The College is seeking feedback in relation to several of its current policies, namely the Sports Policy and the Excursion Policy.

We ask that you spare a few minutes to review each of these policies and then complete the short questionnaire gathering your comments and suggestions to give us a better idea of how effective these existing policies are.

Your comments will provide helpful input for the College in its examination of these documents and will assist in providing guidance should the College need to review these policies.

	To give your feedback on the Sports Policy please click here. To read the policy click here
	To give your feedback on the Excursion Policy please click here. To read the policy click here

On Wednesday, 19th July all Year Nine students had the day off campus visiting Parliament House, The Hobart Museum and the Penitentiary Chapel. We split up into three groups and left the school at 9:00 a.m. and that’s when the journey began. Each group visited two different venues during the morning, spending a while at each before heading out to Salamanca Place for lunch. At the Museum, everyone had a set of questions to answer, based on various Australian History displays of the 20th Century. We had to search for the answers in three different rooms.

At the Penitentiary Chapel we were taken on a fascinating tour of the old court rooms, solitary confinement cells and gallows of the 1830’s convict building. Students were given the opportunity to learn more about our ancient convict past.

Finally at Parliament House we were taken to the original room of House of Assembly and watched a video on Tasmania’s Parliamentary history. We were then given a guided tour of the Parliamentary Museum and the current House of Assembly and the Legislative Council.

Special thanks to Mrs Whyte for spending a lot of time and effort in planning and making this day such a success.

Quotes from the day:

• “It was a really great day & a really good experience” ; Natalie Byrne
• “I learnt a lot about the convicts and how life was back then” ; Emma Fish
• “I found the day good and would go again’’; Scott Gangell
• “I enjoyed Parliament House & the Museum and I learnt something’”; Cody Woolley
• “I found the excursion exciting and challenging and I had a great day” ; Chris Moore

By Alicia Rattenbury & Mathew Hey

On Friday 14th July all Year 10 students went on an excursion to the National Careers and Employment Expo held at the Derwent Entertainment Centre.

The Expo started with an inspirational presentation from motivational speaker Peter Sheahan, whose humorous style and engaging manner captured the attention of all students. Peter’s message to students was to stay in education or training as long as possible to maximise their opportunities for success in their careers. He also stressed the point that successful people are ones who: Know what they want, understand their own strengths and weaknesses; and who persist until they achieve their dreams.

The rest of the time was spent in wandering around the huge variety of stalls investigating the career options and information available. The offerings ranged from universities to companies such as Tupperware and mining companies. The responses for the Dominic students were very positive in terms of the excellent opportunity to explore their options for the future and the large number of free items they were able to acquire from various stallholders including stress balls, frisbees, haki sacs, stickers, lotions and lollies.

It is hoped that the pamphlets taken home and the input from Peter Sheahan and stallholders will stimulate discussion with families and teachers regarding the career options for our students after they leave Dominic College.

After crawling out of bed at the crack of dawn, freezing cold for our flight, we all arrived at the airport between 5 and 5:30am. We quickly got organised, said our goodbyes and jumped on the plane, very excited.

We finally arrived in Queensland, only to jump on our bus for a huge 10-hour trip to just past Rockhampton. During the bus trip there was a lot of sleeping, movie watching, toilet stops, eating eating, more eating and even prank phone calls to scare the teachers.

The next day we caught the ferry over to Great Keppel Island, where we spent three days. We hit the sunny beaches, for some much needed sun, not long after moving into our luxury tents, which were more like cabins. On Keppel we made friends with the camels, Dusty and Boomer, found the water sports shed, hit the shops and went snorkelling and walking. On the way to snorkelling Nicole lost her feet after launching off a boat. Nighttime called for Karaoke and even the boys got up to belt out a few tunes, although Cherrie-Ann stole the show with her amazing voice. We sadly left the island and headed to our next campsite - Fraser Island. However by this time we had already sent Greg, our bus driver, insane. On Fraser we picked up a 4WD bus and another driver called Greg (must be something to do with buses) and we headed off through the bush, rainforest, beaches, shipwrecks and more. We had a huge lunch at the resort and meet a dingo and a grumpy national park officer. Finally we headed to the fresh water lake for a swim before heading back to Hervey bay to farewell Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Donnelly.

