TAS/VET Faculty
Term 4 has been an incredibly busy term for the TAS/VET faculty. Our classrooms have been an absolute hive of activity and the learning experiences that have been provided to our students by their teachers have been nothing short of amazing. I must thank all the TAS/VET teachers for their hard work, dedication and support throughout the year and for the wonderful and meaningful lessons that they deliver each and every day. Our Paddock to Plate Program is up and running. The farm has been providing some beautiful fresh produce for our kitchens to use. We intend to expand this program in 2023 by also growing hydroponic produce and we are really looking forward to working with the Primary Industries, Hospitality and Food Technology students. Our plan is to use as many recipes as we can based on the produce that is grown at the farm.
Our Year 12 2023 classes are all working diligently, and they have all embraced their courses. They have at this stage all completed their first assessment task for their HSC year. Well Done Year 12 2023!
All Year 12 students in courses in the TAS Faculty that include a major project now have a Major Work timeline. These are designed to help the students stay on track with their projects. These are signed at regular intervals by the students and teachers. The courses that have externally marked Major Works are Industrial Technology - Timber and Society and Culture.
The Year 12 SDD class will need to complete a logbook throughout the process of their Major Project. The Major Project for SDD will be split into two assessments - Part 1 is the planning and defining of their software development and Part 2 is the design and creation of their software game.
During this term, the Year 12 SDD and Mrs Hogan have been studying Algorithms, the different Software Development Approaches in Software Design. Their first assessment was an in-class test on Algorithms, helping them to be more efficient in reading and writing them for their HSC exam. The class have also been learning to code in Python - Graphical User Interfaces (GUI).
The Year 12 Engineering Studies class have been studying the Aeronautical Engineering topic this term with Miss Reynen. During this topic the students focused on the design and construction of recreational aircraft, general aviation aircraft, military aircraft, spacecraft, agricultural aircraft, helicopters and home-built aircraft.
The Year 12 Society and Culture class have started the compulsory Core unit this term. This involves studying continuity and change in society. The class have also made an excellent start on their Personal Interest Projects. The students have some very interesting topic choices!
The Year 12 IT Timber class have all started planning their Major Projects and are now working on plans to bring the projects to fruition in 2023.
Our Year 12 students from the 2022 cohort will be celebrating the success of their HSC results, they should all be very proud of their efforts and their hard work during 2022, I am confident they will be rewarded with fantastic results, and we all wish them the very best for their future endeavours.
The Year 11 VET students have now finished their external Work Placement hours organised by The Skilled Engineer, our workplace provider. Congratulations must be given to the number of our Year 11 students who have been successful in gaining part-time employment through their work placement experiences this year. As Work Placement is a compulsory component of the VET courses if any student has missed hours there will be an opportunity in Term 1 2023 to make up these hours.
The Year 11/12 Retail students have been very busy over the last 2 terms. In Term 3, most undertook work placement for the first time, with a few securing part-time jobs from the experience. Recently, during Weeks 6 and 7, students completed their second work placement to meet the NESA requirements for a Certificate III in Retail Services. When Mrs Kostalas visited them at work placement this term, she noticed that they were all much more relaxed the second time around. At the same time the class has been completing their Cluster D Assessment Task, titled ''Working in the Industry''. Finally, Retail students have also been practising their visual merchandising skills. Any window they design and create goes towards their Cluster F Assessment Task. We were particularly impressed with their White Ribbon Day window, which contributed towards our ceremony at school.
Retail Work Placement
Students on the job!
Retail Studies
White Ribbon Window Display
Yr 10 iSTEM and Miss Reynen have completed their PBL Major Project during Term 4. During this project, the students were required to build a mega-city. They had to create a new city and ensure they had included the following criteria: bushfire proof, flood proof, drought resistant, sustainable and green. The students created amazing cities. Well Done Year 10!
Year 10 iSTEM Mega Cities
The Year 10 200-hour Food Technology students have produced some outstanding Food products this term. The students have been able to showcase their amazing talents in their practical assessment tasks. The students designed some tasty and creative ice creams in their Design an Ice Cream Task for the Food Trends unit.
Year 10 200-Hour
Food Technology Ice Cream Task
The Stage 5 Hospitality class have all worked towards achieving their Cert I in Hospitality this year; this has proven to be a very successful and extremely popular course, with most of the students continuing into Stage 6 to complete their Cert II in Hospitality Food & Beverage.
Year 9 200-hour Food Technology have just completed their Food Product Development Unit and they were able to highlight their achievement and showcase their talent by celebrating with their outstanding Ice Cream Designs!
