Year 8 Maths

All our students have been working hard to get back to a normal routine following the extended period of remote learning. One of the benefits for students in our Mathematics classes in Years 7 to 9 was having access to the Maths Pathway program.

Maths Pathway allowed our students to continue learning as they would normally and staff were able to monitor each student’s activity through the online dashboard. This enabled staff to prepare carefully structured Zoom sessions for their classes with mini lessons being run in the breakout room facility that Zoom offers.

It was evident that having access to Maths Pathway was a great benefit to our students. Being able to continue to learn while offsite meant for most students there was little impact in their Mathematics progress. The data provided by the program to staff certainly supports this.

While learning at home may have its benefits, there is certainly no substitution for being in the same space as your teachers and classmates and we are all very happy to be back doing what we love best, learning together!

Year 12 Biology

Our Year 12 Biology students are learning about how to control the spread of infectious diseases, and how poor hygiene has worsened pandemics in the past.

As a class we have been learning about the difference between personal hygiene and community hygiene, and why BOTH are necessary to prevent illness. Students learnt how to properly wash their hands, according to the WHO’s eight step guide as well as looking at scientific literature to find out the optimal time and amount of soap needed.

In this experiment students were given some lotion that glowed under a UV light. They were asked to wash their hands as they normally would to see how much lotion remained. Then they put more lotion on and tried the WHO technique. Even in COVID-19 times, students were shocked that they did not know how to wash their hands properly.

We also discussed asymptomatic carriers of diseases, such as Typhoid Mary from the the 1900s, who was a cook and forced to quarantine for 26 years as she unknowingly infected others through her place of work.

Year 9 Science

Our Year 9 Science students are currently learning about non-infectious diseases, particularly those that affect the nervous system. We have so far learnt about Parkinson’s disease and Cerebral Palsy. Students have also been given the opportunity to research a disease of choice that affects the brain, with some looking at Epilepsy and  others examining Alzheimers.

Today, they were provided with a brain hat template. It contained the different areas (lobes) of the brain and what it controls. After students made the hat, they wore it and we talked about a variety of situations like car crashes and brain tumours and how damage to different areas of the brain can affect different bodily functions.

An example of this would be getting hit in the back of the head resulting in loss of vision, due to the fact that this is an area of the brain that processes imagery. Similarly a tumour on the side of the head could affect hearing or sound interpretation, while a stroke in the middle of the brain could lead to speech problems.

Students enjoyed the task and said it helped them visualise the brain better. Tomorrow, they will get a chance to look at a real brain inside a piglet (we are dissecting it)!

 

Community and Family Studies

We are very pleased to inform the community that the birthing ward of the maternity section of the College was officially opened this morning with great success.

Room A24 saw the successful delivery of sixteen ‘newborns’ who will be accompanying their mothers to all of their classes from today through until Thursday of this week. Their ‘newborns’ are in fact unboiled eggs and students understand that they are totally responsible for maintaining the wellbeing of their ‘newborn’ until the end of the task.

This task is part of the Parenting and Caring unit for our Year 12 Community and Family Studies course. The students are required to care for their simulated ‘newborns’ as well as document their travels for the next few days. It should prove quite a challenge!

Engineered Systems

Our Year 8 students have been immersed in the world of coding and drones as part of their work on the module, ‘Engineered Systems’. In 2019 the College received a grant from the Federal Government to start a ‘Girls and Drones’ initiative and this has allowed us to develop the idea through our Year 8 Design and Technology course.

In 2019 we started a small project with our 8.1 class to see how drones could be integrated into the syllabus and the success of the work currently happening across all Year 8 classes is a direct result of that. This model of running a small trial before implementation across a cohort has been very successful.

The students have got a lot of enjoyment out of working with the drones and have developed basic coding skills along the way. We are hoping their involvement in this module will lead to a number of students selecting the iSTEM elective in 2021.

Remote Learning

Remote learning has continued this term as the College slowly transitions back to face to face learning early in June. Moving to remote learning has been a challenge for most schools across the nation and it has been interesting to see how schools have responded to the challenge placed upon them by Covid-19.

