While the Year 12 boys are now in solid preparation for the upcoming Trial exams and then HSC and IB Diploma exams, one group have had an early finish.

Those boys in Year 12 IB who chose the Italian Ab initio (beginners) course as their compulsory foreign language have completed the two years of study as a compacted course, in 18 months, and already have their results. In this year’s cohort they achieved 6 Grade 7s and 6 Grade 6s, which is 66% scoring in the top two Grades.

Our Grade 7 candidates who achieved the highest Grade are: Jayce Carrano (12/MA), Sebastian Gray (12/JN), Justin Kocbek-Malepa (12/ME), Yianni van Gelder (12/MA), Jonathan Wang (12/JN) and Luca Watson (12/PR).

Candidates in Australia can undertake final Italian examinations in May each year as part of the Northern Hemisphere IB examination period. This allows the boys a staggered approach for heavily weighted exams and, at this end of the year, some extra time to devote to their remaining subjects and assessments.

While their teacher, Ms Cheryl Priest, acknowledges these results are exceptional she is even more delighted that, when asked, six of the boys indicated they will continue studying Italian beyond school, whether at university or as an interest, because they enjoyed the experience. More impressively none of these boys began the course guessing they might consider a language post school.

As a teacher there is no better reward than to impart to young adults a lasting love of your subject and its inherent benefits, beyond the marks and grades associated with the assessment process.

And the boys could easily articulate the benefits from their now completed Italian course: the ability to actually speak in a foreign language while in that country—and be understood (“it’s exotic!” and “it impresses people”); the idea that it is almost like having a different personality when you can think and speak to people in another language; the application of skills learned in foreign languages to an understanding of the structure of English; and, at number one—participation in the cake day, both making and devouring the entries!

Bravo!