UNSW Sunsprint Challenge

Last week the St Clare’s Year 9 iSTEM class participated in the annual Sunsprint Challenge at the University of New South Wales. The students have been learning how to build their own solar powered cars in class, and this event was an opportunity for them to put their creations to the test.

The challenge spanned two days, with a chance for students to test and improve their solar powered cars on the track on the first day, in preparation for the big race on Saturday. The St Clare’s teams performed incredibly, taking out first and second place in the 100m spree race!

PLAY it Safe

In a dynamic Year 10 elective known as ‘PLAY it Safe,’ our St Clare’s College students are achieving accreditation as sports coaches and referees. This unique opportunity not only enhances the girls’ understanding of effective coaching methods, but also nurtures their communication, confidence and leadership skills. 

During the past few weeks, the students have been fortunate to work with Deborah Chung, Mentor Coach of the NSW Phoenix State Volleyball Team and UTS Volleyball Program. Over three 2-hour sessions, Deborah has been developing the girl’s understanding of coaching methods, theories and skills. The students have then used this knowledge to teach our Year 8 PDHPE classes once per week. The girls next milestone is gearing up to officiate volleyball games during representative sport on Thursdays.

‘PLAY it Safe’ aims to build the sporting culture of St Clare’s College through students gaining knowledge, confidence and a micro credential that they can use to coach and referee sporting matches both inside and outside of school. Through ‘PLAY it Safe,’ these young girls are not just learning about coaching; they are shaping the future of sports education by fostering a culture of safety, excellence, and teamwork.

Integrated Learning at St Clare’s

When it comes to academic success, research has shown that students exposed to integrated learning approaches do as well, or better, than students in traditional classrooms. This is because integrated learning shifts students away from surface knowledge and content acquisition. Integrated learning provides an opportunity for students to understand the interconnections between their subjects to develop deeper relevance. These integrated learning approaches also offer an effective way to foster 21st century capabilities such as collaboration, citizenship, critical thinking and creativity in our students. 

To promote this learning approach, St Clare’s College appoints Learning Integrators in each faculty, who receive additional time to plan learning sequences, cross-KLA projects and transdisciplinary subjects that use one field as a lens to understand other academic fields or involve multiple academic fields interacting. This style of learning is evident in our Stage 4 Projects where students explore one theme, such as Space or Sustainability across multiple subjects to produce a group product. Students engaging wit dath the Space project this year heard from an astronomer in a Space Planetarium (Science) , engaged in a sci-fi writing workshop with a renowned author (English) and learned TinkerCad software skills to create 3D models (Maths).

Other examples of this authentic learning include our Forensic Science and Cafe Clare elective courses. Our Forensic Science elective combines the academic fields of Science, Legal Studies, Media and Psychology to learn how a crime can be solved and how the legal system works (or fails) to catch the culprit. Similarly, students completing the Cafe Clare course learn business management skills, hospitality, event management and entrepreneurship alongside each other whilst receiving a micro credential in an accredited Barista course.

Learning integration at St Clare’s also occurs on a much smaller scale day-to-day. PDHPE and Mathematics faculties challenged students to create a statistical analysis and graph the Beep Test data collected in PDHPE lessons. Similarly, our Visual Arts students were tasked with writing a feature article to promote an upcoming exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. To highlight links between KLA’s, the students were taught article writing skills in their English lessons, and then applied these skills in their Visual Arts lessons.  

Ethical Entrepreneurship

Over the last two terms Y10 student Mia Bartovic has been working with social enterprise asset management company, SEAM, to commercialise her app concept, Carbon Carpool. Mia developed the app idea during an iSTEM assessment task, which then went on to win the SEAM Sponsored Sustainable Innovation Award at the National STEM MAD Competition. This award included a cash prize to be used on commercialising Mia’s idea and ongoing mentoring from SEAM. Throughout Term 2, Mia has been meeting with her mentors and using industry software to further develop Carbon Carpool into a ‘pitch ready’ business idea. She has presented to Ms Freeman to further understand her market and will spend Term 3 refining her business model before pitching to SEAM investors. Bringing learning to life and ethical entrepreneurship is highly valued at St Clare’s College and we are so proud of Mia for her achievement so far. 

The Orbispace Initiative

This term, a group of Year 8 students have had the opportunity to participate in The Orbispace Initiative. This 6 month program has been designed to extend students by developing their global capabilities and connecting them with a community of top female leaders. The students have engaged in two full day workshops to learn about innovation foundations, communication styles and branding. Module One culminated in the girls journeying into the Sydney Start-Up Hub to attend the Future of Female Leadership Forum. At this event, the girls engaged in workshops with industry professionals, learnt how to use prototyping and business modelling software and heard from Australia’s first female astronaut. They also enjoyed a networking lunch with female mentors and made friends with girls from other schools all around NSW. Next term, the girls will develop their own social enterprises and pitch their innovations to a panel of investors at the Pitch for the Planet. We can’t wait to see what they come up with.

