Deputy Principal Teaching and Learning

Student Parent Teacher Conferences

We started our first Senior School Student/Parent/Teacher conference of the year this week with our Year 12 students. These are great opportunities for the students to lead the conversation on their learning. Articulating their successes and the areas they wish to focus on. On the Senior Campus, these evenings are as follows 

Year 7 – 24 May
Year 8 – 22 March 
Year 9 – 10 May
Year 10 – 3 May
Year 11 – 29 March

Experiential Learning Opportunities on the Senior Campus 

There has been a lot happening already this term on the Senior Campus. While our teachers value each moment in the classroom, we offer many opportunities outside the classroom to support their learning. This Veritas Voice has many articles that will expand on these experiences. Below is a snapshot of what has occurred on the Senior Campus in the first six weeks. 

Year 7 Camp, while it may look like lots of fun, there is lots of learning: resilience, independence, measured risk and getting out of their comfort zone. It also includes many of our learning objectives from the PDHPE course. 

This week the Year 7 students are travelling to Taronga Zoo for Science. This is tied to their unit ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ on classification, habitat and adaptation. 

Earlier in the term, Year 7 attended an incursion during their RE and History lessons exploring Santa Sabina College as a historical site incorporating the Dominican elements and their relevance to Dominican Charism. This was in preparation for their interdisciplinary assessment task between RE & History.

The Biting Truth presented an informative nutrition session to our Year 9 PDHPE students. This will undoubtedly help them with their Biathlon Unit – Get Fit, Feel Great.

Year 9 Food Technology students are studying the Food in Australia unit of work. Last week the students embarked on a ‘food trail’ around Bankstown, exploring the culinary delights of Lebanon and Vietnam. 

This year we have revamped our Senior Library with several new initiatives. One of which is to empower the students to have a voice in the purchases for the library collection. Mr Paul McDonald from the Children’s Bookshop recently visited the Year 9 students in an English class. He introduced the students to the joy of reading and discussed possible book purchases.

Music students from Year 10, 11 HSC and 12 HSC attended an evening show of Encore at the Opera House recently. Encore showcases some of the outstanding performances and compositions from the 2022 HSC. 

Year 10 students study Geography or History in Semester 1 and will swap in Semester 2. In Week 4, the Geography students participated in a field trip to Barangaroo and Newtown, experiencing first-hand how Sydney suburbs transform and change. Concurrently the History students visited the Sydney Jewish Museum and continued their research into the Holocaust.

Year 11 Visual Arts HSC and IB Artist in residence for a day. Abdul Abdullah is a renowned portrait painter who has exhibited in the Archibald and has a well-established artmaking practice and worked with the students for a day this week. 

Japanese HSC Extension students attended a Saturday session by the Japanese Teachers Association. This ensures the students gain a deeper understanding of the prescribed text they are studying for this course. 

The Year 12 Legal Studies and Year 12 Global Politics students attended a talk at Rosary Lodge by the Geneva Franciscan-Dominican team on the UN and Civil Society’s role in protecting Environmental Human Rights in the Solomon Islands. 

Year 12 IB Spanish students have experienced a culinary evening at Mas Tinto Café in Stanmore. The students tasted Latin American food hosted by native speakers in the Spanish language. 

Year 12 students recently visited the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque and the Islamic Sciences and Research Academy (ISRA). This excursion supports the HSC Studies of Religion students’ Depth Study into Islam and for the IB students, it enhances their studies in the Theory of Knowledge (TOK). 

Enrichment

The finals of the International Middle Years Ethics Olympiad were held recently. Kate, Isabele, Emily, Edith and Mia represented the College proudly. They performed well in all of their individual heats and placed 14th out of 40 teams with a special commendation from the judges.

Year 10 

We are running an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program Information Session for Year 10 parents and students. It will be held on Tuesday 28 March from 6:00pm to 6:30pm via the MSTeams. Parents have been sent information with the login. 

Jacqueline Pugh
Deputy Principal Teaching and Learning