The College has endeavoured to replicate a normal school day as much as possible to ensure students keep to a routine. This means that when the students return to the College they will be able to move back into that same routine seamlessly.

Moving to remote learning has not been without its challenges here at St Clare’s. Very few of our staff had heard of Zoom, let alone used it, so there was much to get on top of in a very short period of time. This was only the first step!

Once the staff became familiar with navigating Zoom it became obvious that an online class could not operate in the same way a class would run at the College. This meant a complete overhaul of how teachers were going to get the students to engage with the content in the virtual world. Another massive undertaking!

All this happened in a matter of days to ensure the students at the College were not disadvantaged by having to work from home. Our staff are truly incredible!

As the staff have become more familiar with remote learning they are starting to refine what they are doing to ensure the students are maximising their learning time online. They have also gained new skills they will be able to transfer into classes when students return. There has definitely been an upside to the situation we have found ourselves in!

There are still challenges we are working through. Finding a balance between providing instruction and allowing students time to work on tasks, as well as ensuring students complete the work required on time, are just a couple.

While our staff have had challenges to overcome our students have faced their own issues. A greater responsibility has been placed on them (and their parents) to manage their time and stay motivated. Staring at a screen is no substitute for physical interaction and a number have struggled with the monotony of the same routine day in, day out.

We asked our STC BTN host, Isabella, to chat with a variety of students across the year groups about their experiences with remote learning.

Transitioning to a remote learning platform is something that would normally be done over a number of years, not days. What has been achieved at the College, and schools around the nation, is nothing short of remarkable. We are very much looking forward to having all our students back on the campus and returning to life being as normal as possible in the weeks ahead.

Here is a little insight into what life at the College has been like over the past few weeks.

 

Year 8 Drought Project

At the end of Term 1 our Year 8 students finalised their innovative solutions to the cross-curricular project titled “How can we survive a drought?”.

This project had begun 8 weeks prior, with a launch day in which students were exposed to the realities of Day Zero. They heard real stories of people living in drought-affected communities, learned about the impacts of drought on family finances, mental health, and more. You can read more about the Launch Day in our blog post here. 

The theme of drought was woven into units of study throughout the term and the students enjoyed seeing how interconnected their subjects are. 

Throughout the term students also engaged with a number of project days. On these days the students had access to experts in different fields to develop their solutions further.  They used the design thinking process to identity their target market and research current solutions before developing their own ideas further. 

We were amazed by the solutions the students developed. Teams created apps to promote connections between communities, they developed prototypes of water saving devices, a virtual reality game to promote empathy, education resources for teenagers living in remote areas, fundraising and awareness campaigns, and much more. 

 

Students showed their initiative as they presented their solutions while learning remotely. 

Teams developed a wide range of solutions – from mobile apps, to small business support.

One team created a documentary about the forgotten victims of drought, including video interviews with rural high school students discussing how the drought has impacted their lives.

This short video shows the highlights of the project, including the many innovative ways students presented their solutions while learning remotely:

We are excited to bring many more future-focused learning opportunities to our students this year!

 

 

Fromelles Documentary Filming

Filming for our documentary is well underway following today’s session with Patrick Lindsay and the team. The focus of the day was recording each student’s personal reflections on their involvement in the project.

While the individual interviews were taking place a small group was working with Dan Zammit on how to perform effectively in front of a camera. This was preparation for the afternoon filming session in Paddington. We are fortunate to have such generous parents in our community who give freely of their time and expertise for our students.

During the morning we were joined by Jane McDonald. Jane is the grand niece of George Duncan, a soldier killed at the Battle of Fromelles who lived just down the road from the College in Newland Street. Ayla Riza and Elena Wregg compiled a video tribute to George and it was wonderful for them to spend time with Jane and learn more about George and the family through a number of personal items and letters that Jane had brought along.

Having Jane with us meant there was a great opportunity to involve her in the filming of the documentary. Jane was very accommodating and was happy to have Ayla and Elena join her in front of the camera talking about George and how his death had impacted on the family.