Another bus trip took us to Wet ‘n Wild where we all went crazy on the water slides and wave pool. By the end of the day we had all found the spas – wonderful invention they are! We continued onto our campsite at the Gold Coast, meeting up with Mrs. Cos and heading to bed early ready for the big day at Dreamworld the next day. Everyone had a great day trying out every ride that was on offer. We had some bus trouble so we got to spend an extra day on the Gold Coast, shopping ‘til we dropped, and even though it meant the next day would be a 12 hour bus trip to Sydney, we were willing to suffer the trip for the sake of more shopping. We headed to Harbour Town for some shopping but we didn’t know where to start seeing there were so many shops. Next stop, Pacific Fair. Can you believe there were even more shops there? The only challenge was that we had to try and squeeze everything into our bags back at camp that night, ready for the 6am departure the following morning.

We spent the day on the bus sleeping, eating, watching movies and seeing the world go by, however Zac seemed to have developed some trouble with his body gases and we all suffered for that! Finally we arrived at Sydney where we had the best cabins. It was an early night for all, ready for more shopping the next day. Yes more shopping!

We jumped on the bus for yet another long trip, this time to Canberra, where it was freezing cold and we had to pack our bags for the last time, trying to fit in all our shopping. We headed to Parliament House, which is much bigger than any of us expected, then onto the War Memorial, which was very inspiring and lastly, we were dropped off at yet another shopping centre. Can you believe we are still shopping? After dinner and a movie we jumped back on the bus at about 10pm and heading off for Melbourne – yes, an overnight trip. We all tried to get some sleep - some were more successful than others. About dawn we made it to Macca’s in Melbourne for breakfast and shortly afterwards headed to the Q.V. Markets where it was freezing! From there we headed to the new DFO at Essendon for out last spot of shopping. Everyone’s wallet was empty by the time we left for the airport, but we were all excited about getting home. We made it on to the plane safe and sound, touched down in Hobart and there were hugs all around. Everyone had a great time but we were all certainly glad to be home…especially the teachers.

It was a great trip, certainly an experience of a lifetime with many memories to treasure. We would like to thank the teachers who gave up their time - Miss Butterworth, Mr Everard, Mr Thomas, Mrs Donnelly and Mrs Cos for all their patience and for being able to put up with 40 Year Ten students.

Tasmanian Interschool Chess Championships

Term 1 Regional Zones
Students who represented Dominic College

Joshua Gray Daniel Chisholm Nathan Horne Adam Ransley James Gray

Brent Woodmansee Zac Cook Kaine Beveridge Jonathon Heather Katie Dyke

Players responses to competition.

On the 24th of May Dominic College participated in an interschool chess competition against 9 other schools. The players that participated were Zac Cook, Brent Woodmansee, Katie Dyke, James Gray, Josh Gray Jonathan Heather, Kaine Beveridge, Daniel Chisholm, Nathan Horne and Adam Ransley. Dominic College came 9th overall. It was a fun day that everyone enjoyed and we are waiting eagerly for the next competition.

By Kaine and Jonathon

The chess tournament was a blast. Seven rounds, ten schools and all you can drink coffee, what better way to spend a day with your friends (or other chess playing peoples).

By Adam Ransley.

On Wednesday the 24th of May a mixture of year 7, 8, 9 & 10 students went to the Interschool Chess Championships. When there each student played 7 rounds with opponents of their same skill level and/or age group. It was a fun and challenging day with everybody getting a certificate of participation or achievement.

By Katie Dyke

On Tuesday the 9th of May I was part of a group of students who went to the Glenorchy Library to meet author Lene Kaaberbol from Denmark. When we got there we gathered in a meeting room along with students from Rosetta High School. When Lene came in we had a little introduction and then she explained her book, “The Shamer”. She read a passage from the book and then did an activity which helps us describe a scene using all our senses. After that we had a question and answer session and when we finished we spent some time exploring the library before returning to school. Overall it was interesting and fun.

By Kathryn Spencer.

On Tuesday the 9th of May we went to the Glenorchy Library to meet an author called Lene Kaaberbool. She talked about her life and what it is like to be an author. She helped us to create our own paragraph of creative writing. Lene taught us a lot of great things about writing.

By Chloé Sargent

On Tuesday the 9th of May we went to the Glenorchy Library to meet an author named Lene Kaaberbool. Lene is an author who writes fantasy books. She talked about her her books and her life as an author then she read us a passage from her book. We were given time to ask her questions. Then we were ready to go back to school. I liked her bookd because they were very descriptive and interesting.

