KLA News
O'Connor Catholic College
This fortnight we hear from the RE, Praxis, HSIE, VET & Mathematics Key Learning Areas.
RE
Year 11 Studies of Religion and Studies in Catholic Thought are deep into their HSC studies, completing their initial units and assessment tasks. These students will be gaining additional insight into their studies during the upcoming Senior Retreat, visiting an Islamic Mosque and Buddhist Temple, in addition to St Mary's Cathedral and the shrine of Saint Mary of the Cross Mackillop in North Sydney.
The Vinnies Christmas appeal has been launched at school this week and will culminate in a whole school liturgy on Tuesday 13th December. Families are encouraged to donate items that would be of appeal to young children and teenagers, as well as toiletries such as deodorants, soaps and other items that could be gifted to homeless individuals in our community.
Students in Years 7 - 10 will be commencing Advent activities in their classes in addition to finalising units of work on Human Dignity (Year 9), Sacraments of Initiation (Year 8), the Church in Australia (Year 9) and Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue (Year 10). Our Year 10 Ecuminism unit has gained special significance for a number of our students who this week finished working as Assistant Catechists in Special Religious Education classes at Ben Venue and Martin’s Gully Primary Schools. They were warmly received not only by the catechists they assisted but also the students at Martin’s Gully and Ben Venue schools, and are to be congratulated for their courage in taking on these roles!
Mrs Roff's Year 8 RE class has been studying the Sacraments of Initiation this term, and investigating Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. Their final learning task was to create a learning resource for their peers or younger students. The variety of resources has been amazing and extremely creative, ranging from raps and crosswords to developing their own online teaching games such as Kahoot and Blooket!
Andrew May on behalf of the RE Team
PRAXIS
All of the PRAXIS classes have now completed their unit titled ‘Create Your Own Country’. They had to present their group work to an authentic audience of Year 10 or Year 11 students who acted as United Nations ambassadors. They awarded the Year 7 students with financial incentives (lollies) for high quality work or answering challenging questions in a responsible and thoughtful manner. It was very impressive to see all of the Year 7 students in action as they discussed serious matters such as resources, currency, energy and national flags!
Jenny Roff on behalf of the PRAXIS Team
HSIE
For our final HSIE report of 2022, we will be focusing on year 7 History who have been learning about life in Ancient China. Ancient China boasts the longest lasting empire in history. It began with the Qin dynasty and the first emperor Qin who united all of China under one rule in 221 BC. Emperors would continue to rule over China for more than 2000 years.
Art, culture, and religion were often tied together in China. There were three main religions or philosophies including Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. These ideas, called "the three ways" had a large impact on the way people lived as well as their art. Art focused on "the three perfections"; poetry and calligraphy and painting.
The 7HSIE3 class attempted to recreate the traditional blue and white plates using some standard design features, blue pens and white paper plates. We hope you enjoy the results of their efforts.
The HSIE teachers wish you all the very best for a wonderful Christmas and a safe and relaxing holiday season.
Cherie Stoessel on behalf of the HSIE Team
VET
This week students participated in and devised impressive solutions to community challenges in the UNE Kickstarter program.
"The UNE Kickstarter event was a great life experience for all of us that attended, we met many great people who taught us a lot of valuable skills." Zach Hale
Zach Hale, Ollie Martin, Ella Luchich, Abi Van Eyk & Joshua Bible
James Healy on behalf of the VET Team
Mathematics
It has been a busy end to the term in the mathematics KLA. All students are busily working on completing the final units for the year. It is with sadness that we farewell one of our KLAs teachers. Mr Peter McLeish has been with us for 13 years and he retires at the end of this term. Over this time Peter has been an outstanding Mathematics teacher. He will be missed by staff and students alike. If we are lucky he might make the odd celebrity appearance in the not too distant future but we wish him all the best in his retirement.
A snapshot from our Year 8 classes has seen them completing working on the Congruence and Similarity unit. Year 8 students have been working on some tessellations as part of this unit. With the help of a really cool website, Tessellations , students were able to create some stunning designs. Here are some of the best. Some were chosen because they reflect the colours of NAIDOC week which we celebrated last fortnight.
Mark Harris on behalf of the Mathematics Team
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