Pastoral Academic Care
PAC
Wellbeing Builder: PLANNING TIME TARGETS
Wellbeing Element: SKILLS AND ACHIEVEMENT
Character Strength: PRUDENCE
Parent Wellbeing: Mindfulness is about connecting with yourself and the present
moment. To achieve this, you need to find unplanned and unstructured time. Describe opportunities you may have to do this.
While students’ Personal Timetables effectively allocates their time to their subjects and commitments, they also need to learn how they are going to organise that time to complete what they need to do. The willingness to plan and set time targets is a growth mindset to overcome these challenges. Once they have set time targets, they need to use their strengths to achieve them.
There is an effective structure and process to follow this week to enable students to master this more strategic way to approach what they need to do. The Five E’s of Learning thinking tool is ideal to assist them in this pursuit.
The FIVE E's - Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate
ENGAGE, brainstorm ideas and construct success criteria with your teacher.
EXPLORE, locate resources and begin your research.
EXPLAIN, develop sentences and then paragraphs using the “TEEL”
ELABORAT
E, analyse comments to improve phrasing/ vocabulary.
EVALUATE, assess feedback and complete final draft
Students need to set time target for tasks such as:
• completing unfinished learning
• practising subject material to reinforce concepts in their minds (If they can do it at home on their own, then they know it)
• connecting with and applying new knowledge learned to new situations
• revising what they have learnt to build strong and fast brain pathways
• reviewing notes from class in a structured manner; time targets are a must here
• going off on tangents which interest them and investigating new possibilities to explore and experiment with
• reading, researching, evaluating, reflecting, thinking and imagining.
“To master your time is to master your life.”
Alan Laekin
Year 7
Year 7 have been working on showing acts of kindness in a practical and genuine way. We aim to share the light we have within with others. Keep your eyes out for seeds of kindness that have been planted by year 7!
Congratulations to our year 7 sporting stars who have represented the school in CCC cross country, soccer, league and netball over the last couple of weeks. Thank You for representing the school in such a mature way. Congratulations also to the students who represented the school in the eisteddfod and debating. Congratulations to the long list of students who received a commendation this week - well done!
As a year group, we are working on making sure that we are prepared for class. It is really important that we have pens, pencils, books and that our device charged. It would be appreciated if parents could support their children with this. I encourage you to use the compass app to see what subjects you have each day too. This way we will all be ready to do our best learning in the classroom.
Next week, all of year 7 will be doing a creative writing task during their literacy lesson. Students will view the stimulus for this later this week. I encourage students to talk to their parents and siblings about ideas for this and about possible ways that they can ‘up level’ their writing.
Many thanks for your support
Katie Biddle
Year 8
Welcome to Week 7, I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend while the teachers spent the beginning of last week at the 2019 Systems Conference. This was a wonderful opportunity for our staff to do some reflecting and connecting away from our regular offices and catch up with colleagues from around the region. For Year 8, this week is the last time you will be able to demonstrate learning in class as teachers will be finalising the report for Semester One.
Year 8 are taking their first steps in learning how to conduct a Student Lead Conference. We have asked them to collect work samples they are proud of and some that require more work, so that students can spend PAC time until the end of the term reflecting on their learning.
Congratulations to everyone who took part in the eisteddfod over the last few weeks. Roie Wood and students from years 7 and 9 won their short play section at Eisteddfod. As a result, they were asked to perform at the Eisteddfod Gala Concert yesterday which is a selection of the best performances from across the whole Eisteddfod - drama, music and vocal.
Lloyd Honnery.
8 PAC
Year 9
Students are as busy as ever with their learning. They have been taking every opportunity to impress their teachers over the past week or two, knowing that their Semester One reports are about to be written. I know that’s a bit cheeky because the overwhelming bulk of our students are doing their level best to advance their knowledge every single day, but there really is no time like the present for them to be doing their very best.
I’d like to thank all the parents who make the effort to enquire about the preparedness of their child for school every day. As I mentioned last time, it is so important for students to bring pens, books, calculators, etc. I have certainly noticed an improvement in the last fortnight. Let’s keep working hard at maintaining this partnership for the rest of the year and beyond. Thanks!
