KLA News

CAPA

Miss Mellita Roache

Music

Spotlight Student: Grace Pett and Chelsea Curry - Foundation Instrumental Scholarships

Scholarships are available to Year 7-8 Students to learn a range of instruments.

Scholarships include:

Free instrument hire
All music and learning materials
Weekly lessons with a teacher at a reduced cost
Participation in school ensembles and bands

For more information please contact the school.

Spotlight Ensemble: Jazz Band

Jazz Band started rehearsals again last week, with Year 10 students Max Buckland (piano), Sam Russell (bass), John Harris (drums), Liam Nillesen (guitar) and Corin Cowley (clarinet). The aim of this ensemble is to extend students' skills on their own instruments as well as learning how to improvise. We will be looking at a combination of traditional Jazz pieces and putting a ‘jazz twist’ on some modern pop songs.

Ensemble Program

We are in the process of revamping our co-curricular music programme along with offering instrumental tuition. We are looking forward to restarting our regular ensembles such as, vocal ensemble and Jazz band along with some exciting new ensembles/ clubs once covid restrictions ease. More information about these ensembles and instrumental tuition will be released shortly.

AROUND THE CLASSROOMS: Our Year 8 students making music this week.

Drama club

Drama club is up and running again for 2022! Nick and myself (Miss Plane) are excited to meet all the new faces swirling around O’Connor. This is a great opportunity for anyone to get involved with drama. Through terms 1, 3 and 4 the focus is on making students confident, skilful and happy people with the use of drama games that help develop and improve these skills. Term 2 sees the club shift focus and work on the Armidale eisteddfod, this is a chance for students of all ability level to show their talent to another audience and work on rehearsed pieces but also compete in “space jump” (a fan favourite).

However, the most important thing about drama club is even if you’ve done it a thousand times before or never you are always welcome and don’t always have to participate, having an audience is just as important. Listen out to the notices each Wednesday to find out where and when we are on!

Arts Captains Reports

Creator of the Month is a new concept O’Connor’s Arts Captains created. It is based off of ‘Artist of the month’ except, alongside the 2022 theme CREATE, they want to award a wider variety of creativity. This includes Design and Technology, poetry in English, metal tech creations and year 12 major works.

Mia Brotherson-Moffitt and Lauren Fenton (O’Connor Arts Captains) want to award students and their creations that more often than not go unrecognized.

This week's creators are Abby Van Eyk for placing second and third in Fleece Judging. And Anna McClelland for being a finalist in Junior Cattle Judging. Although these great achievements aren’t typically considered creative, I’d say you’d have to master the art in order to place so highly! Well done you two.

School of Rock Update!

Covid can’t stop us! As we await information of when we can get back to rehearsals, the creative team have been working hard behind the scenes, and students have been continuing to learn lines.

Some shots from our Term 5 Rehearsal 2021. We are all very excited to come together again.

English

This term, the English Department has begun a monthly writing competition for each year level. This provides students with the opportunity to write with purpose and to have their polished work published. Each year level has been provided with a prompt that focuses on the units that they have been studying this term.

Competition Poster

PDHPE

Ms Camilla Clydsdale

This Term the PDHPE Department has been fortunate to have Micah Scholes-Robertson as a Prac Student for 3 weeks. Micah has been shadowing teachers from the PDHPE department and teaching classes from 7-10. Micah is currently studying to become a PDHPE Teacher at the Australian College of Physical Education (ACPE) in Sydney. Micah is an ex-PDHPE student and former College Captain and the department is very proud to have him return to where it all began. We wish Micah all the best for the rest of his practicum at the College and the final two years of his degree!

Camilla Clydsdale

Leader of Learning PDHPE

LEARNING THE ROPES: Mr Scholes-Robertson with Mrs Mellowship's Year 7 PDHPE Class on Tuesday.

CHASING THEM DOWN: Mrs Magann and Mrs Moffitt's Year 10 PDHPE were out playing basketball and touch football last Friday.

SHOOTING HOOPS: Mrs Magann and Mrs Moffitt's Year 10 PDHPE were out playing basketball and touch football last Friday.

CIRCUIT TRAINING: Ms Clysdale's Year 8 PDHPE was taken through their paces last Friday at a variety of fitness stations.

Science

Mrs Lilly Moar and Mr Daniel Fittler

CHEMISTRY IN ACTION: Mr Power's Year 12 Chemistry class was hard at work on Tuesday.

AROUND THE SCIENCE LABS: It was a week of experiments this week in the laboratories. Thanks Mrs Brown our Lab Assistant for getting them all prepared!

Models in Science

Science seeks to create simple descriptions of and explanations for our complex world and ust as the model cars or trains or planes you had as a child helped you visualise the larger versions, models are often used in Science as a tool to enhance the learning of our students. They play an important role in students being able to gain a concrete understanding of conceptual processes such as The Particle Model and Cell Membranes and electric motors.

The goal of using models is to make the thing or process that you are learning about easier to understand.

Year 7 have been using themselves as models to help explain the movement and behaviour of particles in solids, liquids and gases.

CHANGE OF STATE: Mrs Moar's class 7.4 modelling what happens when elements change.

In Year 8, students expand upon the particle model by looking at methods of heat transfer. They have begun learning about conduction (the vibration of particles ‘passing’ heat to other nearby particles by bumping into them) and convection (swirling currents that depend on the differing densities throughout a fluid) and how the movement of particles transfers heat. Below you can see students in Mr Fittler and Mrs Healy’s year 8 science class learning about radiant heat transfer and how different colours can be used to change how quickly that object heats up.

COLOUR AND HEAT: Which colour tube heats the fastest? Mrs Healy's science class found It was a race between clear and black.

In our senior classes, students are making models to represent how small things that are difficult to see, can’t be seen (only inferred through experimental evidence) or have moving mechanisms that are key to how a process works.

Year 12 Physics students produce model electric motors that actually work and demonstrate the motor effect (the effect that a wire with an electric current passing through it, will experience a force). Although these motors work, they are not strong enough to do useful work. The process of making the motor provides students with lots of opportunities to problem solve and figure out how to get their motor to work, thus deepening their understanding. As students make their electric motors they have to produce a video in which they “explain to their youtube audience” the parts of a motor and how the motor works. Below is a video from past Year 12 Student Ruth Toakley.

In Biology our students are using paper based models to represent cell membranes and the complex processes that occur in every cell of our body every single day. Using models has given students a concrete example to physically manipulate the important processes of cells that keep us alive. (insert photo of cell models with students)