This year saw change continue within the Religious Education Department! More of our staff undertook Catalyst training and this has resulted in important changes to teaching practice that have been welcomed by the students in all year levels – daily reviews and full student participation are part of lessons. All teachers have used the SEQTA learning management system, resulting in greater access for students and parents to daily lessons materials, assessment tasks and feedback.
Our BSSS seniors also participated in the new course with units from both World Religions and Religious Studies – these extra units have enabled one of our students to undertake a major-minor in 2022 and we hope to see further students undertake such options in coming years. We also had our second intake of International Baccalaureate Diploma Program students, seven of them, beginning their World Religions course.
We once again had very large numbers of students wanting to be involved in the Black Mountain program with our Mentor classes in Year 10 and almost two-thirds of Year 9 girls wanting to volunteer at Black Mountain School (BMS) throughout the year – unfortunately this was not able to occur due to the restrictions upon visitors to BMS. Hopefully we will be able to restart our volunteering in 2023. It is so encouraging to see the enthusiasm for these programs which really encourage the students to put faith into action.
None of this is possible without a very talented and dedicated Religious Education Department. Our teachers are passionate about what they do and this is obvious in the lessons they plan and the relationships they develop with their students.
Sociology
This year saw the introduction of a new course for Sociology and students have studied two units, Structure and Agency, which gave students the opportunity to do some non-participant observations in classes to look at issues in education and Constructing Identity, where students studied factors that affect our identity. One of their tasks was to write a film review for a film of their choosing about indigenous identity and analyse it from sociological perspectives.
Mr. Andrew Blakey
Religious Education Coordinator
