Pastoral Academic Care (PAC) 

Pastoral Academic Care (PAC) Focus - Mindfully Resilient

Well Being Element - Engagement and Mindfulness

Character Strength - Perspective

Parent Wellbeing:   A key ability to develop in yourself, which will enable you to be resilient to respond well to challenges, is being able to solve your social problems. This is particularly so in the fast paced 21st century, where social media activities are causing unacceptable pressures on your children, which you in turn have to support them with. The strength social-intelligence is good to use to assist you. How well do you respond to challenges? Acknowledgemen

Note from the editor

We are trialling a new system where the Leaders of Learning for Year 8, Year 9 and Year 11 Pastoral Academic Care write a report for this newsletter. Leaders of Learning for Year 7, Year 9 and Year 11  Pastoral Academic Care will be in the next newsletter.  

Caroline Chapman (Newsletter Editor)

Year 8

Ms Natalie Mellowship

We’re halfway through Term 1 already! Where does the time go? Year 8s are now back in the full swing of things and are demonstrating some great motivation to learn. During this time in the term, I encourage students to take a moment to reflect on their current achievements and goals for the remainder of the term, and discuss these with parents and carers to really open those lines of communication. 

On Monday 7th March, we hosted the Year 8 Parent Night. We were able to introduce this year’s Pastoral Academic Care Team and share our theme for the year, along with other key information such as how we implement Living Well, Learning Well into everything we do here at O’Connor Catholic College. The night also provided us with a great opportunity to outline our expectations, routines, and give an overview of what parents and carers can do to support their child’s learning and development. Please keep communication lines open with us here at school, and we encourage families who still have any questions to make contact with the College. Please also be reminded that your first point of contact with the College is your child’s PAC teachers.

As mentioned at the Parent Night, we have 6 critical questions that we like to use here at O’Connor that really do help students to understand what they are learning as opposed to what they are doing in lessons. Using these questions helps us to talk about how we can help to open up lines of communication between the school, class and home. 

What are you learning?

Why are you learning this?

How are you going?

How do you know?

How can you improve?

Where do you go for help?

As a school, we use the Google Classroom platform as a central site, alongside the Compass portal, to foster communication with our students. Students can access their PAC and Year Google Classrooms using the following Classroom codes:

Year 8 - etfz35t

8PAC1 - vzmhn23

8PAC2 - 5f6kbgq

8PAC3 - 5ngkkzb

8PAC4 - cvv6p2v 

Linking with our Year 8 theme for the year of “I succeed”, we have two Year 8 students who really encompass the idea that “resilience builds success”. A huge congratulations to Lily Lorimer and Aleesha Stuart who competed at the Diocesen Swimming Carnival in Gunnedah on Wednesday 2nd March. Lily achieved 14 years girls’ Age Champion and Aleesha achieved 13 years girls’ Age Champion. Congratulations to both girls and we wish you all the best for your upcoming representation for the Diocese at the CCC Swimming Championships.

A big congratulations to our Year 8 student debaters Jessica MacMahon, James Everett, 

Madeleine Cowley and Maggie Ridley who won their debate against TAS this week with the topic ‘that online schooling should be the way of the future’. 

Ms Natalie Mellowship & the Year 8 PAC Team

Year 10

Mr James Russell

The halfway point or halftime break is often viewed as the perfect time to pause and take stock of performance. It is an opportunity to evaluate strengths and consider how we can improve weaknesses. As we reach this point in Term 1 a general ‘halftime report’ for the Year 10 cohort would be quite positive. On the whole students have been behaving and engaging at school in quite a mature and responsible manner. Classrooms have generally been focused and settled with learning prioritised. Similarly, the playground has largely been a happy and harmonious place to be. In most respects Year 10 have really stepped up and are making a good fist of the challenges that their 10th year of schooling is placing upon them. 

In reviewing some of our weaknesses as a year group unfortunately the wearing of the correct school uniform is most obvious. Quite a number of students are choosing to wear incorrect items, particularly the wrong shoes and incorrect shorts with the sports uniform. Wearing the correct uniform is really important and beneficial from both a practical perspective and as part of being committed to the O’Connor Community. Students need to wear black leather shoes with their full uniform so that they can safely participate in practical lessons in the school kitchens, and workshops. The same is true of wearing joggers rather than skate shoes for practical PE lessons - so that they can safely participate in physical activity. These expectations are logical and important. Wearing correct shorts may seem trivial to some, but it shows pride in our school and a commitment to the O’Connor Team. We expect our students to demonstrate this pride by wearing the correct uniform each and every day. Please support us in this expectation and ensure that your children are doing so.

As we spend some time reflecting, there have been many wonderful achievements from Year 10 students over the past couple of weeks. Many commendation awards have been awarded acknowledging excellence in learning, effort and service to our school community. A few recent highlights are as follows.

John Harris and Joe Schmude played an epic quarter final in the Term 1 Chess Competition with John emerging victorious. John progressed to the Grand Final which was played early this week with ______ the victor.

Brooke Newberry recently competed at the NSW State Junior Athletics in the 3000m Race Walk. She achieved an outstanding result in coming third and. In doing so Brooke’s time qualified her for the Australian Junior Athletics Carnival to be held later in the year.

Year 12

Mrs Vicki Channon

Halfway through Term 1 already and it has been a pretty busy time for our Year 12 students. Preparation for assessment tasks has been the main priority for them as well as keeping afloat with course content. If you have a study period, you must go to the library. If you have arranged to meet a teacher during a study period, the teacher must have completed an adhoc event on compass. It is a duty of care in regards to students whereabouts in the school, particularly in the case of an evacuation or lockdown.

Whilst in study periods, students have plenty to do: working on assessment tasks, making notes and summaries, doing past papers from NESA, the list goes on.. Absenteeism for some of our Year 12 students is causing concern at a staff level. We really encourage parents and carers to address this important issue with their children, as it does have a significant impact on the learning potential. It is also important that Year 12 are a team, and being ‘present’ in class allows for greater success as a team.

Thank you to all of the Year 12 students who stepped up and made the swimming carnival a memorable event (albeit a soggy event). Participation rates were high for all of the senior races. Unfortunately, the relays could not take place which is often a highlight of the carnival. 

I also want to thank the leaders for attending the International Women’s Day Breakfast held on Friday March 4th at the Armidale Bowling Club, and hosted by Quota Club of Armidale. They represented our College with pride.

The Senior Success Program for Year 12 students and their parents/carers will be held on Monday 14th March at 6pm in the Library Learning Centre. We would really appreciate your support in attending this important event. It will be a great opportunity to meet myself, Mrs Healey, and the Year 12 PAC team on a social level, and a good chance to ask any questions that you have concerning this year. 

Vicki Channon and the Year 12 PAC Team