From the Principal

130th Anniversary

Dear Parents, Students and Friends

History of the College

On Monday 2 July at 9.00am we celebrated the founding of the College in 1888 by the Marist Brothers. The founding principal was Br Walter Moore. Br Walter was an unwell man at the time. He was joined by Br Michael Murphy and Br Wilfrid Priestman. 



The following is a section from The Marist Brothers in Australia:

The first community opened their school on July 2, 1888.  The Director selected by Br John was Br Walter Moore. His assistants were Br Michael Murphy, aged 20, and Br Wilfrid Priestman, a late vocation aged 42.  The school had the bush on one side and paddocks on the other. It was situated near the tramway line terminus. The number of pupils at the beginning was forty.  By the end of the year there were more than 100 on the rolls. Br John commented on the school in 1889 - The classrooms are very well installed but rather small. The site is all that can be desired.  The school is perhaps the least fatiguing and the best placed we have in Sydney. His report showed the school was being well conducted. Br Walter was doing very well indeed, the young Br. Michael was proving to be un homme de talent et d’avenir.  The Jesuit Fathers were very pleased with the school.


Sadly, Br Walter Moore passed away from tuberculosis in the third year of the school. It is amazing that our school was founded by one man who was sick, a very young man with almost no teaching experience and a third who was not trained and yet it has thrived over the years in educating over 10,000 young men from the Lower North Shore of Sydney.

Future of the College

Last Wednesday night Sydney Catholic Schools held an Information Symposium on the future of the College. The parent meeting was well attended. The Regional Director, Mrs Elizabeth O’Carrigan, addressed the meeting and indicated the following:
  • Girls will be enrolled a year at a time commencing with Year 7 girls in 2021.
  • The Combined Primary and Secondary school will be called Marist Catholic College North Shore. The primary side of the precinct will be called St Mary’s Campus and the Secondary Side will be called La Valla Campus. La Valla was St Marcellin Champagnat’s first parish in France after he was ordained a priest. It is also the birthplace of the Marist Brothers who founded our College.
  • The primary school and the secondary school will have the Marist Charism.
  • A new website was unveiled 
    www.northsydneycatholicschools.nsw.edu.au
    This site will contain updates on the plans for the Precinct.
  • Marist will have a second Assistant Principal appointed to manage the development of the precinct in terms of the move to co-education and the work in developing the pedagogy across K to 12.
  • A separate area will be developed for the Year 7 and 8 students as co-education commences at Marist.
  • Subcommittees will be created as required to explore different aspects of the planning. One will be created to look at the visual identity of the college in terms of college colours and new college crest.
Show more

From the Assistant Principal

Success and more



As the school year draws towards the halfway stage, I would once again like to remind all students of the need to commit fully to all aspects of their schooling. Great rewards come from setting goals and then working towards achieving them, with the assistance of family and the school community. Any achievement, either in the class or outside should be seen by students as an opportunity to fulfil their goals, succeed and then move on to the next one. Self-belief is a major factor in achieving goals and succeeding, we are all capable of achieving if we believe in our own abilities and seek the assistance and support of those in the community.

Students in Years 7-10 will soon receive their Semester One reports. These reports are a valuable tool to inform students and parents how learning is progressing. This feedback should then assist students in setting the direction for remainder of the year. I would ask parents to ensure they talk through the reports with their sons.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the staff at Marist North Shore for their dedication and commitment throughout Term 2. Many tireless hours are spent preparing lessons, completing reports and tending to the needs of the boys in their care. I wish staff, students and parents a restful and peaceful break.

A final reminder that lessons for Term 3 will commence on Monday 23 July.

Rick Grech
Deputy Headmaster

Faith Formation

Year 11 Leadership Reflection Day



Year 11 are at an interesting stage of their schooling. They have now progressed through more than half of their Preliminary HSC Course. At the end of Term 3, Year 12 will graduate and we will be looking to Year 11 to demonstrate leadership as a member of the Year 12 Class of 2019. Some students will assume formal leadership positions within the community, but every student will be a leader in his own right.

Early next term, the College will begin the process of selecting the Student Leadership Team for the Class of 2019. To help the students better understand what true leadership is, and in particular, leadership in a Catholic context, we held a Leadership Reflection Day to discern this important topic.

