Teaching and Learning Report

By Director of Teaching and Learning, Mrs Julia Petrov

Last week, with a number of adjustments and modifications, we were able to hold our annual Academic Assembly where we recognised the academic excellence of our high achieving VCE and VET students of 2020. We also acknowledged students whose aggregated performance in all 2020 assessment tasks placed them in the top 15% of their year level with a Chris Nolan Award.

It is important to acknowledge that 2020 was a year like no other. Our Year 12 boys faced considerable uncertainty in approaching their studies. Indeed, for the first time ever, every VCE Unit 4 subject was amended in recognition of the disruption and challenges caused by remote learning. We thank the staff and the boys’ families for encouraging and supporting them through that extraordinary time.

The following awards represent excellence achieved amidst particularly trying circumstance.

The College Dux is presented to the Year 12 student who attains the highest ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) for his year. With an ATAR score of 98, the College proudly recognised Kai O’Keeffe as the 2020 College Dux.

Kai has been a hardworking and conscientious student. His excellent ATAR score reflects his dedication to his studies while also balancing his contribution to other areas of school life. In school sports he has represented the College in cricket, rowing, tennis, badminton, soccer and table-tennis over a number of years.  He has also been involved in the extra-curricular music program, as a member of Junior and then Senior Bands.

Kai  gave an insightful address to the school, and families of current students can watch this and the rest of the Academic Assembly via their son’s ClickView account.

We also celebrated the academic accomplishments of our brightest boys by presenting the VCE Achievement of Excellence Awards to the following students who achieved an ATAR score of 90 and above:

Chad Cartledge  ATAR of 92.9

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Science: The University Of Melbourne

Elijah Cross  ATAR of 92.65

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Commerce: The University Of Melbourne

Vi Hoang Nguyen Do  ATAR of 91.8

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Business/Accounting: Monash University

Joseph Freeman  ATAR of 92.9

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Engineering-Civil and Infrastructure (Honours)/Business Management: RMIT

Ethan Henderson  ATAR of 92.4

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Science/Biomedical Science: Monash University

 

Hamish Irvin  ATAR of 92.75

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Commerce: Deakin University

Nigel Koot  ATAR of 95.65

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Biomedicine: The University Of Melbourne (Deferred)

Finn Lappin  ATAR of 94.8

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Science: The University Of Melbourne

Jack Martin  ATAR of 91.45

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Science: The University Of Melbourne

Kai O’Keeffe  ATAR of 98

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Science/Engineering: The University Of Melbourne

Owen Pearse  ATAR of 90.15

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Science: The University Of Melbourne (Deferred)

Henry Ross  ATAR of 90.7

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Biomedicine: The University Of Melbourne

Max Waller  ATAR of 95.45

2020 Offer: Bachelor Degree in Biomedical Science (Medical): La Trobe University

The VCE Academic Prize, or subject Dux, is presented to the student with the highest study score of 40 and above for each VCE and VETiS Units 3/4 offered in any year. For 2020, prizes were awarded to following students:

Thomas Barry

Systems Engineering                                        Study Score of 43

Matthew Butterworth                                                                                                       

Biology                                                                 Study Score of 43           Scaled to 44.01            

Alexander Byham

Music Performance                                           Study Score of 40

Darcy Cosgriff

Media                                                                   Study Score of 40

Elijah Cross

English Language (shared)                              Study Score of 40           Scaled to 42.41

Physical Education (shared)                            Study Score of 40

Nathan Delvescovo

English Language (shared)                             Study Score of 40           Scaled to 42.41

 

Vi Do

Economics                                                          Study Score scaled to 40.64

Kye Edwards

Product Design & Technology                         Study Score of 40

 

Joseph Freeman

Literature                                                             Study Score of 50           Scaled to 50

 

Connor Gaffney

Further Mathematics                                         Study Score of 50           Scaled to 50

 

Riley Graham

English Language (shared)                              Study Score of 40           Scaled to 42.41

 

Alexander Guevara

Visual Communication Design                        Study Score of 43

 

Ethan Henderson

Chemistry                                                            Study Score scaled to 40.21

 

Nigel Koot

Texts and Traditions                                          Study Score of 46           Scaled to 46.06

 

Hugh McKenzie

VET Engineering Studies (shared)                 Study Score of 40

 

Thomas McKinnis

Business Management                                     Study Score of 42

 

Kynan McPherson

VET Engineering Studies (shared)                 Study Score of 40

 

Kai O’Keeffe

Mathematical Methods                                      Study Score of 40           Scaled to 45.05

Physics                                                                Study Score of 39           Scaled to 41.39

Specialist Mathematics                                     Study Score of 36           Scaled to 47.54

 

Jack Sheehan

Applied Computing:                                           Study Score of 48

Software Development

 

Max Waller

English                                                                Study Score of 45

Physical Education (shared)                            Study Score of 40

 

The VCE (Baccalaureate) was introduced to support the State Government’s objectives to encourage more students to include languages and higher-level mathematics in their senior secondary program of study.

To be eligible for the VCE (Baccalaureate) a student had to achieve a study score of 30 and above in their chosen study of English, satisfactorily complete a Units 3/4 sequence in either Mathematical Methods or Specialist Mathematics and satisfactorily complete a Units 3/4 sequence in a VCE Language (Japanese here at St Patrick’s).

