An important skill that we have learnt that I have incorporated into the way I play basketball is when we learnt how to move our defender. I have implemented this into my game by always thinking how I can get rid of the defender, which always makes me think back to the classes where Mr Haxby had taught us exactly how to do that. I think that this was one of the most important things we learnt as in basketball you have to get past your defender in order to score on offense and on defense you have to stop the person your defending from going past you so having that knowledge of how to do that can help you a lot on defense.
Course reflection
The best and most important course that I think we have attended is the recovery course. I think that it was the most important course as it taught us the importance of recovery and how if you don’t recover you could damage your body. One of the major concepts that we talked about in that course was sleep and how beneficial having a good sleep is for your body.
In Health this year we visited an RAC B-street smart exhibition which informed us on he dangers of the road and how much a poor decision can affect you. We met many people who made a bad decision causing them to injure themselves. In health class we were tasked to create a poster or other form of media that helps push your aim and to inform people on a certain road safety issue.
MY POSTER AND RESEARCH
My road safety issue: My issue is phones. This is a large problem for young people as they have grown up with technology and internet and they would be more likely to pick up their phone while they are driving to answer a message or call.
my aim: To enlighten young drivers about the distraction that phones give while driving.
Some key information:
Looking at your mobile phone for 3 seconds at 80km/h will mean you’re travelling blind for 67m
When using your mobile you are almost four times more likely to get into a car crash
Distraction is a contributing factor in 22% of car accidents and an alarming 71% of truck accidents
29% of drivers have admitted to having performed an action on their mobile phone while driving.
According to research from Budget Direct in 2020, the main ways people used their mobile phones while driving were:
Checking their phone when stopped at the traffic lights (12.2%)
Changing the song that was playing (11.3%)
Reading or replying to a text (2.5%)
Checking or updating their social media (0.8%)
When asked what the reason was for using their phones while driving, the respondents said:
They felt safe and capable of doing so (16.2%)
It was habitual for them (11%)
It was an emergency (2.9%)
However, it’s worth noting that 73.2% of the 1000 people surveyed said they didn’t use their phones at all while driving.
My poster:
RAC B-STREET SMART EXCURSION
3 of the Biggest things I learnt at the RAC Street-smart excursion.
The effect that the passenger has on the driver: At the RAC arena they used a fake crash scene to show how bets to act as a passenger. In the fake crash scene they showed how the passengers were showing the driver their phone and how it distracted the driver causing the crash. When they showed and explained the reasons why as a passenger you shouldn’t distract the driver it made me think about how I affect the driver and how my actions towards the driver affect the safety of everyone in the vehicle.
The effect of pear pressure and alcohol on drivers and passengers: The RAC Street-smart expo brought in a man named Konnah who told us his story and how he was peer pressured to hop in an overcrowded car being driven by a drunk driver and go to a party instead of waiting for his mom to pick him up. He told us how that night him and his friends crashed and how the crash made him quadriplegic and how much he regrets his choices of hopping in the car. His story gave me the inspiration and ability to say no when my friends are trying to get me to get into a car that had conditions that made that car unsafe to be in.
The effect that your poor choices have on your family and friends: In the fake crash scene they showed the polices visit to the family of the person who died in the crash. This part of the scene made the audience think about the effect that you have on people and how your choices indirectly affect your family and friends. This scene made me start to think twice about my decisions and how they would effect the people around me.
What advice would you give young drivers and why?
One piece of advice I would give to young drivers is to pay attention and be responsible while on the road. The reason I would give this advice to young drivers is because I think that the majority of crashes in Australia are caused by lack of concentration or from being not responsible before and while driving which is things like having too much alcohol before driving.
Write down a pledge that you will commit to when you start driving.Why did you pick these things to commit to?How will you stick to these commitments?
I pledge to always be responsible when I’m on the road and to always stay focused when I am driving. I chose these things because I believe they are the most important things when you are on the road to not get into a crash. I will stick to these things by always remembering them when I’m driving.
has a flat platform on the top level of at least 5 cm x 5 cm (this will be supplied to you)
remains standing after an earthquake, as simulated by shaking a table for 10 seconds
is constructed from the materials supplied by your teacher
costs less than $60 to build, given the material costs listed below. This budget will be provided twice: once for the intitial prototype, and once again for the second prototype.
