Media students using the Green Room for one of their productions.

Dear Parents

It has been great to see classes utilising the new facilities completed as part of the first phase of our Arts refurbishment. Classes have now moved into wonderful facilities for music and media and students will certainly reap the rewards of these new resources. The entire upper northern side of the auditorium has now been gutted as we create excellent new studios for Drama and Dance. These studios will be ready for the 2016 academic year.
As we continue to progress towards the end of the year, planning for 2016 is well under way. Our goal is to reflect on all practices completed at Kennedy this year and provide even better services and opportunities for the future. In an environment that is ever changing, this is a particularly important process.

Year 12 Graduation
Next Friday night, 20 November, is a special night for our Year 12 families. We look forward to a great night of celebration as our Year 12 students graduate from Kennedy Baptist College. A special part of the night will be our keynote speech by the Very Rev. Richard Pengelley, Dean of St George's Cathedral.  Richard is a former Australian water polo player who competed in the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics. Richard will be speaking on the qualities required to achieve at the highest level in a desired occupation. I would like to invite all members of our community to come along and hear Richard speak. Our formal proceedings for graduation commence at 7.00pm. We hope you can join us.

2016 Tuition Fees
To ensure that Kennedy can continue to provide a high quality education to every student there are a number of increasing College costs that need to be met. With this in mind the College Board has made the carefully considered decision that tuition fees will be increased by 5% in 2016. The decision to increase tuition fees was not taken lightly and it is worth noting that the education CPI currently operates at over 5%.

Our fees for next year will be:
Fees per Student     $ 8110
Fees for Overseas Students per student  $ 17160

In 2016 only one annual account statement will be issued in February and all fees for the year will need to be finalised by Monday, 31 October 2016.

Should you wish to discuss the tuition fee increase please feel free to contact me direct on 9314 7722 or email mashby@kennedy.wa.edu.au

Mark Ashby
Principal

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
 In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.
(Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV)

Godly Decision Making

Tim Jennings is a Christian psychiatrist that talks about how we make decisions. He describes the fact that the part of our mind that distinguishes us from animals is our reasoning and our conscience. The reasoning and conscience in our brain forms our judgement and this is where we are meant to make decisions from. He also talks about the lowest part of our brain being our emotions. Not to say that emotions are not important – they are incredibly important but when it comes to making decisions we should not engage with our emotions. When we make decisions based on how we feel – especially if we go against what we believe is right based on our reasoning and our conscience we actually damage our brain.

The Holy Spirit moves in us through our conscience as well – so it makes sense that this is where we are designed to make our decisions from. If we make decisions based on our feelings we usually end up feeling a sense of guilt and shame which only separates us from God more. Proverbs talks about trusting in God with ALL our heart – not a little bit – but all of it…and then extends that statement to say that we cannot lean on our own understanding. Our own understanding tends to take into account our feelings as well – especially our fear.

When it comes to decisions – in order to make decisions that honour the Father we need to acknowledge God and allow him to make our paths straight – through engaging in reasoning and our conscience (and then in turn the Holy Spirit) to make decisions on a daily basis and avoid leaning on our own understanding and our own feelings.  This will lead to the life that God has designed for us and one filled with so much more contentment and peace (and certainly an absence of guilt and shame).

Year 8-11 Examination Schedules can be found on the website.

YEAR 12 STUDENTS

Parents / Guardians please note that fees need to be cleared IN FULL before your child’s graduation on Friday 20 November, 2015.

Please refer all queries regarding your statement to Mrs Gillian Wood on 9314 7722 or email gwood@kennedy.wa.edu.au

At 11am on 11 November 2015, our students and staff  gathered around the flag poles to commemorate Remembrance Day. During this service, we observed one minute's silence in memory of those who sacrificed their lives for our country.

Photo above: New House Captains being announced

Last week’s assembly involved many items highlighting the wide range of activities and achievements occurring within the College community.

After a range of election speeches and nominations, the new student leadership team including the Student Councillors and House Captains was acknowledged. (Click here for the list of student leaders)

Our Mock Trials team received their certificates from the WA Supreme Court, and our high achieving mathematics students received awards for distinctions and high distinctions in the Australian Mathematics Competition. Aiden McCoy (Year 11) was presented with his recently achieved scholarship award from Good Samaritans.

Our recent trips including our Canberra-Sydney Study Tour and Indigenous Mission Trip to the Pilbara both shared their experiences with the College. Finally, our special guests for the morning were our Community Partners, the Lakeside Seniors Group who we have an ongoing relationship with in terms of visiting and sharing activities with throughout the year. They joined our Student Councillors for a lovely morning tea following the assembly. Photos>>>

Mock Trial Team 2015 (Left to right:)
Rachel Lee, Montana Edwards, Isabella Trew, Matilda Steel, Angela Fourie, Abbey Koelen, Connie Hassell, Ryan Simcock
Not in photo: Jared Haslehurst, Mfundo Mtshali

For the first half of this year, Politics and Law students in Years 10 to 12 were given the opportunity to compete in the state wide Mock Trial competition run by the Law Society of WA and under the guidance of a lawyer. These students met as a legal team after school, every week.

