Heartfelt Thank you!

A huge thank you to all the attendees who came along to support Ruby's year 12 project practical,  Women in Aviation' quiz night. 

With the support of the quiz attendees, guest speakers and  the generous donations of fabulous prizes Ruby was able to raise $1,061. The money raised has been donated to, 'The Women in Aviation, Australian Chapter' to go towards a scholarship for a young woman entering the aviation field.

Below is a photo of Ruby presenting a 'cheque' of $1,061 to the Women In Aviation : Australian chapter' at a coffee catch up they hosted.

Class 10 Science - Forensics

Class 10's had a look at some forensic science techniques and how to use these in the investigation of a crime. Their teacher Sean had his cup stolen! There was an attempted ransom, but thanks to the students they were able to get to the bottom of the crime and catch out Sean's attempted fraud and his accomplice, Alex.

Sean Connolly
High School Science

Class 10B ‘The Odyssey a Play’ by Mary Zimmerman

Class 10B presented a brilliant and dynamic performance of The Odyssey, a play by Mary Zimmerman for their Drama Main Lesson this term. The Odyssey is an epic poem written by Homer in the late 8^th Century BC, depicting the 10-year arduous journey of Odysseus, King Ithaca returning from the Trojan wars to his homeland of Ithaca. Odysseus has been away for twenty years from his wife Penelope, Son Telemachus, father Laertes and other people connected to his household. His return journey is filled with adventures and overcoming obstacles such as fighting off the giant one-eyed Cyclops, resisting the songs of the Sirens, averting the poisoned Pramian wine offered by the sorceress, Circe, saving his crew from the lazy Lotus Eaters and spending a year with the beautiful Calypso. His journey is supported and influenced by the goddess Athena and Zeus and affected by the outburst of Poseidon, ruler of the sea.

A tremendously epic story that reveals the foibles of the human condition and the power of the Greek Gods, but also highlights the human qualities of inner strength, courage, and persistence. On his return to his Palace in Ithaca and disguised as a beggar by the goddess Athena, Odysseus finds 108 loutish suitors inhabiting the palace, eating all the food, carousing their way through the colonnades, behaving in a slovenly and entitled manner. He plans with his son Telemachus to do away with the suitors and is finally reunited with his wife Penelope.

The Odyssey has many layers including powerful mythical and metaphorical messages for all, our individual journey through life is mirrored by the range of obstacles that appear in his path. It is with a sense of justice that Odysseus returns home to his long-suffering wife Penelope, and his now grown son Telemachus, victory, and the power of the human spirit to overcome is brought into in high relief in this wonderful story.

Class 10B students have worked closely together as a team of performers and musicians to bring forth an outstanding performance season of The Odyssey. In addition to the immersion and development of dramatic performance and musical skills, the Class 10B students further developed basic physical theatre techniques, created, and worked with masks, sticks, fabric, and an array of movement sequencing to help convey the story with a contemporary framing. The Perth Waldorf School creatives Shanelle Schramm (Music Direction), Anna Dymitr-Hawkes (lighting and stage management), Eva Rinaldi (Costume), Anna Rohan (Properties) and Tom Chandler (set build) have pooled together their extra ordinary skills to create the inner world of The Odyssey.

Jane Diamond
Drama Teacher

Class 11/12 Mathematic Specialist Elective Class

In 2023, the Class 11/12 Mathematics Specialist elective course made its debut, offereing a unique opportunity for students who are curious and critical thinkers interested in studying a more diverse range of mathematics. The course has offered enthusiastic students a chance to delve into various unexplored areas of mathematics beyond their previous encounters, as well as an in-depth examination of some intriguing topics. The lessons have combined problem-solving exercises with explicit instrucion on more advanced skills.

Topics for the course were determined from the students own areas of interest as well as from the WACE Mathematics Specialist course. So far this year the class have tackled the complexities of Matrices, including graphics, ventured into the intriguing realms of Chaos Theory and Fractals, and navigated the intracacies of Combinations and Binomial Probablity Distributions.

Lux Adams

Hi, my name is Lux Adams, and for my Class 12 Project, I’ve been looking at art and the idea of the human condition. This includes both art as a product and expression of the human experience and understanding the human condition through the process of viewing and creating art.

The question for my project is:

“How can the concept of the human condition be explored through art?”

The idea of the human condition involves the connecting factors between us all, virtues, vices, tendencies, experiences, sufferings and joys. In my essay, I define it through four aspects: Morality, The search for meaning, Self-identity and Death and our sentience of the end. I analysed a piece of media (albums, series and literature) relating to each aspect. The central idea of my project is how we can all relate to each other through art, how you can look at someone else’s creation and feel almost as if it’s yours as well: that someone else in the world has felt how you’re feeling.

