We are pleased to announce the Recipients of the Spring 2013 Athletic Awards

On May 30, the Grade 11 Entrepreneurship class held their annual Trade Fair in the Meeting Room. Students displayed their Business Venture Plans to visitors, and explained the merits of their products or services. The class piqued the interest of many potential customers and investors with their professionalism and business expertise. The Trade Fair is the oral and visual part of the Venture Plan Culminating Project for the course.

This past February, 48 of our students in Grades 9, 10 and 11 tackled the University of Waterloo Pascal, Cayley and Fermat contests along with about 55000 students from around the world. They had one hour to complete 25 math problems of varying difficulty in the quest to earn up to 150 marks.

In Grade 11, finishing above the average score of 90 were Alyssa Black and Nico Macias. Earning a certificate of distinction for placing in the top 25% of contestants was Ivy Zhang and our top finisher earning the school medal is Ben Qiu.

In Grade 10, finishing above the average of 91 were Maurice Berleth, Ada Wang, Vivian Xin and Sara Sun. Earning a certificate of distinction were  Molly Berman, Eddie Han, Robert Yu, Betty Lu and our school medal winner Joe Li. Joe’s score of 128 places him 206^th out of 6570 students in Ontario and earns him a place on the provincial honour roll.

In Grade 9, finishing above the average of 97 were Tiffany Mok, Tyler McKay, Chris Sud, Leilah Mouna and Charles Hsieh. Earning a certificate of distinction we had Mandy Coleman, Rennie Ip, Stephanie Scott, Patrick Prochazka, Snow Chen, Kevin Tan, and our school medal winner Simon Park. Simon’s score of 134 places him 190^th out of 7800 students in Ontario. Both Kevin and Simon earned a place on the provincial honour roll for their scores and along with Snow, their team score places them 49^th in Ontario which earns them a spot on the contest team honour roll.

In April, we had students in Grades 9-12 write a series of math contests sponsored by the University of Waterloo that require full solutions (Fryer, Galois, Hypatia and Euclid).

In Grade 9 earning an above average result was Snow Chen. Earning a certificate of distinction for achieving the Bronze Standard (top 25%) was Mandy Coleman and Tyler McKay.

In Grade 10, earning an above average result was Betty Lu. Earning a certificate of distinction for achieving the Bronze Standard was Joe Li. Earning a certificate of distinction for achiving the Silver standard – placing him in the top 12% of contestents was Eddie Han.

In Grade 11, earning a certificate of distinction for achieving the Bronze standard was Ben Qiu. Earning a certificate of distinction for achieving the Gold standard – placing her in the top 4% of contestents and and ranking her 84/4156 students was Cynthia Zhang.

In Grade 12, with over 17000 students writing the contest, earning above average results were Adam Wang, Charly Coleman, and Jack Shi. Earning a certificate of distinction for placing in the top 25% of contestents we had Mary Yin, Leo Zhu, Kevin Ma, Cynthia Zhang and our top scorer who earned a place on the contest honour roll by finishing in the 2% of contestents and winner of the school medal, Aston Yang.

Congratulations to all of our contestents!

Announcing the winners of the 2013 Residence Games: The Corkum Family! The final challenge was between the Coyne family and Corkum Family, and they had to break a t-shirt out of a huge block of ice only using certain tools.  Everyone had a blast and got extremely wet. Pictured here is the winning family holding aloft the coveted Residence Games Cup. Well done Corkum Family!

Our own Zack Daleman finished the 2013 skating year off with a bang by being selected Competitive Skater of the Year for Skate Canada Central Ontario for the 2012-2013 season. He was presented with this prestigious award at the Central Ontario Margaret Garrison Ice Show on May 4th. Zack had a “golden” year finishing 1st at 2013 Skate Canada Central Ontario Sectionals, 1st at the 2013 Skate Canada Challenge and 1st at the Mladost Trophy in Zagreb Croatia. This is a remarkable achievement for a single skating season.

Congratulations Zack on having a golden year of skating successes and we can't wait to see what you will do next.                                             

You could feel the excitement starting to grow among students and staff as the highly anticipated PC Sports Day event approached. This annual school event took place on a brisk Friday, May 24 and was another fun-filled and spirited day. Sports Day kicked off in Egan house where students gathered in houses to perform their individual House Cheers. Students participated in many track and field events such as the 100 meter sprint, 400 meter, high jump, long jump and javelin. The entire student body earned points by participating in Sports Day field games which included three-legged, potato sack, and jelly bean relays. The day ended with the highly competitive and always anticipated 4 x 100m relays. Students earned House points for participating and placing during events. Congratulations to Silver House for defending their Sports Day Championships, and thanks to family members who came out to cheer everyone on and join in the fun. Kudos to Faculty for their impromptu and explosive 4 x100m relay.

