened for a day of workshops and discussions on the future impact of the 2032 Games.
Notably, for A.B. Paterson College, the event was hosted by Year 11 student, Nevindu Dammannagoda, who serves as the Gold Coast's 2024 Junior Mayor.
The Junior Council is a civic leadership program designed for Year 10 and 11 students from Gold Coast high schools.
It offers students the chance to engage in their community through activities such as understanding local government, discussing local issues, and developing skills in communication, public speaking, leadership, and more, fostering connections and idea exchange through workshops and volunteer opportunities.
Attention students and staff! The Sustainability Club are thrilled to announce the launch of the Poem Forest Competition at our college. This is a fantastic opportunity for all budding poets to showcase their creativity and passion for nature through verse.
Key Details:
Submission Deadline: Monday, 2nd September (Week 9)
Eligibility: Open to both students and staff
Theme: Poems must be identifiably about nature
Length: No more than 20 lines
Multiple Entries: Yes, you can submit more than one poem!
There are two parts to this competition:
School-Based Competition: Submit your poems via email to Kiana Sloane at ksloane@abpat.qld.edu.au.
This is a unique opportunity to not only engage with the beauty of nature through your writing but also to have your work recognized and celebrated within our college community and beyond.
We encourage everyone to participate and look forward to reading your beautiful poems!
Happy writing!
Kiana Sloane | Science Teacher
A.B. Paterson College Foundation Gala Ball, Presented by Saba Organic
CLOSING ON 31 JULY SO PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS NOW!
There is just one week left to get your tickets to the night of nights! The A.B. Paterson College Foundation Ball will be a night to remember, and we don't want you to miss out.
All proceeds from the event will go towards raising funds for the incredible new Junior School ninja warrior playground course. This fully covered, ninja warrior course will be located at the front of the College by the Village Green, and available for our Years 3-6 students to enjoy.
Don’t miss this chance to make a difference and be a part of the College community's history whilst enjoying a spectacular evening of glamour and entertainment.
Presented by Saba Organic we are excited to welcome our college community to QT Gold Coast on Saturday 17th August.