Students were asked to consider questions such as ‘What do we want to be known for?’ and ‘What are some areas in the life of the College that we could work on in order to make a positive impact on the College community?’. The students’ responses were quite profound and centred largely on the notion of servant leadership.

Show more

Co-Curricular

The REAL Inspector Hound


This year students from Years 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 joined forces to rehearse and perform the Tom Stoppard play; The Real Inspector Hound.

Ten student performers took on the challenge of an intense two month rehearsal, three days a week and conducted themselves with discipline, style and aplomb to produce a fabulous absurdist play within a play. The cast of mostly Marist College North Shore students were joined by the exceptional talent of two students, Kiara Herbert and Francesca Calderazzo who joined us from Mercy College Chatswood and Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College respectively.

Rehearsals were so much fun and it enabled students from all different year levels, and some with no experience of putting on a College Production, to come together for the first time to work hard to block stage movement, rehearse lines, develop character relationships and most of all decipher the confusing moments the story presented us with; the twists and turns of plot, characters and double deceptions.

All students were consulted and involved in stage and costume design, props, dramaturgy and directorial concept. It was a production period that brought students close together as a theatrical family and made it possible for us to bring to life a 1970’s vision of The Real Inspector Hound. A parody of a stereotypical parlour mystery in the style of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap as well as a play about ‘the critics’ watching the play, with their personal desires and obsessions interwoven into their bombastic and pompous review.

I have great admiration for the leadership and intelligent analysis shown by both Year 9 and 10 students who were happy to jump in at any moment and provide solutions to the myriad of puzzles the play and I presented.

Parents and teachers also happily provided all manner of props and set pieces from plants and rugs to wheelchairs and vintage radios and the cast and crew are indebted by their generosity and support that helped bring the play to life.

The cast were joined by an incredibly capable and experienced crew led by Tony McDonnell in audio and Cian Byrne in lighting. The students in Years 9, 11 and 12 brought our play to life and made it sing with humour and complexity.

Our performances took place on Friday 22 June and Saturday 23 June. We couldn’t have been happier with audience reactions, who appeared to enjoy the play as much as we did. When Year 12 and ‘old boy’ audiences exited the theatre and enthusiastically headed straight for the dressing room to applaud the cast and ask a multitude of questions we knew we had a winning play on our hands.


Marist students, admirably supported by our female cast, gave their very best to this production and I thank them wholeheartedly for their hard work, time, support and unflinching trust in my direction. The thoroughly positive feedback from students past and present fills me with such gratitude and honour to be part of a school community that values theatre and arts so unconditionally.

We obviously have a bright theatrical future here at Marist College North Shore.
Click here to visit the website gallery.

Samantha Slattery
Drama Teacher

Science

Year 7 & 8 Newman Unity Science Project



Since the middle of Term 1 of this year, both Year 7 & 8 Newman Science classes have been involved in the learning and development of their own coding projects. From the beginning the boys have shown great promise and passion in understanding the logic behind coding in C# and have become very familiar with the interface and functionality of the Unity platform which is a free coding package that builds high-quality 3D and 2D games, and can be deployed across mobile, desktop, VR/AR and consoles.

Initially, all classes had worked on building a basic game called ‘Roll-a-Ball’ where they had used a combination of coding and the building 3D objects to allow for a ball to behave with real-world physics with the ultimate aim of collecting rotating cubes that had been outlined in a specific pattern for a displayed score. Progressing from the basic game, the boys had endeavoured in creating a 3D world or ‘terrain’ that would represent a specific environment such as a forest, desert or the surface of Mars. Some students have even created a ‘first person’ point of view, allowing for their character or player to move freely within their newly constructed virtual world.

With these skills in place, it is the aim of the Science Newman project to have both classes construct a true to life representation of a known Mars terrain and create a model rover which can be controlled and taken along the same path as the NASA rovers Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity. With the added knowledge of game physics, the boys will also try and construct a unique Mars game whose limits are only left to their imagination.

After observing the great interest amongst the Newman boys, this specific coding curriculum has also being adopted by other Year 7 science classes. With time, it would be amazing to see all boys within the College become fluent with the coding of Unity and discover the power of science and mathematics in producing a great game or virtual experience.

