Pastoral Academic Care

Pastoral Academic Care (PAC) Focus

This week’s Pastoral Academic Care focus is Grateful Learning

Wellbeing Element:                               RELATIONSHIPS + EMPATHY

Character Strength:                               PERSPECTIVE

Wellbeing Reality Activities:              GRATEFUL LEARNING

Parent Wellbeing: 

A skill of social-emotional resilience is reaching out to build social connectedness with others. Describe how you do this and how you could do it better. 

The quality of relationships between students and their teachers is the greatest predictor of student success and the delivery of high order teaching. It is crucial for parents and teachers to have a collective vision of what they want their students to act like, look like, sound like, know and can do because of their influence. And then they have a shared road map to follow to achieve this student image. The old sayings, “we can’t teach them till we reach them” and “kids don’t care what we know till they know we care”, contain important messages for parents and teachers to live and breathe. One certain thing is that parents and teachers can’t fake caring, students will pick up on this very quickly. Cultivating growth mindsets in students to believe that their teachers are there for them and genuinely want them to become their best possible selves will build respectful learning relationships. This includes accepting their teachers’ advice, as they do with their sports coaches, and realising that teachers, like themselves, are also individuals, with their own ways of doing things. When students, parents and teachers combine their top strengths, great learning, parenting and teaching occurs, enabling the whole school community to thrive and flourish. Acknowledgement: Wentzell & Caldwell

Year 7

Mrs Kath Czinner & Mr James Russell

Term 2 continues to bring on challenges. The focus on remote learning has enabled us to work on building our independence and resilience. Hopefully students have been able to reflect on the positives, any difficulties and been able to pursue an interest. This week I sent an email to students asking them to respond. I was impressed with the emails to say the least. Students were able to express themselves with clarity and shared insights as to how they were coping with the remote learning. Some students are very keen to get back to school and be among their friends and teachers.

I am very grateful for the Year 7 PAC teachers as they have worked hard to ensure that we stay connected as a class and a year group. 

Each day our routine is so important. Parent support has been fantastic, in times where you have had to juggle work and family and school life. Please reach out if you need support. 

Please remind your child that they need to check all lines of communication ie Check Compass, Google classroom and emails. Follow instructions carefully. If students need support contact teachers via email or ring the school office and messages will be passed on.

Enjoy time together as a family and remind ourselves that our learning in this time has extended beyond school and into everyday activities. 

We look forward to seeing as many students as possible next Thursday as we transition back into school.

Take Care,

Mrs Czinner and the Yr 7 PAC Team

Year 8

Mrs Katie Biddle

Hello everyone!

I hope that you all had a happy and healthy school holiday. It was a bit different to usual, but hopefully you found a silver lining and managed to do some relaxing and fun things. I learnt how to climb trees!

This term is shaping up to be different again, I encourage you to keep up to date with notices on the compass app. This will keep you up to date with new information as it comes to light. This week there are parent information zoom meetings happening, please join us for these if you can. You can find the links for these on compass.  

Thankyou for the support that you have provided your child with as we continue remote learning. We (students and teachers!) really appreciate the support that parents have been providing their children. If any questions or issues arise, please let us know.

Congratulations to those who have been participating in the daily challenges and completing their remote learning tasks. The following students have recently achieved a Year Leaders Award: Harrison Selby, Deakin Windred, Manon Perin and Nixon Bird. Well done Harrison, Deakin, Manon and Nixon!

You can support your child by making sure that they:

Check the daily notices each day (on compass)

Follow the suggested schedule (on compass)

Take breaks - physical and mental

Seek support when needed

Please see the schedule as communicated by Ms Menz regarding the gradual return to school. If you have any questions please let me know.

Katie Biddle and Year 8 PAC team

kbiddle1@arm.catholic.edu.au 

Year 9

Mr Lloyd Honnery

Week 3 is upon us already and with it brings another change to routine. On Tuesday the 12th of May OCC will be open to the whole of Year 9 if they wish to attend. 

The school will not run as usual and there are some key guidelines we need to adhere to in order to keep everyone safe. 

Students will be seated at one desk for the entirety of the day. Students will not move when the bell sounds

Students are to wear sports uniform as they will all be going for a walk during first period

Students will need to bring their own food for the day, the canteen will be closed

Students will need to wash their hands at regular intervals during the day

Social distancing rules will be enforced, please be mindful when interacting with other students. 

