Dear P and F Committee, 

Thank you to Mrs Harb and St Patrick’s P and F for funding our trip to the steelworks. It was very exciting! Over the course of 3 hours, we climbed stairs to see the blast furnace, visited the hot strip mill, and even went past the harbour. The most fascinating part was when a huge metal container dumped a gigantic load of scrap steel, along with red-hot liquid iron into a massive blast furnace. It glowed bright orange as sparks spilled out like fireworks! Watching it all from a distance was more than close enough to feel the heat radiating. It was breathtaking! 

We also learnt some very interesting facts about the amazing process of making steel. Incredibly, a bar of steel that is 12 metres long and 0.23 m thick can be reheated and fed through a series of rollers to stretch it as far as 1000m long and 1-3 mm in thickness! They make 20 coils each, worth around $50 000 on average every hour. This trip taught us so much about how iron oxide, oxygen and carbon are all part of the steel making process. Thank you so much P and F.

Kind regards

Leena Carolan - Year 5

Dear P & F Committee,

I am writing to thank Mrs Harb and the St Patrick's P & F committee for your generous contribution to fund our excursion to the Steelworks Industry Tour on Monday 18th September 2023. The excursion was a wonderful learning opportunity for Year 5 and 6. It was great to see a local industry producing local materials that are used around the world for things such as cars. It was quite interesting to see how steel is made, to see how scrap metal and molten iron come together to make steel. The excursion enhanced our knowledge. The tour guide was very informative about the industry, and how it works. I also enjoyed interacting with fellow peers and teachers in a different setting. I believe that future classes to come will also benefit from an immersive excursion like the Steelworks Industry Tour.

Thank you again for the committee’s hard work in fundraising for our school community, and its involvement.

Kind regards

Sean Timbs - Year 5