Your model can be attached to a bench mat with blu-tack.
material cost
$1 for a strand of spaghetti and $1 for a gram of blue tack.
30 strands wanted= $30
30 grams of blue-tack= $30
total=$60
project summary
In science we participated in this challenge where we had to design and build a building with noodles and blue-tack. This task relates to current real world problems that many countries suffer from which is their buildings not being able to withstand the waves of energy produced by earthquakes.
our overview of engineering process
The process my class used was that we stated the project with a 50 minute design sprint which we tested using an earthquake simulator in the for of an earthquake table then we used the results and info from that to then make a better building where we had more time to build and we had done research to make a stronger building. In the design sprint we had $50 worth of materials then for the actual building we had $60 of materials. Overall my group worked very well with each other and we stayed on task all of the time.
To come up with our idea we searched on youtube for ideas and came across a youtube series called my strange addictions. After finding this series we surfed through the videos and their topics and we found one on objectophillia which piqued our interest. The reason we didn’t choose any of their other ideas was that the other videos would mainly go into the health risks and other things that would be caused by the people who are featured in the series. After deciding our topic we started preparing to start making the documentary. To prepare we started writing a small script then afterwards we created a timeline for the first 4 minutes and we researched and completed our research into our topic. then finally we were ready to start filming.
production
To produce our documentary we used an app called premier pro which we used to edit our clips and other things together. this software really worked well for us because it made it very easy for us to create and edit our documentary. To get our clips and other things we used cameras and microphones in order to get footage and to get voiceovers. to reflect on our production process I feel like we came into a lot of issues when it comes to the filming part of the documentary as most of the lessons we sued for filming we either messed around or our use of equipment wasn’t the best. To improve on that we should have made sure that our equipment was always ready to go when we needed it and that it had all the things we required it to.
post-production
one of my group members who was our designated editor edited our documentary. we used functions like voice-over and other things to make sure our documentary was good and worked well. I think our work ethic in this part of the project could have been a lot better as our documentary was sort of unfinished and poorly made. next time that is what we should improve on our work ethics. to improve this I would have made sure that we were all doing something rather than some of us doing the work and others not.
final evaluation
the best aspects of our production are I think our information and how we inform the audience. We needed to improve on our time organization and the length of our documentary as I think that it is a bit short. I learned that staying on task is very important. Next time I would have chosen a different topic and would have improved our work ethic and how we managed our time.
My research table for whether each principle of justice is supported or not and why, what each principle is and what each principle means is on page 2.
OVERVIEW
In this year 9 assessment, we are tasked with assessing wrongfully convicted Australian cases and highlighting what principles of justice were either supported or compromised making the case unjust and how the person was wrongfully convicted. For this assessment, the case I chose was the wrongful conviction of Darryl Beamish.
WHO IS DARRYL BEAMISH?
If you don’t feel like reading or would like to learn more about this case and more like this case go below my writing for a podcast series on the Darryl Beamish and the john button case by The Crime Series Podcast and for books that explore the topic of the wrongfully convicted.
Darryl Beamish, a deaf and mute Western Australian man who was wrongfully convicted of the wilful murder of Jillian brewer who in 1959 was slain in her Cottesloe flat by an intruder who mutilated her body with a pair of dress-making scissors and a tomahawk. According to detective Owen Leitch, 18-year-old Darryl Beamish gave in total 4 confessions which Beamish stated were only said through intimidation and threats from the police (Wikipedia Contributors, 2021). Using those confessions, he was convicted of the murder of Jillian brewer in 1961 and he was given death by hanging which was later commuted to life in prison where he served 15 years in prison.
