Faith and Mission

Faith and Formation 

Liturgy

In week 4 we were lucky to have stage 3 and stage 5 students invited to the CYP (Catholic Youth Parramatta) Lifted Live events.

Stage 3 - 

LIFTED is an initiative run by CYP and Catholic Education. Through these days they aim to enable young people to feel connected with their faith, engage in dialogue with other young Catholics and to learn and experience new Catholic music from contemporary Australian Catholic Artists.

The theme of the day was centered around the Holy Spirit. Students heard from guest speakers and enjoyed music from the very talented Gen Bryant. 

Student reflections:

“I would describe LIFTED as a Catholic/Christian community of school kids who learn something new about God and religion based on activities with a lot of music.The best part about LIFTED was the music, because it was like an actual concert and had a lot of movement.” - Gabby 

“LIFTED is the best place to be because they have Catholic discussions, prayers, lots of fun & amazing Catholic music. The best part about LIFTED was getting to meet other kids and listening to great music because it was amazing.” - Alicia 

Stage 5 - ‘Lifted Live Unleashed’

On May 20th a number of Year 10 students went to West HQ and gathered with many different schools from our Diocese at the ‘Lifted: Live Unleashed event’. We were unsure of what was going to happen but were interested to see what would unfold.  We first started with a few ice-breaker activities so we could get to know students from other schools. During our first ice-breaker activity, we had to guess how far away in kilometres our school was and order ourselves without talking. The organises then invited the band onto the stage, which personally, was my most favourite part of the day. They started singing pop songs and then slowly eased into songs about God and loving our God. 

Some of the most memorable moments of the day were when we were all together singing near the stage and all the schools gathered together. We all felt as if we had one thing in common with one another which was our love for God. This event allowed us to connect with people on a spiritual level and encounter people within our Diocese. 

We were able to hear some personal stories from multiple people who attended the event, about how the Holy Spirit has worked through them and it was such an emotional activity. We were able to hear about how people have been through all types of highs and lows, yet Jesus was always there with them. 

We also did a get to know each other activity where we talked to other students from other schools. This experience allowed everyone within my grade to connect with people who share different stories and also understand other people’s stories with God.

This experience definitely allowed us to understand what experiences or encounters people had previously with God. It also allowed me to open up about God and what he has done for me and my family

Jocelina Garcia and Carmella Queras - Year 10 students

Social Outreach

Vinnies

Our Vinnies groups are off to a great start with lots of students enthusiastic to be involved and make a difference! 

We are in the beginning process of implementing student ideas around the school to make our St. Luke’s community stronger. In the coming weeks, students will have meetings with the St. Vincent De Paul Society’s representative, who will give them a clear vision of their role and commitments. We have a strong interest from students across K-6, and are calling for more students from 7-11 to come join us and be part of the team! 

With blessings, Melinda Rego 

Social Outreach Coordinator K-12

YCS

This term YCS has taken on a new look! 

Still a student-run social justice group, there are now more opportunities for students to be involved with the social justice issues that they are passionate about. Now, rather than a singular focus per term, clusters of students are focusing on their own issues. Some areas being covered include acceptance in society, environmental issues/ climate justice, body image and mental health issues in youth, negative impacts of technology and racial discrimination. Students have worked through the See section of the review of Life to explore what the issue entails and who is impacted by these issues. 

School of Foundations

Early Stage One 

In Kindergarten, students are answering the needs to know ‘how can we share’. They role played different ways that they can share. 

Stage One: 

Stage One have been learning about who Jesus is. They explored the many different ways that Jesus is depicted through photos. Below are pictures that they explored and ideas they came up with. 

Stage 2

In Stage 2, students answered the needs to know ’How can I help someone who does not have free will?’ They picked a real life scenario where people may not have freewill and created hypothetical hampers that they would give to someone in need. They thought about how this leads to human flourishing. 

School of Leadership

Stage 3:

This term’s Religious Education inquiry unit is focused around interfaith dialogue. Our driving question is ‘How can we respond to God’s call to love by developing positive relationships with all people?’

The first part of this unit has been focused on students sharing their own faith as well as learning about other Faith traditions. Students created a short presentation to share their beliefs with their peers. Students also had the opportunity to interview one of the peers about a different faith tradition. This followed on from discussions about how to have respectful dialogue with people from different faith backgrounds other than our own. 