In 2020, the Victorian Certificate of Education (Baccalaureate) was awarded to to William Gilbert and Nigel Koot.

2020 Chris Nolan Awards. 

The assembly continued with the presentation of the 2020 Chris Nolan Awards. The Chris Nolan Awards were established in 2008 to acknowledge the academic excellence of individual students. To receive a Chris Nolan Award, a boy must be in the top 15% of his year level. Due to the disruptions caused by COVID in 2020, it was impossible and impractical to offer Chris Nolan Awards for each semester. Rather the Chris Nolan Awards for 2020 are reflective of work done across the whole year and are not specific to either semester one or two.

Chris and his mother Mary were unable to attend the assembly but with their permission we showed excerpts from the film, Meredith Music Festival – a brief history.

Chris graduated from St Patrick’s College in 1985 as College Captain. He completed his Law Degree at Monash University and went on to practice law in Vietnam. Chris was highly respected by all for his commitment and enthusiasm to all aspects of College life and demonstrated his intelligence and ingenuity shortly after leaving St Patrick’s as one of the co-founders of the highly acclaimed Meredith Music Festival. After several years in Vietnam, Chris tragically acquired severe brain injuries from a viral infection leading to total organ failure. Chris is profoundly disabled physically and in his communication systems. With the strong and unconditional support of his family and friends, Chris has continued to fight against these disabilities and has developed various means of communication and is now the face for those developing awareness of and the fight for young people requiring care in nursing homes.

As a student at the College, Chris regularly achieved strong academic results and in his final year he was awarded:

– the Headmaster’s Award for Leadership

– the History Prize

– the Sir Hugh Devine Prize for Impromptu Speech

– a W.T. Doyle Prize for Debating

– the 1st XI Cricket Bowling Award

During his time at St Patrick’s, Chris exemplified the pursuit of excellence across a range of our important academic programs and College activities. As you can see from the film, he was a charismatic leader. Someone who saw a need and responded to support his community. Someone who worked hard to achieve excellence. We award our academic excellence awards in his name.

2020 Year 7:

Billy Briody Haymish Busscher Alex Clark Cooper Clifford Taj Coulter Will Flanagan Cameron Frame Patrick Gowans Reuben Hackwill Noah Kerr Owen Mahony Will McCahon Aidan McDougall Lachy McPhan Christian Morrison Zavier Nunn

Tom O’Donohue Ned Pengelly Henry Reinehr Josh Roberts Kade Robinson Nic Ruyg Kristopher Stephens Olin Stevens Harry Sutherland Cody Torney Deacon Towk Ryan Walker Lenny Ward Kayden Williams Paco Wong

2020 Year 8

Nedd Bennett Jack Bennetts Jacob Britt Tim Buckland Brodie Bull Hamish Carey Sam Duggan Oskar Folkes Gabriel Freeman Gabriel Galias Brodie Graham Josh Gray Alex Griffith John Hansen Sam Hansen Lachlan Hodge Thisen Jayasooriya Zach Koleski

Sam McDonald Paterson Meneely Owen Murphy Tristan Nijhof Ben Nixon Paddy O’Brien James Parkinson Eoghan Purser Jacob Rae Brodie Reardon Angus Rothe Zane Rutherford Thomas Stute Koban Todd Wyatt Torney Rex Van Berkel Jack Williamson Eric Yang

 

2020 Year 9

Mike Bleicher Tom Bosworth Lachie Brodie Max Byvoet Dion Cokuzovski Mitchell Collins Lachlan Cooper Rohan Cosgriff Noah Cudia Eamonn Curran Alex Fademi Campbell Gladman Kobe Heafield Damian Irvin Patrick Kelly Nathan Ling

Jordan Makin Isaac Martin Matthew Michalik Luke Mihaljevic Matthew O’Brien Ted O’Brien Angus O’Keefe Tom O’Loughlin Taine Powell Guy Ripley Lochlan Rowe Dan Stute Oscar Watkins Finn Watson Sean Weigall

 

2020 Year 10

Soren Andrews Tony Begbie Charlie Bissinella Will Burzacott Jesse Cairns Edward Charles Toby Clack James Clark Max Cosgriff Sam Farrington Ben Gibcus Adam Griffith Alex Hamilton Nyjo John Matthew Jones Benji Laursen Ben Machin Youhanna Mani

Will Martin Bailey McQuie Alex Molan James Molloy Andrew Monaghan Ben Mornane Alister Nixon Harley Passalick Patrick Porter Nic Procaccino Will Quinlan Daniel Rodger Noah Ryan Callan Shillington Bryn Thompson Hamish Thompson Leo Turnbull-Gent

 

2020 Year 11

Luke Batchelor Patrick Clarke-Thomas Patrick Cocks Daniel Collier Ben Collier Thomas Collins Jacob Cowan Connor Gaffney Hamish Garner Lewis Grigg Alex Guevara James Harrington Spence Jenks Will Johnson Tom Johnson Byron Keene

Daniel Lalor Jackson Leech Jack McKenny Tom McKinnis Ben Nash Hugh Ollerenshaw Daunte Osman Alexander Pituch Jack Richards Adam Severino Jack Sheehan Sam Tilley Pat Tyler Henry von Burg Patrick Weston Darcy Williams