Case Summary
Darryl Beamish, an Australian deaf and blind man who, when he was 18 was wrongfully convicted of the brutal murder of Jillian Brewer in 1961 who was killed by an intruder in her Cottesloe flat in 1959. He was wrongfully convicted because both the prosecutors and the detectives on the case compromised many principles of justice by creating false confessions, creating a biased jury by mentioning his past offenses towards children, and by dismissing Eric Edgar Cooke’s confession to the murder, all of which created an unfair trial and wrongful conviction. Due to the wrongful conviction, Beamish was first sentenced to death then commuted to life in prison where he served 15 years in prison being released in 1977. On April 1st, 2005, the Western Australian court of appeals exonerated him. There were 45 years in between the time of conviction and exoneration which was the longest ever in Australian history.
WHAT ARE THE PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE?
The principles of justice are principles that the Western Australian justice system seeks to uphold to reflect equality, fairness, and access in the justice system. An example of a principle of justice is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning that when an accused comes into court the judge and jury must presume that the accused is innocent until the prosecution proves that the accused is guilty of committing the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
HOW WAS DARRYL BEAMISH WRONGFULLY CONVICTED?
Darryl Beamish was wrongfully convicted because he faced an unfair trial and investigation which both compromised many Principles of Justice creating a miscarriage of justice or a false conviction. Here are some examples of Principles of Justice which were compromised and how they were compromised to wrongfully convict Darryl Beamish:
UNBIASED/IMPARTIAL COURT
An unbiased/impartial court is a principle of justice assuring that the people in court who look over a trial and judge whether the accused is guilty or not mustn’t have opinions on the case before the trial as they could give an unfair punishment towards the accused. An example of this is that the court must get a judge or jury who would have no prior knowledge of the details of the case from sources that could create bias. This principle of justice was compromised in the conviction of Beamish as in court the prosecutors mentioned Beamish’s past offenses of sexual assault on minors, which when mentioned to a jury or judge would create a bias and he would be given unfair treatment.
RELIABLE EVIDENCE
Reliable evidence is evidence used in a case that can be proved to be correct and reliable. In the Darryl Beamish case, this principle of justice was compromised as the evidence that they used to convict Beamish was 4 supposed confessions he had said to detectives, however, he said the detectives threatened and beat him, forcing a false confession. Another reason why those confessions aren’t reliable is due to Beamish being deaf and mute meaning that he wouldn’t really be able to truly understand what position he is in and what the detectives were asking him. In addition to using false confessions, the detectives and the people against Darryl Beamish dismissed known Australian serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke’s 1963 confession to the murder of Jillian Brewer, as they saw the confession as a lie as they thought Eric Edgar Cooke was trying to make himself seem more deadly and famous despite him knowing details about the case which weren’t mentioned to the public.
THE RIGHT TO BE TREATED EQUALLY BY THE COURTS AND POLICE
This principle of justice gives the convicted the right to be treated fairly and equally by both the court and by police. His right to be treated equally was compromised both during the case and in court. Beamish wasn’t treated as equal to others, as especially during that time he was seen as less than human due to him being labelled as “deaf and dumb” (the term given to those who were physically or mentally impaired like being deaf or blind, during the time of the case). People who were labelled as “deaf and dumb” were usually seen as people who are most likely to commit serious crimes as they are thought to not truly understand the concept of right and wrong.
CONCLUSION
Both this case and the trial of Darryl Beamish are some of the most monumental and affecting miscarriages of justice throughout Australian history, and I believe that both had a huge negative effect on the fairness and equality represented in the Australian legal system and in the overall representation and professionalism of the Perth police force. Overall this case will forever be cemented as a huge misconduct and miscarriage in the Australian legal and law enforcement systems and would always throw shade onto the reliability of both systems.
Don’t feel like reading or want to learn more here’s a podcast series on the Darryl Beamish case and John Button case.
WARNING: THE PODCAST CONTAINS SENSITIVE MATERIAL INCLUDING: OFFENSES AGAINST CHILDREN, MURDER, AND VIOLENCE)
part 1:
part 2:
If the podcasts weren’t enough and you want to read some more on the topic here are some books you might want to read:
“”Broken Lives,” Estelle Blackburn (Stellar Publishing (Australia) 1998) and Christian, Bret. (2013). Presumed guilty : when cops get it wrong and courts seal the deal. Richmond, Victoria : Hardie Grant Books
In innovated we did 20 dollar boss it is a project where groups of 2, 3, or 4 innovate and design products which they would sell at the in-school market. We had to use many different skills like leadership, innovation and design in this project. we also had to be very time observant and understanding on how long it would take.
