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Highlights from the Classroom
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Highlights from the Classroom
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In this edition of The Bridge, we celebrate what our students have been learning in a range of disciplines, along with initiatives which inspire our students to develop a passion for critical and creative thinking.
Despite the extended lockdown, we have been able to continue delivering education that is engaging and inspiring, and introduce tailored and innovative learning experiences. All the learning opportunities you will read about serve to provide our girls with space for growth and creative collaboration.
Our students have become more agile, independent and resilient and have produced works which reflect our educational philosophy: that we don’t want learning to be a ‘cookie cutter’ experience. On the contrary, the diverse nature of what our students have produced this year reveals that we are a learning community that makes the most of every opportunity to grow and change.
Our teaching staff have been able to reinvent learning experiences so that our girls can continue to develop intellectual and spiritual growth. In many ways, the 2021 academic year has provided students with some of the most interesting learning adventures they have ever seen!
Most importantly, at the heart of all our learning experiences lies our commitment to inspiring our girls to value learning, seek wisdom, act with integrity, and to honour their spiritual heritage. Our core values will allow us to continue to progress towards their learning goals, during COVID-19 and beyond.
ELIZABETH WEBSTER DEPUTY PRINCIPAL, TEACHING AND LEARNING
INFORMATION AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
Brigidine’s accelerated Information and Digital Technology (IDT) class is soon to complete their dual qualification. This talented group of students commenced the course as an elective while still in Year 9. Currently in Year 11, these girls will be sitting the HSC examination in November as well as qualifying for the nationally recognised Certificate III in Information and Digital Technology.
Our IDT students have had the chance to identify and develop the key transferable skills that employers seek most – such as communication, creativity and innovation, project management, problem solving, critical thinking, teamwork and digital literacy – in addition to being able to professionally navigate their way around commonly used hardware and software applications.
Covid unfortunately prevented the students from completing their mandatory work placements in the traditional format but we were very lucky to have a number of opportunities where industry leaders like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco and Accenture came to us online!
The girls had a full week with AWS leaders, learning about the Amazon business model and the webtools they have used to assist thousands of companies around the globe achieve success. They developed webpages that utilised artificial intelligence and chatbots and worked as a team to develop a website that focused on assisting their peers with mental health issues. The girls really enjoyed the week as they got to work with and compete against students from a number of schools across the state. They were asked by their Amazon mentor to make a presentation to all participants on their group project, 1000 Reasons, because of its high standard. We were also very proud to have the winner of the state-wide Kahoot, Olivia Roche, in our class!
Cisco and Accenture also ran sessions where the girls were able to hear firsthand about the many amazing opportunities and pathways there are for meaningful careers using technology across a wide range of industries.
VET courses like IDT are becoming increasingly recognised for their value in providing students with direct pathways to employment and further study. The skills our students have gained will empower them throughout their working lives, even as workplaces change. The girls have greatly appreciated the head start this course has given them in understanding the world of work.
LEONE SMYTH INFORMATION AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
SCIENCE
The Science Department at Brigidine is diving into the deep end – and going for Gold – with girls in Year 12 Science Extension undertaking real scientific research for their HSC projects. Areas of science being engaged are as diverse as “The Bioremediation of Soils Contaminated by Oil” (Elizabeth Thomson), “Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy” (Bianca Bezinovic) to “COVID-19 isolation requirements may predispose elite tennis players competing at the 2021 Australian Open to injury” (Jennifer Cummins). Scientists working in these areas provide data to our girls or the girls themselves collect their own data firsthand. This data is then analysed to find trends and cause and effect evidence, and the results published, sometimes as a co-author in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
For their Term 3 project, our Year 10 girls chose a female scientist and researched the work that she did or is currently undertaking, and how that is contributing to our society. Specifically, the obstacles placed in the scientist’s way simply by being a female in her field, and how those obstacles were overcome by sheer tenacity, hard work and having a brilliant mind makes for a very interesting and eye-opening project for our girls. It was not that long ago that a female scientist was expected to resign upon getting married, and in many university courses, it was frowned upon to be a female student in a male-dominated world!
Our Year 11 Physics students have collected data from the real-world experience of having time on a telescope for their Depth Studies, which they controlled and operated remotely, to collect and analyse data from the spectrum of stars. Such projects included “The Age, Metallicity, Extinction and Distance of Open Cluster NGC 6791 using Isochrone Software” (Natasha Williams), reported as a scientific paper to a standard that would be able to be published as research in a journal.
ROB FARR HEAD OF SCIENCE
ENGLISH
Our two main focus areas in the English faculty this year have been to develop a stronger reading culture and to offer more opportunities for creative writing. To this end, we have worked closely with our Library staff to create tailored wide reading lists for students in Years 7–10 based on the topics they are studying in English each term and we have also redesigned our assessments in a way that encourages reading widely. In Term 1, Year 8 students studied the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank and were encouraged to read a range of books about World War II as part of their wide reading program. Their assessment task required them to compose their own short story set in World War II. In Term 2, Year 9 studied Gothic fiction. Their prescribed texts were either The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or Coraline. They were also encouraged to read a range of other gothic fiction texts to extend their reading. Their assessment challenge was to write an introduction to a scary Gothic story and record themselves reading that story as though they were telling it around a campfire! The quality of the student work was very high and effective.
For our keen creative writers, we now have a Creative Writing group that meets each week in the Library. In Term 2, the students learned about and wrote ekphrastic poetry – poetry inspired by artworks. Although we have taken a bit of a break since we have been in lockdown, when we return to school, our next focus will be on ‘retelling’ classic myths, legends and fairytales. Students will be encouraged to rewrite well-known stories in different contexts and to play with the conventions of genre.
One positive outcome from home-based quarantine in Term 3 is the increased opportunity and time to read! We are very grateful to our wonderful Library staff who organised a special Book Week event on Zoom hosted by Paul McDonald of The Children’s Bookshop Speakers’ Agency for Years 7 and 8 English classes. Paul’s enthusiasm for reading is infectious and the girls were very excited to hear all about the new books being published.
Finally, it would be remiss not to congratulate the students who were this year’s winners in the Staff vs Students debate on the contentious topic, that ‘English should not be compulsory’. However, after watching the students passionately and convincingly argue why English should be compulsory, it is fair to say that English was really the winner on the day!
JANET WALKER HEAD OF ENGLISH
DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
Design and Technology (DT) aims to stimulate originality, enterprise, practical capability in designing and making, and the adaptability needed to cope with a rapidly changing modern society.
At Brigidine DT is available from Year 9 through to HSC level. Our girls engage in a range of challenging real-world design projects that are relevant and interesting. We foster links with professional designers and use high-tech equipment to produce quality projects. This includes CAD/CAM production, robotics, 3D printing for rapid prototyping, Virtual Reality (VR) software, laser cutting and sublimation printing processes.
This year for the first time we have incorporated the use of virtual reality (VR) into our DT program. With the help of industry experts the girls were able to design their own VR presentation and then use VR headsets to immerse themselves into their own world of virtual reality. This exciting emerging technology will open up some amazing immersive experiences from around the world for the girls to enjoy from our own classroom spaces.
