Principal's Message
Dear Parents & Carers
Welcome to Term 2. There are many exciting learning opportunities and many extra-curricula opportunities. It is important for students to maintain a balanced approach to their life and parents can help students achieve this by ensuring that there is plenty of time at home for study, exercise and sleep.
It was great to see mass participation of the majority of students at the Cross Country. It was a great way to end the term. I was disappointed to see how many students were absent on this day, in particular Year 11 students. Normal lessons ran for the majority of the day with the cross country at the end of the day. By missing the day, students missed three hours of learning time. Not only is their learning affected but the students who attended did not have the same learning environment due to low numbers, so their learning was also affected. To miss three hours of learning so as not to participate in 30 min - 1 hour of exercise is concerning. All students need to be here at school every day, unless they have a valid reason. This is particularly important in the Senior Years, where such large syllabuses mean that key concepts are missed if a student is absent.
The Cross Country is also an important compulsory College event. Research has shown that students’ sense of belonging is linked to many long-term educational benefits including school completion. When students feel a sense of belonging, students’ engagement in their learning is enhanced. By participating in events like the carnivals, Founders’ Day, Retreats and the various clubs and groups, students build their sense of belonging to our community. If students have a strong sense of belonging, they will see the benefit of school even when they find the work hard. Encourage your son or daughter to make the most of the opportunities available at O’Connor to participate, and I hope to see improved attendance at the Athletics Carnival on Friday 18th May.
Staff News
On the first day of Term 2, we held teacher professional learning on two of our Annual Improvement Plan Goals in regards to learning
To guarantee engaging & effective learning environments.
To ensure differentiation underpins teaching & learning.
These two goals underpin our belief that every student can learn to high standards given the right support. The day focused on meeting the learning needs of every student in a range of different ways. It was facilitated by Mrs Eli Simpson, our Leader of Pedagogy, Mrs Mellissa Bell, our Student Support Coordinator and Ms Bernadette Yeo, Catholic Schools Office. It was a great day of learning for the teachers and will be followed up throughout our staff meetings this term.
The second day was dedicated to technology and its use in the classroom. This was again a very worthwhile day where teachers learnt from other teachers and CSO staff. The day was facilitated by Mr Mark Harris, IT Manager and Mr Mark Kollosche, IT Technician with the support of CSO staff Mr Andrew McGann and Mr Jed Turow. As part of this day staff migrated to a new domain which means that email addresses for staff have changed. All staff will have an email address ending in @arm.catholic.edu.au. My new email address is rmenz@arm.catholic.edu.au. The Administration email has not changed and will remain admin@oconnor.nsw.edu. All staff have put a forward email on their old account which will remain until the end of the year.
We are in the process of migrating student emails. Year 12 students will not change and will remain @oconnor.nsw.edu.au. Over this term we will work with students to change their email. All students will have an email address ending in @armstu.catholic.edu.au.
In staff news, Mrs Susan McLeod, Leader of Learning (English) has been successful in gaining a position at Maclean High School. Sue will finish at O’Connor on Friday 18th May. I’d like to thank Sue for all she has contributed to O’Connor, her knowledge and understanding of the English syllabus has been outstanding and her vision for English has made a difference to both student and teaching learning. Mr Michael Wooster will take up the Leader of Learning (English) role for the rest of the year. Mrs Elitia Parry will teach Year 12 English Advanced and we are currently advertising for a replacement English teacher for 2018.
What new learning will you undertake this week?
Regina Menz