School Event and Competition coming this month!

Social Justice Week 11th- 17th September

Social Justice Week for 2016 is 11^th – 17^th September. This year’s topic focuses on migration and encourages students and teachers to share migration stories and respond through prayer and action.  Caritas suggests that teachers use a prayer and a migration story each day. 

You can find the resources for 2016 on this link.

Please send in your photos, videos and examples of student work your class complete for the Migration Story so we can celebrate their success on our blog.

Contact:

 Cushla: cushlao@chch.catholic.org.nz 

OR

Jeremy: jcumming@chch.catholic.org.nz

We look forward to seeing and sharing your students ideas!

Essay and Multimedia Contest 

This year the Christchurch Commission for Justice &  Peace invites students to write an essay or put together a multimedia presentation on poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand and to link it with Christian values that are within the Catholic Church's Social Teaching (CST).

The focusing question is: Discuss the issue of Poverty in New Zealand in light of the principles of CST.

For more details contact Barbara: barbaratemiha@gmail.com

The contest is open from 28th August - 14th October and includes the following categories:

Years 7 - 8 entries: $150 prize.

Years 9- 10 entries: $300 prize

Years 11- 13 entries: $ 500 prize and J& P Cup

We look forward to seeing your students entries and sharing these on our blog. 

Christchurch Moderation Group Term Three Meeting

Yesterday Andrea Craig (Villa Maria), Daryl Shute (Villa Maria), Thomas Newton (St Thomas of Canterbury College), Anita Neilson (Middleton Grange School) and Ruth Velluppillai (Middleton Grange School) met to discuss teaching scripture in Religious Studies.

The purpose of the meeting was to analyse AS 90816 - "Describe the purpose of a sacred text within a religious tradition".

The meeting operated on the "Norms of Collaboration Model" whereby every individual has an equal voice. There is a focus on questioning and challenging each-other in a respectful manner. We expect that through questioning, our own understanding is challenged which will help us grow in our teaching practice.



Appreciative Inquiry Process

Our only focus was on the "Discovery" aspect of the Appreciative Inquiry method where we discussed:

 - The best of what is taking place within our schools and what enables this to occur.

We continued to delve deeper and presented our ideas around:

* What aspect of this topic do you and your students enjoy?

* What do you do to make this topic more engaging for your students?

* What questions would you like to ask the other teachers gathered here around their practice?

* What is your "piece of gold" you would like to share and present to us?

Shared Management System

To continue this "Discover" step we have created a shared management system where each school will contribute one lesson and one resource that they think increases learning outcomes for their students. A network system has been created where teachers are able to freely interact and share their learning with each other. We have created this by placing the teachers name on the resource so they can explain the purpose and benefits of using this within your class.

How often do we receive a resource that is not explained and then find it difficult to use?

Presentation

Ruth presented her best practice around assessment and how to instill reverence when teaching scripture. It  provides us with some probing questions that we should reflect on. 

Dream and Design Process

During Term Four, after senior exams we will meet again to look at what  the future for AS 90816 is especially around student engagement and understanding.

The 'design' process will involve the creation of a shared plan involving ideas, resources, tools and assessment features. From here the group can look at the implementation of this plan and sythesise some of these ideas down further to ensure successful implementation in 2017. 

Thank you to Andrea, Daryl, Thomas, Anita and Ruth for being committed to the development of Religious Education within their school. 

Top Five Tools to use in Religious Education!!!

Today I will introduce five new tools to use within your Religious Education class. They range from digital newspapers through to gamification.

1. Digital Badges: https://www.badgelist.com/

Badgelist is a free app that allows teachers to create digital badges for student achievement and evidence of learning. You can upload a range of different badges for areas students have mastered within a topic.

To get started here is a great badge template and a badge requirement template.

2. Quizizz: http://quizizz.com/

Quizizz is a game-based formative assessment website that lets you assess your students in a fun and engaging way. Quizizz is self-paced which allows the students to finish as quickly or slowly as they need to. Quizizz also offers a homework option which allows students to complete the assessment game on their own time using an access code provided by the teacher.  

3. Smore: https://www.smore.com/

Smore allows users to create digital flyers that can be easily shared and accessed by anyone interested. The great thing about Smore is that it allows admin/teachers to embed photos and videos right in the flyer to easily share what is going on in the school.

4. Google Forms (Quiz Option)

Turning a Google Form into a quiz got much easier with the addition of quiz options! Now, with a few clicks of a button, your Google Form can be transformed into a self-grading assessment you can share with students as a formative assessment.

After completing your Google Form, click on the settings button. You will then notice you have a few different options now, one of those being the Quizzes tab! Click on this tab and slide the "Make this a quiz" button and your Google Form is now set up to be a self-grading assessment.

Once you have made your Google Form a quiz, you can then select your questions, change their point totals, select the correct answers, and provide feedback for both correct and incorrect answers.