By Felicia Robson

On Tuesday 9th of May Mr. Nolan’s enrichment groupwent to the Glenorchy Library to meet the author of the Shamers and Witch series, Lene Kaarberboel. She comes from Denmark and lives in the city of Copenhagen, she started writing her first book at twelve and had it published when she was fifteen. We listened to her read the first chapter from “Shamer’s Daughter” and then she helped us make up our own chapter. Overall it was a very fun and interesting experience.

By Katie Dyke

On Tuesday 2nd May a group of enthusiastic soccer players from Year 10 represented the College in fine style in the Hobart schools Futsal tournament. Futsal is the world-recognised form of indoor soccer and requires a great deal of soccer skill and ball control.

The Dominic College team was formed after students showed interest in this form of the world game and they acquitted themselves exceptionally well against both High School and College teams. All players contributed strongly to the team effort with Jason Dawes taking out the “Golden Boot” award for Dominic for the most goals scored just one ahead of Marco Schiro.

Their results were:

• v New Town High Blue Won 5 - 3
• v Sacred Heart College Won 5 - 4
• v Hobart College Lost 2 - 7

The boys achieved strongly enough in their round robin matches to make the final against New Town Red. Unfortunately a slow start hampered their prospects and they were defeated 3 - 6 in the final. All the players received runners-up medallions and are to be congratulated in their first attempt at this game.

Yesterday Year 9 Students had the opportunity to share in Retreat. It was an extraordinary experience for both students and staff combined. Staff were very impressed in the manner students responded. Michael Fitzpatrick led the retreat. He is a retreat specialist based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. We were very fortunate to be able to engage Michael to lead our students to explore issues of personal and spiritual development pertaining to Year 9. To put it simply, Michael Fitzpatrick is an amazing person who created opportunities for miracles to occur.

These are some testimonies from our Year 9 students, which they expressed this morning:

“It’s really hard to describe but it was the best. It was really emotional.” Sian Balmer

“I thought it was really good how the whole of Year 9 came together as one. We all listened to what each other had to say. It was a fantastic day and one that we will remember. I was really surprised at the level of participation.” Mariel Butterworth

“I was really moved. I was shocked how many feelings the boys have and how emotional they can be. I have never heard boy’s say stuff like that- it was really touching. Michael was hilarious and the best.” Emily Eaves

“It was exciting. A good experience and something I will remember for ever.” Nathan Smith

“Gave people an opportunity to swallow their pride and sort out issues with people and apologise.” Sam Guy

“It was pretty good.” Liam Jones

“It was good.” Matthew Stone

“Fantastic experience which provided insight into peoples lives and helped them over came trials. Great social opportunity. Great opportunity to broaden our social horizon. Presenter was top notch!” Josh Coad

“It was cool, very touching.” Nathan Hoddy <>“He is a champion. He made everyone open up- which was fantastic.” Lynden Carlton

“I thought it was good. Especially the Sorry Ritual. It made you feel that could say sorry to people. A really good day. I hope we can have him for Year 10 Retreat. He was fun!” Scott Gangell

“It was awesome. Best ever. We all mingled together and got on well.” Natalie Byrne

“I thought it was really good. It taught us a lot about popularity and how everyone should be treated the same.” Bethany Cartwright

“I was never one for all that religious stuff. It really touched me. I didn’t think it would but it did”. Zac Grgurevic

WELL DONE YEAR 9!!!

Welcome to the Dominic Ducks and Goats

Valentine’s Day marked the arrival of two new “kids” to our College. However, Storm and Pedy are not your typical kids. They are a couple of goats.

On the morning of 10th February, a small group of Year 9 students, under the guidance of Mr Nolan built two goat shelters. They used recycled tin and pine in the construction. The goats have settled in well and can be found around the school grounds clearing areas of weeds. We hope they enjoy their time at school.

Douglas Davidson and his family have donated some ducks to the College. They arrived on Monday so a duck enclosure needed to be built. Brieanne, Douglas, Daniel, Harrison and Bradleigh helped Mr Nolan put up the fencing, sink a drinking/swimming area, make a sheltered resting corner and plant some greenery.

This small group of Year 7 students will take responsibility for the care of the ducks and they are looking forward to the first eggs arriving. Meanwhile it is lovely to see Junior and Jemima investigating their new home.