St Dominic’s College – Term 1

Life continues at St Dominic’s College, even if our dear readers do not hear about it.
With Term 2 now under way I thought it best to give an account of our goings on during Term 1.

Firstly, let us cover our inter-house competitions. Never missing an opportunity to celebrate a feast day – we scheduled the drama competition for the feast of St Joseph, March 19th. Our girls performed some very humorous and excellent impromptu plays about the 3 Dominican Saints – Blessed Ceslaus, St Peter of Verona and St Joanna. As in previous years the girls were given one hour to read the life of a Dominican Saint and prepare a dramatization within their team. The girls had the audience in stitches as they pulled out balls and pegs and props and involved all of their team members to enact the life of their saint. Even parts of the Dominican habit appeared on stage –how on earth did that happen? Our girls are definitely not slow!! Bologna won with 52 points, Prouille came second with 50 points and Calaroga came third with 48 points. I am glad that I was not the judge as it would have been very hard to make the final decision!   

On April 30th, Feast of our Holy Mother St Catherine (which, of course, is first class for us), festivities included the choral-speaking competition, which was held at the hockey club. This year we invited the priests, friends and family for the occasion to have a few extra people in the audience. Many lunch hours and recreation times were spent preparing for this great event. Each team was given the test piece “Vespers” by A.A. Milne to perform and each house captain selected a poem of their choice as well. Calaroga won the competition and chose “Please Don’t Read This Poem” by Kenn Nesbitt as their second piece, Bologna came second with “Jim Who Ran Away From His Nurse, And Was Eaten By A Lion” from Cautionary Tales for Children and Prouille came in third with their choice of “Television” by Roald Dahl. It was interesting to note the variation of style and performance of each team thereby bringing out the personality of each house captain.

On a different note, St Dominic’s now has its very own official chess club which meets every Friday afternoon. William Maddren from the Wanganui chess club comes to give us free tuition for one and a half hours. We all put on our analytical caps and engross ourselves in this fascinating game. Firstly, he gives us instructions for 45 minutes and then we play a serious game.  This is a dream come true as I was a fanatic chess player as a child and I know the benefits of playing the game. The girls will also be able to sit examinations at different levels and gain badges and certificates accordingly and there will be opportunities to compete in competitions against students from other schools if they wish. It is a great game to develop thinking and analytical skills and I am grateful that the girls are able to profit from this opportunity. We have already seen the girls thinking more carefully before making moves and the tutor remarked at how well behaved, silent and respectful the girls are. He said it usually takes him 2 years to get the students to that stage. I always believe that you have to make the most of every opportunity as you never know if or when it will come again!

As Mother Rose related we have received a grant for new sports equipment and as Head of Department this year I have decided to do 5 week blocks of different sports. We began the year with a module of softball and then 5 weeks of badminton. Everyone had a great time loading into the red van to drive to the sports centre down the road as it always happened to be raining on Thursday afternoons when we were scheduled to play. We enjoyed badminton so much that we plan to buy our own nets and equipment to use at school. Even the Sisters could not resist playing. The competitive streaks have been coming out. We are now in a 5 week block of playing netball. We were able to register a junior team in the interschool competition and our new netball uniforms are due to arrive next week. The girls have just finished their grading rounds and are due for their first official game. May they play as well as they did last year!

The girls have also had the experience of watching the beauty of nature in their own classrooms. Bob, “the Butterfly man”, who lives down the road, provided at least 150 cocoons for the girls. Bob spent much time stringing the cocoons to fishing line and then hanging a selection in each classroom. Each day the girls would marvel at the emergence of the beautiful monarch butterfly as it hatched from its little home. It was fascinating to watch the butterfly slowly gather its strength in order to take its first flight.

The solar system – right in our own classroom!

Saturn – up close

A couple of class outings were organised for the Form 1&2 girls as well. After studying the solar system and the stars in science class, one evening they went to the local observatory with their form teacher and Father Laisney to look at the moon and planets through the 24 cm telescope, the largest unmodified refractor telescope in use in New Zealand. Although the clouds prohibited them from seeing too many planets, the girls were delighted with the largest and most detailed view that they had ever seen of the moon. The class was thoroughly facinated with the night skies ever after finishing that astronomy unit. They are now planning on attending a session at the Ward Observatory on the 6th of June, in order to witness a sight that won’t be seen again until 2117. (It is the last chance for them to see it in their lifetimes…) This event is the transit of Venus across the Sun. The transit of Venus warrants attention for its rarity alone. It makes a blue moon seem commonplace: the last transit was in 2004, but the one before that was in 1882.

Transit of Venus

It has special significance for Australasians, because it was on a voyage to observe the transit from Tahiti in 1769 that Captain James Cook charted the coast of New Zealand and east coast of Australia.

In astronomy, a transit occurs when a planet or other body crosses the face of the Sun. When Venus transits, it is visible as a dark spot creeping across the Sun in the space of a few hours. You have to be in the right place to see it, and this time New Zealand is one of those places. We pray that we will have clear skies to witness this event – the last time we’ll ever have to see it!

At the end of term they went on a field trip to Palmerston North because they had been studying energy resources and New Zealand landscapes in Geography. The girls went to the wind turbines and they did a part of the Manawatu Gorge Track. Everyone had an enjoyable afternoon. 

With regards to the apostolate, the Children of Mary have really blossomed this year. We received 6 new aspirants on March 26, Feast of the Annunciation. The sodality now counts 16 members. They prepared a spectacular altar of repose for Holy Thursday with many hands on deck. This year we had holy week off from school and so we were able to complete the setting up during the day rather than having to stay up late into the night.

  The girls have also offered to help with the Church flowers when needed and they have been put on the roster for Church cleaning. On Anzac Day we went on our last outing with our former chaplain, Father Fortin, to Lake Rotokare and Dawson Falls. Father has taken up his new post in the Philippines. 

Our new chaplain is the young and dynamic Belgian priest, Father Bochkoltz, who has taken on this new task with great enthusiasm. Amazingly enough, the girls cannot wait to go out on their first hike with Father, even though they supposedly hate hikes.