Dear parents and friends,
We come to the end of a very successful Term 2 at St Dominic’s. Again, like Term 1 it saw a broad range of success, as the gentlemen of St Dom’s fully embraced the numerous opportunities provided to them. A term that saw our school captain, Jose, successfully compete against some of the state’s best public speakers from elite schools and make it to the state final of the ‘Plain English Public Speaking Competition’. Our Year 8 students performed well in the Duolingo languages competition, with William & Rafael being the highest point scorers. It was also wonderful to see Robert Wilcher’s HSC Visual Arts major work from last year on display at the State wide Art Express exhibition.
There were numerous sporting successes with our Opens Basketball team, our Senior and Year 9 & 10 Oz Tag teams winning the State Catholic Schools NSW competition. Our Rugby League, football and tennis teams performing brilliantly in the PDSSSC competition. Our Bill Turner Cup Soccer team going through to the semis and our Open Rugby League team being strong and undefeated to date in the NSW School Boy Cup. Remarkably, 19 of our boys were selected for CCC representative sport in golf, swimming, football, rugby league, basketball, hockey and touch football. Congratulations to Riley P. on being selected in the prestigious Australian NRL U/18s Schoolboy team. Our Athletics carnival was also a huge success.
The boys showed their commitment to community and social justice events raising over $17,000 dollars for cancer research through the World’s Greatest Shave. They made significant contributions to Beyond Blue through the Surawski House day and the Australian Red Cross through Dharug House Day. Staff and students also participated strongly in the local ‘Relay for Life’ and raised over $3200 for the Cancer Council, through Tench House Mother’s Day celebrations. Staff and students also committed to supporting St Vincent De Paul by making sandwiches and serving on Night Patrol. We heard stories of inspiration and hope in Refugee Week by hearing from guest speakers who came to us as refugees, overcoming adversity and demonstrating extraordinary resilience to become highly successful Australian men and women. We also celebrated Reconciliation Week with a number of activities that highlighted the indigenous culture of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters.
Students also participated in a number of outdoor education camps, activities, inclusions and excursions to support learning in Commerce, Visual Arts, Road Safety, Hospitality, STEM, writing, Biology, Careers education, History and Food Technology.
I hope that when you received your son’s academic report for Semester 1 it demonstrated that he is making the most of the opportunities provided and reflects a strong work ethic. As I always say to students ‘hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard’. There is no substitute for hard work and perseverance. I am very proud of the majority of boys who demonstrate this every day and look forward to an even more successful Semester 2.
May God continue to bless you – Simon
