What is Friggatriskaidekaphobia? No, it is not a new teenage swear word. 

It means having a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th. I think this is a ridiculous fear. Having said that, I do suffer from Sesquipedalophobia.

We all have fears. They can be rational or irrational, healthy or unhealthy. What do we do with our fears? Psychologists say that there are three responses to fear – fight, flight, or freeze.  While you are fighting, fleeing, or frozen in your fears consider God.

12 You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all. 13 For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” Isaiah 41

Those who trust in the living God must remember that they are never alone in their fears. When you know that God is so close it effects the way you live.

For me, I work really hard at never making decisions based on fear, but rather based on faith – I make choices that show my faith rather than my fears (though they are still there at the time). 

Here are some things for us to consider. When we run from our fears, where or who are we running too? Does God want us to stay and fight? When we choose to fight our fears, are we fighting in a way that befits a follower of Jesus? Finally, when we are scared stiff, we need to remember that God is there regardless of how we feel.

Don’t forget courage is not about being fearless, but about making decisions despite your fears. This is easiest when you have faith in Jesus as he understands fear and knows the way through it.

When I was in high school there was a really cool and creative artist called Cyndi Lauper.

She had lots of songs but probably her most famous song is Girls Just Wanna have fun. When I was doing some research for this article, I realised that Cyndi Lauper was not the person who wrote the original version of the song. The person who wrote Girls Just Wanna have fun was a guy called Robert Hazard.

So does that mean that Cyndi Lauper is not creative or even worse, a cheat?

If you look at her Album, you will see that she credits Robert Hazard with writing the songs and indicates that she has received permission to use the song from the person who wrote it. So not a cheat. I would also argue that we can still call her creative. Her creativity lay in taking something old and turning it into something new and different. It wasn’t so much the words where she was creative, they were Robert Hazard’s. It was the way that she sang them.

The same can be true in other forms. Hans Christian Anderson’s story the Snow Queen became was transformed into a movie-Frozen. Disney’s creativity was in the way they retold an old story.

So what does that mean for us?

At school, students are constantly being asked for work. The basic idea here is that students are being asked to make something new. To be creative.

Now as we have seen, being creative does not mean that you have to ignore everything that has even happened in the past. For example, in art you might try and mimic the style of a famous artist in your drawing.. In History you might apply an old framework for thinking about the past to an area of History that is new.

The challenge for also those who are asked to be creative is to make sure we are totally clear about what work we have done and what is the work of someone else.

For example, in music you might say this is my version of the song Girls Just Wanna have Fun originally written by Robert Hazard.

When it comes to writing we need to do the same. It needs to be totally transparent which parts of any written text are the authors and which have been done by someone else. For example, you might submit a short story for English that retells the story of two sisters in a frozen kingdom as long as you say, this is a creative retelling of the story The Ice Queen frozen. Your creativity will not be judged on the original story, that was Danish Author Hans Christian Anderson. You will be judged on whether you do something new and interesting with the story.

So by all means, take what has gone before and do something great with it. Along the way, let’s be careful to make sure that we do this is a way that makes it clear what is our work and what is the work other people.

Mr Douglas Broadbent
Director of Teaching and Learning - Senior School

Join us for a movie night under the stars as we watch Shrek 2!

Friday 27 May | 5pm

This is a free event and everyone is welcome. Gates open at 5pm with food trucks and entertainment. The movie will begin at 6pm.

Bring your picnic blanket and join us on the oval. In the event of wet weather, this event will be held indoors in the Rawdon Middleton VC Complex.

View the flyer

It was a busy week last week with our Mother's Day stall and breakfast taking place.

Thank you to our Parent Community Network who helped run the stall. The students had a great time picking gifts for the special women in their lives.

It was wonderful to welcome you onsite for our Mother's Day Breakfast on Friday. We hope you had a wonderful time celebrating together.

Students in 10A and 9X Mathematics spent a couple of lessons engaging in challenging HSC style problems to consolidate their understanding of volume and surface area of three-dimensional solids.

These students enjoy a challenge and were very positive in their approach to these problems, collaborating effectively with one another as they were encouraged to be critical thinkers and resilient learners.

