Term 1, Week 5 - 2018, 01 March

Written on the 1 March 2018

 From Leadership

Brian Schumacher
Principal

JY Stepping Up Evening

'What a terrific way to finish the week', is how I described last Friday evening's Father/Male Mentor and sons' night at the Junior campus. Like most great ideas, the beauty of this event is its simplicity - gather Dads/Male Mentors and their sons together for a BBQ, some conversation and some fun.

Our grateful thanks go to the organisers and cooks.  As Geoff Aufderheide noted on the night, there is so much for boys to gain from being with their mates and their Dads and Grandads on occasions like this.

The following poem that has survived on a scrap of paper in my files for many years reminds us of the importance of the partnership between parents and teachers.
I hope you like it.

The Child

I dreamed I stood in a studio
And watched two sculptors there
The clay they used was a young child's mind
And they fashioned it with care.
One was the teacher, the tools she used
Were books and music and art;
One was a parent with a guiding hand and a gentle loving heart.

Day after day the teacher toiled
With touch that was deft and sure
While the parent laboured by her side
And polished and smoothed it o'er
And when at last their task was done
They were proud of what they had wrought
For things they moulded into a child
Could neither be sold nor bought.

And each agreed they would have failed
If they had worked alone
For behind the parent stood the school
And behind the teacher, the home.

EREA - A family of schools in the Edmund Rice Tradition

As many of you would know, Rostrevor College, established by the Christian Brothers in 1923, became part of EREA just over ten years ago.  Last week, I was fortunate to spend two days in Melbourne for my formal Principal's induction into Edmund Rice Education Australia.  With plenty of opportunities to get to know the people in our National Office, I was most impressed by the possibilities that EREA provides for us to collaborate with other schools throughout the network.  In practical terms, this adds a rich dimension to our professional development programs for teachers, and opportunities for them to easily share ideas and programs with teachers throughout the country.  As you know, one of the keys to staying at the 'cutting edge' in any profession is your ability to connect with colleagues and thus stay in touch with and contribute to the new ideas and approaches.  In our context, maintaining strong links with EREA, along with our other professional networks, will help us to continually update the learning experiences offered to the boys from Reception to Year 12 as we strive to provide a truly liberating education for each of them.

Finally, congratulations to all the boys for their enthusiastic participation in the swimming carnivals this week.  While the House competition was fierce, the carnivals are a highlight in our calendar because they bring us together as a community in a day of fun and competition.

Best wishes for the weeks ahead.

Brian Schumacher
Principal

From Leadership

Frank Ranaldo
Deputy Principal

Year 8 Camp

The Year 8 Camp serves a variety of purposes and was yet again extremely successful in achieving its aims. It is particularly important that new students are given the opportunity to mix with a significant cross-section of the year level and through the team-building activities, make new friendships outside of the classroom. The camp also provides an opportunity for the boys to work together to experience some physical challenges. These are all elements of an important 'Rite of Passage' into their secondary years.

We have received constructive feedback from parents and will endeavour to take this on board as we consider improvements to our Camps Program.

Thank you for your support

At Rostrevor, we believe that it is important for young people to learn about themselves and others; healthy relationships and behaviours; social and emotional development; spiritual development; resilience, and to see beauty, have awe, and appreciate some sense of 'truths'.

I would like to express my gratitude to our wonderful staff who are always willing to support such events by supervising, participating, planning and organising activities and much, much more.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you as parents for your support in our endeavour to provide opportunities for your sons to participate in activities which are based on the learnings listed above, for ensuring that your sons attend such events and that you accompany them when necessary. 

Supporting our children

The word 'support' can be interpreted in many different ways and sometimes while we think we might be helping our children by offering our support, we may in fact be causing them more harm than good. I would like to share with you a story which illustrates this.

A man spent hours watching a butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon. It managed to make a small hole, but its body was too large to get through it. After a long struggle, it appeared to be exhausted and remained absolutely still.

The man decided to help the butterfly and, with a pair of scissors, he cut open the cocoon, thus releasing the butterfly. However, the butterfly's body was very small and wrinkled and its wings were all crumpled.

The man continued to watch, hoping that, at any moment, the butterfly would open its wings and fly away. Nothing happened; in fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its brief life dragging around its shrunken body and shriveled wings, incapable of flight.

