Parent & Student Matters  

What's happening in the College? 

• Years 5 - 10 Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews
• Year 11 2021 Subject Selection Information
• Exemplar Pieces of Writing
• Debating
• Personal Interest Project  - English
• From the Senior Resource Centre
• Football

Years 5 - 10 Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews

For this year, the Parent-Teacher-Student meetings for Years 5 to 10 will be conducted online using video conferencing.

Though social distancing restrictions are gradually being eased, at this point in time it would be in the best interests of our entire community to conduct these online.

There will now be two scheduled days for interviews. They are 

Friday 26 June from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm      (last day of Term 2)

Monday 20 July from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm    (first day of Term 3)

Parents will be able to book their times in the usual manner and once bookings are completed will receive an email with a link for an online meeting with their selected teachers.

Meetings will still be restricted to 5 minutes and parents and teachers can arrange for follow up discussion if needed.

Details on how and when to book will be released soon.

Mr Alex Damo - Assistant Principal, Teaching and Learning

Year 11 2021 Subject Selection Information

The Information Evening for Parents of Year 10 students originally scheduled for Wednesday 10 June will not proceed.

Instead a meeting will be conducted with students and this will be recorded and made available for parents. 

An opportunity for questions via an online chat will be provided.

Further details will be emailed directly to Year 10 Parents.

Mr Alex Damo - Assistant Principal, Teaching and Learning

Exemplar Expression

Each week this term Year 11 Imaginative scripts that have been identified as exemplar pieces of writing will be published in Woodchatta.  We have never done this before and the students did not write these pieces with the expectation that they would be published in our school newsletter, however we felt that these particular scripts were so powerful that we wanted to share them.

Misjudged

Me: 

It’s almost guaranteed that the seats to either side of me are left unoccupied. No one seems to want to sit there. I don’t really blame them. I’ve never been the best at small talk myself. It’s difficult trying to make boring things sound remotely scintillating. What with my lack of experience talking to people and henceforth my lack of friends, I don’t get a lot of interactions with people – which is funny considering I spend almost every night of my life at the pub. 

I used to sometimes sit there and stare at people, watching how they navigate their way round a conversation – how they seem to laugh (rather obnoxiously) whenever the other person says something remotely funny, how they nod their head in agreement when the other person makes a controversial political statement and how they seem to always take a sip or order another round of drinks when the pace of the conversation begins to diminish. I’ve learnt a lot from looking at other people. I don’t think it’s helped my case though. I seemed to receive a lot of accusatory gazes directed toward me and whenever I did, so I stopped doing that. I tend to normally just sit there nowadays, engulfed in the contents of whatever newspaper was left behind that day. Order a few drinks and hope that maybe, just maybe, someone comes over for a chat. 

  * 

Her: 

I knew I was lost when I saw the dirty old pub on the corner of the intersection. I checked my watch. 9:45 pm. All the shops would be closed for directions. Now I was really in trouble. The closest place that seemed open was in fact that pub that stood on the corner. As unappealing as it seemed, I had no other choice. The decaying façade of the front featured exposed corroded segments of rock that had penetrated through the paint on the exterior – not the most inviting place. A group of rather intoxicated men in inhabited the front strip of grass outside – they wolf-whistled as I passed. When I pushed through the door, I was unexpectedly met with a lively pub scene. Men engaging in jovial conversations, a group of people sitting at the bar with their necks titled up watching a football match on the flat screen, a few couples dotted around the place, lost in each other’s eyes. All I really needed was some sort of map that could point me in the direction of the highway. I was supposed to be heading up north toward the boarder, but seemed to have taken a wrong turn along the way. 

I made a start for the bartender. To my annoyance, he didn’t seem to speak a word of English, the only phrase he seemed to be able to muster was “Ahhhhh, vou like to buy some vine”. I instead sought to find others in the room who looked like they were capable of pointing me in the right direction. The only problem was, as I got closer to everyone, they all seemed rather drunk and certainly incapable of adequate directions. My gaze eventually fell upon an elderly man who sat in the corner. He wore all black and his garments appeared to feature rips and tears that could only have been made from some sort of wild animal. I stared for a bit longer and saw that half his face, which was illuminated by the fire cackling next to him, was heavily battered and bruised. 

One of the pub goers next to me noticed my discovery of the man. In rather slurred phrases he mustered “Lady, do not go up to him. Some of us think he is a demon, others say he is a vampire,” he had begun to drop his voice. “The last person he killed is said to be stuffed in the back of his house. That is why he spends all his time here – to escape the smell.”   ather taken aback by the absurdity of the statement, I looked back at the man in the corner.   

Me: 

I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t notice every single person that walked into the pub. My social anxiety, despite it hindering my ability to interact, certainly made my senses a lot more acute in social situations. She walked through the door with confidence. Her body language exuded the feeling that she was in need of something – constantly looking around the room at everyone. My gaze followed her as she walked the perimeter. Darting from person to person – interrupting their conversations, only to leave seconds later. I stared for longer and was thus disheartened to see her eyes eventually rest upon myself. My hopes of ever speaking to her were now gone. 

Her: 

He seemed harmless. He seemed quite timid actually. He appeared to be dressed from the neglected clothing of others as I approached closer. With every step I took, the noise level in the pub seemed to fall. Everyone’s eyes feel upon myself as I walked up to the man.  

Me: 

She was walking towards me. The last time anyone walked up to me, I was attacked viciously by a group of young men. She seemed to have a different tone to her though. Almost a hint of compassion. 

“Good evening, is it OK if I sit here?” I didn’t answer. She sat anyway. 

“I’m looking for directions. Is there any chance that you know your way to the highway?” 

Baffled that someone was actually talking to me, all I could muster was a nod. 

“Perfect! – if we go outside, is there any chance that you could point me and my car in the right direction?” 

Validation at last. We both got up and made our way to the door to leave. 

All of a sudden, one of the drinkers behind me started to cry and pulled against to hem of my trousers. “She is just a young woman,” she wailed. “So much life to be lived,” she sobbed. 

Whatever issues the drinker had going on, I didn’t want to know about. For I had just made a friend.

By James Baldock

Mr David Webster - English Coordinator

Debating

St Pius X is working on developing an in-house Debating Competition which will be run from the beginning of Term 3.

We are still exploring the possibility of having an on-line debating competition with local schools in Term 3.  

More information to follow as things are confirmed.

Ms Michele Waterson - Debating Convenor

Personal Interest Project

During our weeks of online learning, the 8-2 English class were given the opportunity to complete a personal interest project. Students could choose from a wide range of tasks, such as writing and illustrating a picture book, creating an advertising campaign, writing a collection of poetry or creating ‘Day-in-the-Life’ vlog, just to name a few options. Jonathan Harty chose to create a comic book. His story explored the adventures of a teenage boy who finds the cure for COVOID-19 in his bedroom while on quarantine.

Ms Amanda O'Brien - English Teacher

From the Senior Resource Centre

Click and Collect NOW

A Click and Collect service at Chatswood Library starts 1 June 2020.  You can reserve up to 10 items and you’ll be contacted via email when books are ready to collect. Our Year 11 & 12 students engaged in Historical Investigation will be pleased by this news.

Students from Years 5 up are encouraged to become Chatswood Library members and details are given on our school library’s webpage, Accessing other libraries. Whether for research or for recreational reading, public library collections both complement and extend our school’s library collection.

Mrs Karen Keighery - Teacher Librarian