Welcome to Week 2. There is a noticeable increase in attendance this term due to less sickness and changes in Covid Close Contacts rules. Please remember that if your child is a close contact you should contact the school and they should wear a mask while indoors for seven days and continue to do daily RATs. Yesterday more RATS were sent home in packs of 5. While it is not mandatory to test, it would be advisable to test regularly and especially if your child has symptoms.

ANZAC Day  continues to be a very important day of commemoration in our Australian calendar. Hennessy students and staff marched proudly in Young, Grenfell, Monteagle, Harden, Murringo, Cootamundra and Boorowa and surrounding towns. I always particularly love talking to students wearing the medals of their relatives and telling me their stories. We also commemorated Anzac Day at school and Lieutenant McAllister and Mayor Margaret Rolls were our special guests for the morning. Mr Phil Mitchell deserves huge recognition for his commitment to organising so many Anzac events both At Hennessy and in the district. 

Hennessy is a very busy place at the moment but busy in a good way. We make the claim that we cater for a variety of interests and talents and this has been very evident this term. Students have had the opportunity to be involved in a wide variety of activities and trials over the last few days - cross country, colour run, da Vinci Decathlon, netball, trials for rugby league etc. It is good to see so many students involved in these events and so many teachers supporting the students.

A highlight for me was the cross country and colour run. The weather was kind to us and students enjoyed their time at the racecourse immensely involved in the cross country and/or the colour run. There were many delightful photos which showed the sheer youthful joy of being outdoors and active.

You would have seen a flyer inviting all parents and carers from Hennessy and regional schools to a Cyber Safety and Wellbeing Parent session on May 25 from 6:00 - 7:00 pm. Please RSVP the Front Office if you would like to attend for catering purposes. This evening is also our Community Council Meeting and parents are invited to join the meeting from 5:30 pm.  Both events will be in the Hospitality restaurant.

Our Open Day is being held on June 2 from 1:30 - 4:00 pm. Please come along to be part of the activities or encourage anyone interested in enrolling in Hennessy in 2023 to join us on the day.

I would like to wish all our mothers a very Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday - I hope you are spoilt!

This Term has started with an incredible burst of activity and community spirit. During the pupil free day on Tuesday the 26th of April Staff were engaged in Professional Learning around the Restorative Justice program. Hennessy already has a proud tradition of maintaining strong relationships between teachers and students. This was evident in the survey results that were gathered from our students late last term. As a staff we will continue to strive to do what is best for our students in a holistic way, and aligning our practices with that of the Catholic Church’s teachings.

Last term the College House Leaders and House Captains did a wonderful job of fundraising for Caritas. Hennessy Catholic College families were incredibly giving and raised over $1700 for the great work that Caritas achieves both nationally and internationally. Congratulations to all houses who fundraised and especially to McAuley House who fundraised the highest amount through their raffle. 

It was wonderful to see the amount of students and community spirit involved in the Cross Country last week. Congratulations to Mr Brendan Croese and Mr Luke Miller who organised two whole school events which ran smoothly and continued building upon our fantastic College’s Community Spirit. Without our incredible staff who give so much of their time, events such as these would not happen.

This term we have moved to our winter uniform. Our uniform is such an important symbol of belonging to our community and also allows for students to achieve their best without having to contend with social pressure in regards to the “right” clothing and accessories. Students and carers are reminded that socks are to be plain and with no logos, earring are restricted to one per ear and any other piercings must be covered or removed. If there are any issues with accessing the correct uniform, please contact the front office. 

Next week I will accompany the Year 11’s to Galong for the annual Year 11 Retreat for two days and one night. This will be a beautiful time of reflection, prayer and building community and fantastic memories. Please keep the Year 11 cohort in your prayers.

Mary Wright | Assistant Principal – Mission & Ministry

FROM THE ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Students are settling into classes well and enjoying the different opportunities that are coming up. These include two expeditions to the Da Vinci Decathlon event happening this week and many thanks to Mrs Duff for coordinating these teams as well as the staff assisting. Our Year 9 and 10 History students also have an incursion this week with a presenter enhancing their learning around the core topics they are studying. It’s great to be getting back to ‘normal’ and able to offer these extra curricular opportunities. 

HSC Examinations

The HSC Timetable has been released and distributed via the Year 12 Classroom page. Remember that exams cannot be rescheduled so you MUST ensure that you are available for each exam you are doing. These run from October 12 until November 3 so any plans should be from at least November 4 onwards to avoid issues. Students are not considered to have completed their course unless they attend their Category A exams (Category B subjects such as VET subjects, English Studies and Maths Standard 1 have optional exams). Every student should be logging into Students Online so they can access their personal HSC timetable. 

We cannot predict if they will be delayed again, but feel this is not likely for 2022. The timetable is available via: https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/d676515e-3b32-405d-b812-d868f6a7d1e0/2022-hsc-written-exam-timetable.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=

which also includes the subject equipment requirements. 

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF STUDIES

NAPLAN 2022

NAPLAN will be held on Tuesday 10th to Friday 13th May for students in Years 7 and 9. In these tests, we encourage all students to participate in the tests with a positive attitude and to try their best. Having said that, we don’t rank or grade students based on their NAPLAN results and certainly do not want students to feel pressure to perform. Instead, all students should treat NAPLAN as a chance to simply ‘show what they know’.

NAPLAN is conducted online for all students in all tests. On each day, students should ensure that their device is fully charged. Headphones are required for all NAPLAN tests.

Year 9 NAPLAN tests will commence in Period 1 on each test day.

Year 7 NAPLAN tests will commence in Period 3 on each test day.

                                                   
SHARON HIBBERT                                                                  IAN MERGARD 

Assistant Principal - Teaching and Learning                      Director of Studies

House Champions 2022

1st Gallagher

2nd McAuley

3rd Nagle

4th Rice

Last week te Year 11 & 12 HSC Hospitality class completed a service period where they prepared a range of takeaway salads. Throughout service they demonstrated their ability to identify and select salad ingredients, calculate ingredient amounts, use equipment safely and hygienically, clean and cut salad ingredients using basic culinary cuts, prepare sauces and dressings and present dishes in appropriate ready-to-eat service-ware. All students should be proud with salads being produced to industry standards.

The Da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of students. Students compete in teams of eight across 10 disciplines: engineering, mathematics and chess, code breaking, art and poetry, science, English, ideation, creative producers, cartography and legacy. On Wednesday 4th May students from Year 7 & 8 competed in this challenge against other schools from the Riverina at The Riverina Anglican College in Wagga Wagga. Our students were a credit to our College with our Year 7’s placing in 8 of the events and Year 8 placing in 7 events. These outstanding achievements led to Year 7 coming runners up in the overall competition.

7.3 Tech class have been busy in the gardens at the Ag Plot burying paper, harvesting carrots and weeding.

The senior IT Students are currently completing a week of mandatory work placement. This is being hosted by Amazon and is run online from School.

Students had sessions on Amazon’s history, culture, leadership principles, organisation style, the concept of working backwards, concept of day 1, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, different technologies like Cisco WebEx, Alexa and various AWS services.

They worked in online teams to complete various deliverables such as Chatbot, AI object detection, creating a website and solving a current “problem”. They worked through the Amazon Cloud Introduction training, which provides industry certification.

Year 9 & 10 Ag students have been conducting germination trials of winter crops as part of a plant production unit. 

Students here are busy counting out 100 seeds, on wet paper towel. To test the germination rate to then calculate sowing rate. 

Year 10 Sicence have been conducting the practical component of their Major Research Project.