Pastoral Academic Care
PAC
Pastoral Academic Care (PAC) Focus
This week’s Pastoral Academic Care focus is VALUING AND ORGANISING TIME
Wellbeing Element: MEANING AND PURPOSE
Character Strength: JUDGEMENT
Wellbeing Fitness Challenge: OTHERS MATTER
Wellbeing Reflection Activities: Middle – VALUING AND ORGANISING TIME,
Parent Wellbeing: Social-emotional resilience is made up of optimism and hope for the future, regulating emotions, controlling impulses, thinking flexibly, having empathy, self-belief and building social connectedness. What does each mean to you? (Acknowledgement: Reivich and Shatte)
Many students believe they ‘have their acts together’ and don’t need to organise their time in a structured way. The reality for most of them is the exact opposite. Making the choice to create a timetable of their commitments and responsibilities will actually provide them with more time to do what they want to do and sticking to it will also build their resilience to distractions.
After living by their timetables for three weeks, they will realise themselves how it is making their lives better. Doing this requires deliberate practice and a sustained effort which will create patterns for their brains to tune into.
The self-regulation strength encourages students to take greater ownership of their learning progress, because their Personal Timetable is a contract with themselves. They develop a sense of meaning and purpose for being at school, which will actually provide them with more time for themselves by reducing “nothing time” between activities.
The Timetables (see student diary) show the suggested number of weekly Home Learning/ Study Sessions for each year level.
Use the teamwork and leadership strengths at home to help students stick to their timetable. A good strategy is to place a copy on the fridge.
Year 7
Year 7
Year 7 are settling in well at O’Connor and are already displaying a focus on their learning. Already year 7 have been receiving commendation awards for a range of reasons such as assisting in masses, focusing on and application towards their learning and many others.
Congratulations to those students who have both participated in the the swimming carnival and received an award, a photo has been attached of students who received awards at O’Connor’s swimming carnival. Good luck for the diocesan swimming carnival in Moree.
Clean Up Australia Day is this week on the 3rd of March. Year 7 are ensuring they can be involved in such a great initiative to make a difference to our local environment by cleaning up around the school on Friday the 29th of February. The appeal of Clean Up the World has demonstrated that this simple Australian idea has universal appeal and the health of the environment is of concern to people and communities worldwide. Over the past three decades Clean Up Australia has evolved into an organisation that works with the community, government and business to provide practical solutions to help us all live more sustainably every day of the year. Congratulations to Year 7 for being involved in helping to keep Armidale a clean and sustainable environment. Let’s see if we can make every day ‘Clean Up Australia Day’. If you would like to be involved or would like more information about the event please visit https://www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au/
Another congratulation to Year 7 for their participation in mass on Wednesday. Students were reverent and respectful. What a beautiful way to start a Wednesday. A huge shout out to those students involved in reading, serving and other responsibilities around the mass well done.
Some reminders for parents and carers. Our deposit for camp is now overdue and permission notes should have been handed in. If you have not yet handed in forms please do so as soon as possible as no student can attend camp without handing in their permission and medical form. Why are we going on camp? To build self confidence and self esteem through taking on and conquering challenges. To learn and develop co-operative skill through working with others.To get to know each other and build new friendships. Camp is a compulsory event if you need any assistance with completing forms or require any further information please contact ykreuzen@arm.catholic.edu.au.
Some exciting news about our Yearly focus (Strength in Kindness). Our Leader of Pedagogy, Mrs Simpson came across the song A.O.K (Acts Of Kindness) by Adrian Eagle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FMQLTK4EIw and recommended I listen to the song. This song fits perfectly with our year focus and our pastoral team is so excited to listen to this song with Year 7 and maybe even create a short dance to the song. Listen to the song with your children and discuss the messages of the song. Alongside with this Year 7 are sprinkling kindness this week by creating kindness donuts in our pastoral period. Ask your children about this and discuss with them how they are going to sprinkle kindness this week.
Yolanda Kreuzen
Yr 7 PAC Leader
Year 8
Welcome to the halfway point of Term One, Year 8. You have all done very well settling into your new classes and making some new friendships.
Good luck next weekend to all those students who are representing the school at the Armidale Show and well done to all of the students who have won medals for picking vegetables, showing cattle, and judging animals at the other local shows.
First Term is always huge sporting wise, congratulations to all of the swimming age champions and good luck to everyone taking part in the Dio Swimming Carnival in week 7 - remember the black line will show you the way. We also have a few students representing O’Connor at the League Tag Gala Day and Netball, later in the term so wish them well as they prepare.
Ash Wednesday is a time for reflection and repentance and sees the whole school joining together to observe the first day of Lent in the Chapel. I hope Year 8 can continue to display the wonderful behaviour they have demonstrated so far during whole school masses.
Again, I am looking forward to working with you all this year.
Lloyd Honnery.
8 PAC
Year 9
The vast majority of students have settled well into their classes and are displaying good learning habits. This is reflected by a record number of Commendation Certificates being distributed this past fortnight.
Don’t forget the Year 9 Parent Information evening on Monday 4th March commencing at 6:00pm in AG 4/5. We look forward to seeing you there. The PAC team will be available for a brief chat with you afterwards.