Out of kindness and his eagerness to help, the man had failed to understand that the tight cocoon and the efforts that the butterfly had to make in order to squeeze out of that tiny hole were nature's way of training the butterfly and strengthening its wings. The butterfly's struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushed the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never ever fly. The man's good intentions actually hurt the butterfly.

One of the messages in this story is that the struggle was part of what the butterfly needed to do in order to fly. Without the struggle, the butterfly was destined to crawl around on its belly and probably die an early death.

Life is full of struggles, which I like to call challenges. They hone our skills and make us strong. People who enable other people take this away, perpetuate co-dependency unknowingly. They are well meaning but their intentions create more harm than good. While it is painful to watch a loved one struggle with life's daily challenges, our job is not to do their work for them. Our job is to stand by in support and love remembering that experiencing challenges and dealing with these is necessary for growth.

As our children go through their schooling and life in general, we need to keep in mind as parents that struggling is an important part of any growth experience. In fact, it is the struggle that builds strength and resilience and causes one to develop their ability to fly.

Finally, it is with a heavy heart that I share with you the sad news of the passing of a great man and a very respected member of the Music Department and our College community. Peter Russo lost his battle with brain cancer last Thursday night and passed away peacefully at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Peter was one of our longest serving instrumental teachers, teaching guitar to many past and present students. At the 2017 Music Night, he was acknowledged for 35 years of dedicated service to the College. During this time, he inspired many students, some of whom have continued to become instrumental guitar teachers themselves and/or play guitar professionally. While Peter is no longer with us, his legacy will live on forever, in the hearts and souls of all who had the pleasure of working with him, both staff and students, and in the music of the many students he inspired. As a community we will keep his family in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

God Bless

Frank Ranaldo
Deputy Principal

Junior Years

Mr Geoff Aufderheide
Director - Junior Campus

Dear Families,

Assembly for Student Representative Council presentation

Last Tuesday afternoon we held our second assembly for the year in Callan Hall. This gathering was held to celebrate the achievements of many of our boys throughout the first few weeks of the academic year. Most pleasing to see was the recognition of many of our new 'brothers' in the Junior Campus as we celebrated their skills and abilities based on our three Pillars at the College Spiritual, Academic and Co-curricular. It is fantastic to see how well these boys have adapted to life in a new school and I must pass on thanks to our staff and, perhaps most importantly, our boys as they have extended the hand of friendship and welcome.

Our assembly also provided the Junior community the opportunity to acknowledge our Student Representative Council members, as voted by their peers and supported by their teachers, for Semester One of 2018. In presenting the boys their own SRC badge, we challenged the boys to represent their classmates and provide a student voice within our own community. Our congratulations to the following young men on their accomplishment;

1/2B - Hugh Benzan (Yr 1) & Levi Stewart (Yr 2)
3B - Owen Tallis & Marcus Hopgood
4B - Luca Fantasia & Vivaan Sareen
5B Nicholas Babic and Jake Polkinghorne
6B Joe McGuire-Coward & Layth Nasser-Edine
6R - Nicolas Keros and Pellegrino Iasiello

In their first official meeting for the year (chaired by our Campus Captain, Ignatius Crafter and Vice-Captain, Henry Knight) they will be considering some plans to move our existing sand pit and will also lead a consultation with the student body to provide some advice on a replacement for our (now removed) flying fox on the playground. We're sure they'll do a commendable job and won't be short of advice!

Stepping Up

Last Friday evening we welcomed a great crowd of Dads/Male Mentors and their boys along to our annual 'Stepping Up' night. Hosted exceptionally well by our Parents' and Friends' Association President, Mr Rob Costanzo, we all enjoyed a night of conversation, great food and some sporting brilliance!

This night provides a chance for Dads and important men in the lives of our boys to gather together and meet each other in a relaxed and friendly environment. As I mentioned on the night, this provides great modelling for our boys as they get to see men socialise and interact as a group, introducing ourselves to each other and finding things we have in common. It's also great for those 'greats of yesteryear' to walk the walk in a friendly game of soccer or cricket.
I can report that, for the second year now in a row, the boys absolutely thumped the Dads in the tug of war. Speculation was rife that they may have sought some assistance from a 'Mr Nathan Clements' as anchor, but in the end the judges awarded the boys the 'chocolates' yet again!

