Newsletter Term 3, Week 10 2020
Dear SJC Families and Community
This is always a very emotional week in any NSW school. This is the week we sadly bid farewell to our Year 12 students and commences 10 weeks when our school has considerably fewer students as we await the arrival of our new Year 7 cohort. Our Year 12 students completed their last formal lessons on Friday last week and in a nod to the year, they have experienced, partook in a group photo opportunity you can see below. I would like to congratulate these young women and men on the way they have acted given how much they have missed in 2020. Adversity can and most likely will visit people during their lifetime, but to complete their senior school accreditation during a time when the whole of society has experienced adversity is something one could not have envisaged. Well done Seniors of 2020 and I hope you enjoy your last three days at SJC.
I would like to relay some behaviours I have witnessed of late that really epitomises what it is to be a student at SJC. In the past fortnight, three major incidents have occurred on the in the College that saw three different students not seriously injured as a result of accidents relating to the sport they were playing. I would just like to acknowledge the level of care, compassion and maturity shown by the friends and fellow students of these three young men during their time of distress. What myself and other staff witnessed provided affirmation of the wonderful students we have at SJC and that the qualities that we hold of most importance are present in our young people.
Year 12 Graduation
As was previously mentioned, Year 12 have two days of alternate activities (Retreat experience and guest speakers) followed by their graduation on Wednesday, September 23. The event will be live-streamed (the link will be shared on Tuesday) from 9.50 am. For the remainder of our students, there will be normal lessons and it is an expectation that students are at school until Thursday, September 24.
Term 3 Focus Areas
You will recall that for the last five weeks of term, all staff have been impressing upon our young people the need to be punctual, organised and respectful. The three focus areas have made a considerable difference to how the College is currently operating with students ensuring they are on time to lessons to ensure the whole time apportioned to learning is being used and they are present with the correct equipment. A zero tolerance to any defiant behaviour from students was implemented and despite some students taking longer than others to understand this, we witnessed very few incidents of conflict last week.
I would like to thank our students for turning their attention to these three basic qualities living up to the SJC expectations. From the commencement of Term 4, staff will continue their vigilance in the areas of punctuality, organisation and respect in our students. This will ultimately lead to young people who will carry these traits into their later life and be an asset to any organisation for which they work.
Write a Book in a Day
We are very excited to witness the new initiative in the College that will see nearly 80 students spend close to 12 hours in the College Library tomorrow and will 'Write a Book in a Day'. Under the guidance of Acting Teacher Librarian Ms Melaina Faranda and other staff, our students, who have all volunteered, will squirrel away until 8pm to produce an entire book. The school has raised nearly $300 for The Kids Cancer Project and I would like to wish all involved the best of luck.
Professional Learning Days
As a friendly reminder, please ensure you have made alternate care arrangements for your child as this Friday (September 25) will be a staff professional learning day and hence, there will be no supervision available for students at school. The first day of Term 4 (October 12) will also be a staff professional learning so students will not return to school until Tuesday, October 13. Please ensure all arrangements are in place.
Finally, I would like to wish all of our students an enjoyable, safe and relaxing break and I look forward to seeing you all in Term 4.
Kind regards
Mr Scott Thomson
Principal
Uniform Expectations
A number of uniform issues need to be addressed over the holidays to avoid detentions in Term 4, eg. Girls - skirt length; and Boys - personal grooming and correct belts. On behalf of all Year Coordinators and myself, we ask for your cooperation in ensuring your sons and/or daughters comply with our uniform standards as outlined in the College Planner (and included here). Students are expected to abide by all areas of the uniform code.
R U OK Day
The College again participated in the annual R U OK? Day campaign, which was held on Thursday 10 September.
R U OK? Day is a day dedicated to inspiring and empowering everyone to meaningfully connect with people around them by asking the simple question “Are you OK?”. This year, there was a particular emphasis regarding ‘there’s more to say after R U OK?’. Now could be a great time to ask your child “Are you OK? and to support them in the event that they are struggling. ReachOut Australia has created resources to help parents help their young people.
The students and staff at the College were invited to wear a yellow ribbon (kindly made by Mrs Vitina Camp), and our newly elected SRC students, together with our current Year 12 Leaders, wore yellow R U OK? t-shirts. As a sign of unity within the Lismore Diocese, Mr Ryan Campbell led the College in Christian Meditation, and our school counsellors, Matt and Shannon, addressed our students in our virtual assembly. Thanks to the staff who also wore yellow on the day to increase awareness.
The R U OK? website has a range of resources available with further information, including how to ask R U OK?. A conversation can change a life.
Mr Eamon Brown
Leader of Pastoral Care and Student Welfare
In Week 9, the Year 12 Visual Arts, HSC major works were due. After twelve months of exploring, developing and resolving their ideas our students shared a sigh of relief to have their pieces finished.
