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Welcome to Term 3. Sadly Term 3, 2021 is looking a bit like Term 3, 2020 due to ongoing COVID concerns. I know there would be many disappointed families who had school holiday plans affected due to new restrictions. Please remember the our school guidelines are:
- Face masks are recommended for use within the school for students and staff
- Face masks are mandatory on buses, although the bus companies will monitor enforcement of this requirement.
- Any student who has COVID-19 symptoms is not to attend school until they get a COVID test and provide evidence of a negative result to the College.
- Please advise the College if your child has attended any declared COVID hotspots, including Orange, Blayney and Cabonne LGA’s, and follow the advice from NSW Health.
- Parents who need to come onto school grounds out of necessity (such as to collect an unwell student) must wear a face mask and sign in using the QR code as well as any sign in requirements the College has.
- The school will continue to maintain all COVID safe protocols around cleaning, social distancing, and hygiene.
Today we are running Semester 2 Parent Teacher Student Interviews for Years 7 - 11. Over 600 interviews have been booked online and it is great to see so many families taking up the opportunity to talk to teachers about their child’s progress, even though this has to be online. We do know there have been some technical difficulties today for some families in connecting and I would like to apologise for this. We are mandated to move from Zoom to Teams as our online communication platform and I thank families for their support and patience in this process.
Enrolment interviews are currently occurring for Years 7 and 11. Please encourage anyone you know who is looking to enrol a child for 2022 to contact the Front Office or to go to our website for an enrolment pack.
We began talking to Year 11 about the leadership process this week. We are very proud of our current Student Leadership Team for their hard work and excellent role-modelling for younger students.
Year 10 began the journey of subject selections for Stage 6 this week. It is an exciting time for them as they make choices about their subjects. We encourage them to make choices based on their interests and skills. Many students are uncertain about career directions at this stage and should not be concerned about this. I always encourage students to be involved in as many different experiences as they can and to meet many new people because this is where career ideas will often occur.
Speaking of new experiences, we are hoping to run an Australian immersion trip to the Northern Territory next year, COVID permitting. Mr Chifley has provided details of this in the newsletter.
These are challenging times, please do not hesitate to reach out if you would like further support for your son/daughter. One of my favourite prayers at times like these is:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
God bless
Kathy Holding
SUBJECT SELECTIONS FOR 2022
So far Stage 5 selections are complete and students are seeing me to request changes. Thank you to how wonderful they have all been in working with clashes and their willingness to also wait for classes that are full.
Year 11 choices are open and will close next Monday at 5pm. The lines will then be drawn up and we will start interviewing students in the next few weeks. This may take a little time but we should have the lines ready within 2 weeks of the options closing. Remember the Parent Information Presentation and how to select videos are available via the College website and on each House page.
TRIAL HSC TIMETABLE
The Trials will be held from Monday 2nd August until Friday 13th August. The HSC timetable has been published on the NESA website – please note exams cannot be rescheduled for the HSC.
Students are only required to be at school for their exams unless they have a morning and an afternoon exam – if this is the case they must stay at school all day. The library will be available for study.
AFTERNOON STUDY
Senior study will be offered Wednesday week 3 from 3.30-6pm in D block to assist with Trial preparation. This will be for Year 12 only in preparation for the Trials. Normal study will be in the library from 3.30-4.30 each Wednesday.
Assistant Principal - Teaching and Learning Director of Studies
SHARON HIBBERT ANDREW FOURACRE
Cyber Safety Project
The College’s Wellbeing Team appreciates that parents are the first and most important teachers of their children. With this in mind the College looks to work in partnership with parents to support and empower them as their child navigates the teenage years. As part of a new direction at the College the Wellbeing Team where ever possible will include parents in presentations given at the College. These presentations will also be shared with staff and students to ensure that the entire Hennessy community have a common language and understanding allowing us to work together.
One such presentation will be the Cyber Safety Project. Last week as part of SWS students completed a survey. The information collected from this survey will be used in the following ways:
- To target student concerns specific to the school year group. This will also be presented in a workshop to the students
- Year 7 will take part in an Inquiry Project to further unpack the findings of the survey.
- Shared with parents as part of a parent workshop. (Please see the flyer – Cyber Safety Parent Presentation)
- Presented to staff as part of a Twilight Professional Development Workshop.
- Used to give direction to the Colleges Wellbeing Team when developing the Student Wellbeing Session.
With the ongoing changes with Covid the dates for the student workshop and parent evenings have been moved to WEDNESDAY 6TH OCTOBER 2021, 5:30PM – 7:00PM. This will follow on from the Open Community Council meeting commencing at 5:00PM.
2022 Northern Territory Immersion
There will be a meeting for The 2022 Northern Territory Immersion in E10 on Friday 23 during Break 1. This meeting will be to engage student interest and begin the information sharing process. Bernadette Sullivan from Catholic Missions will host a meeting via Zoom at 6pm on Monday the 2nd of August.
Student Wellbeing Session - SWS
Last Tuesday as part of SWS along with the Cyber safety Project students also did goal setting for Semester 2. Parents are encouraged to view these goal via Compass. Next Tuesday’s SWS will allow PC teachers to discuss these goals and support students in achieving them.
As always if you have any concerns please in the firstly contact your child’s PC teacher or any member of the College’s Wellbeing Team.
Mark Chifley
Assistant Principal
Wellbeing and Mission
The recent wet weather has meant lots of combined classes in the hall. Here we have Miss Worner’s Year 10 PDHPE class pair up with Miss Coffee’s Year 7 PDHPE class to get their heart rates up in a 20 station fitness circuit. The ‘Dish’ station proved quite challenging. This involved you starting on your stomach in the ‘Superman’ position then rotating to your back in the ‘Dish’ position WITHOUT using your hands. Can you do it at home?
In Week 10 of Term 2 ten of our beginning and continuing Year 11 Hospitality students went out on Work Placement. These students learnt many new skills and some even gained part time employment out of it.
A huge thank you to all host employers in Young, Boorowa, Harden and Cootamundra who continue to volunteer their venue, time and experience. We are most appreciative!
7.2 Technology- Welcome back the 6 Silkie chickens that 7.1 Hatched last term, also the Isa Brown chickens supplied by LPC. The class is weighing the chickens in each technology lesson. The chickens are being feed Ambos Chicken starter crumble. Thank you Ambos and LPC
8.1 Technology have been very busy wording on their garden beds, planting wheat, oats and snow peas.
Year 11 Earth & Environmental Science Excursion
Year 11 Earth & Environmental Science Excursion
On Wednesday 21st July, the Year 11 Earth & Environmental Science class visited Burrangong Creek as an introduction to their new module, ‘Human Impacts’. The students planted 65 shrub seedlings, ranging from various wattles such as Kangaroo Thorn to native Hops Bush, beside the pathway of the creek. Working in small groups, the students were able to restore areas of the creek environment where previous plantings had died and to improve biodiversity and erosion control of the area. This activity allowed students to build on their knowledge, practical skills and teamwork. Students also explored water quality monitoring techniques and investigated the effects of human activity on the environment and how they can be mitigated to maintain a sustainable future. by Maddi Wegmann