Last week, we congratulated students in Years 10 and 11 who received Academic and Work Habit Awards. Unfortunately we were unable to hold our usual awards assembly to acknowledge these achievements. The students were presented with Academic Full Colours, Academic Half Colours, Academic Merit, Outstanding Work Habits and Commendable Work Habits. These awards were based on Year 10 and Year 11 reporting grades and results published at the end of Term 3. Congratulations to the following students:

This week our Year 9 cohort ventured north to the Mary Valley to undertake an outdoor education adventure with Higher Ground. After having had their kit checked the week before, the students were ready and raring to go bright and early on Monday morning as they discovered their groups and loaded the buses.

The outdoor education experience provides students with many opportunities to push their boundaries in a variety of physical and emotional challenges. The Higher Ground camp doesn’t just include tests of physical endurance in terms of extensive walking and hiking through the bush. Whilst this is still an important part of the course program, the activities that our students have undertaken this week were varied in terms of the challenges they offered. From climbing, taking the ‘leap of faith’ whilst only attached by a thin cord of rope, mountain bike riding, canoeing and raft building, the stamina and endurance of all involved was certainly tested.

Whilst the students endured the physical challenges offered by these activities, opportunities to develop life skills were an intrinsic component of all challenges faced. Demonstrating leadership and developing social and emotional awareness, interpersonal skills and communication skills in challenging and unfamiliar settings was paramount. So too was teamwork and fostering an understanding of the positive attributes of an effective team including the appreciation and awareness of other's strengths and skills. Students were able to make decisions, experience consequence, success and failure, and were accountable for what they did in a supportive and nurturing environment. 

Our Year 9 cohort will return on Saturday, excited to see their families, exhausted from the activities they have experienced and humbled by the challenges they have overcome and the friendships they have developed. We look forward to hearing about the Year 9 students' adventures for many weeks to come and wish them well on their final night on camp.

This camp would not be possible without the generosity of the staff who have spent the week with our students and I am sure that our students will be forever grateful to them for facilitating this unforgettable experience.

Charlotte Brook
Head of Senior School

The QAMT competition is a prestigious annual maths competition that is open to students from all over Queensland. This year we entered four teams – two from Junior School and two from Senior School.

After the first round, three teams from A.B. Paterson College qualified for the Regional Finals of the QAMT Competition. We had wonderful success in the Junior Regional Rounds with our Year 5/6 Team, consisting of Jinyu Yan, Aiden Zhang and Zain Baba coming Runners-up in the Gold Coast Region.

In addition, our Senior School teams did exceptionally well. Team 1, consisting of Matilda Grant, Mitchell Chen and April Chen won the overall Regional Round with Team 2, consisting of Byron McNiven, Tiantian Shen and Cindy Chen coming a close second to finish Runners-up of the Regional Rounds.

Matilda, Mitchell and April then qualified for the State Finals. These were held on Thursday 28 October and it was a tightly-contested competition. Schools from as close as Brisbane to as far away as Townsville and Cairns all competed for the coveted top four positions. A.B. Paterson College students worked well as a team and finished fourth overall in the state. This is an incredible accomplishment and we are very proud of all our students who competed in this competition.

Belinda Pilgrim
Head of Academic Academy

Congratulations to A.B. Paterson College Head of English, Anne Wood for her $5000 dollar NGS Super scholarship win!

Anne's winning idea is to use digital poetry to help nurture lasting friendships between our Year 6 outback adventurers and students from the Longreach School of Distance Education, extend their connection to this unique camp experience into their Senior School years, while also developing students' coding and literacy skills.

Well done Anne! Such a great way to celebrate World Teachers' Day!

Thank you to all coaches and students for their efforts throughout the Season 2 APS fixtures. A special mention to the following teams on their final Top 4 position:

Premiers
Open A Boys Touch                      Mr Templar & Jordan Goltman
Year 7A Boys Basketball              Mr Bradford
Year 10B Girls Basketball            Mrs Gisik & Aaron Dirkx
 
Runners Up
Year 7 & 8 Girls AFL                    Mr Chetter & Tori Groves-Little
Year 7B Girls Basketball              Mrs Walduck & Krissie Noar
Open Softball                             Ms Foster & Hannah Marshall
Open C Girls Tennis                     Mrs Biberstein
Junior A Girls Tennis                    Ms Ward
Year 9B Boys Basketball              Jack Rayner
Open C Boys Tennis                     Mrs Andrews
Junior B Boys Tennis                   Mrs Alchin
Junior C Boys Tennis                   Mrs Alchin
Year 10A Boys Touch                   Declan Brown
Year 8A Boys Touch                     Mr Ellins & Ben Ormsby