The team prepared and presented both as the Prosecution and the Defence for the Civil and Criminal Cases before acting Judges at the Supreme Court of Western Australia.

The Mock Trials involved a significant time commitment and effort in preparing for these cases and throughout, students were able to gain a greater understanding of the Western Australian legal system, and develop skills in preparing and arguing cases under stressful conditions.

The upcoming 2015 Seniors Week is a celebration of the senior citizens in our local community, something that the students from Kennedy Baptist College have been doing throughout the entire year.

The Year 7 students have been meeting monthly with a local seniors group at Lakeside Recreation Centre, where they take part in an “Oral History Presentation”, followed by serving morning tea to the group.

The Year 11 Food Science and Technology class recently hosted an afternoon tea for their grandparents, whom they catered for and interviewed to learn about their eating habits from childhood to today.

We invited the seniors from Lakeside Baptist Church to a morning tea after last week's assembly.

This Senior's Week, we encourage everyone to take time to break down barriers and build relationships with the seniors in their community, as it has been such a rewarding and beneficial experience for both our students and the seniors involved.
 

On Friday 30 October, we celebrated World Teachers' Day with a wonderful morning tea organized by the P&F. A special thank you to P&F for putting on such a lovely spread for our staff who truly enjoyed it.

Year 9 Kings Park Excursion
Spring time in Kings Park is glorious. The sun shines and the wild flowers explode with colour. Tourists and locals wander through the park snapping beautiful photographs. For Kennedy’s Year 9 Photography students, it was both enjoyment and assignment work and the chance to demonstrate their skills with the camera. As always, the students did not disappoint, and many creatively crafted photos were produced. The Kings Park excursion is one of the most popular. The quality of the photographs say it all.

Year 10 Film Making Excursion
The scripts are written and the actors are in costume. Lights, camera, action!

The Year 10 Media film-making class is on location at Serpentine shooting short films for their final assessment. It’s always a fun and productive day.

Mr Paul Wilkins & Mr Justin Markham
Photography & Media Teacher

Below are some of the shots from the Kings Park excursion:

We have just finished Week 3 of our Champions Read college-wide promotion of reading. Students are rewarded for their reading with 1 point for their House for every 15 minutes they read for leisure. The points raised go towards deciding which House wins the Kennedy Cup. At the moment Stirling are in the lead and Forrest are very close behind. Each week the Form which has done the most reading is rewarded – here are some photos of the winning forms.
Please encourage your son or daughter to read and to record their reading time, and have a read with them. It continues until Thursday 26 November.
At the same time we are running a “Guess Who’s Reading” competition with photos of teachers peeking over books reading and prizes for the students who guess the most correct answers.

From Research & Study Centre:

The Christmas tree has just gone up in the Research and Study Centre.  It is such a joy for the College to send presents to families in time for Christmas.  This year all donations will go to local people in need. If you would like to donate a present, please mark it with the age and gender of the person it is intended for and place it under the tree.
Thank you for your help.

Mrs Claudia Hart
 

On Friday 6 November, Kennedy was represented by a group of students in the SSWA Triathlon.  The race was against students from all over the state in a very high level competition. Our representatives included

• Year 8: Jai Thomas
• Year 9: Reece Crapper, Riley Needham, Regan Bright, Lochlann Downey, Daniel Brown, Mitch Thomas, Harley Osborne, Keegan Pope, Adam Schultz and Giverny Dodds.
• Year 10: Campbell Payne.

Our students competed with great sportsmanship and their very best efforts, and they should be proud of themselves. Well done.

On Friday, 6 November, we had a Philippines Basketball Mission Touring team fundraiser sausage sizzle where we raised money for different projects for the Kids International Ministries organisation in Manila. The students going on the trip also played the staff in a high quality basketball game. The students had great support in the crowd with their peers watching but the staff showed their experience coming away with a six point win. We raised $270 at the fundraiser. Thank you for those who came down and supported the team.

We have new range of hot food available. Click here to view.

The Kennedy Yearbook will be ready for collection next year during Term 1 and will be sent home with with your youngest child.

All Year 12's will need to  pick up their copy from Student Services.

Please join us as we celebrate and honour the volunteers of the Kennedy community and thank you for your contribution this year.
When: 2pm Friday 27 November 2015
Where: Staff Lounge
RSVP by Friday 20 November to Janet Hair 93147722 or email jhair@kennedy.wa.edu.au

We accept notices from parents, and advertisements from local companies and businesses for a small fee and reserve the right to accept the application for advertisement to be placed in the Newsletter or Notice board. Please email news@kennedy.wa.edu.au for more information