TAS News
Term 4 has been an incredibly busy term for the TAS/VET faculty. Our classrooms have been an absolute hive of activity and the learning experiences that have been provided to our students by their teachers has been nothing short of amazing. I must thank all of the TAS/VET and STEM teachers for their hard work, dedication and support throughout the year and for the wonderful and meaningful lessons that they deliver each and every day.
The two 2020 HSC Society and Culture classes recently attended the HSC day at the Wesley Centre in Pitt Street Sydney. This is a day organised by the Society & Culture Association to support HSC students with their Personal Interest Projects. The Society and Culture classes are now in the process of refining their PIP topics ready to start their research journey early next year. I must congratulate the students on their diligence and the way they have embraced their PIP journey so far. The Year 12 IT Timber class have now started the planning for their major projects for their HSC next year and they will also be ready to start these projects in earnest early next year.
The Year 12 IPT class have just completed their first assessment task. This was looking at the information system of a Tap N Go Smart Ring. This term they have also been studying project management. The students will then put this knowledge into practice when they are working on their major project next year.
The Year 12 Engineering Studies is currently focusing on Civil Structures. They are looking particular at bridges and pylons. They have just finished conducting a destructive test on the own balsa pylons with a number of them withstanding over 120kg of weight.
Year 12 Engineering Studies Class
testing their pylons
More testing........
All Year 12 students in courses in the TAS faculty that include a major project have a Major Work Certification Book or a time management plan in place. The books or plans are signed at regular intervals by the students, teachers and the parents. All PIP certification books should have been signed by parents/caregivers. These booklets help students to stay on track with their projects and they are also a form of communication for parents if they wish to contact the teacher of that particular course. The courses that have Major Work Certification books are Society and Culture and ITT Timber. The Yr 12 IPT class will need to complete a log book throughout the process of their major project. The major project will be split into two assessments - Part 1 is the research of the information and Part 2 is the design and creation of the information system.
Our Year 12 students from the 2019 cohort will be celebrating the success of their HSC results and they should all be very proud of the efforts and their hard work during 2019. I am confident they will be rewarded with fantastic results and we all wish them the very best for their future endeavours.
The Stage 5 Hospitality class have all worked towards achieving their Cert I in Hospitality this year; this has proven to be a very successful and extremely popular course with most of the students continuing into Stage 6 to complete their Cert II in Hospitality Food & Beverage. All of the students in the two 2019 Year 12 Hospitality classes have been successful in achieving their Certificate II in Hospitality Food and Beverage.
The two Year 11 Hospitality classes and the Retail Services class have now all finished their external Work Placement hours and congratulations must be given to the number of our Year 11 students who have been successful in gaining part time employment through their work placement experiences this year.
Year 11 Retail Services and Mrs Julia Kostalas have had a great year completing their Cluster tasks and work placements. At school, the students practiced their WHS safe lifting skills by lifting boxes and assessing each other's alignment to the safety standards. Role plays demonstrated how the students could 'Assist with customer difficulties'. At the end of Term 2 the Retail students learned how to handle mannequins by setting them up and dressing them at school, which is a vital skill in today's retail environment. Students completed their work placements at Target Erina, Anaconda and Spotlight, gaining vital experience to make them work ready and enhance their retail knowledge. Overall, it's been a very productive year for Retail Services at Henry Kendall High School.
Retail Services Setting Up the Mannequins in the Retail Showcase
Across all other areas of the faculty the students have been very busy, Year 8 Technology Mandatory food have been working on a Design a Pie unit, this has been a fantastic unit which has been developed by Mrs Natalie Pratt. Mr Allen’s and Mrs Pratt’s classes have undertaken and have completed a design brief which included testing, designing and evaluating various pies and culminating in a final design and end product. The Year 8 students have thoroughly enjoyed this unit.
In Mr Peek’s & Miss Reynen’s Year 8 TEC Timber classes the students have made a small carry box and also some fantastic pinball machines!
Mr Peek and his Stage 5 Timber class have just completed their step stools and turned timber bowls. The classes have completed the construction and have applied a coat of polyurethane finish to them. I must say how professional these look and I am sure that they will make someone a great Christmas present!
This year we have continued to embed STEM into the Year 8 classes. The classes have been buzzing with excitement and the students have been working on a variety of hands-on projects. They have been working out of our collaborative learning spaces in C block and the students and teachers have been able to maximise their experiences in these rooms. I must take this opportunity to thank the team of teachers who have made this possible. One of the projects was to design, construct and test a paper roller coaster!
