St Agnes Catholic High School

Dear Parents, Students and Staff,

We are now approaching the end of Term Two which will conclude the First Semester of the school year. Following almost two years of disruption caused by Covid, we have been able to resume normal activities, including community gatherings and extra curricular activities, which are an integral component of developing the school community. 

Our school is named after St Agnes because at the time of its foundation in 1962, the Fransciscan Missionaries of Mary Mother Superior General was named Mother St Agnes. Our role is to immerse our young people in the tradition of St Francis and St Agnes our patron Saint. St Agnes was a young girl who displayed courage and strength during fourth Century (CE) Rome and was put to death because she would not deny her faith in Christ.  She is a saint to whom young people can pray for courage and strength in their efforts to live the Christian life.

July 1st is a scheduled Staff Development Day and is a pupil free day. On this day staff will focus on language acquisition and all staff will be examining the writing of students to identify where students are at in their writing. Writing samples have been collected from every student. We will analyse the writing and collate the data. As educators, we have a responsibility to ensure that their language acquisition becomes proficient, so that all students can achieve their potential.

On 18th July, there is a scheduled Staff Development Day, on this day we will continue to focus on language acquisition, analysing the phasing data and explore specific pedagogic  strategies to improve the language acquisition of our students.

As a result of the scheduled Stop Work Action on Thursday 30th June, we have decided to postpone the scheduled Stage 4 and 5 Student Led Conferences from Thursday 30th June to Monday 18th July 2022, between 1.00 pm and 4.30pm. The interviews will now take place on the afternoon of the Term 3 Staff Development Day (18 July). This will be a pupil free day, however students are expected to attend the Student Led Conferences.

Thank you to all staff and students who have volunteered this term. This is an important initiative and it makes a big difference to some of the most vulnerable people in our community. 

The following staff have volunteered this year; they include Head of Mission (Mr Madigan) and Vinnie’s Van Coordinator (Mr Mangion), Mrs Chapman, Mr Conte, Mrs Karafotias, Mrs Udovicic and Mr Di Ienno.

Student Volunteers include: Olivia Solis, Grace Valades, Maria Schuster, Bianca Vultraneau, Michelle Clarke, Dyani Magele, Julianna Labbad, and Maryam Qra Quoshi.

 Our School Leaders attended the Lifted Breakfast With Bishop Vincent on Thursday sharing their feedback with Bishop Vincent on their Catholic School Journey.

 Julia Freeman commented "It was good to get to know leaders from other schools and their visions for their leadership journey and it was beneficial to see that they had the same ideas to the topics discussed as we did." 

Thank you to all staff and students who have volunteered to coach Sport teams this term. This is an important initiative and it makes a big difference to some of the most vulnerable people in our community. 

Mrs Holland

Principal

We are almost half way through our academic year and our students have been busy in all aspects of their learning. 

Reports: Years 7 - 10

It is that time of year when reports are issued to students in Years 7 - 10. Year 12 received their Semester 1 report earlier in the term and Year 11 will be given their report early Term 4 prior to commencing the HSC.

When teachers issue a grade, they use a common grade scale (see below) in order to ensure that this is a true reflection of a student’s ability. As you know, we have a detailed assessment schedule for every year group and the students are expected to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, understanding and application thereof. The class teacher then uses the formal assessment mark, together with their own professional knowledge in order to award a grade. Please be aware that if a student hands in a task late or fails to submit one at all, this action will adversely affect the grade awarded.

The staff are having two Professional Learning Days (1st July and 18th July) and these two days will focus on how we cater for the language diversity in our student population. A significant focus of the learning will be on the importance of building competence in the use of English and also the academic language that is required to read and write. Our teachers worked collaboratively to consider specific elements of student writing and to consider best practice when devising teaching and learning strategies. It is expected that language, literacy and numeracy across all subject areas will play a key role in the new NSW curriculum in the coming years. This area of focus remains a priority at St Agnes.

Our Year 12 students have recently been issued their Trial Timetable (see below) and the teachers have prepared a Study Week during the break from 11th - 15th July. The students must make the most of every option available to them as they prepare for the Trial HSC. In many respects, the exams confirm for the students what they know, but more importantly, highlights the key areas that must be addressed prior to the actual HSC in October.

Learn more at www.studyskillshandbook.com.au.

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Mr G Kemmis

Assistant Principal - Learning Transformation

Pace e Bene, 

Peace and blessings to the St Agnes community.

This year the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart fall on the same day. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotional with long and historic providence within Christianity, and in more modern times has been established as a Solemnity for the universal Church.

