| Register for a College Tour | | http://www.sansisto.qld.edu.au/latest-news/Pages/Register for Open Day.aspx | Register for a College Tour | <p>The College hosts a number of events throughout the year enabling families the opportunity to explore what San Sisto College has to offer. </p><p><span>Experience first-hand our holistic learning environment that drives academic achievement and a rich co-curricular program which ensures an engaging and balanced education.</span></p><h1 class="ms-rteElement-H1"><span>College <span>Tours</span></span></h1><div><p class="ms-rteElement-P"><br>College tours are conducted during a normal college day to provide you and your family with a true sense of our San Sisto community. All members of the family are welcome to attend. </p><div><p class="ms-rteElement-P">Term 3: Tuesday 18 September from 9 am until 10.30 am</p><p class="ms-rteElement-P">Term 4: Thursday 25 October from 9 am until 10.30 am</p><p class="ms-rteElement-P"><a href="/Pages/college-tours.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:16px;">Click here to register.</span></a></p></div></div><p><span><span></span></span><span>Nothing replaces a visit to our college to appreciate how much we love our school for experiencing our passion for learning.</span></p><h1 class="ms-rteElement-H1"><span></span><span>Buddy Day</span></h1><p><br>Once you have toured our college facilities, to help you and your daughter with the final decision to choose our college, we offer pre-enrolled students the opportunity to spend a day with us through our San Sisto College Buddy Day Program.</p><div>This program offers prospective students the perfect opportunity to share in the excitement of the college day, have fun meeting new friends and teachers, and experience our programs and our beautiful college.<br></div><h1>Open Day 2019</h1><p><br>Our next Open Day will be in May 2019.</p><p>Each Open Day we have a wide range of subject talks and displays delivered by academic staff to give you a real taste of the subjects on offer. Teachers and students are on hand at the key locations across our campus to answer your questions.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">“Our Open Days are a wonderful opportunity for families to experience first-hand our holistic learning environment that supports our academic and co-curricular programs, and ensures an engaging and balanced education," said Principal, Mrs Shelley Hamilton.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Mrs Hamilton added, “We provide our students an education and the skills to engage with and lead their communities, whilst arming them with the tools and resources to confidently shape their circumstances – they are women of integrity shaping the future."</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Various activities and displays are organised for visitors of all ages at Open Day. These provide a unique snapshot of what it feels like to join the San Sisto community. Displays including those from English, Maths, Languages – Japanese and Italian, HPE – Sport and Physical Enrichment, Drama, Textiles, Art, Humanities and Science are always popular, and there will be dress-ups in the Rose Retail Shop. Our café, coffee cart and barbeque provides refreshments for those keen to take a rest and enjoy the Cecilia Square student entertainment activities. Music and voice presentations of all kinds will be on offer, from ensembles to busking. With the smell of food and the sound of music in the air, there will be plenty to see, experience, do, taste and listen to at Open Day 2019.</p> | | | | | | | | | |
| Simpson Prize Competition | | http://www.sansisto.qld.edu.au/latest-news/Pages/Simpson-Prize-Competition.aspx | Simpson Prize Competition | <p>In Term 4 last year, seven students from Year 9 were selected by their History teachers to participate in the Simpson Prize competition. </p><p>The Simpson Prize is a national competition for Year 9 and 10 students. The competition encourages participants to explore the significance of the Anzac experience and what it has meant for Australia.</p><p>The syllabus for Year 9 correlates with the Simpson Prize topic as Year 9 conclude the year with a study on Australia's involvement in WWI. </p><p>This competition is challenging and time consuming. Students are required to write almost double what they have written in past assessment pieces, focus on cause and effect, and use stimulus material to support their responses. They are encouraged to challenge the question and argue against it, whilst always supporting their ideas with evidence and statistics.</p><p>Each of the seven students who participated demonstrated exceptional learner qualities and met every challenge with enthusiasm, willingness and often at times, laughter! </p><p>We are immensely proud of these students for their achievements. </p> | | | | | | | | | |