Also fast approaching is the Year 9 camp. 25th, 26th, 27th March. It is important for you to have permission notes returned and online registrations completed by March 4th. If you do not have copies of these, please ask your child to ask for another one or you can ask via email. This is a compulsory event and, despite the lack of water, a good time and some serious bonding is assured.
Our focus for this week’s Pastoral lesson is the role of Gratitude in Relationships (smiling and saying thank you costs nothing and is infectious), Thinking about Thinking (give your brain a few extra seconds to engage before you open your mouth to comment) and some self-calming breathing techniques (deep breathing is relaxing and stress relieving).
During the next week I will be sending an email to every Year 9 student with a link to a NAPLAN (numeracy) practise resource I have developed. It takes the form of a series of digital self-marking quizzes that can be undertaken multiple times. Ask your child to show you how it works. Are you smarter than a ninth grader?
Thanks for your ongoing support.
Peter McLeish
Year 9 PAC Leader
(on behalf of the Year 9 Pastoral Academic Care team)
Year 10
Year 10 should now be settled into their work and studies for this term. I have the opportunity to talk to many of the students about their subject choices and core classes and I have mostly been received positive feedback from them.
I hope this continues with the upcoming Parent/Carers information night on Tuesday the 5th March 6.00pm in AG4/5. The purpose of the evening is to discuss NESA minimum standards, work experience and subject selections for students continuing into year 11 next year.
Also a congratulations to all year 10 students who participated in the swimming carnival and those who won age champions and runner up awards. Also I was impressed to see that commendation cards are starting to be awarded to students for both community service and academic commitment. I would like to see this continue throughout the rest of this term and the year.
Mark Fulloon
Year 10 PAC Leader
Year 11
A big thank you to all of the parents/carers and students who attended the information and assessment evening on Monday 18th February. The night provided some important details on the formal side of Year 11 studies and was facilitated by Mr Mitch Smidt. If you have any questions regarding the complexities of this, please do not hesitate to contact us at school.
Youth Mass was celebrated on Sunday 25th February, and it was great to see many of our Year 11 students there. The LYL badges were blessed by Father Roel and were distributed to the students who were present. As a Lasallian Youth Leader, students have committed to being role models for our junior students, setting good examples for all. They work with our Year 7 and 8 PAC classes on a Friday, playing games, doing prayer and notices, and generally getting to know the students. There has already been much interaction and assistance given to our younger cohorts by many of our LYL’s and this is wonderful to see.
We also celebrate on the sporting arena this week. Nathan Czinner and Jake McCann came away as being named ‘Joint Players of the season for NSW Indoor Hockey’. An amazing achievement by both boys. Nathan also received a NSW CCC Half Blue for his ‘Contribution to Hockey’. He is off to Europe.
Tori Brazier is in the final round of the selection process to be
chosen in the northern eagles squad for touch football. Congratulations Tori.
Emily Meehan and Olive Tutt competed in the recent mountain bike challenge in Armidale. Olive came 1st in the Under 17 and Emily Meehan came 4th. Well done girls.
Our PAC period on Friday will be looking at collaboration in order to achieve success. Activities based on working together as a cohort will be explored. Organisation will play a key role in the success of our students and their ability to cope with school work, assessments, part-time work and family, sporting, social commitments. We will look at a weekly planner to endeavour to assist with this dilemma. Please remember that teachers are here to help you and you need to reach out if your are struggling. There are many people who can help you in these situations before they get out of hand.
Socially, I would encourage all of Year 11 to be kind and thoughtful in their relationships. I often ask the question ‘“How do you wish to be remembered”? Someone who gives of their time and concern for others?? Or someone who ignores, ridicules, lacks empathy towards others?? Have a think about this.
Just a reminder that students need to check emails and google classroom for important information, as well as for class work. It is an important form of communication.
We celebrated several birthdays this week at our student briefing, as well as some commendations and certificates for swimming achievements. Well done to all of those students who are working well and trying their best to focus on the learning.
Vicki Channon
Year 11 PAC Leader
Year 12
Yr 12 continue to motor along as a Year Group and are applying strong effort towards gains in their learning. A number of assessment tasks are approaching and the year is in full swing now with many demands placed upon students both in and outside of the school. For these reasons we are focusing on managing our time well and maintaining a balance between work, study, exercise and relaxation (hopefully somewhere in there we can also manage to get some sleep). Students have been encouraged to draw up a personal schedule for their time outside of school and to look at each of these aspects carefully and consider where they may need to make some changes. This process is extremely important in students achieving their potential in learning, but also in enjoying and a healthy, happy and fulfilled life.
On Tuesday the 25th of March we were fortunate enough to have the University Roadshow at the College. Students listened to a very informative and engaging presentation about the process of applying for university, life as a student and the benefits of tertiary study. They were then provided opportunity to chat with students from a range of regional universities to discuss their questions and concerns around university and to look at options for study. This was an extremely worthwhile presentation with some excellent information. I encourage all students and their families to engage in discussion around potential pathways for students beyond school. If you ever have any questions or concerns please contact me to discuss them. Thanks to Mrs Lemon for organising this excellent presentation.
James Russell
Yr 12 PAC Leader