The Chronicle Issue 8

Dear Parents, Guardians, Friends and Students

The Awards Ceremony was held with the students on Wednesday 16 September. It was very strange not having our wider community there to celebrate this special event. The students all looked very smart. There is a list of the Award recipients in this edition of the Chronicle. In addition to this, parents whose son or daughter received an award should have received a photo on the day. If you have not seen this yet please do not hesitate to contact College Reception who will make sure that it is sent to the correct email address.

As I said in the last Chronicle Graduation has been moved to Friday 18 September, offsite. Year 12 students and their families will be celebrating this momentous occasion later tonight. We held our special farewell assembly earlier today prior to them heading out for a special activity together. Our Year 12 graduands are an exceptional group of young people. Getting to know each of them has confirmed this. We all wish them every success as they leave our place to find their own place in the world.

As our academic year comes to a close, I thought it would be timely to reflect on our new teaching philosophy we have been working on. This model allows our teachers to cater to the diverse learning and social and emotional needs of our students. We are into our second year with this model which has been working effectively for both our students and staff. As a Teaching Team we are very proud of the work we have conducted in this area.

We have entered our model to CEWA for an Education Award – so please ask your family and friends to vote for us!

https://awards.cewa.edu.au/nomination/co-teaching-model-for-a-student-cohort-with-diverse-needs/

Fully inclusive environment and teacher autonomy –A dynamic class structure for Year 7 to Year 10 was developed collaboratively utilising a co-teaching model with three teachers and a teaching assistant for each year. This model implements the practices of Universal Design that allows for an inclusive model catering to a broad range of academic levels where individualised instruction is conducted with differentiated groupings in a flexible learning environment. This enabled staff to have full autonomy in classroom implementation, professional dialogue and experimentation with new teaching methodologies such as Project Based Learning. Our staff have demonstrated creativity, agility and resilience during their journey.

Context – Edmund Rice College is an agricultural boarding college catering for diverse range of students. Most of our students are from remote and regional communities across in the state and our day students come from our local regional areas.

At the College we believe that to improve academic outcomes, students need to be engaged in their learning. For this to happen students must feel safe and trust their teachers. Our staff continually show a great deal of compassion and empathy for our students and are always discussing new ways and ideas to help support our students.

Nuanced Leadership – Our staff act with the belief that we are foremost teachers of humanity and need to maintain a sense of belonging, connectedness and wellbeing. Many of our students have learning gaps and trauma backgrounds which present in low-self-esteem, lack of academic resilience and adverse behaviours. A new model of learning that better addressed our philosophy for learning while engaging and capturing our student’s natural curiosity, also catering for their academic, wellbeing, spiritual, social and emotional needs was developed.

Nurturing a culture of increased efficacy and building professional capacity – Staff feedback has been positive. This model delivers a safe environment for staff where they support each other when things have not gone as planned, give and accept authentic feedback that is real and relevant, collaboratively explore and integrate student data to improve their teaching thus providing rigorous ongoing professional learning. These experiences have nurtured a whole school culture of accountability of excellence in Teaching and Learning. The teams regularly contact the parents in case conference type meetings ensuring they are aware of what is happening in the classrooms and are a vital part of their children’s education.

Improved student academic and wellbeing outcomes – Tracking longitudinal data (NAPLAN results, learning growth, regular PAT testing, attendance in class and behavioural issues) gives evidence that the model is working. Consistent routines, structures and behavioural methods used in each class works well with our cohort of students. The Co-Teaching model allows for our students to develop a deep sense of trust with each other as they ‘really know their students’. Our students thrive on knowing their teachers are concerned about their education while looking after their wellbeing.

Cultural benefits of Co-Teaching model – This model naturally provides an opportunity to link the curriculum to cultural aspects from our student’s communities. Inviting elders, parents and guardians to share stories and rich, deep authentic cultural experiences while recognising these are a vital part of growth and learning. The sharing of images and videos with the students from their home communities is integrated into their learning alongside the incorporation of language – sharing and learning new Aboriginal words and meanings. The rich and ancient culture of storytelling has become part of daily rituals of prayer and yarning circles for reflection.