The final ball has been kicked, bat has been swung, and birdie has been smashed - Pickering College Athletics is over for another school year.

This year has been marked with great success! There has been the introduction or revitalization of three teams which were each extremely successful. The first was the Co-Ed Golf Team which officially entered into the CISAA and played in four tournaments over the course of a very wet spring. The end results were extremely promising: our Senior Girls’ team consisting of June Gleed and Grace Hilton received Silver Medals for an outstanding performance. Grace also received a Silver Medal for the second lowest score at the Championships. James Quinn-Rabot also finished top ten that day with an impressive round of golf.

Typically a Co-Curricular Program, the Equestrian team decided it was ready to compete. They travelled to the Lakefield School Horse Show where we received the impressive honour of Top Team. We hope to make it an annual tradition.

Badminton saw a revitalization competing for the first time in a few years. Under the guidance of our guest coach Valerie Loker, a former Canadian National Team member who competed at the Beijing Olympics, the team improved immensely. Both the Senior Boys’ and Junior Girls’ team competed at the Championships held at Crescent and Humber. The girls singles team had an incredible finish; all three received gold medals! This placed Pickering third overall...our best finish in thirty years.

But that was not the only success of the athletics year! Our U14 Girls’ Volleyball Team won gold at the Championships for the first time in history. Curling, Junior Girls’ Volleyball and Junior Girls’ Soccer were also just nudged out of winning it all and came home with hard fought silver medals.

However, the hardware does not always reflect all of the success and achievements over the year, including the Junior Boys’ Volleyball making the playoffs, U14 Boys’ Basketball finishing third overall, and the Rugby team having their most successful season yet. Not to mention all of the practices, games, sportsmanship, leadership and laughs that the students enjoyed and shared. After all, it is not about winning the game - it is how you get there.  What an exciting journey Pickering College has had this year!

On Friday, May 31 the Grade 2 class, Mrs. Demarco and Ms. Wolff went to Reptilia. Ms. Wolff drove one of the PC Puma buses and we all enjoyed being the only class on the bus. We went to learn more about the five different types of Reptiles. We got to see a few crocodilians which are alligators and crocodiles.

We all thought it was pretty cool when we got to see a very large American Alligator being fed. Next, we saw turtles and tortoises. The Snapping turtle is an omnivore which means it eats both animals and plants. We also saw so many snakes. Some were venomous and others weren’t. There is a large python that eats whole goat a few times a year. YIKES!! Lastly, we saw some lizards. One lizard we saw was the Asian Water Monitor.

They are really good swimmers and because they are carnivores they like to eat a variety of small animals. On the way back to school, Mrs. Demarco bought us ice cream and we even got to eat it on the bus. Our Reptilia trip ROCKED!!!

Submitted by:

Morgan, Julian V., Hannah, Matthew, Caylie, Quintin, Maria, Julian F., Lauren, Jake, Austin and Danica.

This year the Youth Engagement Organization (YEO) has made it their goal to work with a not-for-profit organization named the Small Project and learn about a 13 year old Kenyan student named Magaret Wamuyu. The group has been responsible for leading the Junior school fundraising initiative to raise the seven hundred dollars required to support Margaret's 2013 school fees. Mr. Rex Taylor, a representative from The Small Project joined us at a recent morning meeting to receive the donation and express what the school fees will mean for Margaret. This year will be the first year that Margaret will have the opportunity to go to school full time, the first time she will be able to eat three healthy meals a day, and the first time she will have access to a doctor and a bed of her own. The Junior school looks forward to getting to know Margaret even better as we begin a correspondence program next year and continue to raise funds for her school fees.

We had an amazing turnout and both experienced and inexperienced players had a blast! We started the evening with beverages and munchies and getting to know some of the players. Later on we celebrated new friends with winning hands, sandwiches and desserts.

Congratulations to our raffle winners, Euchre highest point winners, most lone hand winner, most honest player winner and all the other winners too. Everyone had a great time and agreed we should do it again next year.

Thank you to everyone that helped to make this wonderful night possible, and to all our players for being so generous in helping us raise money for the Hilltop Skating Club of Newmarket.