Our sincerest thanks to our incredibly supportive Parents' and Friends' Association for their continued support of this annual event. Rob Costanzo, single handedly each year, manages to pull together a great meal for a big number of people and we are truly thankful for his generosity. He was well supported by Mr Dave Cavuoto and Mr Anthony Marzullo on the BBQs, who both battled on a pretty warm afternoon to make sure we all had food to eat. Special thanks must also go to Mr Wayne Gumley who never fails to show up and roll up his sleeves for us, always with a smile on his face and to my wife, Natasha, for heading up the serving like clockwork!!

Just getting my swimming 'togs' ready for our annual Swimming Carnival, to be held in the Brother Bourke Swimming Pool this Friday 9am-1pm for our Year 3-6 boys. News around the traps is the staff have thrown down the challenge to a highly fancied student team. Game on I say!

Best wishes,

Mr Geoff Aufderheide
Director - Junior Campus

Senior Years Co-Curricular News

Mr Jeff Fischer
Head of Co-Curricular

Overnight rain leading into competition on Saturday morning proved enough to dampen the turf wickets across Adelaide and very few games were played.  I am able to provide information about Rostrevor pitches through the Rostrevor website under Co-Curricular and then the link to Late Cancellations which I updated at 7.15am on Saturday morning. I know a number of the families checked this and therefore did not come to the grounds on Saturday which is the intended purpose. Unfortunately, I do not have information about our opponents and cricket is often one of those sports where the state of the pitch can't be known until arrival, unless of course there is really heavy rain.

First XI Cricket

Rostrevor 9/135 from 40 overs (Stefan Lanzoni 58, Joel Size 17no, Cameron Taheny 15no)

defeated Sacred Heart 74 all out (Adi Dave 5/7, Sam Rahaley 3/12, Joel Size 1/9)

After losing the toss and being sent in on a wet wicket, batting was always going to be tough going and at 4/15, we knew that was going to be the case. All we needed was a couple of partnerships to get us to a score of 120+ which we thought would be defendable in the conditions. Stefan Lanzoni batted beautifully and adjusted to the conditions well, playing with a straight bat and also playing with patience. He was supported well by Angus Honner whose individual score of 13 may seem modest, but given the situation of the game, it was truly valuable. From 5/42, we still looked like we were in a lot of trouble. Our middle order made small starts but were undone by some hesitation in shot selection, which is an area we need to improve on. At 9/111, we could have been bowled out for less than our intended target of 120. Thankfully Joel Size, who has shown a much higher level of maturity and leadership with the bat this year, partnered with Cameron Taheny to put on an unbeaten 24 for the last wicket. Both of these boys rotated the strike and were able to hit the boundary when loose balls were offered to them. To score 135 was a great result and just illustrates the level of depth we have in our batting line up.

In reply, Sacred Heart started positively and reached 23 before Christian Leddicoat took a fine reflex catch off the bowling of Joel Size. From that point onwards, wickets fell at regular intervals. Our spinners extracted significant turn and bounce which made scoring difficult. Adi Dave, making his 1st XI debut was outstanding, claiming 5/7 and looking dangerous with every ball. His variations and consistency with his line and length were excellent. He was very well supported by Sam Rahaley and Kyle Brazell who both bowled beautifully. Our catching was very good too and Rahaley managed 3 of his own.

We now turn our attention to PAC and the College Final next week. We go there with a lot of confidence after a very hard-earned win against our biggest rivals. Well done to all the boys on a great result.

In other Co-curricular News:

•  It was great to see 2017 old scholars Harrison Petty and Darcy Fogarty named in extended squads for their respective AFL teams in the pre-season JLT and although Harry didn't make the final squad for Melbourne, Darcy was able to kick a goal with his first kick for Adelaide. If your son, be he a current or old scholar, has made any significant achievement in an activity outside of the College, please pass this on to me via email to jfischer@rostrevor.sa.edu.au or by phone, so that I can include his achievements in the weekly newsletter.
• Year 9 Henry Brasher starred with the bat in their 9A cricket contest against St Peter's, scoring 65no and helping his team to set up a great win.

Jeff Fischer
Head of Co-curricular Activities

View Co-Curricular Results