Well done to all of the Year 9 students taking part in the daily challenges online, I have a lot of Year leader awards to hand out when we return.

Remember during this time to take some time for yourself each day to de-stress and relax. If there is anything I can do to assist with life at O’Connor please don’t hesitate to email me at: lhonnery@arm.catholic.edu.au

Year 10

Mr Peter McLeish

During the staycation I read two books by Peter Fitzsimons. ‘Gallipoli’ and ‘James Cook’. Both books contained many references to uncharted waters and that’s exactly where we find ourselves once again as we head into Term Two. 

Most of our students are already doing the right thing each day. This entails:

(After getting out of bed, getting dressed and having breakfast - preferably by 8:50am)

1. Logging into our Google Classroom each morning to check the Daily Notices and the Zoom schedule for the day. 

2. Checking with each subject Lesson Plan on Compass to guarantee they know what is expected of them in each subject area for that day.

3. Ensuring they attend Zoom meetings as required.

4. Ensuring they complete set work as required.

5. Ensuring they enjoy some physical activity during the day.

6. Letting their PAC teachers know if they are feeling overwhelmed, anxious or unwell.

Your job, as parents and carers, is to encourage them to follow the dot points set out above.

On Monday 11th May, all Year 10 students, who are not deemed to be high risk students, are expected to be at school for a full day. 

Of course, they are welcome to attend on any day if their circumstances mean they need to be at school and there will be plenty of teachers at school to help them if they need it but Monday is their day for Week 3.

An incredible number of Commendation Certificates have been awarded during the home learning period. Students are earning them for contributing to the Daily Challenges, contributing to Zoom meetings and for Quality Academic work. They are notified via Compass when they have earned an Award. 

Congratulations to Nathalie C, Andrew H, Georgina M, Alex B, Bella-May A, Aaron C, Joey J, Brydie P, Maggie R, Bethany J, Millie E, Sari B, Emma G, Zac W, Oluoma M, Montanna C and Alexandra S who all received Year Leader Awards and a special congratulations to Tahlia L, Fletcher S and Imogen H who received Principal’s Awards. Keep up the great work Year 10.

Please feel free to contact me or your child’s PAC teachers at any time to discuss any issues you may have. Who knows where we will be in another two weeks.

I look forward to seeing as many of our students as possible next Monday.

Stay safe!

Peter McLeish (on behalf of the Year 10 PAC team)

Year 11

Mr Mark Fulloon

Year 11 have now doubt had a very busy return to school work via remote learning and trying to keep up with their class work. In most cases Zoom meetings, Google Classroom, Emails and Compass have become common place for most students to access their classroom teachers and work. I acknowledge the work of all Teachers of Year 11 including the work of their PAC teachers keeping students going in this currently difficult and unusual time.

Week 3 we start to see a staggered start to school with school available to Year 11 students both Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Year 11 have stepped up to this challenge in a positive way so far and I encourage them to continue to work to the best of their ability and continue to stay positive moving through the rest of term 2. Keep up the good work Year 11.

Regards,

Mark Fulloon 

(on behalf of the Year 11 PAC team)

Year 12

Mrs Vicki Channon

I just want to start by saying how proud we are of Year 12 students and the manner in which they have approached the learning during this time of upheaval. The majority of students continue to engage with their learning by attending zoom meetings, completing set tasks and working on assessment tasks. There has been much conversation via email, phone and face to face communication with teachers and students and this has proved positive on both sides of the coin. We have had many students come in and work at school, and this has proved beneficial in terms of staying focussed and getting in the zone, ready for next week.

Please make sure you are keeping up to date with correspondence in regards to the organisation of Week 3, as well as information regarding HSC changes to practical courses, dates, UAC etc… Mrs Lemon has passed on a lot of information about careers, online opportunities for extra learning.. Please do not stress too much at this stage in regards to early entry, we have plenty of time. There will be lots of assistance given for this, so please talk to us next week if you need help with this.

We look forward to seeing you at 9.25am on Monday morning in the QUAD ready to seize the day and get back into some form of normality. 

Vicki Channon (on behalf of the Year 12 PAC team)