Pastoral Academic Care

Pastoral Academic Care (PAC) Focus

This week’s Pastoral Academic Care focus is: 

GRATEFUL FOR LESS CHOICES

Wellbeing Element:  POSITIVE EMOTION + GRATITUDE

Character Strength:     TEAMWORK

Strengths Booster:    CLASSROOM STRENGTHS

Wellbeing Reality Activities:    GRATEFUL FOR LESS CHOICES

Parent Wellbeing:

To learn about how gritty you are, do Angela Duckworth’s free Grit Scale Score at http://bit.ly/gritscale. Describe three things you have done where you believed you showed grit. Acknowledgement: Angela Duckworth

While having choices gives students a sense of autonomy, which is an essential to be self-determined, too many choices can often confuse and frustrate them, leading to procrastination. Also, advertising is forever targeting young people (and us) that more is better; the reality is that this is untrue. Teaching students to identify the minimum they need to meet their needs, and then choosing that, will enable them to be more decisive and autonomous. They are many things in life where “good enough” is the best fit for everyone. While we are all being encouraged by advertising to be maximisers, and have a world of choices at our finger tips, in most cases, being a satisfier, where our needs are sufficiently met is the best way to go. The most difficult thing to communicate to students is to know what are their needs and what are their wants. The pressure on them from all sorts of media often smudges the difference between needs and wants. An effective way to clarify things for them is to write down the barest minimum they need to get by, and then choose that. Let’s encourage students through our role modelling that less is more. 

Acknowledgement: Schwartz & Boniwell

Year 7

Mrs Kath Czinner

Much excitement is in the air as we ready ourselves for camp. Three days out of the classroom will be welcomed. Having the opportunity to enjoy our great outdoors with our friends is a bonus. Packing lists and Further Camp Information have been sent home or can be sourced here. I look forward to sharing the time with our students and fantastic teachers who have volunteered their personal time to be with us. 

Congratulations to our award winners this fortnight Year Leaders Award: Angelia Gaunson, Kaitlyn Walters, Maddie Boxell,Poppy McKay (2nd), Josh Bible, Boyd Bishop,and Rumiya McGuiness

Year 8 

Mrs Katie Biddle

Year 8 enjoyed the NAIDOC Week celebrations last week. Year 8 students were key participants in the NAIDOC liturgy, PRIDE program, painting and sport activities to celebrate NAIDOC Week. 

Last week students received their life saving certificates from 2019. Students who achieved their Bronze Star or Bronze Medallion are able to receive the associated medallion from the front office after paying for this. Please see the front office if you have any questions about this. 

Congratulations to all students in year 8 who are working towards achieving their learning goals! We are finishing the year strong and we even had so many students achieve commendations last week that I went from class to class to give these out as we didn’t have time for them all at our year assembly. 

SAVE the DATE …. Very early next year, year 9 students will all be invited to attend the year 9 camp. Please keep your eye out on compass for a note about this - it will contain approximate cost and dates. All students will be expected to attend. If this causes you any concern please contact Regina Menz for a discussion on any necessary support. 

In PAC we have been focusing on identifying and using our strengths. Teaching students to identify the minimum they need to meet their needs, and then choosing that, will enable them to be more decisive and autonomous. An important part of this is being grateful for what we have and reaching out for support when needed.

Sincerely

Katie Biddle and the Year 8 Team 

Year 10

Mr Peter McLeish

Last week we celebrated NAIDOC Week with an involvement and enthusiasm deserving of the occasion. I want to thank and congratulate James Russell and all the students and staff involved in the week. It was truly wonderful.

This is the Indigenous National Anthem. Try singing it aloud. I love it! 

Last week also reminded me of something Nelson Mandela once said:

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can learn to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

I hope some of our students take time to reflect on this statement.

Year 10 reports are due to subject Leaders of Learning on Friday and should be posted the following Friday. Students have been working well and taking every opportunity to impress their teachers with their application and dedication to achieving their personal best. I trust you will enjoy reading your child’s report. Congratulations to Cooper, James (his second) and Sari (her second) who qualified for Year Leader’s Awards and to Tilly who attained a Principal’s Award.