Their work was on display in our library and it demonstrated the students’ unique talents across many different media areas including sculpture, painting, drawing and photography.
It was an honour and a pleasure to have taught our students and I wish them lots of success for their future. The students are to be congratulated on their amazing achievements.
Mrs Nicole Taylor
Leader of Creative Arts
CONGRATULATIONS to Breanna Paddon, Year 12 Drama for her OnSTAGE nomination for Individual performance.
Congratulations to the wonderful 2020 HSC Music class on completing their HSC Music Performances and Musicology Vivas today. It has been a challenging year for Music due to COVID restrictions, but these lovely young people have adapted with grace and positivity. Well done – you should be so proud of yourselves!
Thank you also to Mr Jesse Carroll and Mr Shane Rowland for your assistance in preparing and accompanying the students.
Emily, Kalani, Annie, Ella, and Bre - you will be missed. Good luck in everything you do.
Mrs Louise McLaughlin
SJC has arranged for some very special Study Sessions for our Year 12s on the following days:
They are at College and will be run by a Professional Presenter, Stuart Palmer, with support from our Year 12 Teachers. Stuart is a very well-known accomplished expert in the field of Mathematics Education in NSW. Stuart previously presented a Study Skills session for Standard, Advanced and Extension Mathematics prior to the students Trial Exams. They received a myriad of material to assist in focusing their preparation for the Trials, which I am certain they would have appreciated.
Please mark the date on your calendars and remind your Year 12 student about them. We look forward to seeing them on the day.
Mr Shane Burns
Assistant Leader of Learning - Mathematics
Year 10 Multimedia - Virtual Sets
This semester we have been looking at how visual effects (VFX) are made for film using Adobe After Effects. We have also looked at new technologies and how they are changing the way VFX are made.
In Disney's "The Mandalorian" Jon Favreau started using virtual sets instead of traditional green screens. Using Epic Games' Unreal game engine (the same one used to make Fortnite) Jon and his crew have been able to transform the way video entertainment is made. Here's how it works...
"Imagine the scene at the cantina on Tatooine. The bounty hunter is there, there’s a general hive of scum and villainy vibe. But only a chunk of it is real. The booth is there, and some of the actors, but the rest is just being rendered on a 20-foot-tall, 270-degree semicircular LED video wall. It’s like a traditional Hollywood backdrop, except this one uses Fortnite’s game engine to place 28 million pixels' worth of characters and objects exactly where they need to be for the camera to capture them. All told, more than half of The Mandalorian was shot on virtual sets; the rest were done using practical effects on another part of the LA lot."
Watercutter, A. (2020) ILM Used 'Fortnite' Tech to Make Virtual Sets for 'The Mandalorian', Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/fortnite-mandalorian-filmmaking-tech/ (Accessed: 16 September 2020).
While we don't have a 20ft tall LED video wall we do have the Unity game engine (very similar to the Unreal game engine) and some very creative students. The images below show some of their early virtual set designs created in Unity.
Over the coming weeks they are going to develop these even further and put themselves into the scene using our (small) 7 foot high green screen wall as they create a short film based on the theme of "Travel". We'll put some of these on our social pages later in the year when they are finished.
Mr Dean Robinson
Multimedia Teacher
12 Biology
In Year 1
2 Biology, we finished off the course by studying disorders associated with the eye, ear and kidneys and the technologies used to assist with these disorders.
During our study we were able to dissect a cow’s eye and a sheep’s kidney. The students enjoyed, and learnt about the structure of these organs from this hands on experience. Good luck Year 12!
11 Marine Studies
On 22 September, a small group of Year 11 Marine Studies students went snorkelling in Tweed River. We were blessed with good weather and decent visibility. A green turtle popped up to say hello and we got to swim through schools of fish including Mono fish. A great morning was had by all.
Ms Katie John
Science and Marine Studies Teacher
This year hasn’t been the kindest for our students being able to represent the College and whilst things are looking more positive we are still under a number of restrictions when it comes to representing the College in sport. However, we FINALLY have some representative sport news (YAY!)
Over the last couple of weekends Tasmyn Bofinger, Caitlin Smith and Claire Lynch have been representing the College at the Gold Coast All Schools Rowing Regattas. This is the first year for the girls competing in rowing and they have been able to produce some great results. The girls placed 2nd working together in the quad boat, whilst Tasmyn came away with 2nd place in the Double Scull.
Congratulations on your results for your first group of competitions and good luck for the rest of the season.
Ms Madeline Ilic
Leader of Sport
The library has recently become a hub for intense creativity and colour thanks to the privilege of housing an exhibition of Year 12’s amazing major artworks. That, alongside the Creative Artist of the Week, Textiles and Year 8 poetry displays, plus our 'Write a Book in a Day' event - involving teams of nearly seventy of our students from Years 7-11 writing and illustrating books to be sent to children in hospitals throughout Australia as part of supporting the Kids’ Cancer Project, means we’ve had the honour of partaking in and showcasing a hive of creative making!