5. HSTRY: https://www.hstry.co/blog/using-hstry-in-the-classroom

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HSTRY allows users to create interactive, digital time-lines that can be easily shared online. Teachers can create timelines using pictures, videos, text, and gifs, and upload those timelines to their HSTRY class page. Students in your course can create their own timelines or collaboratively work on content shared by the teacher.

Best Practice in Secondary Religious Education

Yesterday, five Secondary teachers shared their knowledge and expertise in Religious Education during our Director of Religious Studies meeting.

Following are the recorded presentations with a short synopsis.



Andrea Craig - Villa Maria College

Andrea discusses the benefits of integrating Office 365 tools within her senior Religious Education classes. Andrea provides a range of examples and reasons how the Office 365 suite increases interaction with her students and allows them to learn during anytime or place they like.

Sarah Southen - Marian College

Sarah presents alternative forms of assessment in Religious Education. Sarah started her journey by analyzing student performance  in PE and how Religious Education could provide similar forms of assessment.  Sarah is focused on the learning and development her students can make rather than focusing only on assessment results.

Chloe Onekawa - Catholic Cathedral College

Chloe analyses the impact Google Classroom has on student agency and accountability. Chloe recently trialled Google Classroom with her students on the Reformation Topic in Year 11. She surveyed her students and presents a range of tips on how to make student learning ubiquitous. 

Zoe Lynskey - Catholic Cathedral College

Zoe works with English Language Learners (English as a second language). As you will find out in her presentation she has particular strategies and skills that she draws upon in order to make Religious Education a safe and enjoyable space for her students. Please look at her presentation below.

https://goo.gl/bA3IK8

World Youth Day 2016 - Christchurch

During the 29th July - 2nd August something special was happening at Marian and Catholic Cathedral College..............

They were hosting the weekend-long event to mark World Youth Day 2016 (WYD) that hosted 170 students from eleven Catholic Secondary Schools from across the South Island.
The event followed the usual World Youth Day programme with Catechesis, Masses, Reconciliation, Service, Pilgrimage and live streaming of the Papal Mass in Krakow, Poland.

On the opening night a Powhiri was held for visiting students along with a Polish cultural evening.

 Polish Cultural Evening

A Pilgrimage with an interfaith theme was held on Sunday, which was led by Fr. Rick Loughnan. The group of students took the Christchurch World Youth Cross from the Catholic Cathedral to the Transitional Cathedral for joint prayer. From here students broke off into smaller groups to key pilgrimage sites: Christchurch City Mission, Te Rangimarie, The Jewish Synagogue, Cathedral Square, Barbadoes Street Cemetery and the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Christchurch World Youth Day Cross was placed inside the perimeter of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament site “to assure the people of Canterbury we are strong in our faith and we will rebuild.”

 Transitional Cathedral

 The journey begins

Te Rangimarie

Faith Bazaar

Following the Pilgrimage a joint Mass was celebrated in the Catholic Cathedral College Hall. This was a wonderful celebration which was attended by over 400 followers. In the evening, exactly to Polish time the Papal Mass in Krakow was live streamed.

Fantastic Volunteers with our Holy Father

Throughout the three days the Christchurch Diocese Mission team set up a Chapel on site and offered prayer services, reconciliation and adoration opportunities for students.

Organiser Abina Pope said WYD was “an opportunity for students of the same age to come together, share ideas and listen to various members of religious organisations”.

On Monday, students journeyed home, with a strengthened faith and a sense of Catholic community in Aotearoa, New Zealand and the world. 

This event was driven by Abina Pope (Director of Religious Studies, Marian College), Antje Duda (Chaplain, Marian College) and Tony Shaw (Principal, Catholic Cathedral College). The commitment these three individuals had for this initiative and the opportunities it provided for the young people of this Diocese is inspiring. They are all wonderful leaders and role models for our young people.

 Abina Pope

 Antje Duda

Tony Shaw

Finally, thank you to the planning team who met on a regular basis to insure that they Year 12 & 13 students were supported in their spiritual journey to strengthen their faith for the future. Without you this event would not have been possible. 

Flipped Learning Trial Feedback

This week we have travelled throughout the Diocese both physically and virtually to receive feedback on a trial approach to teaching the Church Strand in Years 7 & 8.

We have been impressed by the articulate feedback our young people have provided as we continue to explore this learning programme.

Thank you to the teachers who took part in this trial and the amazing work that they completed.

Today, we visited Our Lady of the Assumption School, to receive positives and advice around the learning programme.

Teacher Collaboration

Today, Villa Maria College DRS (Andrea Craig) met with e- learning leader and consultant Stephen McConnachie (Middleton Grange School) to discuss the application of Office 365 tools into Religious Education. In the meeting they discussed:

The SAMAR Model
Teachers being the most important resource in the classroom.
Creating a shared vision of how technology is a tool that can improve students learning
How technology can increase local, national and international connections for students

It was fantastic to see both teachers sharing their ideas around best practice.