Pastoral Academic Care (PAC)

Pastoral Academic Care (PAC) Focus - Projects' Process / Intelligent Research Process

Wellbeing Element - Accomplishment and Optimism

Character Strength - Sense of Meaning

Parent Wellbeing: To be kind to yourself, make a Feel Good Menu. Come up with five things that you love doing that you can do in most places which relax you. Eg, doing simple stretching exercises, deep breathing, saying hello to or ringing people, or colouring in. When you are starting to feel stressed, pause, and do something from your menu to relax yourself. Act to do something, not just think about it. What would be on your menu? Acknowledgement: Ryan & Deci

Year 7

Mrs Kath Czinner

Every day is a good day ! I have made this a motto for our students to focus on this week. As a year group or as an individual we aim to make the most of all the opportunities that are presented. Bringing positivity with you can create a ripple effect - our thoughts, actions and words have the power to affect great change far beyond ourselves.

The Student Led Conferences were an example of true positivity as the staff and parents were able to support and encourage their child/student prior to and during the conferences. The work presented by the students was on a whole very inspirational and gave the opportunity for the them to articulate the strengths and weaknesses in their learning. I express my thanks to all involved for their commitment to the process.

I thank Mrs Magann for her work as acting Leader of Learning. I appreciate the care she showed to our Year group.

Please keep in touch with our staff and communicate thoughts, ideas, change of circumstances or concerns.

Mrs K Czinner on behalf of the Year 7 PAC team.

Year 9

Mr Mark Fulloon

Well we have truly hit the ground running with a very busy start to Term 3 and a new semester of learning and opportunities for our Year 9 students.

This week sees the start of Stage 5 Student Led Conferencing, which is a way for students and their parents and carers to get a student reflection of their learning success and challenges. With the help and support of their PAC teachers, students will talk about what is happening from an academic and well being perspective here at school. We wish our students every success with these conferences and conversations.

It is also time to reflect on how fast this year is progressing and the still many opportunities on offer for our students to take advantage of.

Mr Mark Fulloon (on behalf of the entire Year 9 PAC Team).

Year 11

Ms Amanda Bell and Mr Frank Patricks

Over the last fortnight we have had two clear focuses during Year 11 Pastoral: the quickly approaching end of course exams and the ensuring of appropriate device usage in reflection of the College, and CSO, ICT policies.

In our latest PAC periods, students were lucky enough to have Stephen Chapman and Jessica Armfield run two short sessions on how to approach the end of course exams for two key subjects; Mathematics and English. Students were taken through what to expect of exam questions and how to approach exam questions. It was great to see a high level of engagement in these sessions as students ramp up their external study in preparation.

We have also spent a number of mornings revisiting key elements of the ICT policy that all students sign at the beginning of each year, in light of growing concerns regarding appropriate device and internet usage in classrooms and during study sessions.

It is important that both students and parents understand and follow the ICT policy, including important elements such as:

Mobile phones must only be used by students before or after school or during recess and lunch breaks, not during class
Students will not use proxy sites
Students will not take photos or videos of other students, teachers or member of the school community without consent
Students will only use the internet within the school proxy and filtering system while at school - no VPN’s, etc”.

Unfortunately, we are seeing a growing number of students who are doing the wrong thing on their devices and evading the filtering system provided by the CSO. This is often happening when students should be engaged in learning and/or study, resulting in students impacting their own learning.

Year 11 students have been asked to re-sign an excerpt of the ICT policy and we ask that families support our endeavour for digital citizenship by discussing these expectations at home.

Amanda Bell and Frank Patricks on behalf of the Year 11 PAC team