Paula Bacchiella
Deputy Principal

On Friday 11 September, the College came together to celebrate the wonderful array of animals in our College.  We blessed everyone and especially the animals.

I have included a special blessing for pets:

In Your infinite wisdom, Lord God, when You created the Universe You blessed us with all
living creatures. We especially thank You for giving us our pets who are our friends and who bring us so much joy in life. Their presence very often helps us get through trying times. Kindly bless my pet. May my pet continue giving me joy and remind me of Your power.

May we realise that as our pets trust us to take care of them, so we should trust You to take care of us, and in taking care of them we share in Your love for all Your creatures. Enlighten our minds to preserve all endangered species so that we may continue to appreciate all of Your creations.

Grant this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Anne Brown
Teaching Staff

Above:  Students, staff and animals are all blessed at the Blessing of the Animals ceremony held recently.

I have had the pleasure of working with four Year 12 students this year, getting them ready for their Australian Defence Force aptitude tests and possible future careers.

We have gone over the values for their chosen pathway in the Army and Navy and reasons why they want to join the Defence Force.

We have been lucky enough to have members from the recruitment centre come out to the College and assist in getting ready for their interviews and medical, which is their final step in the process after the four passed the aptitude tests.

With a number of staff at the College either currently serving or have previously served, the students have had a wealth of knowledge to get as much information as possible to get them ready to transition into soldier life.

Scott Smith
Teaching Staff

Above: Year 12 Student – Sharai Blowes

Above: Year 12 Student – Sheray Cox

Above: Year 12 Student – Nazahrius Hart

Above: Year 12 Student – Kaunell Shaw

Above:  Year 9 students at the Retreat.

On Thursday 20 August, the Year 9 students attended their retreat day at Bindoon Hall and worked with the Youth Ministry Team. The theme for the day was Self Image. The students had the opportunity to share their spiritual journey with the presenters throughout the day.  The students were engaged in a variety of activities over the different sessions and the level of participation and the enthusiasm was a credit to the students themselves. A great day was had by all.

Anne Brown
Teaching Staff

On 18 August, the Year 10 students had a wonderful day at the Bindoon Hall despite it being a very cold and rainy day. They spent the day with one of our nation’s leading high school retreat agencies, the YMT (Youth mission team). The themes covered were social justice, self-image, relationships, knowing God and leadership. The programs were designed in a fun, compelling and interactive way where the Year 10 students had a positive experience of the retreat. They were participating in drama, games and reflection activities.

Salonee Poongavanon
Teaching Staff

Above:  Year 10 students spent a very cold and rainy day at the Retreat.

Above:  Year 12 students join in on a number of activities at the Retreat.

The Reflection Day Program facilitated by the Youth Mission Team on 21 August at the Bindoon Hall was the last retreat for the 2020 Year 12 students. I think with this idea in mind, they were not only spectacular, but they were outstanding so I received lots and lots of praises from the program organisers about their engagement in the activities and behaviour.

Our Year 12’s were an excellent bunch and it seems that they really enjoyed the day because it took a while to put them back in the bus.

The program is about Resilience and Life Choices. As indicated in the program the outcomes are the following:

1. For students to develop a deeper understanding of what resilience is and why resilience is important in our lives.
2. We are all faced with difficult challenges in life and learning to be resilient is important. Some people are naturally resilient but understanding that you can learn and grow in resilience is important.
3. That students would be able to identify what may be holding them back from being resilient and what some of the tools are in learning resilience.
4. For students to begin to understand that faith and a relationship with God will give us the power to overcome life’s challenges.

Above:  Students come ‘up close and personal’ to the animals and reptiles from Animal Ark.

Well we have been busy with the horses and the VET program and everything that goes with the daily care of the Edmund Equine Centre. The students have been learning about the horses and caring for them in many different ways.

The VET students have been learning about Anatomy and Physiology of the horse, the students used one of our horses Bart to be their blank canvas to paint on with water paints. They painted some of the skeletal system of the horse and to talk about it, we even videoed Bart walking and trotting to see what his movement looked like. The students also painted some internal organs and during this time we discussed about different health problems horses can have. For example, we talked about gastric impactions and distension of a horse’s stomach, how to treat a gastric impaction and the treatment used for stomach ulcers and how we can try to prevent them. We also discussed many other illnesses you can encounter with horses.

