Department News

The Art Department

The HSC Visual Arts Exam took place on Thursday 30 October. For many of our girls, this was their final exam before a very well-earned rest. We are pleased to report that many of the practical works have returned from marking and are now available for pickup from the art rooms during school hours. We have no doubt that all the hard work, perseverance, and practice have paid off!

While it's the end of the road for our graduating Year 12 students, our new Year 12s (Class of 2026) are enthusiastically commencing their Body of Work journey under the guidance of Mr Adam Gant. Students are currently immersed in crucial research into influential artists and are experimenting with different media as they navigate this key decision-making phase. We wish this group all the very best for the challenging year ahead.

Over the course of Term 3, Year 10 Visual Arts investigated the historical and technical conventions of photographic and digital art. They created miniature ‘mise en scène’ using careful lighting and object placement, developing proficiency with DSLR cameras and editing software like Adobe Photoshop.

This term, our Year 10 Photography and Digital Media students have been focusing on postmodern approaches to truth, narrative, and identity in photography. Drawing inspiration from City of Shadows (Police Forensic Photography 1912-1948), students are exploring the various uses of photography in both documentation and artmaking, critically challenging assumptions about photographic truth.

Year 9 photographers have just completed an in-depth study of artist and photographer David Hockney and his unique photomontage process. Students created their own Hockney-inspired physical photomontages, experimenting with perspective, time, and narrative through the use of multiple images.

Year 8 students have been engaged in Ceramics, carefully applying glaze to the surface of their amazing animal sculptures before their final firing. All of these pieces have been created to a high standard. Students thoughtfully considered the form and function of their ceramic vessels and made careful selections in their choice of colour and decorated surface.

Year 7 students continue exploring a variety of artists and artworks in relation to their local environment and their place within it. Using the College and The Spot as inspiration, students have created a series of small-scale drawings around the school grounds and technical perspective drawings, developing unique visual responses that represent both themselves and the world they inhabit.

Upcoming Event: Save the Date!

The Years 7-11 Art and Music Showcase is scheduled to take place on Friday 28 November. Many of the wonderful works produced by our girls will be on display. Please save the date in your calendar and keep an eye out for the invitation in the coming weeks.

On behalf of Ms Melissa Nutter and the Visual Arts Department, we wish all our students a creative and productive Term 4!

Vince Papa 

Acting Head of Visual Arts

The Drama Department

The rules of improvisation apply beautifully to life. Never say no - you have to be interested to be interesting, and your job is to support your partners. - Scott Adsit 

Term 4 continues to be an active and creative time for the Drama faculty both in the classroom and the extracurricular activities that our students passionately dive into! The year might be wrapping up, but our Drama girls are certainly not slowing down. 

Year 12

Whilst our lovely Year 12’s have finished up, I’d like to share the exciting news that Romalie McGrail’s individual project Video Drama ‘The Weight of Water’ was selected for the Sydney Catholic Schools showcase. Romalie’s project will be viewed in the upcoming showcase and shared virtually for all SCS students as a model of a great IP!

TheatreSports

Our Junior TheatreSports team competed in the Schools TheatreSports competition for the first time, an on-the-spot improvisation of various drama games. They’ve completed the first round of heats coming inat 3rd Place! Next up is the semi finals. Chookas to Isabelle Edwards (Year 8), Anais Motreff (Year 8), Niamh O’Leary (Year 7), Saoirse Palmer (Year 8) and Aerlia Rositano (Year 8) for their truly impressive dedication and efforts. Parents and students are advised to keep an eye out for enrolments in Term 1 TheatreSports during Thursday sport. Ms Tayla Whiteman will send out a form to gain expressions of interest.

Drama Club - Alice's Path in Wonderland

Brigidine Drama Club has our end of year production coming up, ‘Alice's Path in Wonderland’. The whole club from Year 8 through to Year 11 have been enthusiastically rehearsing lines, practising movements, designing costumes, props, set and advertisement. Tickets will be available soon through TryBooking.  