And on the making theme, along with continuing Friday Fun and Games… we’re introducing Monday Maker lunchtime sessions in Term 4 to provide opportunities for students to further creatively engage and learn new skills in a relaxed space where they can converse and connect. Thanks to the generosity of various staff members freely offering their time and talents, our students will have the opportunity to learn to dismantle and reassemble laptops, make polymer jewellery, crochet their first granny square to make a blanket, create and decorate inspirational journals, and more. We’ll be creating a schedule of session events to let you know what’s on from Monday to Monday.
A big focus in the library is to keep expanding upon the desire and vision for it to operate as a warm beating heart for our school and be a sanctuary for student learning and wellbeing. It continues to be a pleasure to see how many of our students are engaging with the space. We love hearing requests and suggestions for books and activities and encourage teachers and classes to use the space - be it for silent reading or research lessons, or simply for a change of classroom scene; as our sign on the front desk says: jingi walla - everyone is welcome!
Ms Melaina Faranda
Acting Teacher-Librarian
Trainee Road Design Officers - Transport for NSW
I Work for NSW is pleased to announce positions for Trainee Road Design Officers positions across NSW including the Northern Regional headquarters based in Grafton.
This type of role is not widely known when Civil Engineering is discussed but is a critical part of Road Engineering development and construction, particularly with the evolution of digital engineering used in both the design and construction of road project (eg. the Pacific Highway upgrade was actually designed by Road Designers across both the Public and Private sector and is currently a profession that has low numbers across Australia.)
Our trainees have a starting salary of $54,801 plus superannuation which increases each year for the four years of the program. There is the opportunity to move into a permanent position dependent on vacancies, but there is also the opportunity to move to one of the other five regions where design units are based (Parramatta, Wollongong, Newcastle, Parkes and Wagga Wagga).
Trainees start their studies with the Associate Degree of Civil Engineering through the University of Western Sydney fully funded by Transport with part time study leave provided. The opportunity is also available for those who become fulltime staff to continue their studies subsidised by Transport to complete the Bachelor of Civil Engineering. Grafton currently has two placements for 2021 Starting in January.
For more information, check out the brochure and role description.
Applications close on 25 September 2020.
Australian Defence Force - Upcoming Virtual Information Sessions
Click here for the general list, or on any one of the following for that specific session:
| 21 Sep 2020 | 6:00pm | Health Careers Virtual Information Session |
| 22 Sep 2020 | 7:00pm | Tweed Head Army Reserves Information Session |
| 23 Sep 2020 | 12:00pm | Army Reserve Virtual Information Session |
| 28 Sep 2020 | 2:00pm | Women in Defence Virtual Information Session |
| 1 Oct 2020 | 2:00pm | Tertiary Study in the ADF Virtual Information Session |
| 7 Oct 2020 | 6:00pm | Gold Coast Defence Careers Information Session |
JMC Free Online School Holiday Workshop
These workshops have been designed for high school students in school Years 9-12 and provide an insight into life at JMC Academy. All workshops will be held online, via Zoom and will be interactive, making them the perfect creative experience for the upcoming school holiday break! Check them out here.
Character Drawing - Register now
When: Thursday 1st October, 2020
Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm AEST
Where: Online via Zoom
Cost: FREE!
Participants will get theirr hands dirty with some great exercises that will introduce them to the ideas of character drawing and design for animation, games and comic books. From deconstructing existing characters to generating their own originals – they’ll end up with a head full of ideas and a fist full of drawings.
TFN and USI required for University from 1 January 2021
Year 12 students planning to go to university should apply early for a Tax File Number (TFN) and a Unique Student Identifier (USI).
To be eligible for HECS-HELP or FEE-HELP (Commonwealth assistance), students must provide a TFN (or a Certificate of Application for a TFN) and a USI (applicable to new students from 1 January 2021), on their Commonwealth Assistance Form (eCAF). To obtain a TFN and create a USI, students should apply online.
The TFN and USI application processes are free and quick, and students will be required to provide proof of identity. Students should apply early, as it can take up to 28 days to process an application.
When applying for a HELP loan at university, it is necessary to ensure that all personal details including full name, date of birth, and tax file number, exactly match those that are held with the Australian Taxation Office. Visit the government StudyAssist website for more information regarding university fees and entitlements.
Ms Frances Stegeman
Leader of Careers and EVET
Congratulations to our very own St Joseph College chess team who won on Friday 18th September the online Ryde Interschool chess tournament in their category (Secondary schools) and came 3rd overall. A fantastic effort by Seana Connolly, Dawn Cosham, Charlie Kerr, Nicholas McCaffery and Brandon O'Brien! They are through to the state finals on the 27th October!