The students all helped on our farrier days when the horses have their feet trimmed by our resident farrier Nick Balchin and the horses get wormed by the students once a term. The students have to coordinate these days catching the horses from the paddocks and looking after each one of them while the farrier is attending to their feet and when they are finished they must return the horses to their allocated paddocks. During this time they assist each other with the worming of the horses.

Above:  Students come ‘up close and personal’ to the animals and reptiles from Animal Ark.

On the 19 August, the students from Years 7 – 10 participated in Science day where they were engaged with various science related activities. The day started with a display of students’ science projects in the school hall and egg dropping competition. Later on the students had unique hands-on sessions with tame and friendly reptiles, amphibians and other minibeasts from the Animal Ark. Students from all year levels had positive experiences with other fun activities that were run during the day such as making Oobleck, as well as competing in the science quiz and spaghetti/marshmallow tower challenge. The day concluded with many student receiving prizes for their efforts and making their projects.

Salonee Poongavanon
Teaching Staff

On the 28 August, the Year 8 students went to Scitech. All students had an amazing day learning about earth and environmental sciences, light bulb moments and moon base one. The students started the day learning about pollution and how different things can effect each other, they hopped onto exercise bikes and powered up a city, walked into a peaceful room with trees and animals being projected on the walls and floor and much more. They then proceeded to a show called light bulb moments where they learnt how electricity can be made from a potato and they saw a made-up rocket blown into the air. Students then had some time to explore Scitech where they learnt a bit of digital technologies by controlling robot arms and played soccer with robotic cars. To finish off the day the students had a fantastic time in the planetarium where they had an amazing experience learning about the constellations in the sky and what it would be like to walk on the moon.

Salonee Poongavanon
Teaching Staff

Above:  Year 8 students enjoyed the day at Scitech.

Time to reflect over the last Semester for the VET program, Cattle Club and Agriculture in general.

It was the last day for ‘Farm’ for our Year 12’s and it will be sad to see them leave after their huge contribution to the ERC Farm over the last couple of years.

Although perceived as the quieter time on the farm whilst watching the hay crop, lambs and calves grow, it is the perfect time to catch up on jobs that have been on hold.

It is wonderful to be able to work with such a great willing team, being the students and the staff.  The VET and Farm Skills crew have become very reliable to carry out tasks at a true working level. As teacher’s, a comment that made us proud was from the Mulesing contractor… that our student team was almost on par with the industry standard in time and efficiency.

The hay crop is looking fantastic after the seeding period, giving us machinery challenges that kept us on our toes and guessing as to if we were even going to have a decent crop at all.  The weather also had us guessing as to what yield was likely.  We can laugh about it now, thanks to Charlie’s knowledge and some basic old time farm skills thinking, those seeds were sowed!  Once those rolls are baled, we can truly breathe a sigh of relief.

The livestock have all been flourishing and the first batch of xbred lambs have already gone for sale with the next due again soon.

Ros Maindok
Farm Manager

Above:  Students inspect the crop.

With the cancellation of the Royal and Agricultural shows, cattle club has been a little different this year.  We are still intending on holding the UBBA training day and show but in November rather than September this year.  Although there has been minimal cattle club after school activities, the Farm Skills team (which has some cattle club members) have been breaking in some Q heifers and a steer.  The Q calves are now about 16 months old.  It is always interesting to see how the cattle handle the breaking in process.  It is also interesting to watch the interaction of the handlers and the cattle, there is always adjustments that the kids need to make to their attitude and energy.

Next term we are going to start handling the R calves who will not be officially weaned until February 2021, I am sure by that time their mother’s will not mind us babysitting them for an hour or two.

Ros Maindok
Farm Manager

On Friday 4 September, we received another visit from the EARBUS team and many of our students were able to have their ears and hearing checked. EARBUS is a service to all children at risk of ear infection or hearing problems.

Edmund Rice College is very grateful for the EARBUS service and we look forward to seeing them again next term.

Celia Hoogland
College Nurse