Parent & Student Matters
Science Club
What's happening in the College?
- End of Year Reports for Years 5 - 10
- Textbooks for 2020 - Years 7 to 11
- Noël Noël
- From the Science Department
- Year 7 Science Koala Adoption
- Kokoda Track Expedition 2020 - Participants' Training Hike
- Chinese Christmas Card exchange
- Applause for our Elite Readers
End of Year Reports for Years 5 - 10
End of Year reports for Years 5 to 10 will available on the College Portal from the afternoon of Thursday 5 December.
To view the report:
1. Click on the link below that will take you to your home page of the Portal.
https://portal.stpiusx.nsw.edu.au/igloo/portal/
2. Next to the photo of your son, is a button
Click on this to access your son’s home page that will contain a section ‘Academic Reports’.
3. If you do have difficulties, in the first instance please use the 'forgot password' facility. If problems persist, please email: portalhelp@stpiusx.nsw.edu.au
If you require a hard copy of the semester report to be posted in the mail,
please email Mrs Sue Cheney: scheney@stpiusx.nsw.edu.au
Your son’s End of Year report provides information on his standard of achievement and his approach to learning for each subject.
Each Subject report contains a Grade. This is based on a teacher’s professional judgement of the student’s standard of achievement at this point in time. This has been derived from informal learning activities and formal assessment completed during the year and can include:
- gathering a range of students’ work samples at various stages of an activity, including anecdotal records and students’ oral, written and multimedia work samples
- assessing students’ integrated use of knowledge, understanding and skills
- analysing the quality of student responses
- observing students during learning activities and participation in a group activity
- evaluating student achievement across time and
- facilitating student discussion
The Grade for each subject is based on the Common Grade Scale which is used to report on student achievement in all NSW schools.
Each report also contains a ‘Mark’ that is based on Formal Assessment activities undertaken during the year.
The Approach to Learning profiles provide an overview of your son’s level of organisation, involvement in learning, completion of assigned tasks and classroom behaviour. It is important that all students reflect on these areas and identify strengths and areas for improvement for the year ahead.
We congratulate all students in Years 7 to 10 who are recipients of Fide et Labore Awards. The Gold Award is for outstanding achievement and the Silver Award is for excellence in a subject. The Blue Award is for significant effort resulting in improvement. Students who have achieved either a Gold Fide et Labore award or three Fide et Labore awards (Gold, Silver or Blue) will be formally acknowledged at the Academic Awards Assembly on Friday 21 February 2020. An invitation will be sent to parents of award recipients at the start of the new school year.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of this report please contact the relevant subject teacher or the Year Coordinator if you have a general question regarding your son’s progress.
Most teachers will be available at the College if required on Monday 9 December.
We wish you and your family a happy and holy Christmas.
Yours sincerely
Alex Damo
Assistant Principal, Teaching and Learning
Textbooks for 2020 - Years 7 to 11
Please see the link below for information on textbooks for 2020.
Mr Alex Damo
Assistant Principal - Teaching and Learning
Noël Noël
The Year 8 French classes have brought the year to a close by meeting their pen pals from Mercy College. Over Terms 3 and 4, the Year 8 students from St Pius and Mercy have been exchanging letters to practise their French writing skills with their peers. They have covered topics such as family, pets, food, hobbies, birthdays and opinions. Our students handmade their own Christmas cards, complete with a message in French. They enjoyed having the opportunity to exchange their Christmas cards with their pen pal in person. They then participated in a group trivia game, testing their general knowledge on a range of topics, such as French history, geography, music and fashion. We look forward to more opportunities to collaborate with Mercy College in the future.
Mrs Sarah McCormack, French Teacher
From the Science Department
Science Club for 2020
Last Thursday, Science staff treated our enthusiastic Science Club members to their first experiment… which was Elephant’s Toothpaste! We looked at different strengths of hydrogen peroxide and also used two different catalysts to compare the reaction rate. The Year 7 boys and Year 11 leaders enjoyed themselves immensely… as did the teachers. We look forward to the launch of Science Club 2020 and welcome more Year 8 and Year 7 students to join us then.
Mrs J Schuster - Science Coordinator
Year 7 Science Koala Adoption
In Ms Ramsey’s Year 7 Science classes, we study a chapter about Habitats and Interactions. We learnt about ecosystems, food chains and food webs; but most importantly we learnt about the effects humans have on the ecosystem and environment. Most recently the catastrophic bush fires in NSW have burnt down many habitats; including the koala’s. Because of these fires the koala has gone from a vulnerable species to a critically endangered species. Many people in our classes saw the issue and felt for it, so we decided to take action with Ms Ramsey’s help. As two classes, we started a fundraiser to earn some money for the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital. Ms Ramsey didn’t expect us to raise much money so she said she’ll double whatever we earnt. None of us thought we would raise $152.50 which Ms had to match!
With all this money we were able to plant four eucalypt trees and adopt six adorable koalas. These koalas were: Lion Leo, Crescent head Jimmy and Balmoral Mini all severely injured, and three burnt koalas from the recent bush fire: Paul, Peter and Anwen. We all hope that they can recover soon with our help.
By Cooper Anderson and Michael Krizan
Kokoda Track Expedition - Participants' Training Hike
The fifth of our training hikes is locked in for Sunday 2 February 2020. As the weather will still be hot we will be walking from Berowra to Cowan, 12.9km.
This is an opportunity for all participants to meet, prepare and to discuss all aspects of the Kokoda Track Expedition 2020.
When: Sunday 2 February 2020
Meet: Cowan train station at 7.45am (Train to Berowra 8.02am arrives 8.09am)
Finish: Cowan train station 12.30-1.00pm (approx.)
Need: 2 litres of water (refill at Berowra Waters), hat, sunscreen, snacks, OPAL card, sense of humour
In the event of track work we can do a car shuffle to Berowra from Cowan. In the event of severe weather or bushfires we will cancel the hike.
All member of the College community are welcome to attend these hikes
Please note that I will confirm following hikes as we move closer to the dates.
Mr Paul de Silva
(Outdoor Education Coordinator)
2019 Junior School Chinese Christmas Card Exchange
In the spirit of Christmas, Year 5 and 6 boys had the privilege of creating Chinese Christmas cards. These cards were exchanged with the corresponding cohort at the girls’ school, Loreto Normanhurst, who are currently learning Mandarin. As excited as the boys were to create these cards, they were equally enthusiastic about receiving them from their partners. These boys are to be commended for their creativity and efforts placed into the design of their cards. Here are some photos of the cards.
Ms Leanne Ho – Language Teacher
Applause for our Elite Readers
In the spirit of our student-led themes “Get amongst it” (2019) and “Pursue your Passion”(2020) every student at Pius has the opportunity to participate in the Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC) till it concludes in Year 9.
This year, Richard Gauci, Andrew Guerrera, Harrison Pierides, Alex Vaccher and Peter Yastreboff did just that and achieved the ultimate; completing the PRC every year since Year 3. This marathon reading effort is achieved by less than 1% of participants.
The PRCs yearly goal of reading 20 books is a worthy one in building up the reading mileage. This is an important factor in reading skill development. Research shows that reading mileage in favoured genres is necessary and commonly occurs before students can expand to read other genres.
The boys were presented with the prestigious PRC medal by the Assistant Principal of Teaching and Learning, Mr Damo at this week’s Academic Assembly. After much applause from our whole school, Mr Cunneen photographed our champion readers with their medals, though Alex is absent.
Congratulations to our elite readers, Richard, Andrew, Harrison, Alex and Peter and to their support crews for their encouragement over the last 7 years.
Ms Karen Keighery
Senior Teacher Librarian