The final part of the day was filming on location at Paddington. The specific location was Bent Street, chosen due to the fact that of the thirty houses that existed in the street at the time, twenty-nine men went off to war. Over half did not return or returned with significant injuries.

Here is the video tribute of George Duncan that Ayla and Elena put together for Jane and her family.

Fromelles Documentary Update

On Tuesday the Fromelles Project Team gathered for a planning session with Patrick Lindsay from Limetree Studios. The team worked for the entire day on various aspects of the documentary, from finalising video profiles to building up the storyboard. We were joined during the day by the French Consul-General, Anne Boillon, the Australian representative of Hauts-de-France, Dana Levy and our local State MP, Dr Marjorie O’Neill, who has and continues to be a wonderful advocate for our project.

The day began with a run through of the proposed itinerary for the filming schedule in and around Fromelles happening in April. Fromelles is located in the Hauts-de-France region of the country so having Dana on hand was particularly valuable in the students learning more about some of the other features of the region outside the traditional battlefields of the Western Front.

The day was built around the visit by the French Consul-General, Anne Boillon. Anne was joined by her assistant and Dr Marjorie O’Neill who was instrumental in alerting Anne to the project. Upon Anne’s arrival the students joined her for a morning tea for an informal chat about her role and what the students can expect when they visit France.

Following morning tea the team moved to The Barbara Dell Hub to walk Anne through the details of the project and show her the work they had already completed on their individual soldiers.

The work the students have already created is incredible. They have worked in their own time to create more video profiles of soldiers killed at the Battle of Fromelles. The creation of new profiles was is response to the number of families who had provided us with information regarding relatives buried in the mass grave at Pheasant Wood.

One of these soldiers was Edgar Williams. We were contacted by relatives of Edgar who were eager for us to include him in our work. Claudia Van Dam kindly took on this role and her effort in putting together this profile in such a short time is a testament to the commitment to the project exhibited by her and all the students involved. They are incredible young women.

Claudia spoke with Edgar’s relatives on Tuesday afternoon and is waiting for feedback on the video from the family. This is authentic learning in action!

Here is the video profile Claudia created on Edgar:

You can find regular updates on the project on our Instagram account.

Drought Project Launch Day

This term all of our Year 8 students are participating in an exciting project titled “How Can We Survive a Drought?” Over the next 6 weeks they will learn about the current drought in Australia and work to respond to the personal, social, economic and political impacts of such an event.

Students will be learning about this topic in depth within their classes of English, Maths, Art, TAS, Geography, Science, and Languages. In a small group they will work to prepare a response or solution to one of the many problems associated with drought.

Today the Year 8s were immersed in this topic through our Project Launch Day.

The students were first exposed to the experience of Day Zero through a series of workshops:

They watched some powerful performances by our Year 11 students who enacted the real stories and heartbreak of people living in drought affected communities.

Students considered the financial impact of drought when tasked with creating a weekly budget on a reduced income, and saw how an increase in the price of their groceries forced them to make some hard sacrifices in other areas.

In another workshop, they analysed the quality of different sources of water, and decided how much of each type of water they would need to use for different household activities.

Students discussed the experiences of being a high-school student in a drought affected community with one of our teachers who grew up in this reality.

The wellbeing and mental health of people living in drought was considered as students read and reflected upon recent news articles.

And students acted out some of the social impacts of drought on a town in a hands-on simulation where they were assigned the role of farmer or townsperson, and had to maintain their income and support their families.

Following these in-depth workshops on the experience of drought, students were then exposed to many of the current responses to drought.

Year 9 students presented some technological solutions they developed last year, including an automated shower timer, and a sensor for farmers to monitor the wellbeing of livestock.

Other responses included strengthening city/community ties through Buy From the Bush, the social media campaign #spendwiththem, some incredible poetry, and photography.

At the end of this session, students were asked: How will you respond?

Today showed our Year 8 students the extent of the problem of drought in Australia, and how it really does impact every facet of people’s lives. By the end of this Launch Day the ideas were flowing, and we look forward to seeing the amazing solutions our students develop this term.