| BCE Excellence Awards | | http://www.sansisto.qld.edu.au/latest-news/Pages/Brisbane-Catholic-Education-Excellence-in-Teaching-Awards.aspx | BCE Excellence Awards | <p>This week, three of our staff were nominated in three different categories at the Brisbane Catholic Education Excellence Awards.</p><ul><li>Mrs Manche — Excellence in supporting learning and teaching.</li><li>Mrs Rigby — Outstanding contribution to learning and teaching for twenty plus years.</li><li>Ms Lang — Excellence as an early career teacher (less than five years).</li></ul><p>Mrs Rigby received a Highly Commended award in her category.</p><p>Awards such as these highlight the common characteristics found in staff within schools, such as: </p><ul><li>positive student-faculty contact;</li><li>effective active learning;</li><li>achievable, yet high expectations;</li><li>respects diverse talents and ways of learning;</li><li>effective communication skills; and</li><li>commitment to teaching well.</li></ul><p>Even though the awards recognise an individual, behind each nominee is a team of teachers, faculty members, college leadership teams and school communities.</p><p>We are very proud of the achievements of each of these San Sisto College nominees. </p><p>Congratulations to all of the worthy nominees entered in these prestigious awards.</p> | | | | | | | | | |
| Salamanca Program For Gifted Students | | http://www.sansisto.qld.edu.au/latest-news/Pages/Salamanca-Program-For-Gifted-Students.aspx | Salamanca Program For Gifted Students | <p>In 2018 we have initiated the Salamanca Program for gifted and talented students across Years 7, 8, 9 and 10.</p><p>The Salamanca Program gives the opportunity for students who have achieved consistently at high levels across a range of subject areas to participate in creative, cognitively demanding pursuits outside of their standard program of study.</p><p>We have a group of twelve Year 8 students participating in the Opti-Minds Challenge (in late August) whereby they must creatively solve problems in the areas of Language-Literature and Engineering-Science. For example, the LL Team has been asked to create a version of Roald Dahl's novel Matilda in which the original story is 'not quite accurately represented'. Challenging and lots of fun!</p><p>We also have a group of six Year 7 and 8 students participating in the NCSS digital technologies challenge, a national programming, or coding, competition with 'problems that range from relatively simple to mind-bendingly hard.' It will be exciting to see how our students develop their skills in this cutting-edge format.</p><p>In Year 9 we have a class undertaking an alternate humanities curriculum, the Big History Project. BHP was developed in the US by the Bill Gates Foundation and is self-described as a 'supercharged social studies curriculum that arose from a desire to go beyond specialized and self-contained fields of study to grasp history as a whole.' It requires significant cognition; rather than immersing themselves in a specific topic, students are asked to make links across the breadth of human history.</p><p>Our Year 10 gifted group has begun working on MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses. These are tertiary-level courses developed and authenticated by universities from across the world. Our students are able to tailor a study program to meet their own interests and needs, and prepare meaningfully for higher-level study. For example, we now have students enrolled in MOOCs as diverse as 'The humanitarian response to conflict and disaster' (Harvard University), 'An introduction to animal ethics' (Kyoto University) and 'Human anatomy' (Hong Kong Polytechnic). That our students can do this is clearly indicative of the shrinking, digital world in which we live, work and study – as well as being a wonderful opportunity for them!</p><p>Schools have a responsibility to cater for students with diverse needs. That diversity includes students who exhibit higher-than-usual standards of cognition combined with the ongoing mastery of competencies, knowledge and skills. Typically, strategies for such students include accelerated curriculum, enrichment activities and open-ended learning. It is our belief that the Salamanca Program, as outlined above, offers all three of these strategies.</p><p></p> | | | | | | | | | |
| Robotics - Year 7 Learning | | http://www.sansisto.qld.edu.au/latest-news/Pages/Robotics---Year-7-Learning.aspx | Robotics - Year 7 Learning | <span lang="EN"><p align="JUSTIFY" dir="LTR">Our Year 7 students have been working with robots as part of the Force and Motion and Earth in Space units. Robotics is an engaging way of introducing STEM skills into the curriculum. It promotes diverse thinking and provides the students with interesting opportunities to practise collaborative problem solving.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" dir="LTR">Initially, the students utilised robots while conducting experiments that explored the effects of friction. They programmed their robots to push a weight along a variety of surfaces and observed the differences in the time taken to complete the task. The students also adopted the role of NASA engineers and programed their robots to simulate some of the tasks a lunar rover would undertake on the surface of the moon. </p>
