Mathematics

2005 has been a year of hard work (as always) –full of challenges for staff and students as we reviewed our textbook, calculator and computer needs for the coming years – especially with the impending changes to Courses of Study for the senior students. It was also a year of pleasing successes. Students attained a number of prizes and commendations in competitions. This year we were fortunate to welcome a new addition to the mathematics staff in Mr Paul Presser. Fresh from university, he has inspired us with his knowledge of computer technology and its use in the mathematics classroom. Mr Ken Sass had a well deserved long service leave during Term One and has chosen to take a more leisurely approach to life by working only 0.7 for the rest of the year – thus facilitating Mrs Hird to re-join the department on a 0.4 load, still allowing her reasonable time to devote to her young daughter. The school re-structuring that took place during 2004 has meant that I have been fortunate to have Mrs Wilson as the Mathematics Learning Area Coordinator and she has ably helped with the smooth running of this Area. In particular, she has overseen the Middle School learning and assessment programmes as well as helping in the organisation of many of the student activities and competitions that we have run throughout the year. Her help and dedication has been appreciated by all learning area staff and myself in particular. I wish to commend all the mathematics staff for the many meetings, extra work and positive way that they have all gone about their work in providing a quality mathematics education for our boys. Next year, we will extend our outcomes level reporting into Year 10 for the first time. We believe that reporting in levels will provide parents with an improved way of deciding on the most appropriate mathematics course for their sons to study in Year 11. It will also prepare the way for assessing and reporting the new courses of study by levels which will be implemented in the near future. Now for the student activities and competitions - in chronological order, these activities have been:

• The MAWA Have Sum Fun Competition

Junior team representatives – Reuben Joseph,

Stephen Dale, Kosta Ilic, Joe Samineeni (Year 10),

Dannel Yeo, Vincent Jusko, Tom Drage, Gerard

Rosario (Year 9), and Christoper Dale, Matthew

Golightly, Wei Jiunn Ng, Jonathon Lo (Year 8).

Senior Team representatives – Team 1 - Ben

Golightly, Matthew Bouwman, Anthony Chiu (Year 12) Sean Chia and Desmond Yeo (Year 11). Team

2 - Rohan Bose, Joshua D’Souza, Joshua Ng (Year 12) Chris Dawson, Saad Qamar, and David Ker. Special congratulations to Team 1 who won third prize.

• The Year 10 Mathematical Games Competition

School representatives – Stephen Dale, Pete Polsittichok, John Marshall and Joe Samineeni

• The Mathematics Challenge Competition

Rom Cirillo Special congratulations to Christopher Dale and Head of Mathematics Dylan Dewsbury (both in Year 8), Gerard Rosario (Year 9) and Reuben Joseph (Year 10) who were all awarded Certificates of High Distinction. Twenty nine of the thirty students who entered received certificates of credit or better.

• The State Mathematics Talent Quest:

Successful students in this competition were:

Wei Jiunn Ng and Gerard Arangio (Year 8) for their project on Ellipses in Two and Three Dimensions (First

Prize) • Leo Titley and Sam Watt (Year 8) for their project on

FD Stands For… (First Prize) • Joe Samineeni and Nic Barbas (Year 10) for their project on The Divine Proportion (Highly commended).

• Australian Mathematics Competition

In the Australian Mathematics Competition we had pleasing results as well, with two prizes going to

Dannel Yeo and Ian Chia (both in Year 9).

An additional: • 14 students scored High Distinctions • 85 scored Distinctions, and • 193 scored Credit certificates.

This meant that 21% of our students scored in the top 15% of competition entrants and 62% scored in the top 50%, which is encouraging.

• The WA Mathematics Olympiad Competition

The College was ably represented by Gerard

Rosario, Ian Chia, Dannel Yeo, Stuart Love, Tom

Drage, Hubert Nguyen, Paul Duong and Vincent

Jusko (Year 9), and by Dylan Dewsbury, Jason

Demarte, Jonathon Papalia and Andrew Phillips (Year 8). Congratulations to Jason Demarte (Year 8) who won second prize and to the Year 8 team as a whole who won third prize. In conclusion, I am pleased to be able to report that Mathematics Education at the College is in a healthy state as witnessed by pleasing TEE results and in state and national competitions. My sincerest thanks go to every staff member for their dedication hard work and professionalism. I am honoured to lead such a team of talented professional teachers. We give thanks for God’s continued blessings on us all.

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