Department News

HSIE Department

The last few weeks have involved commemorations of various kinds: The End of the War in the Pacific during 1945, the International Remembrance day for the Abolition of Slavery, as well as International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. These events are intrinsically tied to the current instruction taking place across HSIE subjects, ranging from Year 12 Modern History and Legal Studies, completing units on Peace and Conflict in the Modern World, Year 9 Geography’s focus on Human Wellbeing and Year 10 History’s unit titled Rights and Freedoms. In addition, Year 10 History Elective are currently examining the Ukraine-Russia conflict, for how present media sources will pave the way for future historians to write about the subject.

In week 5, the HSC Trials finished, bringing a close to the last few months of exam strategies and writing drills that teachers have been running with their classes.  The HSC students now enter their last few weeks of their candidature, before they commence their final exams. During this time, they will be commencing several workshops of post-exam revision, which their teachers have put together.

Another item to report back on, was the Market Day, hosted by Year 9 Commerce students. The stalls showcased the entrepreneurial skills of all those involved, gave students a real-world experience of running a business and directed all profits towards charitable causes. The Year 9 Commerce teaching team and their students were successful in raising $1330 on the day. 

Congratulate them, when you see them!

In the coming weeks, Year 8 students will carry out a series of activities, involving looking through a carnival of Medieval artefacts, costumes, performances and reenactments, as part of Medieval Day, on the 8th of September. This will complement their current studies of Medieval Europe and the Black Death. Thanks must go to David Martin for organising the event.

Until next time!

David Martin      &     David Nally

Head of HSIE            Head of HSIE

(Stages 4 & 5)           (Stage 6)

Mathematics Department

The mathematics department, from the end of Semester 1, has embraced the opportunities of having the incursions and excursions back in our curriculum, to expose our students with the real applications of Mathematics, outside the classrooms. 

YEAR 12 MATHEMATICS INCURSION WITH STUART PALMER

On Monday the 20th of June, Year 12 Mathematics Standard & Advanced students attended the Mathematics Workshops with Stuart Palmer. He is the founder and director of PD4Maths and the leading Mathematics consultant, who delivers workshops for Maths teachers and students across NSW & beyond. 

Stuart has shared an extensive list of resources with both Standard & Advanced Mathematics, such as: The To Do List; the creating of their own Summaries for the Preliminary and HSC course work; how to make the most of the Maths Reference/Data Sheet during the examinations; how to do statistical calculations on the scientific calculator; and past papers etc. His workshops provided our year 12 students with such important insights, into their upcoming Trial & HSC Examinations.

YEAR 11 EXTENSION MATHS CLASS

What are Radians?

Ms D’Arcy made our Friday maths lesson fun by showing us that radians are a piece of cake. Literally. She brought in a mouth-watering chocolate mud-cake, which immediately had our undivided attention and stuck a skewer in its centre. Using a ruler, we were able to determine that the diameter was approximately 17 cm, making the radius 8.5 cm. We tied a piece of string to the centre skewer, and made a mark every 8.5 cm along its length. Then, Ms D’Arcy stuck another skewer at the outer edge, and wrapped the string around it so that the first mark aligned with it. In this way, we put skewer after skewer all around the cake, distanced by the 8.5 cm arcs determined by the markings on the string. We already knew that the radian of an angle is found by multiplying the degree of the angle by pi over 180°, making the radian of 180° simply pi. However, this theory was consolidated in practice when we noticed that half of the cake’s circumference was a little bit past the third skewer, so approximately 3.14 times the radius! From there, it dawned on us that a radian is an angle that is subtended by an arc equal to the length of the radius. So there you have it, easy as pi.

As gloves, sanitiser and other hygiene methods were used, we were able to celebrate our findings with some scrumptious cake.                                       Elsa Lane

YEAR 10 5.3 MATHS CLASS

The students in Mrs Mabey’s Year 10 5.3 class applied the Bivariate Data Analysis study into practice by measuring each other to analyse the correlation between Heights and Arm spans and Heights and Head circumference. They had a lot of laughs and fun measuring each other. 

These are their findings:

YEAR 8 MATHS & SPORT SHOW INCURSION

The students in Year 8 Mathematics enjoyed The Maths & Sport Show Incursion. The Maths and Sport Show is a unique live performance that uses our love of sport to bring maths alive for students. The Maths and Sport Show highlights the role played by maths in the sports that students play, watch and love including AFL, Rugby, Cricket, Soccer, Netball, Athletics, Swimming and more. The show, consisting of short sketches, video, games and more, is highly interactive with plenty of student participation and is a wonderful opportunity for our students to have fun and engage in many mathematical activities.

YEAR 7 ZOO EXCURSION

On Friday, 5th of August, Year 7 went on a Maths and Science excursion to the Taronga Zoo. Both teachers and students were very excited as we have not been able to go on an excursion for the past two years. Year 7 students were given the opportunities to apply their mathematical and scientific thinking skills, while exploring and enjoying their day at the Zoo.The areas of mathematics explored were Financial Maths, Measurement of Time and Area, Reading the Taronga Zoo Map and plotting the places of interests on the Cartesian Plane and sketching the different views of different shaped enclosures or objects. The Seal and Bird shows were thoroughly enjoyed by the teachers and students while having their recess and lunch. They discovered that the Seals had a lot of personality and found out some interesting facts about them. Our own Mr Munguia was volunteer for the bird show and had a beautiful Hawk on his shoulder. It was lovely to see such beautiful birds amongst us with the stunning view of the harbour.

Mathematics Department has been full of hard work and fun!

Maya Mabey     &        Gus Lyon 

Head of                         Assistant Head of          

Mathematics              Mathematics 

Drama Department

Drama Students - Equipped for the Future

Subject Selection season is upon us for 2023, and I would like to take this opportunity to speak about the extraordinary skills and lessons learnt while studying Drama. 

Drama is a subject where you will learn crucial life skills that are necessary for ALL future professions and industries: 

• Confidence - Being able to perform/speak in front of an audience is an essential skill for the future. Think of leaders briefing a team, pitching a business idea or running a workshop – most jobs require you to do these briefs regularly. 
• Creative thinking - How can you approach an idea in a way that hasn’t been targeted? Creativity leads to innovation. 
• Critical thinking and problem solving - Performing from the perspective of different characters help develop empathy. It helps to analyse and understand people and issues from multiple angles.
• Collaboration and communication - Life is all about working with people. You will develop and hone your ability to communicate and work with others, which is vital for any job in any industry. 
• Adaptability/flexibility - In life, things don’t always go to plan. Drama will teach you how to adapt and be flexible to complete a goal and get the job done. Might you need to swap roles? Rehearse a few extra afternoons? Refine and rework a vision?
• Organisation and planning - Having an end goal and working backwards to complete it is a skill you will need as an adult, not just in your work but in your life! Creating rehearsal schedules and keeping yourself accountable with a project, are skills you need for the future. 

We would also like to take this opportunity to speak about the fantastic work going into the Musical as we rehearse for the production in Week 1 of Term 3. Each student has shown commitment to their rehearsals, creative thinking in solving theatrical problems and working hard on understanding the impact of a scene or song on the overall meaning of the Musical - Matilda. There is so much talent and learning going on with this event and if you haven’t already bought your tickets to see the show - do it now! 

Keep shining, 

Drama Department