Excellent work to all of our Drama students and extracurricular participants this year, what a busy and fulfilling one it has been!

Check out the absolutely incredible student team promotional work of Clarissa Suryawijaya, Lucy Marshan and Taylor Conquest…with more to come soon! 👀

Stage 5 Drama

Our Stage 5 9/10 Drama class has been working on their devised Commedia dell’arte performances, ending the unit with a fun mask-making activity. They now round off the year by rounding off their Drama skills, writing evocative and analytical Theatre Reviews in the exam block period. Luckily they’ll stay nice and cool reviewing the icy musical production of “Frozen”. Good luck girls! 

Year 11

Year 11 have finished their preliminary year and embarked on their official HSC journey! Keep an eye on them as they start researching and developing their Individual Projects and exploring Contemporary Australian Texts, starting off strong as they work as actors and designers for the musical ‘Fangirls’ by Yve Blake and acclaimed Australian play ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ by Lally Katz.

Tayla Whiteman

Teacher-In-Charge Drama

The English Department

Getting Personal with Shakespeare!

What does Shakespeare have to do with me? A question posed by many students at one time or the other. The English Department is here to tell you that Shakespeare has in fact a lot to do with 21st century students. Our Year 8, 9, 10 and 11 students all had one thing in common in Term 3. They were brave, honest and ready to find out why Shakespeare is relevant to us today. 

The characters in Shakespeare are like you or me, even though they may be kings, queens or noblemen and women. They are fallible in many ways, like Macbeth, who comes to grief because of ambition, or Othello, who struggles with his insecurities. Our girls have learned that one of the reasons that Shakespeare is said to be a writer of "timeless" literature is that his topics and, especially his characters, speak to a modern audience just as forcefully as they did when his work was performed in front of a Renaissance audience. Whilst Shakespeare most likely did not envision his works as fodder for high school, English classes or inmates in distant centuries, he has become a man of not only his time but also ours. 

Through integrating moments of performance, critical interpretation and analytical writing, students’ cultural and literary knowledge was enriched. Performances from Bell Shakespeare’s Players and Sport For Jove’s Symposium at The Seymour Centre helped bring the stories of Shakespeare’s men and women to life. The language is so dense, so rich that students often find the first couple of Acts difficult. Not because the language is archaic, but because it is semantically dense. They end up reading the lines over and over. But like anything else, time and effort bring an understanding. The students go into reading Shakespeare’s plays because they are required to, but they end up enjoying it. 

“Who will believe my verse in time to come,

If it were filled with your most high deserts?

Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb

Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.”

Sonnet 17

Storytelling: It’s In Her Blood

We are tremendously proud of Kayla Brydon in Year 11 who was the national winner of the Beyond Words: First Nations Category for her story ‘Dust in my Blood’. The competition, run by Dymocks Bookstores is open to young story writers across the country and this year, the competition attracted over 3500 entries. 

Kayla’s story was originally written for part of her English coursework in the Reading to Write course in Year 11. She chose to revise, edit and enter her story following encouragement from her teacher, and on October 12 was chosen by a panel of highly successful writers including Jackie French, Luke Patterson, James Roy and Will Kotsakis as the winner of her chosen category. As an open competition with a significant prize pool it attracts many entries from across the country. Kayla’s success is a remarkable and well-deserved achievement. In addition to her prize winnings, her story has been published in an anthology with other winners and those Long-Listed writers. Congratulations Kayla and we look forward to seeing your voice continue to grow and share your stories. 

 

Dust in my Blood - Kayla Brydon

The dust of Gunnedah wraps itself around me like the hand of the past, sticky, heavy, a constant weight. It clings to my skin, digs into my lungs, every breath an effort, as though the earth doesn’t want me to forget it.

My feet sink into the dry ground, the cracks running deep like the secrets buried here, the stories of my ancestors that the land keeps for itself, only to whisper when it’s ready. The wilga tree above moans, its leaves rustling like the voice of someone long gone, a sound that speaks of things I don’t fully understand, but feel in my bones.