Our Pastoral Focus this week is planning time targets to complete learning.
To continue to grow our learning abilities, a good skill to master, is to plan time targets to complete tasks on time. An effective way to plan time targets is to use the Five E's of the Learning thinking tool - Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate.
ENGAGE, brainstorm ideas and construct success criteria with your teacher.
EXPLORE, locate resources and begin your research.
EXPLAIN, develop sentences and then paragraphs using the “TEEL”
ELABORATE, analyse comments to improve phrasing/ vocabulary.
EVALUATE, assess feedback and complete final draft.
Congratulations to all our Commendation Certificate recipients this week.
Peter McLeish
Year 9 PAC Leader
(on behalf of the Year 9 Pastoral Academic Care team)
Year 10
Year 10 are now in the finishing stages of a very busy and productive Semester 1. Next week students head off to Work Experience in a variety of sectors, and I hope that this will be a rewarding and worthwhile experience for them.
I would like to again thank Mrs Glenda Lemon for all her work and support of Year 10 through this sometimes complex and difficult experience in regards to insurance and the paperwork required for this work placement.
For the next few weeks there will be time when students are still completing work required for their academic studies and subjects. I think Year 10 will then look forward to the holidays to spend some much deserved time to re-charge and revitalise.
Mark Fulloon
Year 10 PAC Leader
Year 11
We continue to congratulate students that are working hard in all areas of College life.
This photo includes Georgia MacMahon and Molly Hardey receiving awards for their efforts in the recent Drama piece for the Eisteddfod. Will Wood received accolades for working hard in Agriculture. Ricardo was congratulated for his athletic prowess with a medal and certificate as 17 years Champion in the recent Cross Country event.
We welcome Nathan Czinner back after a 3 week hockey tour of Europe. An amazing experience for both Nathan (and his mum and sister who were there to cheer him on every step of the way) as he captained the team on many occasions to lots of victories throughout the tournament.
We also wish Tori Brazier the best of luck with her tour to Thailand for Thai boxing (she is there as this goes to print). She will be in a training camp for two weeks and then will experience a bout towards the end of the camp. What an amazing experience for Tori also, and her family.
The focus for PAC this week is Time Targets. This is a very appropriate topic of conversation as the cohort have assessment tasks due in the next few weeks leading up to a break over the holidays. Each PAC class have a visible timetable of when assessments are due and the class work together in making sure everyone is keeping on top of these. With exams taking place in week 9 of next term, there will be a major focus on study techniques and tips during PAC time. How do each of us learn, retain information, then reproduce it for exams??
Year 11 students are starting to get their licences, and driving to school. Can I please ask students, parents and carers to take the time to read and complete the driving to school agreement and return it to me at school. Thanks for your help in this matter.
We are starting to think about the design for the 2020 senior jersey. Wow, where has the time gone!!!! A small committee have been working on some combinations and these will be shared with the whole cohort and a vote will be taken to decide on the most popular choice.
Vicki Channon
Year 11 PAC Leader
Year 12
Developing leadership among our students is a high priority at O’Connor and during 2019 we have made very deliberate attempts to provide our student leaders opportunities to do this. We aim for our School Captains and Sports Captains to be much more than just figure heads, and that they develop a broad understanding of leadership and develop the confidence and a range of leadership skills that they can utilise in life. One approach that we have employed is to encourage our students to organise and run an event each term aimed at developing a culture of pride and community at our College. During Term 1 Year 12 student leaders organised Handball and Dodgeball Competitions and last week students ran a Trivia Competition for a large group of the student body.
Endeavours such as these place responsibility on our leaders and allow them to develop important skills around planning, organising, motivating and time management among many others. So far our leaders have done an outstanding job and the events they have organised have been very well received by their fellow students. Special thanks to Mrs Roff who has been instrumental in facilitating these opportunities for our students to develop these skills.
In other news, it was fantastic to see a number of Yr 12 students supporting the P and F’s Bingo Night. A number of students attended and from all accounts had a great time mixing with other families. Congratulations to Taryn Ramage who has been selected in the New England Futsal Team to play in the National Championships later in the year.
James Russell
Year 12 PAC