Curriculum

Years 7 to 11 Optional Parent/Teacher Interviews and Years 7 to 10 Student Academic Reports

The Years 7 to 11 Parent/Teacher Interviews will be held on the morning and evening of Monday 6 December, from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM and from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM. It is important to note that the interviews are optional.

All interviews will be conducted via Microsoft Teams, either via a link emailed to the parent/carer by the relevant teacher, or by the teacher ’calling’ using the relevant student’s Teams account. Adhering to time, i.e., seven minutes per interview, is necessary for the interviews to run smoothly. There is no expectation that parents/carers book interviews for all their son's teachers. There is also no expectation that students are present for interviews.

On Thursday 25 November, all parents/carers will be sent an email with instructions on how to book interview times online via Edval Interviews. Parents/carers should check their emails and junk mail for communication regarding interview bookings. Please contact Mrs Colak via rebecca.colak@spc.nsw.edu.au if you have not received this email.

Parents/carers may book interview timeslots themselves. The College will not be allocating interview times. Parents/carers need to ensure interviews are booked by no later than 12:00 noon, Thursday 2 December.

The interviews are an opportunity for parents/carers to discuss their son's Yearly Report with respect to progress and adjustment to study routines, and recommendations for improvement next year. In particular, the interviews will not be an appropriate forum for parents/carers to discuss next year’s classes and teacher allocations with individual class teachers.

The Years 7 to 10 Yearly Reports will be posted online via the Sentral Parent Portal by Friday 26 November. In order to access their son's reports, parents/carers will be required to log on to the Sentral Parent Portal, select their son’s name and then select Published Reports. Parents/carers may view and/or print the report. Only parent/carer accounts can access student reports. Parents/carers who have forgotten their passwords can click ‘forgotten your username or password’ link on the Sentral Parent Portal login page.

It is strongly advised that parents/carers download and save all their son's reports in a secure electronic home file as well as, maintain printed hard copies of the reports in a secure place at home.

Michael Cutrupi

Director of Curriculum

Year 6 and 8 Academic Assessment Services Online Testing

As a College, we offer a varied curriculum that aims to cater to the learning profiles of all our students. We wish to offer a learning environment that encourages each student to reach their own academic excellence. To assist us in achieving this goal, we engage the services of Academic Assessment Services. The testing they conduct on our behalf provides us with rich data that allows us to inform, enhance, and modify our curriculum to ensure that each student is engaged and enthusiastic about his learning.

The purposes of the testing is to assist the College in developing an understanding of academic abilities for each Year group, and the individuals therein, their collective and individual learning profiles, and to assist in identifying areas of particular strengths or, if necessary, areas that we as educators need to focus on and support.

The dates for the online tests are as follows:

Year 6 – Wednesday 17 November 2021
Year 8 – Thursday 18 November 2021

The testing will be conducted onsite at the College and supervised by our teachers. However, the actual testing will be administered online through an external consultant.

Testing will take approximately four (4) hours and is conducted in timed sessions covering:

General Reasoning
Reading Comprehension
Mathematics
Written Expression
Spelling.

Bruno Milheiro

Religious Education Teacher I Acting Year 8 Coordinator

“As you sow so shall you reap” (Galatians 6:7)

In Weeks 7 and 8, all boys from Year 10 will participate in a cross-curricular program entitled “Who are we and how do we contribute to our world?”. The program combines what would normally be the Year 10 Justice Forum and the Year 10 Reflection Program as well as the mandatory NESA program for Year 10 All My Own Work. Boys will hear from a guest speaker in the Courage to Care presentation, view a film related to the theme, complete the five mandatory All My Own Work modules, and then work with a partner to complete a project which demonstrates both their understanding of the justice and formation themes, along with the application of the All My Own Work skills.

Students and interested parents/carers may access the NESA All My Own Work program here.

Although this program is primarily designed to prepare Higher School Certificate students to follow the principles and practices of good scholarship, it has much relevance and application to all students engaged in assignment work involving research and/or group work. This includes understanding and valuing ethical practices when locating, selecting, and using information as part of their course work and assessments.

It is a mandatory requirement for all students across NSW to complete the program before entering senior studies.

As per the All My Own Work website, the program is divided into five modules:

Scholarship Principles and Practices
Acknowledging Sources
Plagiarism
Copyright
Working with others.

Students will be issued with a timetable which indicates all required Justice and Formation and All My Own Work lessons across the two weeks. Project work will be completed in designated English, Mathematics and Core lessons. Projects are due on Friday 26 November and students will showcase their work in a Gallery Walk. Prizes will be awarded for Best Demonstration of Theme, Best Application of All My Own Work principles and Most Creative. In addition, there will be 'Viewer’s Choice' Awards selected by Year 10 vote.

