Student Work

Some reflections from our Year 6 Confirmation candidates-

This term the year 6 students have been preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation. As preparation, students were tasked with researching a saint that they felt aligned with. The students would then take on this saint’s name as their Confirmation name. For those students who were not receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation they researched a spirit-filled person, someone who had demonstrated traits of the Holy Spirit in their actions and their values. To conclude this unit students delivered oral presentations, showcasing their research and what they had learnt about their saint/spirit-filled person and how they aligned with them.

Kaitlyn - My presentation was on a spirit-filled person instead of a saint because I’m not catholic. A spirit-filled person is a person that followed Jesus’ steps in some way. My spirit-filled person was Florence Nightingale. I learnt about someone that I didn't know. I chose Florence Nightingale because as soon as I saw her name I thought she was interesting. I learnt that Florence Nightingale was a person that made nursing a popular role for women. The main thing that stood out to me was that Florence Nightingale was a nurse in the Crimean War. She would always care for her patients even at night. That’s why the symbol I put in the presentation was a lamp. I believe Florence Nightingale is a spirit-filled person because no matter what she would always tend to her patients. The presentation went really well. The information that I put in was good but I probably could’ve done some more editing. The project was really fun to work on and I really liked researching Florence Nightingale.

Jacob - My presentation was on a Holy Saint. The saint I picked was Saint Luigi Scorosoppi. I chose him because he was an amazing person and Lugi was the patron saint of soccer. I learnt that Saint Luigi was a priest and took some of the same paths as Jesus Christ. With the saint we picked (mine being Luigi) we had to make a presentation on them. We worked on this for about 5 weeks. In my slides the main thing I took out of writing and researching about Saint Luigi was that he really was an amazing person, he had a joy of helping and  caring for children, he encouraged them to play sports, especially soccer because he loved soccer as a kid. It was really fun making my presentation. Also as being a Confirmation Candidate we had to pick our sponsor, a sponsor is a good catholic example for the candidate i pick my older cousin because i really look up to him.I really enjoyed learning about Saint Luigi because I made so many connections with him. When I presented my ‘hard worked on’ slideshow to the whole class I reckon I did pretty good with all the info and facts in my slides. But something I could have done better was to practise and revise reading over my work before I presented it.  I was so glad that as a year 6 student from Holy Family school I could work on such a cool project, that not every school would be so fortunate to do.

Sophie - My presentation was on a Saint. The Saint I chose was Saint Catherine of Siena and I chose her because I thought she was a good person to look up to and I thought we had a lot in common. I learnt that she had visions with God and also received the stigmata which is the wounds of when Jesus was crucified. We had a couple of weeks to prepare our slide show and choose a saint. My favourite thing that I learnt about Saint Catherine was that she was a nurse and helped the homeless, who were sick but could not pay for medicine which a very generous thing to do. When I am older I want to be a nurse and the saint that I chose was a nurse which I think was a good connection. Saint Catherine once had a vision and saw that the Pope (at the time) needed to come back to Italy from France to bring peace. She wrote many letters to him and even went to France just to talk to him and she did not give up. After begging for more than a month Pope Gregory the 11th finally came back to Italy and brought peace. Another reason why I think that me and Saint Catherine are very similar is that she was involved in political affairs which is a subject I like to learn about. Her symbol is a white lily and in religious art she is usually seen with it. We also had to choose a sponsor. A sponsor is someone over 16 years old that the candidate needs to choose as a part of confirmation. The sponsor that I chose was my older sister. At confirmation Bishop Tinh put an oil chrism on our foreheads and he said my confirmation name/ the saint I chose and then blessed me. We learnt that Confirmation means confirming and saying yes to the holy spirit and a catholic life. We also learnt about the gifts of the holy spirit and the fruits of the spirit. 

Victor - My slideshow was about a spirit-filled person. I made my presentation about a deaf-blind person called Hellen Keller.  I chose Helen as soon as I did a tiny bit of research because I saw that she never gave up on her goals and never tried to do anything selfish, as a matter of fact she dedicated her whole life to helping others and spreading the word of god. She also had excellent determination and Helen always tried hard to change the world and that's why I look up to her. Since I was very young I loved how other people had lots of determination, so as soon as I saw Helen Keller’s courage I felt that she was a great person and was my number one choice. In fact when I was thinking about what a prayer I really envisioned how much resolve Helen had. She was deaf and blind, but she still kept on going. I think that this presentation was really meaningful to me and I would love to do something like this again. All in all Helen was an extraordinary and a brilliant individual.