YEAR 9 PASTORAL DAY
On Thursday the 17th of August Year 9 participated in a Pastoral Day. This event was designed to further explore the pastoral theme of “Achieving our full potential using our God given talents”. While focusing on this theme, aspects of the day also aligned with the concept of Stewardship and our Marist Value of Simplicity.
The event began with a reflection, led by Mr Steve Robinson, Religious Education Coordinator, which set the scene for the theme of the Pastoral Day. He explored the idea that our talents can be as simple as showing kindness, empathy and courage, to name a few. Year 9 began session two with Soul Drummer, African Drumming experts, who provided each student with a Djembe and led us in a team building exercise of rhythm and percussion, challenging the group to work cohesively to create music in synchrony. This was a great group energizer. With smiles on all faces Year 9 moved into an enthusiastic House Cup competition. Students competed in house groups facing “minute to win it” challenges, and the very memorable Lip Sync Battles. This fun filled Session 2 ended with Conolly house as the winning house. After lunch students broke off into their elected activities. Some highlights for the afternoon included participation in community service at OLHC primary school and Kilbride Nursing Home. Our Year 9 community service students represented the college with great pride and embraced their opportunities for stewardship. Another highlight was the afternoon Oztag session run by NRLW players, Emma Tonegato, Ellie Johnston and Quincy Dodd. A fantastic opportunity to train and refine skills with professionals. The athletes were humble in sharing their gifts and talents and allowed the Year 9 students to dream big, with Emma Tonegato beginning her sports career representing the Wollongong Diocese. The other two afternoon activities included joining together with other like minded students, building upon existing relationships and forging new friendships with people with common interests and a shared experience. This included board games and mindful art activities and colouring and an electronic gaming competition. The energy and healthy competition in the gaming activity was absolutely amazing and Year 9 are lucky to have Mr Borg who brought so much enthusiasm to it. The success of the day and the activities are credited to the commitment of the Year 9 Learning Mentors who were so important to the planning and facilitation of the day.
Year 9 embraced this event with great energy and a positive mindset. The participation and contributions of Year 9 students throughout the day was fantastic and enabled the event to run smoothly and successfully. A goal for this event was to have students work collaboratively with each other to build year group connections and strengthen friendships. We hope that the memories of the day will stay with Year 9 for many years to come and the lessons learnt will give them strength and partnership throughout their college years together.