The All My Own Work program is integrated with and complements all senior NESA syllabuses. The principles and practices of the All My Own Work program are already well established and embedded in the College’s Assessment Policy and Procedures.

Gillian Daley Denise Lombardo

Director of Identity Director of Learning and Innovation

Remote Learning and Return to School Surveys

To ensure we reflect on our approaches and engage in continual improvement, staff, students, and parents and carers have all completed remote learning and return to school surveys over the past few weeks. Survey results were overwhelmingly positive, although we do have a few areas to attend to should we have to return to remote learning in the future. The results are summarised below.

Approaches to learning remotely: The use of Canvas for content and work submission and Microsoft Teams and Break-out Rooms for conducting live lessons were seen as the most helpful approaches to conducting engaging lessons. Across all three surveys, the support of peers, colleagues, and teachers was also rated favourably. Parents, carers, and student both provided positive accounts of teachers emailing, checking in and going to great lengths to provide meaningful learning for the boys. Areas for improvement include working towards greater creativity in delivery of lessons and finding ways for boys to interact more regularly with their peers and the work.

Support of wellbeing during the remote period: Parents, carers and students all reported that having extended breaks between lessons and occasional consolidation days allowed for some much-needed time away from screens. Regular Homeroom check-ins and contact from teachers to parents and carers and individual students were also greatly appreciated as signs of care and concern.

Support for parents/carers: Parents/carers appreciated regular updates from Dr Lavorato and class teachers as well as consolidation days, communication from Year Coordinators and Especean articles.

What we can learn from remote and apply more consistently in normal lessons: The primary items named included more frequent formative assessments to keep a focus on continual learning and progress, having clear lesson intentions and overviews, maintaining the improved communication between students and teachers, greater interactivity within a lesson and more time to work in a lesson with less teacher talk.

What parents/carers valued about this time with their sons: Responses fell into themes around just having time together to talk, seeing how their sons learned and teachers taught, moving at a slower pace, having time to exercise or go for a walk, and watching their sons develop new skills like cooking or doing more housework.

What were students and teachers most looking forward to? Boys and their teachers were looking forward to being back together. Teachers wanted to teach their students face-to-face and work alongside their colleagues, and boys were keen to see each other after so much time away.

The results across all three sets of surveys were overwhelmingly positive. Many, many thank you’s were shared; we will be working through these to pass them on to individuals. Teachers received votes of thanks, but many parents, carers and students also acknowledged the dedication and support of other staff members working behind the scenes who were also doing their part to keep us connected and focused on learning. As with last year, the dominant feeling expressed in surveys results about the remote period and the return to school is the value of community and relationships. Without connections to each other, learning is just not as meaningful or effective.

“It was great to see a huge variety of teaching methods used to keep the boys interested. Video tutorials, workout videos, breakout groups, set work at your own pace. Also found it very useful having constant updates from the school.” “I think that all staff were amazing, I felt grateful for their preparedness and communication. The way everyone adapted was a credit to the school. After communicating with friends, no one had a similar experience to my sons. I confidently feel that there is no gap in their learning. I'm beyond impressed and thankful.”

“Thank you to all the wonderful St Pat’s College teachers for their dedication, passion, enthusiasm and patience throughout remote learning. Under difficult circumstances the teachers continued to help each student to 'let their light shine' - in terms of their learning, their faith development and their growth as a young person. Thank you!”

A huge thanks again to the SPC staff who put students first in their efforts and thoughts across the months of remote learning. And on behalf of the SPC staff, thank you to the parents, carers, and students for your support of us during these extraordinary times.

Denise Lombardo

Director of Learning and Innovation

Stop Motion Animations - Year 9 Photographic and Digital Media

The human eye retains an image for a split second after it has actually been shown. Herein lies the fundamental principle of animation in which slightly different images are presented in quick succession. The impression of movement forms an optical illusion referred to as the 'persistence of vision' and is a phenomenon dating back to early inventions in animation since the 19th century such as, the Zoetrope, Thaumatrope, Mutoscope and Flick Books. To 'animate' something, means to make it move. The time-honoured practice of Stop Motion animation is, at its core, moving things which would not ordinarily move, one frame at a time.

Beginning in remote learning in Term 3, Year 9 Photographic and Digital Media students resolved animations of their own design using found objects at home. Using the Stop Motion Studio App, they explored how the illusion of movement is created when physical objects are moved frame by frame and played in rapid sequence. A sample of our students' creations can be seen following the links below:

Ms Adriana Lazkin | Miss Eden Boundy

Visual Arts Department