School of Leadership

News from the School of Leadership

School of Leadership students have made a flying start to Term 2 and whilst the effects of Covid have somewhat eased - SOL students have been very busy! A particular standout was being able to welcome parents into the College to celebrate Mothers’ Day with a special Liturgy. We are very much looking forward to inviting parents to see our fabulous new learning spaces and showcasing how we learn in the School of Leadership during the Parent Learning Walk in Week 6. Information will be communicated about how to book a session.

Our Year 5 and 7 students are on day 3 of NAPLAN testing, having completed the Reading, Writing and Language Conventions papers this week. The Numeracy paper is set down to be the final paper and is scheduled for early next week. Year 5 and 7 are to be commended for their positivity and the ways in which they took the NAPLAN process in their stride. I echo Mr Miller’s sentiments regarding NAPLAN shared last week, particularly the notion that NAPLAN is not about passing and failing, but rather a tool to inform students, parents and teachers about strengths and opportunities for growth.

Year 8 had a couple of wet days at Penrith Lakes but reports indicate that not even the rain could dampen the spirits of the groups who attended on Monday or Wednesday. Excursions are rich opportunities for learning and application of knowledge in a real world context and are particularly enjoyed by students in the aftermath of Covid. A big thank you to the teachers who planned and attended the excursion.

Frontier Avenue and the Hub

This term we have opened the grass area along Frontier Avenue for students in the School of Leadership to play sport at lunch time. The students have embraced the extra space and have spent many hours already connecting with their friends and exercising. The Hub has also been opened at recess and lunch for students to have a quiet space to read, play chess, knit, complete school work, play lego and connect with their peers. The School of Leadership Book Nook is a popular space and many students have been borrowing books to take home. We will soon be adding to this reading space with many new titles for our students to enjoy. The Hub is now a lively place, bubbling with energy and excitement from our students.

Update regarding parent emails through Compass:The phrase "lack of application" will no longer be used when a parent is to receive a notification about their child not completing class work or homework. The terms “lack of application” implied a sustained lack of effort and application towards completing work rather than non-completion of one activity or task. The terminology in Compass is what we will be using moving forward: "no homework/no class work / non-completion of x task". This notification is not meant to be a punishment, but rather a communication method so that teachers can work together with parents to support their child’s learning at the College.

Mrs Kate Kelly - Head of School of Leadership

Stage 3 Stories…

Developing Collaborative Skills

An important part of our learning comes through our ability to collaborate with others. There are many skills that need to be developed in order for our students to be able to listen, process information, evaluate the information and respond meaningfully. Some of these include:

the ability to comprehend and paraphrase what has been communicated
the ability to absorb information and connect it to what a student may already know
the ability to think critically about what has not been said
to clearly express themselves so that clear, meaningful feedback can be offered.

Collaboration looks different depending on the task. Students across Stage 3 have already been working with others to share and discuss ideas in all KLA’s.

Mrs Therese Bear - Stage 3 Acutis

STEM IN STAGE 3

In Term 2, we are working collaboratively with a group of Stage 3 students on a St Luke's STEM project. We have the great privilege of extending our partnership with Professor Olivia Mirza from Western Sydney University who launched the project at the start of this term with our Principal Leader Mr Greg Miller.

We meet in the Stage 3 Maker Space each Monday afternoon from 1:00pm until 2:30pm. Students complete some flipped learning tasks and independent research at home as well. Teachers support our Stage 3 students to develop some autonomy, independence and agency over their learning. The facilitators of this course are also the students' learning partners and therefore, are learning alongside our students in areas that have been previously unexplored.

The project promises to be exciting and challenging! The team of teachers and students will end up in the Learning Pit several times and will harness our Pillar strengths to build upon and extend our knowledge and skills, as well as innovate and inspire.

Below are some images from our project launch which included a call to action from Mr Miller, followed by some input about Engineering from Professor Mirza.

Mrs Aggarwal, Ms Kirby and Mr Ptolemy

From Year 7…

The Sleep Connection

During Week 3, Year 7 was visited by Lisa Maltman from the Sleep Connection. The students have been keeping a sleep diary to gain a better picture of their sleep health. Startlingly, 70% of teenagers experience insufficient sleep and this has a significant consequence on many areas of their lives such as learning and academic performance. Students learnt about how poor sleep decreases motivation, concentration and memory consolidation. Students keenly participated in the workshop, considering their own sleeping habits and planned for ways to improve their sleeping health.

Mrs Josephine Camilleri - Acting Assistant Principal

HUB CLUB and HUB access

As of Term 2, The HUB has now been officially opened and made available to all students to access at recess or lunch for ‘passive activities’ such as reading, completing Consolidation and Flipped Learning content, card games, board games or constructing lego as some of the many activities that are available.

In addition, HUB CLUB has started from Term 2 where the following occur:

Tuesday afternoons: Code Club is run by Mr Ptolemy.

Thursday afternoon: Pitch Fest is run by Mrs Kirby and Debating is run by Ms Chand

Students in Year 7 have been invited to complete this survey to nominate if there are any other interest groups they are keen to start or be involved with that can access the HUB such as knitting, Dungeons and Dragons, Book Club etc.

Winter Uniform:

The winter uniform is expected to be worn throughout Term 2 and Term 3. Please refer to the image below to guide you.