Prayer for the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

God, who in the Heart of your Son, wounded by our sins, bestow on us in mercy the boundless treasures of your love, grant, we pray, that, in paying him the homage of our devotion, we may also offer worthy reparation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever

I wish all members of the St Agnes community a safe holiday period, and look forward to working with you all next term as we continue our formation journey as one community,

Peace and Blessings

Mr P Madigan

Head of Mission

On the 15th of June, Mr Goco’s Year 11 Ancient History class took a self-guided tour to the Chau Chak Wing Museum, located on the campus of Sydney University to assist themselves in finding sources for their chosen Historical Investigation. As we got off the train at Redfern, we were fortunate enough to have Ms Liu guide us across campus, as she knew the place so well since she had studied at the University of Sydney herself. She knew all the coolest places to show us and took us to the best places to eat during our lunch breaks. Everyone was amazed with how gorgeous the University was and even thought it looked a little bit like Hogwarts. After exploring the campus we finally reached the Museum itself and it was safe to say that it had certainly exceeded a lot of our expectations. Our fascinations were not only limited to the sections of the museum that were specifically relevant to our current assessment task, but also our previous one too. By stumbling across a large statue of the Greek God Hermes, we were able to make connections to last term’s studied topic on the ‘Trojan War’. Out of everything that was on display, one of the fan favourites amongst our class was the historical model of Pompeii made entirely out of Lego. To describe it, impressive is definitely an understatement. Our visit to the Chau Chak Wing Museum has left us all with a valuable learning experience that we will never forget.

Michelle Clarke

Student

As part of 9.4 Science's participation in the STEM Community Partnerships Program, students were invited to attend the #WithSTEMYouCan Careers Expo at the Quay Centre, Sydney Olympic Park. This was a STEM specific Careers Expo that provided students with access to businesses that offer STEM careers in the local community. Students had the opportunity to ask questions, discuss next education pathway steps and learn more about the varied career paths they could move into. 

The Under 14's Boys played St Clare High School in our first game and won 12-8. Then we drew the next game against William Clarke College 10-10.

Unfortunately, we lost the last round game against Gilroy College 24-6.

In the grand final we played Gilroy again and lost 28-4. The boys played very well considering some of them do not play outside of school.

Latu Masima and Solomon Litara were the best players on the day and scored many tries between them. Our Year 11 trainers, George Salloum, Anish Khadka and Aiden Stevenson also assisted with coaching the teams and helping the organisers run the day.

Mr Christian Conte

Teacher

'Mrs Walters' 7.4 Maths class recently did a fun activity where the students demonstrated their knowledge of fractions and lines of symmetry in order to create beautiful radial designs using folded coloured paper.

Year 8 are working on a project where they are creating skateboards as a social enterprise - to raise awareness for a particular cause or issue. Some of the topics have included - gender equality, homelessness and mental health support.

The students are hard at work creating these artworks which will be on display soon!

Students will submit a body of work as part of the HSC examination for Visual Arts. In this Body of Work, students should demonstrate their understanding of artmaking as a practice, represent their ideas and interests through their interpretation of subject matter and use of expressive forms. They should consider selecting a single work or a series of works for the body of work that represents a coherent point of view and demonstrates conceptual strength and meaning.

Year 12 Visual Arts students are currently in the process of producing their HSC Body of Works (BOW). The Visual Arts Class of 2022 have gone through many ups and downs in the lead up to this point in their artmaking and as their teacher, I am inspired to see these students work on their creative expressions. We have a range of expressive forms ranging from paintings, ink drawings, digital art/graphic design and for the first time ever an installation. As the deadline looms, the VA class are looking forward to showcasing their works to the St Agnes community later in Term 3…more information to come. 

Keep up the good work Year 12, heads down and put your best foot forward. I can't wait to see your finished works.

Mr Cheung

Leader of Learning - Creative Arts

The Youth Engagement Strategy (YES) program at TAFE NSW is a valuable program that offers students who are interested in particular industries a 9 week intensive course that immerses them in the course content and practical applications. This week we had Graduation Ceremonies for students in Music Production, Fitness, Retail, Robotics and Cybersecurity.

They received a certificate that will be extremely valuable for their portfolios and help them with their transition into these industries for work next year.

Congratulations to the following students: Charbel Eid, Dakota Gleeson, Brooke Shields, Rylee Heinemann, Gob Gob, Xavier Talione, Benedict Talione, Wol Wol, Ngor Mawien, Lual Wiew, Rovick Guerrero and Texas Parker.

Friday was elimination round!

Our Year 10 superstars made it to the Third Elimination Round of the CSDA Debating Competition where they versed Trinity Catholic College.

Fridays topic was, "that social media advertising sees young people as a captive audience". St Agnes were negative and therefore had to form arguments against this statement - a challenging side, but they did an incredible job nonetheless. 

Unfortunately they did not make it through to the next round.

A big congratulations to both teams for their participation in this year's CSDA competition, and to all our students involved this year.

A huge thank you to Miss Dunne, Miss Dahdah, Miss Fielding, Ms Udovicic, Mr Loughlin, and Mr Neilson for their support this season, and to all the other teachers and students who gave up their time on Friday nights to watch and support our students. We really do have a special community.

Miss Raad

Dear Parents/Carers

SACHS Admin.

St Agnes Catholic High School offers families assistance with the following areas and much more!

- Financial hardship

- Family breakdown

- Assisting in completing forms

- Homelessness/risk of homelessness including, tenancy issues

- Centrelink

- Advocacy

- Housing

- National Disability Insurance Scheme

- Linking to services

- Parenting 

If you would like further information, please contact 0427 068 429 between school hours.