GameChanger Girls

Two of our Year 8 students have taken on the eSports GameChanger Girls challenge this year. Alyssia and Madison are developing their own Minecraft world that will become part of the 2023 eSports Championship. To support them on their journey, they have been involved in two mentoring sessions so far. One with competition founder, Bron Stuckley, who gave the girls advice on their game direction and tips and tricks learned from previous years. The second session focused on technical support from Minecraft Designer, Stephen Elford. During this session, the girls had the chance to problem-solve challenges they were facing in their game. They also met other students from around Australia and New Zealand who are participating in the program. It was great learning about the other teams game ideas and the challenges they are facing. We look forward to seeing our students finished game next term. 

CSIRO Urban Living Labs

St Clare’s College Year 9 iSTEM class is participating in the Sydney Science Park CSIRO Urban Living Lab Schools Challenge; an authentic, real Project Based Learning project that will have a visible effect on the planning of Sydney Science Park. Developed by Celestino, Sydney Science Park will be a $5bn mixed-use smart city that will create an internationally recognised epicentre for research, development, commercialisation and innovation. The Living Lab Schools Challenge has been designed to enable students to collaborate and develop concepts and innovations for sustainable, resilient, liveable towns and cities.

Last week our students headed to Western Sydney to experience the Sydney Science Park site first hand. During the full-day event, students participated in workshops focusing on the sustainable city core pillars:

• water systems
• transportation & mobility
• renewable energy
• urban development & agriculture
• health & heat
• the circular economy

The girls also had the opportunity to participate in several hands-on learning experiences including VR (Virtual reality), and AR (Augmented reality).

Committing to this authentic, real life and problem-based learning, gives our students the opportunity to work collaboratively with other schools, learn communication and critical thinking skills across different disciplines, connect with industry experts, researchers and scientists, whilst developing innovative solutions to complex infrastructure challenges. We look forward to seeing the solutions our students come up with.

Food Styling experts

Our Year 10 Food Technology class were exposed to the food styling expertise of Dana Sims from Stone and Twine this week. Learning from industry professionals who specialise in subject knowledge deepens the students understanding and heightens real world relevance and engagement. Dana gave the girls an overview of her career and how to break into the industry, before involving the girls in practical food demonstrations.

The students are currently studying food trends, food styling and food photography, so to have Dana demonstrate various techniques and give the girls the opportunity to practice these skills has provided our students with the most contemporary trends in the industry.  

Community Intergenerational Program

To strengthen our local connections and give back to our community, St Clare’s has partnered with Waverley Council and the Department of Education to run a Community Intergenerational Program. During the program, our Year 10 students meet with seniors in our community at Waverley Library. Over sandwiches, biscuits and tea, the older and younger members of our society share perspectives and talk about their lives. It is an authentic opportunity for our girls to learn from people in our community with such a wealth of knowledge and experience. Similarly, our students provide connections and purpose for these seniors.

We were fortunate to have Diana Olsberg, Waverley Seniors Centre participant and star of the ABC TV series, Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds, and Nicole Hoste, CEO of Care Bootcamp join us for an induction into the program. Diana spoke of the isolation faced by many seniors in the community and joy and purpose that building connections with young people brings. Nicole discussed many of the myths associated with seniors and gave our students strategies to start conversations and strengthen their interpersonal skills.

Our final session in Term 1 ended with an Easter themed Bingo game. It’s been wonderful to see the strong connections being made between the different generations and the advice being shared. Not only have our students felt a stronger sense of purpose from giving back to the community, but they have also developed a great respect for the seniors, who have broadened their perceptions of the world.

Science and Engineering Challenge

Our Year 9 iSTEM class participated in the annual Australian Science and Engineering challenge at Sydney Olympic Park last week, hosted by the University of Newcastle. The students engaged in a series of eight challenges that focused on their ability to work in a team, problem-solve and adapt their knowledge and understanding of:

• civil engineering
• electrotechnology
• project management
• coding
• aviation
• robotics

Our St Clare’s girls outperformed many of the other schools competing at the event, despite being up against Year 10 students from NSW’s top selective schools. A special mention goes to Hannah Kerr and Ruby Colgan who designed a balsa glider which travelled the greatest distance out of all the schools. Also, congratulations to Grace Haugh and Keeli Sampson who took home 2nd place at the bridge challenge, only losing to the Year 10 students from James Ruse Agricultural High. Overall, our girls ranked in the top 5 out of all the schools that participated.