A huge thank you must be given to all of the Year 8 STEM teachers, Mrs Louise Watkiss, Mrs Karen Hogan, Mrs Jen Lill, Ms Mel Ogle and Mr Matthew Reece. This year we had the iSTEM course running in Stage 5. It has been an extremely popular course with our students and in 2020 we have two iSTEM classes up and running in Stage 5! A huge thanks must go to Miss Crystal Reynen who taught the class this year and I know she has some exciting projects planned for her students including drones, CO2 cars and a rocket launcher in 2020.
Stage 5 iSTEM’s water rocket!
We were successful in our application to join the Sydney University STEM Academy. Miss Crystal Reynen was the team leader and the team comprised of Mrs Karen Hogan, Mrs Louise Watkiss, Ms Mel Ogle, Mrs Jo Knight and Mr Matthew Reece. The team comprised of six teachers, two from Science, two from Maths and two from TAS. The team of teachers worked on and presented a fantastic project. The project was an Introduction to STEM for Year 7.
The day was very successful and provided the current Year 7 students with the principles of STEM in a hands-on and engaging way. The project was so successful that the Sydney University STEM Academy would like to visit our school to be part of the PBL learning experiences in the future. By being a part of the STEM Academy, we will have access to a network of resources including both Sydney and Newcastle Universities and a range of other resources including specialised professionals in the field of STEM, tangible resources that can be used in the classroom and also the networking between other teachers and schools. I am extremely proud of the commitment of the STEM Academy team and the amount of work they have produced this year.
The Year 7 students studied Technology Mandatory this year. They have experienced a range of activities and the classes have rotated around the various strands. These include: -
- Digital Technologies
- Agriculture and Food Technologies
- Engineered Systems
- Material Technologies
Next year in Year 8 the classes will experience the different strands of the new syllabus. The classes will continue to rotate so they are able to have as much exposure as possible to the different strands. The Year 8 Technology Mandatory Multimedia Students have been learning about Stop Motion Movies including the history and the design process required to create their own stop motion movie. Their stop motion movie was created using different techniques and a variety of Multimedia programs. In groups the students had to work together to write a plot and script, create a story board and movie poster, then film and edit their movies. Mr Allen, Mrs Hogan and Miss Reynen enjoyed a fun afternoon of watching and marking the movies! Well done Year 8!
This semester Mrs Hogan and her Special Education Technology class have been completing projects either in a group or individually. These projects included creating movies using green screen technology, coding or creating a escape room. The green screen movies included a documentary on Poppy our therapy dog and a remake of Little Red Riding Hood and a disappearing mystery. The film about Poppy was shown at our last school Celebration Assembly.
Year 9 Food Technology have designed, prepared and organised a unit on celebrations, they were able to highlight their achievement and showcase their talents throughout the year. Mr Peek has really demonstrated his Food Technology skills with his Year 10 Food Technology class. The class have completed some amazing projects this year including their Ice Cream cafes and their beautifully decorated cupcakes!
Mr Allen’s Stage 5 and Year 9 have been learning about Food for Special Occasions and the many reasons we celebrate. As part of this they have designed and produced Halloween themed cupcakes for their assessment. They have also prepared a variety of food including 24-hour cold rise pizza dough, cob loaf and brown butter and toffee chocolate chip cookies.
Year 9 IST and Mrs Hogan have been having so much fun in their lessons, earlier in the year they built and programmed the Lego EV3 kits into robots and they ended off the unit with a Robot War Challenge!! The students have also created a web page on a topic of their own choosing, they had to design the web page thinking of the design features they had learnt in class and apply them to their page. The class have also discussed the different ways the internet has changed our lives and how it has changed over the years. The web pages are so professional and are extremely innovative and informative. A huge congratulation must go to Year 9 IST and Mrs Hogan on such fantastic results!
Year 10 IST class and Mr Allen began the semester finishing off coding in Python. They have also completed their unit on Digital Media and part of their assessment was to create a short film clip.
On behalf of the TAS/VET faculty we wish all of our students and their families a wonderful and a relaxing Christmas and New Year and we are really looking forward to working with you in 2020.
Mrs Caroline McTeigue
Head Teacher TAS/VET