My original inspiration for this project was during the Hamlet main lesson in year 11, when I heard Pam talk about the human condition. I was curious about what exactly it meant and intrigued by the concept of art expressing supposedly universal truths between people, and how a room full of 21st-century teenagers could relate still to the works of a 16th-century playwright. I eventually ended up looking into art and the human condition after abandoned project ideas on the mythology of vampires, true crime and psychology, and Shakespearean tragedies. The main problem with all these ideas was my inability to hold an interest in one topic for a prolonged period of time, so my project topic broadened from Shakespearean tragedies to art and the human condition in order to allow more room for different focuses. Staying engaged with my project topic and the work for my essay and practical has been challenging as my work style has included an erratic level of interest and capability for work, but support and flexibility from my teachers and project coordinators have made its completion possible.

My practical for this project is a collection of poetry and zines from my own creative and personal experiences, with some of the poetry featuring lines from songs, films, plays or other media that I’ve connected with and continued from. The creation and sharing of these works is intended to reflect the explorative and connective nature of art. Working on the project has helped me learn more about my own creative and working processes and what stops and starts my working, as well as developing a further understanding of my topic. As part of my practical, I’ll be participating in the performance night ‘Shadows of Humanity’ on August 31^st, bringing zines and poetry readings as a segment entitled ‘Ink from the vein’.

Lila John

Hello, my name is Lila John, and for my year 12 project, I have chosen to look into the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in Australia.  At the beginning of this process, I had little idea what I wanted to do for my Project, even though it was something that I had been thinking about for many years. I was very conscious of the fact that I didn’t want to do something that someone else had already done, but at the same time, I had seen so many Project talks that it was hard to think of new ideas. Time was running out before I had to make a decision when one fateful Wednesday, I had an epiphany in English class. I decided that I would go to Africa for my Project Practical and that my topic would be poaching. I have always had a keen interest in animals and environmental issues, so I thought this would be a fitting topic for me. Of course, this wasn’t a very realistic idea for many obvious reasons, but it laid the foundation for what would later become my project topic. It was after doing some research on poaching that I came across the Illegal Wildlife Trade. While I was aware that poaching was an issue in several African and Asian countries, I had no idea how extensive the trade really is, nor that it affected countless countries across the world, of which Australia is one.

This is what informed my eventual Project question:

“How extensive is the Illegal Wildlife Trade in Australia and why is it a cause for concern?“

The Illegal Wildlife Trade is a multi-billion-dollar industry with ties to organised crime groups. Spanning across the globe, it has cemented itself as one of the most profitable illicit international trade industries, behind the drug trade, arms trade and human trafficking. It involves the illegal and deliberate movement across international borders of millions of wild animals that are plucked from their native habitats to meet the demand for traditional medicine, pets, food, trophies, clothing and decorative items. The Illegal Wildlife Trade can have devastating impacts on not only the animals involved but also the surrounding environment and ecosystem. The overexploitation and unregulated harvesting of wild animals can cause species decline and extinctions, impacting the balance and function of the ecosystems and environment from which they were taken. The consequences of the trade can also have a detrimental impact on human lives and communities, national stability and the economy.

Australia is home to some of the most unique flora and fauna in the world, many of which are found nowhere else. This, along with its vast outback and low-density population, make it a very lucrative target for illegal Wildlife smuggling operations. Native birds and Reptiles are the most sought-after species in Australia as they are highly prized in overseas markets and can fetch huge sums of money, more than 28 times their domestic value. Estimating the true scale of the Illegal Wildlife Trade in Australia is proving to be a very difficult task, as the number of specimens being illegally exported out of the country is likely to be much higher than detected. Despite this growing issue, the IWT receives little media attention and isn’t widely known among the public, as these Australian natives often find themselves overlooked because they do not hold the same sentiment as the large African animals people generally associate with poaching. And I admit, before I started researching for this project, I, too, had very little knowledge about matters concerning wildlife smuggling in Australia, choosing to instead focus on the majestic mammals of the African Savanah. However, the general consensus was that my project didn’t tie in enough with the closer community, so I decided that I would research both the African and the Australian IWT and compare them in terms of scale and public perception. This proved to be significantly harder than I had anticipated, as there was just so much information. To avoid having too broad a topic, I made the decision to get rid of the African comparison and just focus on the lesser-known illegal wildlife trade in Australia.

One of the things I was most surprised by during my research was the number of different laws and legislations involved in regulating the IWT, (although I'm not sure why this is considering the word illegal is in the title). The international movement of wildlife is regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a global treaty whose aim is to ensure that the international wildlife trade isn’t a threat to the survival of these species. 184 countries are signatories to CITES, which does not take the place of national laws but rather provides a framework to be adhered to by each party, which then implements its own domestic legislation to ensure compliance to the convention. Australia, as well as being a signatory to CITES and having its own national legislation, has different laws relating to the IWT in every state, making it very difficult to prosecute wildlife crime across state borders, as penalties for offences are different in each.

For my Practical I am creating a series of 3-dimensional sculptures that depict different aspects of the cruel nature of the illegal wildlife trade here in Australia.