Year 9 200-hour
Food Technology Ice Cream Designs
The Year 9 IST class and Mrs Hogan have studied Internet and Website Design from the middle of Term 3 until Term 4. For this topic, students created a website, using only HTML and notepad, with 3 pages on their own topic and then 2 pages focused on Design and the History of the Internet. Students were determined to create amazing websites which they did, so many brilliant websites on a variety of topics. Well done Year 9 IST!
9IST Websites
Mrs De Kalb and her Stage 5 iSTEM class have been learning about Robots this term. In addition to this, the class have been involved with the P Tech Program. The students attended an end-of-year celebration lunch for the mentoring program at Mingara. Riley Jones represented HKHS on the Panel Discussion and Mrs DeKalb and Mr Backhouse presented certificates to all the HKHS students. The students were able to listen to guest speakers, enjoy a delicious lunch and they all left with gift bags.
P-Tech Celebration Lunch
The Stage 5 Food Technology class have become so talented over the year. The class work as a team and always support each other. The practical assessment task this term was based on making a Taco Bowl meal. The students had to carefully mould the bowl and bake, garnish and present the meal, work out a time plan including all team members and then write an evaluation of the practical assessment.
All the students did an outstanding job with this task. For the past couple of weeks, the class have been very busy making lots of very tasty Christmas treats, including Chocolate Truffles, White Christmas, Mrs Mac’s Rocky Road, Coconut Ice, Stained Glass Cookies and Chocolate Christmas trees! I hope that some of these made it home for parents and caregivers to taste!
Stage 5 Food Technology
Taco Bowls
Stage 5 Food Technology
Christmas Treats!
Stage 4 Technology Mandatory
Across all other areas of the faculty, students have been very busy. The Stage 4 Technology Mandatory classes have been studying different strands in Semester 2 and this allows the students to experience the different components of the syllabus over two years.
The 8TEC2 class with Mrs Hogan are the first Stage 4 class to study and learn the programming language Python. Using the skills they have learnt during Term 3 and Term 4, students created a game that would be suitable for Smart Home Device or a Chat Bot for a website. It was fantastic to see students use text-based coding to create some great games and chatbots. To end the term students have learnt about Robots and using Edison Robots to complete multiple challenges.
This Semester, Mrs Ofahenguae’s Year 7 and Year 8 Technology Mandatory classes focused on a unit called Grow and Thrive which is studied in the Food and Agriculture strand. The students learned about Paddock to Plate and how to make a self-watering pot plant. They chose seeds and planted their herbs. They were responsible for monitoring the growth of the plant on the school farm in the greenhouse.
Stage 4 Technology Mandatory
Mrs De Kalb and her Year 8 Technology Mandatory class created some amazing soft monster toys to demonstrate their construction skills using a sewing machine as well as decorative techniques of applique, hand embroidery and beading. Well Done Year 8!
7TEC1 have been completing a variety of activities this term. Mrs Hogan and I share the class and we have thoroughly enjoyed teaching the class this year. In my lessons, the students have been exploring various fibres, the properties of fibres, researching about different fabrics and learning about different dyes. The students have learnt how to Tie Dye and they were very safety conscious and wore masks and gloves as the dyes are in powdered form.
Their finished results were fantastic!
The students dyed natural wool with a variety of colours and then made their own felt using the wool. They did this by rubbing the wool fibres between bubble wrap with some dishwashing detergent to make their own felt fabric! Mrs Hogan's class have been making very professional interactive PowerPoints showcasing their work! To finish off the term 7TEC1 have been creating some lovely Christmas treats!! Our last practical lesson together was spent making delicious Chocolate Noodle Christmas Trees!
7TEC1 Chocolate Noodle
Christmas Trees
7TEC1 Tie Dying
7TEC1 Making Felt
7TEC1’s Interactive PowerPoints
I would like to take this opportunity to thank both Ms Isabella Hawkes and Mr Neale Ashby for their work in the TAS/VET faculties this year. Ms Hawke has been replacing Mr Grant while he has been on leave this term and has been teaching the Year 11 Primary Industries class. We wish her the very best in her new school in 2023. We also say goodbye to Mr Neale Ashby and we also wish him the very best at his new school in 2023.
On behalf of the TAS/VET faculty, we wish all of our students and their families a wonderful Christmas and New Year and we look forward to working closely with you in 2023!
Mrs Caroline McTeigue
Head Teacher TAS/VET