View gallery here

Conrad Cahill
Science Leader of Learning

School Notices

Uniform Shop

Apologies to all parents and students waiting on the tracksuit. Stock will be available the first Wednesday of Term 3.

Soccer Shorts

I have had a problem getting stock of soccer shorts from our current supplier. I am now sourcing them from another company, my apologies for any inconvenience.

Please watch High Notes for further details.

June Mitchell
Uniform Shop

    Community Notices

    De La Salle Reunion

    Other

    NAIDOC Week Assembly

    In the upcoming school holidays Australia celebrates NAIDOC week. July 8 to 15 is a week dedicated to the celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, achievements and history. NAIDOC week invites Australians from all walks of life to experience and become immersed with the Indigenous culture, participating in various activities that strengthens our understanding of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

    The NAIDOC week for 2018 is “Because of Her; we can”. This theme is a testament to the long standing hard work that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have shouldered. It recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women as leaders, trailblazers, politicians, activists and social change advocates. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women fought and continue to fight for law and justice, equal rights, our rights to country, access to education, employment and to maintain and celebrate our culture, language, music and art.

    Australia has some great female Aboriginal role models such as Nova Peris, Rosalie Kunoth Monks, Kiah Symon, Miriam Rose, Linda Burney, Dr Larissa Behrendt, Dr Anita Heiss, Magistrate Pat O’Shane and Dr Jessa Rogers. Last Wednesday at our NAIDOC assembly MCNS welcomed Barbie-Lee Kirby as a guest speaker.

    Barbie-Lee is an inspirational young woman who is considered by many in similar standing as the aforementioned women. Her story is one of absolute success and drive to become a role model for her people, particularly being a positive role model for the young women of Brewarrina. Barbie-Lee holds a Bachelor of Business with majors in Accounting and Law from UTS, was co-founder and president of the first UTS Indigenous club and in 2014 won the Career Tracker of the Year award. She is a valued employee of QANTAS.

    Barbie-Lee addressed the assembly speaking of her own experiences in growing up in Brewarrina and also what it has been like moving to Sydney. A short presentation highlighted the impact that Barbie-Lee is having amongst her own family, friends and the community of Brewarrina. Two main points came from Barbie-Lee’s presentation. Firstly, that compassion is paramount. No matter who you are dealing with, be compassionate towards them and also be fair. Secondly, find your purpose and stick to it. Whatever your purpose is you have to know what you want and then do what it takes to achieve your goal.




    Tom Pitts, Jesse Langford, Rohan Geraghty and Ruan Padukone

    Lane Cove National Park Excursion


    Thursday 7 June 2018 saw quite a large group of students visit the Lane Cove National Park seeking inspiration for their final task before commencing their studies in Year 12. The wet weather over the previous few days had not had time to seriously overflow the weir but it was sufficient to prevent an ambulant crossing. 

    The students were a delightful group and made many pertinent observations. It is interesting to see the development that has taken place during the time that these visits have been organised and the new Bat enclosure was particularly impressive. A useful mornings work was completed and the rain held off!

    Ralph Chandler
    Design Technology Teacher

    Philosophy Club

    “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
    ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

    This term we have had a group of students meet every Wednesday afternoon and be part of our school Philosophy Club. These boys have shown great maturity in discussing many varied and interesting concepts ranging from anthropomorphism and its consequences through to the morality of crowdfunding in today’s society.

    Below is a reflection by two of our senior students:



    One of the most riveting and thought provoking topics that was brought up during a meeting, was one of Artificial Intelligence. In the meeting we discussed and debated with one another on a wide range of ideas relating to AI, such as whether AI deserves the same rights as humans, whether we should be developing AI and even ‘’what does it mean to be human’’. The many Wednesday meetings that were held throughout this term proved to be very successful in awakening the argumentative side of people, but also to serve as a platform for discussion, where everyone's viewpoints could be heard.

    Another subject we discussed during our Wednesday meetings was about saving the ‘one’ you love or saving a group of people. We discussed if people should be judged on their job or their heart to determine if they were worthy of saving from a near death situation. This topic challenged our moral values and definitely expanded our understanding of life & death situations. 
    Dorian Duschlbauer and Jack Brazier-Garrett
    Year 11, Kelly 4 & Kelly 3