3rd or 4th
Open B Girls Tennis                     Mrs Biberstein
Junior B Girls Tennis                    Ms Ward
Junior C Girls Tennis                    Ms Ward
Open B Girls Touch                      Miss Rush & Marama Thomas
Year 7B Girls Touch                     Miss Keogh & Rose Hackett
Open Girls Water Polo                 Mr Mikael & Paige Clifton
Year 9A Boys Basketball              Jack Rayner
First X1 Cricket                           Mr Brookes
Open A Boys Tennis                      Mrs Andrews
Open B Boys Tennis                      Mrs Andrews
Open B Boys Touch                      Mr Templar & Jordan Goltman
Year 9A Boys Touch                     Mr Webb & Zac Tannenbaum
Year 9B Boys Touch                     Mr Webb & Zac Tannenbaum
Year 7B Boys Touch                     Mr Griffiths & Caydn Dilkes

Ian Taylor
Director of Activities

Last week our Year 4 students and staff were treated to an amazing presentation by Dr Darren Fisher, the Head of Directing in the Film, Screen and Creative Media department at Bond University here on the Gold Coast. He is an award-winning screenwriter, producer and director as well as one of our College dads!

Dr Fisher was very excited to share his knowledge of film, movies and television with us. His presentation gave the Year 4 students a lot of valuable tips and advice to create our own Video Editor projects that are part of our current Technology and HaSS units. Our finished short films will support our Service-learning project on Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Replace.

Here is what some Year 4 students had to say:

“I learnt about Video Editor and how to do extra things in my 4Rs project to make it better”. Mason Doherty 4B

“The five steps that we should follow to make a video were explained really well by Dr Fisher. He told us lots of cool stories too about famous people he knows!”. Amelia Dimou 4T

“I enjoyed learning all about the process of making my own videos”. Mrs Radisavlyevic (Year 4 Learning Assistant)

Year 4 Teachers
Tiffany Henry, Kathleen Richardson, Liam Burke and Zoe Truss-Michaelis 

Prep to Year 3 - you are sensational! Just look at your talent and spirit shining as bright as the sun at the 2021 Prep to Year 3 Mini Olympics! And, how lovely it was to see our families enjoying the day.

Head of HPE, Mr Mikael commented on the extraordinary efforts of our Year 7 Aussie Sports Leaders.

"As part of the Year 7 Health and Physical Education program, these amazing students demonstrated leadership beyond their years."

"A big thank you to Mr Cashman for leading this program. You do such a wonderful job! The students across Prep to Year 3 had a blast. Looking forward to the Prep to Year 2 Aquatics Carnival later in Term 4."

Congratulations to all students who took part in the annual ICAS competitions last term. All results are now in and the following students are to be acknowledged on achieving Distinction or High Distinction certificates.

Digital Technologies

Distinctions: Yuepeng Li, Rehan Mohammed, Elena Xu (Year 3); Scarlett Fisher, Saavi Gaikwad, Nikita Harish, Lunabelle Li, Caelum McCleery, Indiana Reneke, Sahishnu Sriram, Lucas Wang, Tianqi Zhao (Year 4); Mila Henderson, Matthew Lee, Peiwen Liang,  Ethan McIntyre, Sigrid Perez, Daniel Wang, Shungcheng Zhang (Year 5); Mika Lance (Year 6); Mitchell Chen, Xingzhi Zhang (Year 7); Saanvi Sriram and Jason Zhu (Year 8).

High Distinctions: Maxim Nadezhdin (Year 3); Ivy Hamilton (Year 5); and Toby Da Silva (Year 7).

English

Distinctions: Chloe Fu, Rehan Mohammed, Sean Weng, Jun Yi Wong, Elena Xu, Emily Zhang (Year 3);   Nikita Harish, Lunabelle Li, Yufei Wu, Eric Zhang (Year 4); Edward Dalziel, Xavier Davey, Zoe Han, Matthew Lee, Peiwen Liang, Sigrid Perez, Jinyu Yan (Year 5); Mika Lance, Aiden Zhang (Year 6); Nicholas Kenworthy, Xingzhi Zhang (Year 7); Alistair Hughes (Year 10); and Thirunanthanan Thirumurugan (Year 11).

High Distinctions: Maxim Nadezhdin (Year 3); Scarlett Fisher (Year 4); Mitchell Chen (Year 7); and Nevindu Dammannagoda (Year 8).

