Principal's Report

Dear O'Connor Community,

I would like to welcome you back to Term 2. It has been a fantastic start to Term 2 for our community in our focus areas of Faith, Innovation and Care. 

Faith

During the school holidays our Leadership Team attended the Asia Pacific Lasallian Educators Conference (APLEC11) at Mary MacKillop Place in North Sydney. This was a wonderful time to reconnect with our Lasallian traditions as well as catch up with past Principals, students and staff. The focus of the conference was 'A new legacy for a new time'. This theme sits well with us as we reimagine our College in this post pandemic era.

On ANZAC Day our students were so impressive at the various services in our region. We are so proud of the students who gave up their time at the Dawn Service, marching in the parades and at the services. It is an important time for our community especially as we remember our past students who were/are involved in conflicts and wars. 

Innovation

On the first day of this term our staff came together for a professional learning day. Our pedagogy (teaching) focus this year is on co-teaching, co-planning and co-evaluating. It is so important that we model collaboration for our students and the benefits it has in the classroom. Mrs Lauren Donnelly has been instrumental in developing this professional learning and leading our College in this focus. 

Your children will see the changes in terms of paired classes situated next to each other. The classwork is developed by a team of teachers for all students. This allows students to attend masterclasses within their class for extension or support. The opportunities to create and innovate our student's learning is exciting. We look forward to sharing this with you.  

Student Led Conferences for Years 7 to 10 were on this week. It was great to see so many students and their parents over the last three evenings. The conferences allowed students and parents to speak with their subject teachers about their learning. I was so impressed with the way students spoke about their strengths and next steps. The timing of the conferences was to ensure parents were given timely feedback on their child's learning. We listened to your feedback on the school reports and the desire to have greater opportunity to speak with teachers. We hope that the conferences have reinforced the value of our partnership.

I would like to thank all the parents who came to the evenings and the feedback you gave. We will be using this feedback for our conferences next year. Please know that the Semester 1 Reports will be issued at the end of the term. They will be a summary of the Learning that has occured. The feedback you received over the last few days is in place of the comments.

Care

Reawakening our sense of community is so important post pandemic. The Year 12 College Leaders have been instrumental in providing leadership to our younger students. This was evident in our Autumn Festival and Holy Thursday activities in Term 1 as well as our participation ANZAC services. We are so proud of their leadership of our College.

At our ANZAC service this week we commissioned our Student Representative Council members. These students are the voice of each year group and are supported by the College leaders. Our SRC have already improved the Commendation scheme so that students who display the values of our College are celebrated appropriately. 

Our Year 7 representatives have asked for new bubblers on the Angela building. We are waiting on the new bubblers to be installed as this is a great idea to improve our school as well as being water wise. I am truly impressed at the ideas and focus on action of our SRC students. I look forward to seeing the changes they make to our school.

Thank you - Mr Anthony Smith

This year we said a heartfelt farewell to Mr Anthony Smith from our School Advisory Council. Anthony has worked with us over many years and we appreciate his commitment and unwavering support of our College. Anthony's last child completed Year 12 in 2022 and while his association with our College has changed, he will always be a valued member of our community.

Thank you Anthony we are grateful for your advice and support.    

Updates

New building - Our new building is coming along. You will see some photographs from our walk through this week. We are looking forward to having these new spaces for Music and PDHPE.

Maintenance - We have had a big holiday program with the completion of the roof replacement work. The Angela garden has been given some much needed renovations with new capping.  

Our Fingleton Gates have been cleaned and are being painted this week. It will be lovely to see them restored again. 

Save the Date - Founder's Day is on Friday 30th June. More information to come.

God Bless,

Mrs Clare Healy

Principal