Here’s a problem they worked on together. Can you solve it?

Term 2 Book Display

This term the IRC is going dark and spooky with our new horror fiction display. Come and see the giant spider lair where it was said lies the remains of one reader who was so engrossed in his book that he couldn’t put it down…ever! If you want to read a thrilling terrifying story, make sure you borrow a horror fiction novel from the Library today.

Page Turners Book Club

The Page turners have just finished their first novel of 2022, ‘Madame Doubtfire’ by Anne Fine. This is the novel the hit Robin Williams movie was based upon. What will we read next? Come along and find out? Meetings will be held Monday lunchtime every three weeks. For more information please speak to Mr Smith.

Overdue notices

The last library overdue notices for the term will be emailed next week. Students who do not return their books after receiving their third email notice as well as an email to their parents will be invoiced for a replacement copy. All invoices will still stand if books are returned after this final date. If you have any problems or questions regarding overdue books please speak to Mrs Comiskey or Mr Smith who will be happy to help.

What’s new on the shelf?

'The silence holds a secret…'

‘Echo Island’ – Jared C. Wilson

“When four recent high school graduates return home from a weekend of camping, they expect to go back to life as usual. Instead, the boys discover empty streets, abandoned cars, and utter silence—everyone has disappeared. As the friends attempt to solve the mystery, they stumble upon more questions than answers. Why won’t the electronics work? Where did the wind go? What do the notebooks full of gibberish mean? With each new discovery, they learn that nothing was ever quite what it seemed on Echo Island and that a deep secret is drawing them in—if only they would surrender to it. Join Bradley, Jason, Archer, and Tim on this exploration into myth and mystery. Uncover exactly what happened on Echo Island and what these four friends’ story has to do with God, the meaning of life, and the nature of reality.”

‘Echo Island’ written by Christian author Jared Wilson is a thrilling and suspenseful novel that will have readers gripped from the very first page. The book has a wonderfully creepy atmosphere that helps built tension and suspense, all the while leading to a thrilling climax and mind-bending plot twist that readers will not see coming.  Author Jared Wilson has a deep and descriptive writing style that really helps brings to life his unique and spooky world. Thought providing and engaging with a deeper Biblical message, this is a fantastic horror/suspense novel that many different people will enjoy.

Lots more great new novels have just arrived in the IRC, make sure you check the new book stand for all the latest purchases.

Mrs Annette Comiskey & Mr Michael Smith

Senior IRC Library Team

Our Thomas Hassall debating teams for both HICES and MISA have been showing excellent effort and commitment in these first weeks of the term.

Currently all debates are being held via Zoom, which adds an extra complexity that our teams have been navigating very well.

Last week our Year 9 MISA team debated as the affirmative “That government healthcare should prioritise the elderly” and although they did not win, valiantly argued their case against Saint Benedict’s Catholic College.

Our HICES Middle teams (Year 7-8) debated against Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox College on Thursday afternoon on the topic “That a child's right to privacy outweighs a parent's right to know their whereabouts”. Team 1 won their debate and Team 2 hotly contested theirs but did not succeed this time round.

We wish all teams the very best in their next round of debates in Week 4.

Please read below for a student report of another recent debating activity:

Year 7 MISA Debating Workshop - John Therry Catholic College

On Wednesday the 4th of May 2022, 7 debating students Ava, Anton, Liz, Ruby, Sapphire, Samarth and Arya participated in the MISA debating skills workshop at John Therry Catholic College. Altogether there were 17 schools who participated.

The workshop focused on improving our debating skills and learning to debate effectively at a higher level. I learned how to think critically, how to develop arguments, how to speak clearly and how to work as a team. After applying these skills that we learnt during the day, we participated as the negative team in a debate on the topic “That country life is better than city life”, achieving a well-earned victory. After taking this workshop, we developed the confidence to speak in front of any audience. Debating builds collaborative, communication skills in a fiercely competitive arena.

- Arya Krishan

Our Year 12 students traveled to Youthworks on Tuesday to have a fun day out together.

This was an opportunity for students to enjoy time as a cohort, participating in activities that encouraged teamwork and problem-solving.