Science

Distinctions: Maxim Nadezhdin, William Wang, Sean Weng, Jun Yi Wong (Year 3); Scarlett Fisher, Alyssa Fu, Lunabelle Li, Lucas Liu (Year 4); Matthew Lee, Peiwen Liang, Calvin Liu, Ethan McIntyre (Year 5); Zain Baba, Mika Lance, Grace Parma, Aiden Zhang (Year 6); Mitchell Chen, Ruvindu Siriwardana, Xingzhi Zhang (Year 7); Riley Grimmer (Year 8); Derek Luo, Timothy Yau (Year 9); and Alistair Hughes (Year 10).

High Distinctions: Nikita Harish and Lucas Wang (Year 3).

Mathematics

Distinctions: William Wang, Sean Weng, Elena Xu (Year 3); Benjamin Clark, Nikita Harish, Lucas Liu, Javier Segui (Year 4); Matthew Lee, Ethan McIntyre, Peter Zhu (Year 5); Zain Baba, Grace Parma (Year 6); Hrishi Modi, Ruvindu Siriwardana, Xingzhi Zhang (Year 7); Jason Zhu (Year 8); Derek Luo and Timothy Yau (Year 9); Alistair Hughes and Eric Zhou (Year 10).

High Distinctions: Maxim Nadezhdin (Year 3); Lucas Wang (Year 4); Aiden Zhang (Year 6); Mitchell Chen (Year 7) and Matilda Grant (Year 8).

Congratulations to our Junior School APS Athletics team who competed at the Runaway Bay Performance Centre on Thursday 28 October 2021.

The team achieved the best results since 2012, placing 5th overall!

Congratulations to all the students involved, including the three students who were awarded 1st or 2nd age champion.

Full results will be published in next week's Illalong newsletter.

Regional Triathlon

Last weekend, the regional triathlon trials were held at Kawana Waters on the Sunshine Coast. We are very pleased to report that all of the students who represented the College at this event achieved further selection to represent South Coast in their respective divisions in the State Championships. 

In the Junior Division Liam Grimmer qualified 5th, Samuel Longhurst 6th, Tobyn O’Hara 7th and Hudson Dilkes qualified 9th.

In the Intermediate Division, Jonas Longhurst qualified 7th and Riley Grimmer qualified 8th.

The State Championships are to be held in Hervey Bay in February, 2022, and we wish all of these triathletes all the very best in their preparation for this extremely gruelling event.

Ian Taylor
Director of Activities

Congratulations to our Term 3 Junior School chess champions!

1st Place - Hongyi (Henry) Yan, Year 2 (2S)
2nd Place - Westin Willmot, Year 3 (3M)
3rd Place - Yiding (Eddie) Wei, Year 2 (2T)

Well done boys!

Due to the ongoing restrictions regarding COVID-19, the 2021 Speech Night will be conducted as a virtual event. Please keep Wednesday 17 November 2021 in your diary for this special occasion in the College calendar.

You may recall, through Service-learning, students learn real-life skills, contribute to their communities and learn that they have a responsibility to serve others. The Year 9 students are part way through their Service-learning projects and are currently calling for donations to assist our partner organisations. Donations may include:

• Good quality second-hand clothing for Hope in a Suitcase
• Nappies, wipes, bibs, singlets for Baby Give Back and LJ Mamas helping Mamas
• Good quality second-hand business attire for Suited to Success
• Tampons, pads, bras for Share the Dignity
• Personal hygiene items, for example, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, tooth brush, hair brush

If you would like any further information please email tkirton@abpat.qld.edu.au. Thank you in advance for your contribution to these very worthy causes and the Year 9 Service-learning projects.

Toni Kirton
Director of Positive Education and Leadership

Can you sing in another language?

Perform a dance from another country?

Play a unique instrument?

In celebration of Harmony Week in March 2022, we are looking for students to help showcase the diversity of nations that are represented at A.B. Paterson College. If you are interested in sharing your talent at our Harmony Week celebrations in March 2022, please register your expression of interest with Ms Siberry before Wednesday 3 November 2021.

Auditions with the Arts Faculty will be held during lunchtimes in Week 6, Term 4 (week commencing Monday 8 November 2021).

Please email your expression of interest and/or questions to ssiberry@abpat.qld.edu.au. 

Are you looking for a new GP? Real Estate Agent? Lawyer? Plumber? Accountant?

You’ll find all of these helpful professionals and so many more in our 2021 Inspire Business Directory. The best part about this directory is that all of these businesses are connected to families in our A.B. Paterson College community. 

You can view the 2021 Inspire Business Directory in the 'Our Community' section of the College website or by clicking on the link below:

https://issuu.com/advpublishing/docs/abpaterson_inspire_issue_2_9thpass?fr=sMWY4YTM4ODU5NDE

The 2021 Inspire Business Directory is proudly brought to you by the A.B. Paterson College Foundation.