Students are to provide a signed note from Mum or Dad if in case they cannot be in the full winter uniform.

Please feel free to contact your Year CPC (Coordinator of Pastoral Care) Mrs Villarosa (Year 7) or Ms Chand (Year 8) via email should you have any further questions.

Play Areas:

As of Term 2, the following spaces have now been made available for SOL students:

Recess: SOE grass area (excluding the mound), The Hub, The Courts and The Marketplace

Lunch: Front grass are of the HUB, The Hub, The Courts and The Marketplace

Students are expected to wear their hats when outdoors at all times.

Organisation

A reminder that students need to have the following each day:

Their charged laptop (without the need of their charger)
Pencil case
Exercise books for the sessions they have that day
Hat
Recess/ lunch and water bottle
Necessary equipment advised by their specific teachers

No classwork/ No homework

This is a gentle reminder to all students and parents that when an email of ‘No Classwork’ or ‘No Homework’ is sent this can be used as a means to have a conversation with your child about their organisation and work.

Consolidation and Flipped Content in SOL (Years 7 and 8) should be no more than 20 minutes each day. (ie. 3 sessions a day = 3 x 20 mins = 1 hour per day in total!)

Should you realise your child is needing more than 20 minutes per day regularly for any particular subject or across subjects:

Please have your child speak directly to their teacher for clarification and support
Please feel free to contact the specific teacher or subject area
Please feel free to contact your CPC (Mrs Villarosa or Ms Chand)

Please see the following letter below as a guide.

Ideally your child will know what ‘missing work’ has not been completed so you do NOT need to contact the teacher unless your child or yourself needs further clarification.

This is also a good opportunity to speak to your child’s teacher/s if any adjustments or support is needed to complete the work.

A great technique for this is to ensure that a timer or clock is nearby when your child is working and at 20 minutes, your child draws a line or marks on the document that this is what they completed and will need to speak to their teacher/s about how they can best be supported to complete the work or if any further support is needed.

NAPLAN reminder

NAPLAN (Numeracy) will take place again for Year 7 next week on Tuesday the 17th May during Session 1.

Please remind your child of the following:

In Italiano…

Approfondiamo il nostro Italiano!

In Italian, students are learning how to construct sentences using the plural form and the family members’ vocabulary.

Their sentences should include the verbs ESSERE and AVERE, sempre!

They also started drawing their family tree, l’albero genealogico!

Ms Cheyenne Gallo - Languages Teacher

From Year 8…

Excursion to Penrith Lakes

On Monday the 9th and Wednesday the 11th of May, Year 8 attended a Geography excursion to Penrith Lakes to explore the various uses of water, water quality in the Nepean district and how water can be treated and filtered and improved. We also toured the local ‘Waterside’ development and discovered the sustainable ways that the community captures and uses water. Students engaged in some testing of water quality at two different sites. Testing included temperature, turbidity, phosphorus and pH. Despite getting a little wet, students enjoyed the day and it was great to see them so engaged in hands -on learning.

Mrs Cara Schepel - Diversity Coordinator and Yr 8 English/HSIE teacher

Visual Arts

Year 8 have been looking at Johnny Romeo and 60s Pop Art this term. They had the task of creating their own artworks using pop art techniques studied throughout the unit and were challenged to speak about one of the four topics that were given, equality, covid-19, social media and the environment.

Mr Patrick Magsino and Miss Hayley Cascarino - CAPA Teachers

Year 7 and 8 Year Meetings

Year 7 and 8 have scheduled Year meetings which occur on three Thursdays throughout the term. These meetings provided valuable opportunities to connect as a year group, showcase achievements of students and communicate important messages. Each meeting ends with an affirmation that students collectively verbalise before moving off to their next lessons. The affirmations are different each meeting and are intended to support students to develop positive self talk and confidence.

Coding Club

Our Coding Club comprises students from Stage 4 predominantly and is the first of hopefully many Hub Clubs. This group comes with a range of interests and experience levels but all will be challenged to strengthen their text-based coding skills and understanding of programming.

Over the term, as students work on their platform game projects using Python, we will cover a range of programming language concepts and also consider the difference between 'writing code' and 'writing code well'. On top of that, we'll have some fun along the way!

Mr Brad Ptolemy - New Technologies Officer

Sport

Congratulations to all students that represented St Luke’s with such great enthusiasm at the Primary Parramatta Diocesan Cross Country Carnival. All students ran extremely well and should be proud of their achievements. A special congratulations to James and Gabriela in Stage 3 who have now qualified to represent St Luke’s at the NSWCPS Cross Country Championships which will take place in June.

Congratulations also to Year 7 student, Layla D, who was selected to represent Gymnastics NSW at the 2022 Australian Gymnastics Championships on the Gold Coast. This is a fabulous achievement for Layla and one which required many months of rigorous training.

Debating

Students in Years 7-10 have joined the CSDA debating competition where every Friday night they compete with other local Catholic schools in enhancing their communication skills. The students were very excited and competed with great enthusiasm, scoring 2 wins for the night.

A Year 10 debater had the following to say about the experience:

Debating is a nice thrill and exhilarating. It is a good way to make friends from people at other schools and improves our confidence in speaking to a public forum.