I wish to take this opportunity to let you know that I will not be taking this group forward into Year 11 as their Year Leader. There are 100 amazing students in this year group and it has been my great privilege to lead them during the past two years. I wish to thank you, the parents and carers, for the support and assistance you have offered me during that period. 

I will still be a Maths teacher at OCC and look forward to continuing my contact with some of these students in 2021 in that role. 

May God bless you all.

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

Year 11

Mr Mark Fulloon

Year 11 have had another very busy few weeks at school and while we edge closer to the end of the 2020 school year. Our senior students were actively involved in missions week last week running a variety of competitions including a whole school handball competition.

It was great to see the new school student leadership working together to provide the school community with some fun events and raise funds for Catholic missions. It was also great to see the new students lead their first assembly on Monday morning and the newly appointed arts captains performing for the assembly. Keep up the good work all of Year 11.

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

Year 12

Mrs Vicki Channon

Yayyyyy!!!! HSC exams are all over and the students can now enjoy a well deserved break. I would like to thank Mrs Kerry Steller and her awesome team of assistants for the smooth running of the exams, and the students were amazing in assisting with this process, considering the extra few conditions that they had to deal with - taking temperatures as they arrived and filling out some paperwork to check their physical health - interesting times!!! I would like to thank the office staff who assisted with this process for every exam:)

Please make sure students have cleaned out their rooms, checked under their beds and returned all the bits and pieces that they may have collected over the years to the College!!

Thursday 12th November was a special day for our graduating students when we were able to celebrate the culmination of 13 years of schooling. What a beautiful evening it was. It was lovely to be able to have photos together as a community at the Old Teacher’s College. 

I would like to thank Mrs Cath Deshon, Ms Amanda Bell, and Emma Gray for offering to take photos at this venue. I would also like to thank Maria Alkhouri for taking photos at Albies. The students had fun with the photo booth (even though we could not have props. :(  The photos have been shared with the students and parents/carers. 

Mrs Healey, along with Rosie Healey, Chloe Brown, Lara Walters and Tahlia Carson made and decorated the beautiful and yummy graduation cake and cupcakes.

Mrs Mary Wright, from Albies, along with all of the staff, including the chef, were extremely helpful with the organisation of the evening, ensuring that everything ran smoothly. 

The office staff, particularly Mrs Gemma Creagan and Mrs Liz O’Hara for all of their hard work with ticketing, budgeting, booklet, placemat, gifts etc...

My mum provided some beautiful flower arrangements, so I wish to thank her as well. 

Clancy Hedges and Abbey Thomas provided the wonderful slideshow at the end of the evening. Fabulous representation of our time together. Thank you. 

To the band of students who planned and helped set the venue, including table settings and decorations, music, balloons…. Thank you so much. The venue looked beautiful. 

Thank you to the staff who could attend - the students appreciated it greatly.

The night would have been made so much more special if we could have had parents, family and friends attending, but unfortunately it was not to be. You were certainly in our thoughts and prayers during the evening and we hope you felt the love from all of us.

Thank you students of Year 12, parents and carers of Year 12, all of the staff at O’Connor, for an amazing 6 years with the most amazing group of young people. I have been privileged to be part of your lives, watching you grow from little humans to young adults, sharing the joys and hopefully aiding with the not so good times. Please keep in touch. Take care x

I attach my speech for anyone who might be interested in reading it. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oq1tQFRLGGkqpWGZfL35HxdRAawIRKR4gSF_VeRm360/edit

Next week, we have a First Aid and CPR course running on Monday 23rd November. It is important that online training is done before this date. You need a special code that I will email to you once you have paid. RSA is on Wednesday 25th November and RCG on Thursday 26th Please make sure you check the information on Compass for all the finer details, and complete all paperwork before these events. The events will be held in U11. Please email or ring me if unsure about any of this information.

Mrs Channon and the Year 12 Team.