The Way Weekly Recap I Monday 14 September 2020

We are pleased to announce our Student Leadership Team for 2021

This is a wonderful honour and we are sure that you will be happy for those who have been selected.  

The role of the Student Leadership Team is largely one of providing good example and encouragement and will include opportunities to represent the student body and College during the year.  We believe that the 2021 Student Leaders will undertake their roles with passion and commitment and we congratulate them on their selection to this important position.

Student Leaders

This year due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Commissioning of the Student Leadership Team took place as a virtual Senior School assembly on Monday 7 September 2020.  Parents had an opportunity to be part of the occasion via the livestream on THACTV. Thanks to the team who put this special Assembly together. 

We encourage you to pray for these young people as they assume their positions, along with encouraging them throughout the year.

We would also like to thank the outgoing team for their leadership over the past year.  It has been a challenging year for them having to adapt and find new and innovative ways to lead.  We wish them well as they move towards the end of their schooling life and pursue new opportunities beyond the HSC.

Year 12 are just two weeks away from finishing their subject lessons and with a little over five weeks until the start of the written HSC exams, there is a lot happening.

Many of our Year 12 cohort have received early entry offers to university.  Macquarie University, Australian Catholic University, Australian National University, University of Notre Dame and Western Sydney University have made offers to a number of our students for courses in Speech Pathology, Social Work, Law, Commerce, Sport and Exercise Science, Business and Psychology. The University of Wollongong early offers will be out at the beginning of next week and there are still the UAC Schools Recommendation Scheme offers to come in November. It is all very exciting for Year 12 and it is wonderful that they have been recognised as being ready for tertiary study.

Major Projects for Society and Culture, English Extension 2, Industrial Technology Timber, and Design and Technology have been submitted for marking. The Music 1 students completed their performance on Friday and the Visual Arts students are submitting their projects today.

We know the challenges that Year 12 students around NSW have faced in 2020.  It is a testament to our Year 12 cohort that they have persevered, stayed positive and continued striving for their personal best. An example of this is the wonderful news we received earlier in the week regarding HSC Drama. Recently, the Drama students presented their individual performances for visiting HSC markers. Three students – Sasha M, Joseph S and Kayla S have all received ‘On Stage’ nominations. This is an amazing result and they should feel very proud of their achievements. Congratulations must also go to their teacher, Miss Chavura for her dedication and guidance.

Ms Kelie Munro
Academic Dean of Students

There is a new addition to our Junior School garden - a very humble, clay pot horse. It is named Blücher, after one of Thomas Hassall's horses, who was described as big and iron-grey.

Thomas Hassall was known as the "galloping parson" and took God's message of hope to the people of the South West region. This statue is a reminder of Thomas Hassall and the overall hope that we have in God.

One of our maintenance staff, Paul, has been working hard to make It come together. Thank you for your work! Our Junior School students are very excited to have Blücher join them.

Creative Band Rehearsals

During COVID restrictions, our co-curricular music ensembles have been experiencing various different activities to further their music education; from composing, research activities, and musical games. This week, our Junior and Intermediate Concert Bands participated in a ‘musical round robin’, where students had 5 minutes to complete six different stations of musical activities. This was a fun event, and students enjoyed the various games that challenged their overall music knowledge, and even a bit of Maths and English thrown in there too! Well done to these students for being good sports.  

Mr Byron Mark
Director of Ensembles
 

Year 7 and 8 students are currently completing a range of exciting practical activities in Technology Mandatory.

Throughout Years 7 and 8, all students spend time learning about the key technology areas of Engineered Systems, Materials (Timber), Agriculture & Food Technologies, Textiles and Digital Technologies in the Technology Mandatory course.

The development of important technical and practical skills is a feature of the tasks that have been set for students, with the projects involved in Materials and Textiles & Digital Technologies providing students with the opportunity to engage with innovative technologies. It is also hoped that by undertaking these projects, in line with the College’s graduate outcomes, students develop their abilities as creative, curious and critical thinkers who are effective communicators, resilient in the face of challenges and foundationally literate when using a range of technologies.

Students who are completing the Textiles and Digital Technologies unit this semester are currently using the LilyPad Arduino system to design and make a monster. The monsters feature a circuit created with conductive thread used to power LED lights. As part of this unit, students also engage with coding using the Arduino platform.

Screen Shot 2020-09-11 at 10.28.01 am.png

Agriculture and Food Technologies students are working towards designing their own stir fry recipe, featuring ingredients grown in The Grange, the College’s fruit and vegetable garden. Students will be preparing their stir fry meals in class over the next two weeks.

Students who are completing the Materials unit this semester have been designing and are in the process of constructing timber clocks. Skills have been developed in cutting and laminating timber as well as implementing veneer tessellation techniques. In building their clocks, students have been using our X-Carve CNC machines to transfer their digital clockface design to the timber.

Tech Mandatory.png

   

The TAS faculty are looking forward to seeing some fantastic finished products once students have completed these tasks.

Mrs Megan Bennett
Director of ICT and TAS Coordinator

Grade of Origin

Last week in Secondary School, we completed the Term 3 Grade of Origin lunchtime sporting competition. This term, year groups have competed against each other to determine which year group is the greatest at Thomas Hassall. Year groups have competed in Futsal, Basketball and Volleyball to determine the winners of the inaugural Grade of Origin Cup.  

The students competed in Volleyball for their final round. The competition has been hotly contested and spectator emotions at fever pitch throughout the tournament.

At the start of the week, Year 8 continued their dominance over Year 7 with a big win in Volleyball to take the series in a clean sweep. In the Year 9 and 10 competition, as well as in the Year 11 and 12 Competition, the week started with the series tied at 4-all, with the deciding game Volleyball to be played. In the end, we witnessed two thrilling final games with both Year 10 and Year 12 taking out their competitions in some very tense final moments.

State of Origin 5.png

Most Valuable Players of the Match:

Year 8: Jai N

Year 10: Mekai M

Year 12: Monson A

What the Students and Staff said:

• “I’m really proud of our efforts as a group of Year 7’s. We will be back bigger and stronger next year.”  Year 7 Team Captain Moussa S reflecting on his side’s loss to Year 8.
• “Well done year 12, you played well. We are glad something went right for you this year.” Year 11 students Aya S and Kassandra B.

Mr Kent Weir
PDHPE Coordinator