The cicadas screech is sharp, relentless, a warning I can’t ignore, no matter how far I’ve come. The earth bites back, as it always does.

I thought I could leave. I thought the city would be a new start, that I could outrun this place, outrun the dirt that runs through my veins.

But you can’t run from your past. Can’t escape what’s in you. I feel it now heavy, pressing down on my chest, choking me. The land never forgets.

The wind stirs, the echoes of ancestors long gone. They speak to me in dreams, their voices soft but firm, urging me to return to what I’ve tried to leave behind.

But it’s not just the land. It’s the people. The blood that runs too dark for some, too light for others. It’s a curse and a blessing. It’s me.

Maliyan watches from above, its eyes unblinking, the eagle a symbol of strength, of survival.

My Miimii’s voice hums softly in the back of my mind. Walanbaa yinarr, she would say. Strong women. My Grandmother’s words rose, a song etched deep in my bones.

I can almost hear her now as I weave, my hands twisting and pulling the stiff fibres. Under. Over. Twist. Pull.

The basket begins to form in my hands, but it’s not just the basket, my heart too, taking shape with every knot. Each twist is like the land pulling me back, binding me to something I can’t escape, can’t outrun.

The raffia is stubborn, unwilling, just like me. I resist, but I keep weaving. The basket grows, slowly, steadily, just like me.

Gunnedah’s pull is relentless, claws in my skin, dragging me back every time I try to run. I’ve always hated the dust, the endless stretch of dry land. But this is home.

This is where my people are from. Dharawal, it’s what I know, even when I can’t breathe it in. The land remembers. The saltwater that was once ours still burns in my throat, its taste lingering, bitter.

The basket I’m weaving is coming together, each knot tying me to this place, to the spirits of my ancestors, to the land that has never let go.

Maybe as I weave, I’ll understand why I keep returning to this suffocating earth, why I can’t shake it off. Maybe, one day, the land will show me.

The sorrow of what was lost will fade, replaced by something stronger, something that remembers.

With every thread I weave, I draw closer to what I was meant to be. The journey is not over. Not yet. But each knot, each twist, brings me closer. Closer to the spirit. Closer to the sea. Closer to who I am.

And still, the dust settles. On my skin. In my soul. Even in silence, it speaks.

There’s a scar on the back of my hand. Small, barely visible now. I got it as a child, trying to help Miimii strip bark from a tree.

I remember the sting, but more than that, I remember her hands over mine, steady and sure.

“The land gives what you need,” she said, “but only if you listen.”

I didn’t understand her then. I thought she meant food, water, shade. Things I could see and touch.

I didn’t realise she meant something deeper. Memory. Identity. Healing.

Now I listen. To the wind rattling through dry leaves. To the hush before sunset when the earth breathes in. To the thrum of the ground beneath me, as steady as my heartbeat.

The city never had that sound. It had sirens and static and the dull hum of too many people forgetting where they came from.

I tried to be one of them. But even surrounded by concrete, I’d feel the dust rising behind my eyes. See the wilga tree in my dreams. Wake with Miimii’s words caught in my throat.

I am not lost. Not anymore.

Natalia Hennessy

Head of English

The PDHPE Department

Years 7-10 PDHPE 

For PDHPE students across Years 7 to 10, Term 4 has been marked by both academic focus and physical engagement. With formal assessments in Personal Development and Health currently underway, students are also transitioning to exploring a rich curriculum of contemporary health issues within their theory lessons.

In our practical lessons in Term 4, we are pleased to reintroduce our Aquatics Program. Our dedicated PDHPE team has organised a series of sessions at the Gunyama Park Aquatic and Recreation Centre in Zetland, utilising the impressive indoor and outdoor pool facilities. This hands on opportunity extends learning beyond the classroom, providing a much needed, refreshing environment to enhance fitness, develop essential water safety skills, and build aquatic confidence. We are already seeing outstanding progress and look forward to celebrating our students' achievements in both their theoretical knowledge and practical skills this term.

