Principal's Report

Dear O’Connor Community,

This year we have been focusing our attention on answering this question. Our Year 12 students began to explore this last year. Their willingness to create a legacy for our College has seen our students and staff participate in the Autumn Festival, ANZAC Day marches across the district, Armidale Youth Week, Armidale Catholic Schools Mass, 2023 Warramalaya Retreat as well as the Armidale Eisteddfods (music, drama, public speaking, dance), Sporting Gala Days, Chess, National Coding Competitions and the list goes on. OCC is a community that is not afraid to have a go. We are a community that learns and plays together. In essence OCC is a TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More!)

TEAM means that our success depends on everyone in our community working together. 

• We have expectations to live up to - in class, in the playground, online and outside school
• Expectations are there to help us rise to be the best version of ourselves
• We are focused on our learning and helping others to learn.
• Learning can look different for everyone - needing additional support or accelerated and everything in-between.
• Caring and respecting each other as teammates - staff and students
• Staff and Students are valued and spoken to with respect and care
• Our uniform is worn with pride - 
  • Pride in our school community and
  • Pride in ourselves

As we come to the end of Term 2, I am filled with hope and confidence that the legacy we are creating is one where

Feedback on Learning and School Reports

We have listened to our parent community feedback. Over the last few years there has been a strong desire by our parents to be partners in their child's learning. The partnership between parents and the school is important in helping students to be successful. 

This year we have been making changes:

• Being proactive with Student Led Conferences. This year we shifted the timing of our Year 7 to 10 Conferences to the start of Term 2 and included meetings with every subject teacher. This change was a direct response to parent's request for an opportunity to talk with ALL of their child's teachers and to know where they could support their child's learning. A proactive partnership allows us to work together to improve your child's learning before reports are written. I want to thank those parents who attended and the feedback you provided. Our goal is to provide this same opportunity later in the year.
• Feedback on your child's learning is provided in real time. Every subject has at least one Common Moderated Task per term. These are released through Compass in the Learning Task tab. Parents are now able to see the personalised feedback on their child's learning.
• Reports will be a summary. Our parents have let us know that the comments on reports were often generic in nature and did not provide the valuable feedback they were looking for on their child's learning. The reports will no longer have comments as feedback is provided through Learning Tasks and Student Led Conferences.

 We hope that these changes address the needs of our parent community and provides a greater sense of partnership with our teachers. Please do not hesitate to contact us regarding these changes. Our students can only succeed with a strong partnership between our parents and teachers.

God Bless,

Mrs Clare Healy

Principal