Pastoral Academic Care

Pastoral Academic Care (PAC) Focus

This week’s Pastoral Academic Care focus is: LEARNING E’S

Wellbeing Element:  ACCOMPLISHMENT + OPTIMISM

Character Strength:     FAIRNESS

Strengths Booster:    STRENGTHS STOCKTAKE

Wellbeing Reality Activities: LEARNING E’S   

Parent Wellbeing:

With your fingers together, concentrate on your breathing and make them open and close as you breathe in and out for five minutes several times daily.

Encouraging students to follow their curiosity, experiment with and question their learning will assist them to develop resilient, resourceful and reflective lifelong learning habits. Teaching them how to communicate their learning using a report process slows down their thinking to analyse, compare and evaluate what they discovered. This cultivates creative and critical thinking capabilities in them. The Five E’s is such a process: ENGAGE – 2 days, understand topic, dates in phone, connect with what you know? EXPLORE – 3 days, plan research, find resources. EXPLAIN – 5 days, collect information under points. Write TEEL paragraphs. ELABORATE – 7 days, use feedback to improve. EVALUATE – 9 days, discuss with family/ friends, complete final. To clearly and meaningfully communicate to others what they have learnt and how it relates to their worlds, the Habit of Mind, Communicating with Clarity and Precision comes alive. They should tap into their dominant Multiple Intelligences on how they wish to present their investigation, which could include, oral presentations, idea maps, thinking tools such as Learning Jigsaw, role plays, essays, power point presentations, posters, poems, blogs, songs or a combination of them. The main thing is to present what they have learnt and conclusions they made in a coherent and interesting manner. 

Acknowledgement: McKnight & Kashdan

Year 7

Mrs Kath Czinner

Year 7 Camp is approaching. Please register for the camp promptly for this event so that all arrangements can be made. The students are very excited to be involved in the event and it will be a great opportunity to experience a variety of outdoor pursuits.  Parent's will already have been sent the camp note and it can be downloaded below also.

If students cannot attend camp, a small class will run at school and lessons will be timetabled as such.

If you need to discuss details, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

Congratulations to our students who continue to explore the opportunities at school. Our Debaters, Praxis participants, Futsal team, Basketball team and Indoor Hockey team are all enjoying their involvement.

As is always our high expectations are stressed to the students. As the year comes to a close students are to reflect on their contribution to the learning environment in class. Reports will be written this term. Ideally students need to present their best self in order to achieve what they are capable of. 

Congratulations to the award winners this fortnight. Year Leaders Award : Maddie Porter, Gabe Harris, Michaela Gerard, Pacey Noakes and Tommy Schaeffer.

Principal Award: Liam Best, Mia Vaughan and Abigail Van Eyk.

PHOTO:  Mia and Abigail received Principal's Awards on Thursday.

GALLERY:  Well done to everyone in Year 7 who were awarded Commendations and Year Leader's Awards this week.

Year 8 

Mrs Katie Biddle

Year 8 has been learning about digital citizenship and cyber safety. We have been lucky enough to have Police Constable Jaime Porter speak to us as a group about this too. We have been discussing aspects of cyber safety such as bullying and what to do if you see or experience cyber bullying. It would be appreciated if parents could check in with their child about their digital use and reinforce this at home. Click here for a useful article for parents and teen social media use  Parent’s Guide to Social Media Use for Kids.  

We have also been practising ways that we can regulate our nervous system and calm our emotions. On Friday we practiced wellbeing and calming strategies and the students enjoyed some quiet time. 

Congratulations to the following students who received awards at our year assembly. Joe Schmude, Gabby Williams, Keanan Brown, Harry Partridge and Luke Rogers.

Katie Biddle and the Year 8 PAC team

Year 10

Mr Peter McLeish

Andy Gilbert, the author of “Go M.A.D. - The Art of Making a Difference” said: 

“If you look for problems, you will find problems. If you look for solutions, you will find solutions.” I think it’s a bit like the “Glass Half Full” scenario. Let’s always look for the positive. This is a great life skill to learn and allows the opportunity for you to have the conversation with your children about their problem solving strategies and skills. Talking to your children and encouraging them to explore, dream and discover is never a waste of time. 

Work experience week is to take place in Weeks 9 and / or 10. Make sure you have approached a prospective employee, received their agreement and ensure you have the correct paperwork in place. Any queries in regard to this, see Mrs Lemon soon.

Teachers are preparing to write your reports and a great time to remind ourselves that we need to maintain the expected standards of the College. 

Congratulations to Lucas Scott-Hamilton, Brayden Davies, Daniel Ryan and Angus Scrivener (his second) who recently received Year Leader’s Awards. Also to Blake McElroy, Alex Baker and Sam Fittler who qualified for Principal’s Awards and a special mention for Abby Jackson who has qualified for a College Award. Well done to you all. Keep doing your best work Year 10, it is not too late to earn some of these prestigious awards.

Keep up the great work Year 10, we are almost half way through the Term. Yippee!

Mr Peter McLeish (on behalf of the Year 10 Pastoral and Academic Care Team)

Year 11 

Mark Fulloon (on behalf of the entire Year 11 PAC team)

Year 11 are now well and truly into Term 4 and should be working hard in their chosen courses. On Monday 2nd November students, parents and carers were invited to a HSC information night vis zoom where they were given important information about rules and protocols for their HSC. 

Whilst there is an expectation that all students are working to the best of their ability in classes, it is important to mention to make sure all this work is balanced with a ‘work life balance’. I would like students to ensure they know when to ask for help if they are feeling overwhelmed with the workload. I encourage all students to talk with their teachers and PAC teachers about their school work and how they can be supported to achieve their best. Looking after their mental health as always is very important, eating properly, sleeping well and having down time away from work and devices whenever possible. Keep up the good work.

PHOTO: (L to R) Ehan Boshoff, Ella-Rose Carson and Alex MacMahon received a Year Leader's, Principal's and Year Leader's award respectively.

GALLERY: Year 11's combined pastoral on Friday morning.

Year 12

Mrs Vicki Channon

Third week of HSC exams done and dusted by the time this newsletter goes to print…. 3 more exams next week to wrap up what has been an incredibly interesting and challenging year, made even tougher by some interesting and challenging exam papers!!!!!

We look forward to the HSC results being available on Friday 18th December, and to  students returning to the College for a morning tea at 11am to celebrate or ask for advice.

PHOTO:  Year 12 appreciating the words of encouragement from Year 6 in St Mary's who were their 'buddies' when they were in Kindergatren. 

Well, onward and upward now with the wonderfully anticipated social event that is known as the Year 12 Formal. All details have been emailed, placed on Compass and Google Classroom. Tickets should have been purchased by now so that final preparations can be made. I am hoping it will be a lovely evening for all of us. Thanks in advance for the wonderful band of helpers who have contributed to the planning.

I am in the process of organising RSA and RCG as well as CPR and First Aid courses to be offered after the HSC exams. This has proved to be difficult to find a date which suited the majority but unfortunately we can only go with the dates that were given to us. All details have been forwarded to students and I need to know definite numbers, names and a non refundable deposit of $50 by Monday 16th November. The RSA/RCG courses require a minimum number which makes it difficult. 

Best wishes for the students still sitting exams next week. Congratulations to all of our Year 12 students for the amazing grit and determination that they have shown throughout 2020:winwin :))) 

Mrs Channon and the Year 12 Team.