Years 9 & 10 PASS Electives

Technology-Driven Performance in Year 10 200-Hour PASS

This semester, students in the 10 PASS 200 Hour Elective dove into the cutting edge of sports analysis as part of the 'Enhancing Performance' unit. The focus was on the 100m sprint crouch start, where technology became the key training partner. Using slow-motion video apps (like SloPro or Slow Motion Video FX), students captured their initial burst of speed. The core of the task involved a direct comparison, where students meticulously analysed professional footage of Usain Bolt's technique and then contrasted it with their own, pinpointing specific areas for development. Critically, they didn't just stop at analysis, they immediately applied their findings by recording a second attempt, turning theory into demonstrable, on-track improvement. This hands on, tech-forward approach provided them with instant, visual feedback; illustrating technology’s crucial role in modern athletic skill advancement.         

Student reflection on the 10 PASS assessment: 

In Term 4, I had the opportunity to showcase my 10 metre sprint start skills. Over the weeks of practice, I noticed a significant improvement. This assessment focused on enhancing my technique and comparing my sprint starts to Usain Bolt’s. Using the slow-motion feature on my phone camera, I was able to identify both the similarities and differences between my technique and that of a professional sprinter. This technology helped me pinpoint areas for improvement and make adjustments to boost my performance. I really enjoyed this assessment because it allowed me to demonstrate what I’d learned in class and connect the theory to real-world performances. 

Charli Hood - Year 10

10 PASS Acrobatics assessment:

Ending Term 3, the Year 10 PASS students shifted from theory to a demanding Acrobatics practical unit, which formed their end of term assessment. This performance-based task pushed many students outside their usual comfort zones, introducing skills that were entirely new to them. The assessment required them to demonstrate individual acrobatic sequences, highly focused on mastering movements designed to significantly boost coordination, balance and core strength. Ultimately, this provided a valuable opportunity for our elective students to develop personal confidence and successfully execute a completely different physical challenge in a supportive, encouraging setting.

Student reflection on the 10 PASS assessment: 

During our recent acrobatics practical assessment, I had so much fun trying out new skills and learning different movements. It was exciting to challenge myself with handstands, forward rolls, cartwheels and bridges—things I hadn’t done since I was little. I really enjoyed doing this with my friends, supporting each other and watching our progress throughout each session. Overall, it was a great experience that helped me improve my flexibility, balance and strength.

Kiani Hemingway - Year 10

Year 9 200-Hour PASS and Stage 5 100-Hour PASS 

This term, our Stage 5 PASS students in the 100-Hour and Year 9 200-Hour cohorts dove headfirst into coastal action. They either challenged the waves with a Surfing unit at Maroubra Beach or mastered stability through Stand-Up Paddle Boarding at Malabar Beach. Both outdoor environments served as a practical test for developing balance, core strength, muscular endurance, and coordination. Towards the end of term we will look forward to participating in Beach Volleyball at Coogee Beach.

Year 11 – Health and Movement Science 

PhysXrehab Excursion

In Term 3, our senior students had the exciting opportunity to engage with the new Health and Movement Science syllabus by attending a full day Biomechanics Workshop at PhysXrehab, a specialist physiotherapy lab in Cromer. This hands-on experience helped students explore how the body’s systems work together to support movement, an essential part of their Depth Study on Biomechanics. The workshop directly supported key learning outcomes, including understanding how the skeletal and muscular systems interact and how biomechanical principles contribute to safe and effective movement.

It was a fantastic day of learning that brought classroom theory to life and deepened students’ understanding of the science behind human movement.

Vanessa Culhane

Head of PDHPE

The Science Department

Welcome to Term 4!

As we settle into the final term of the year, we’re still reflecting on the incredible energy and enthusiasm of Science Week in Term 3 – a true celebration of curiosity, creativity, and collaboration.

Each morning kicked off with a PC Science Riddle, sparking friendly competition and clever thinking across all year levels. It was fantastic to see students eagerly discussing their answers and racing to submit their guesses.