Over the next few weeks students will be co-planning an interfaith celebration. As a part of this celebration, students will be sharing prayers, music and symbols from their own faith backgrounds. 

Stage 4 - Year 8:

This term, Year 8 students have been exploring the concept of Social Justice by linking it to human liberation. In response to one of their Need to Knows, ‘Is technology a barrier to human liberation?’, we designed a tech-free RE  lesson called ‘Stations of Liberation’ for our students. Students stayed away from their laptops; they used traditional tools like hard copies of newspaper articles, highlighters and white boards to explore 8 areas of human liberation. Students used two printed articles; one on COVID and the other one on Pope Francis’ response to the recent war. They linked the articles to the 8 areas of human liberation at 8 ‘Stations of Liberation’ to not just identify barriers but also find ways to overcome these barriers using Jesus’ teachings. 

Students’ enjoyed the tech-free lesson and they also shared their thoughts on the advantages of this lesson and how technology sometimes becomes a barrier to learning. Please find below some thoughts shared by Sudeep from Year 8:

This week in RE, we had a technology free lesson which resulted in a distraction free session that refreshed our minds and bodies. While many may argue that a ‘no technology’ lesson is a step back in time rather than a better foot forward, I would say that it is the break all of us, students and teachers, needed to let our eyes rest from the blue light emitted from our devices. We actually had a lot of fun learning from a whiteboard as we were reminded of primary school. The use of printed paper articles meant that we had the opportunity to physically highlight and annotate which was easier than doing it on a device; as a bonus we pasted this article in our books. 

One thing I really liked about no-tech learning was the fact that we were looking away from screens for once and focussing more on our physical being. How? Well, when we use technology we get distracted and focus on the device and do not care about factors like posture and brightness levels, these factors when unattended to for a long time can lead to negative side effects. Today’s lesson let us identify the importance of these factors so we pay closer attention to them in the future. 

One other thing that was amazing about today’s lesson was the collaboration and link we could clearly see between peers AND teachers. Due to the lack of presence of technology students that would otherwise be distracted started paying attention and even started to engage in conversation rather than be glued to the screen. We also could clearly see teachers getting more enthusiastic responses and questions throughout the lesson. I’d also say today’ s lesson helped with awareness of time. As counter intuitive as that may sound since we had books we more actively focussed on the time and had better planning which led to more productivity. On behalf of the students of 8 White, I give a really hearty thank you to our RE teachers today for all the effort they put into today’ s lesson. I say and quote another student of a different class “”Another part of our brain got reactivated”. I don’t know why but I could actually feel the tiredness and fatigue in my body relieve and go away after the lesson. I really think that some chemical reaction occurred when we changed the usual routine and switched back to the original computer, our mind, and our original keyboard, our pen and paper. It feels like some parts that shut down ages ago were put back into work in our brain, requiring more brain power and challenging us further than we would have stretched ourselves with devices. To end off I would like to thank our RE teachers once more for this amazing opportunity today.

School of Entrepreneurs

Kinchella Boys Home - Year 9 Excursion

Currently in Year 9 students are looking at Indigenous Spirituality and the importance of Reconcilaition.  We were lucky enough to have been invited to attend an excursion for the Kinchella Boys Home.  We were not aware of what was involved but attended to learn as much as possible.

The Kinchella Boys Home was located in Kempsey NSW and was a home run by the Governement where young boys were relocated after being taken form their families.  We met two survivors of the Kinchela Bioys home who shared their stories with us.  They were little boys when they were taken from their parents maybe 5 or 8 years of age.  They were taken to this house striped of their clothes and had their names taken away - they had a number and that was it.  They were not shown love, they were treated brutally and they only had each other - but in having each other they were taught to also hate.

This excursion opened our eyes and really showed us the need for reconciliation in Australia.  It is not enough to say sorry - we need to mean it and show it.  Inclusion in all ways is needed.  Through what we have been learning about with Indigneous Spirituality the need for relationships between all peoples needs to be stregthened - it should not be us VS them or black Vs white.  We are all made in the image and likeness of God, we all have a spark of the divine within us - it is time for us to show this authentically.