<p>The students are thoroughly enjoying using robots to explore a variety of important scientific concepts.</p></span><p></p> | | | | | | | | | |
| Vietnam and Cambodian Immersion Trip | | http://www.sansisto.qld.edu.au/latest-news/Pages/Vietnam-and-Cambodian-Immersion-Trip.aspx | Vietnam and Cambodian Immersion Trip | <p style="text-align:justify;">Our students who are going on the Vietnam/Cambodia immersion trip in the June/July holidays. This week, they write for your perusal their hopes for the experience and their motivation for travel. Please keep the group in your prayers over the break. </p><p style="text-align:justify;">The journey is all about experiencing a cross-cultural immersion, in particular the different culture, food and life issues that people of the majority world face each day. As well as being able to form relationships with, and learn from, each other how we might share those resources we each have in disproportionate abundance. Along with gaining an understanding of how in two places of such horrific history – Vietnam and Cambodia – the people have endured.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">We are going with five other students and three teachers from Emmaus College in Jimboomba, who are all very friendly and like-minded people, as we found out at social afternoons of Putt Putt and also last week's Social Justice afternoon. We also spent time again as a whole group on Wednesday afternoon and evening. Already we are firm friends and know that these people are going to have an impact on our lives forever.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">On our trip, we will be experiencing and exploring the countries of Cambodia and Vietnam and have the opportunity to visit churches, kindergartens and schools. A core element of the journey will be to spend some days living within a community at church facilities to engage with local people in a village context to experience life as they live it. The main aim of the trip therefore is to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and experience what everyday life is like for the people of Cambodia. We aim to serve the community and to be able to be an active part of their society.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">We will also have the opportunity to explore historical sites such as the genocide museums in Toul Sleng and go to the many temples such as Angkor Wat and experience the life of the people and even have an elephant ride. </p><p style="text-align:justify;">Our personal reasons for going: </p><p style="text-align:justify;">“I want to be a part of this trip as it is an opportunity to experience somewhere different and new; to lead myself into the service of others. It is also an opportunity to learn about the history of both Vietnam and Cambodia and what events in the past have led to the formation of the countries and communities they are today. To experience firsthand how these communities have rebuilt their faith and moved past the war they faced whilst still embracing it." — Alice</p><p style="text-align:justify;">“I wanted to be part of this trip as it is a unique opportunity to experience the unfamiliar in terms of culture and language along with historical importance and everyday lifestyle of a group of people who, despite all the horrible things that have occurred, still find happiness. Also, to learn about how their faith has guided them through the war and the aftermath." — Charlotte</p><p style="text-align:justify;">“I wanted to go on the trip to be able to learn about a new culture that is so different from our own. It is an incredible opportunity to interact with new people and experience a different way of life, and witness the work of the Church as it meets the material, pastoral and spiritual needs of the communities served by its presence." </p><p style="text-align:justify;">— Rosalie</p><p style="text-align:justify;">“I wanted to go on this immersion because I wanted to walk in the steps of Dominic and gain an understanding of how much we have to be thankful for in our lives. I think it will be amazing and truly eye-opening to see how other people in our world live and how we can work together to improve the lives of others through acts of service for others." — Lauren</p><p style="text-align:justify;">We are all looking forward to the trip and can't wait to come back and tell you all about it!</p><p></p> | | | | | | | | | |