Lunchtimes were packed with fun and innovation. The Build-a-Tower Challenge had students working in teams to construct the tallest and most stable towers using everyday materials – the creativity and teamwork were outstanding! The Paper Plane Competition was another hit, with students testing their engineering skills and cheering each other on as their planes soared across the hall. 

A huge thank you to our lovely Year 9 students shown here and the STEM Club members who helped organise and run the activities throughout the week. 

We also celebrated our Science Spelling Bee champions as shown: 1st Place Hayley Higginson; 2nd Place Gemma Williams; 3rd Place Clarissa Suryawijaya.

Congratulations to all participants for your scientific spirit and energy!

The grand finale of the week was the Big Science Show, held in the main quad and hosted by Ms. Mohamed. It was a spectacular event filled with exciting demonstrations and interactive experiments. A perfect way to wrap up a week of science fun!

Last term, we said goodbye to our Year 12 students. We wish them all the very best in their HSC exams and for their exciting futures ahead. Their contributions to the science community at Brigidine have been deeply valued, and we know they’ll continue to thrive. 

We’re also thrilled to announce that a team of Brigidine students has progressed to the National STEM MAD Competition! STEM MAD celebrates student innovation in Science, Maths, Engineering & Technology to Make A Difference. On 18 November, they’ll travel to Adelaide to represent our school with their innovative project on maternity seat belts. Congratulations to Victoria Campbell, Eva Tsonis, Ava Azemi, and Valerie Kurniwiadi for placing Third in the SCS STEM MAD Competition!

Thank you for your continued support of science learning at Brigidine. 

Amy Commane

Head of Science

The TAS Department

Two of our Design and Technology Major Design Projects have been nominated for possible inclusion in SHAPE. Getting this nomination for an HSC Showcase is an incredible achievement. Congratulations to Cindy Bahamonde and Athena Nathanael!

SHAPE is a selection of outstanding projects from HSC Design and Technology, Industrial Technology and Textiles and Design students and will be held at the University of Technology, Sydney from Monday 16 March 2026 to Saturday 11 April 2026.

I have re-designed children's hospital gowns making them interactive, educational and comfortable. To make the garment interactive and educational I have designed my own fabric featuring various drawings that spark conversations and ideas. Underneath each drawing it is spelt out all in lowercase letters as it is the easiest for children to understand; this helps to distract children and give them an activity to do whilst being in hospital. The drawings can be coloured in by the child using washable markers, once they are done using the gown it can easily washed and re-used. There is a pocket on each of the gowns - this can be used to store the washable markers; and the pocket also has an embroidered feature which children can fidget with. These features have been created to alleviate additional stress and anxiety for the children, their families and medical staff. I have also redesigned the functionality of the garment, removing the main issues within the garment such as the pain on patients' backs due to lying on the ties; therefore I re-positioned the ties of the gown to the hip instead. One of my main concerns with the gown was the back being revealing, exposing the patient's back and bottom; therefore I created a longer back piece to ensure that the patient is fully covered and feeling safe. Another issue I found within the gown was wastage due to gowns being cut in surgeries as they do not allow access to the upper body; I also found that nurses had issues with there being no access to these areas and would commonly have to take off the whole gown to proceed.

Athena Nathanael

For my MDP I created Tactus (Latin for "touch"), a clothing line designed to empower vision-impaired individuals through touch, texture, and intuitive design. Choosing an outfit is simple when you can see, but for the 285 million vision-impaired people worldwide, it can be a daily challenge tied to independence. Fashion brands often prioritise visual appeal, overlooking the needs of this community. Tactus makes dressing effortless and stylish, proving fashion can be both accessible and empowering. Blind and vision-impaired individuals face unique needs when selecting, wearing, and organising clothing, as they rely heavily on tactile, auditory, and other sensory cues. My designs include tactile Braille labels, magnetic closures, wrinkle-free fabrics, and versatile colours to promote accessibility without sacrificing style. Each garment is created to enhance independence by allowing wearers to identify and put on or take off their clothing without assistance, while still looking fashionable and on-trend.

Cindy Bahamonde

Lucy Collins

Head of TAS/VET