In this project, I was in a group with my friends Simba, Charlie, Max, and me. In our group we had many different roles, I was the exel and money person, charlie was the leader, Simba was the designer, and Max was the form filler.
THE JOURNEY
In week one we thought of and tried to make an original idea. Originally we came up with the idea of doing smelly stickers which were scratched in week 2 as we did not see a way in which we could make the products and how we are going to sell them. Next, we came up with the idea of the keychains by basically just brainstorming in weeks 2 and 3. We kept the keychain’s idea until the market. In weeks 4 and 5 we made the excel spreadsheets and the design that we are going to use for the keychains. In week 6 we started planning the table design and we drew more designs. In weeks 7 and 8 we finished up all of the table designs and the designs for the keychains. then week 9 was the market. Unfortunately before the market day, we only made one of each letter for the plastic and wood letter keychains which created problems on the day.
MARKET DAY
On the day all of my group members were early to set up our table. On the day we did not sell out unfortunately but we did sell most of our products and we made a profit. We ran into problems on the day, they were mainly the fact that we only made one of each letter in plastic and wood, it was a problem because people kept asking for a letter that we sold out of.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the project went pretty well, but we did not do as well as first thought. It would have been better if we used our time better and if we spent more time on the development of the product as it created some problems with selling. If I was to give advice to someone starting this project I would say that they have to use their time effectively, talk to their group for every step, to make a prototype about two weeks before the actual market so you can get it checked by the teachers, and to make a step by step guide on what you are going to do each week to help you manage your time.
At ASC (All Saints College) in Term 2, my year (year 7) started Project Utopia in Innovat[ED] class. For Project Utopia we as students were given the task to create a fully sustainable and self-functional Utopia that can house people in the future if global warming gets worse and worse to the point where our normal cities get unhabitable.
Building up to Project Utopia, we completed the following:
1.We read the book called The Giver by Lois Lowry that had a city that claimed to be a perfect utopia but later in the book it was revealed that the so-called “perfect” utopia had so many flaws which helped us by seeing how not to make a utopia and what to not do.
2.We also did a project in science which was called the sustainable house project in In this project, we research ways/ strategies to make a fully sustainable house then we made a real-life model of our house and labelled all the strategies/things that made our house sustainable.
3.Also we researched how to make something more liveable and we researched the liveability factors which helped us find out how to make a place more enjoyable and more liveable.
4. We also created a constitution for our utopia using the Australian constitution as an example while creating our constitution we ran into a lot of problems like- it was too much like the Australian constitution.
After we finished those three things we started project utopia, we were told that project utopia was going to take a whole term to complete which was a surprise as most of the projects that we do finish after a week or 2 from being assigned. During the utopia assessment, we learned things like how to make a constitution, how to govern a city and how to make a completely sustainable utopia.
We had to create either a physical model or a digital model of our utopia my group decided to do a digital model. As I reflect on the progress that we made each week leading up to the presenting day I notice that to perfect our utopia we had to fail and make mistakes as Arianna Huffington said “failure is not the opposite of success it is a part of success.” Some of the ways that we failed were that we kept putting things into the model that would not work, like the dome on the turtle was too small and that meant that our character could not fit in the dome.
How does this affect the real world? you may ask, the way we connected this to the real world is that we had to make our utopia to appeal to the UN global goals so our utopia is really a perfect society.
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In the last week of the utopia assessment, everyone was quite nervous, and some people were even panicking because on that Friday we would have to present our utopia assessment to my peer’s families, my own family while being watched by teachers who are grading you on how you present.
Overall I think that I did well in this assessment because when I was presenting I did not have to look at my script and I did not stutter or mess up during presenting. by the end of it I was quite happy about how I presented and I think that the marks I was given I deserve.
