From the Principal
Teaching And Learning
Learning in Art, Design and Technology
Learning in Art, Design and Technology
Art, Design and Technology (ADT) students thrive on the creative challenge of making and designing products and artworks. Students are encouraged to research ideas, experiment, explore techniques, and learn new skills, constantly refining and evaluating during the process. In a challenging year, ADT students have shown their resilience and flexibility to adapt and create. The process is just as important as the final product and we have seen some refined work even during the period when students were learning remotely, as well as examples of finished work since our return to face to face learning.
In Term 1, Bronte Smalley’s artwork entitled My Tone for the 2019 HSC in Visual Arts, was exhibited in the Art Express Gallery at the Armoury at Homebush. The opening night seems a luxury now with hundreds of students, teachers, parents and friends attending. Her work explored a year in her life, displaying photographs with matching spectrum colour borders, playing on the famous art/design colour charts called Pantone. This is the second successive year that a student from the College has had a work accepted for Art Express and the third in which students have had their work nominated for possible inclusion. This is testament to the high quality of their work of which the College is very proud.
Programs of Study in Art Design and Technology
Stage 4
Technology Mandatory is divided into specialised modules where students rotate through various disciplines. At this stage, most students have completed at least one rotation.
Year 7 students studied either a unit on agriculture and food or engineering. The food unit focussed on the movement of produce from the farm to table and included some practical cooking in the kitchen units. The engineering unit focussed on the creation of a marionette puppet along with a particularly interesting design challenge in which the students examined the importance of structure in engineering. They analysed some of the world’s tallest buildings and some of the shapes that make up a building’s structure. In the challenge, they had to use five marshmallows, 20 sticks of spaghetti and 50cm of tape to construct the tallest spaghetti tower they could. The tower had to be strong and stable enough to support itself for a minimum of 10 seconds.
Year 8 students have been focussing on design issues for a sustainable world. They created either an eco-bag or a timber project (bee/insect hotel). In conjunction with this, they completed an assignment on the use of recycled ocean plastics. The eco-bag, that could be used while shopping, was designed to reduce our use of plastic to help the environment.
Year 7 Visual Arts students focussed on the micro-world of insects creating beautiful images of their selected insect. Students also studied the portrait work of Frida Kahlo and Del Kathryn Barton, both of whom use detailed and decorative techniques.
Year 8 focussed on the study of food and the important genre of ‘still life’ in Visual Arts. This included the study of the famous artist, Paul Cezanne, and the American artist, Wayne Theibold, whose Pop art creations of cakes present the still life in a completely new way.
Stage 5
Stage 5 Design and Technology extends on the experiences of Stage 4. Year 9 students were involved in designing and creating a scale model for a shop front, while the Year 10 students designed and created formal headwear.
In Food Technology, Year 9 Students have begun exploring the core unit of Food Preparation and Processing, in addition to learning about Food in Australia,while Year 10 focused on Food Product Development.
In Textiles Technology, Year 10 students constructed a costume that was inspired by a film. The garments created included a Hermione Granger costume and a Slytherin House coat from the Harry Potter series, dance costumes inspired by the Nutcracker and dresses from Cinderella.
Information and Software students in Year 9 analysed different digital media products and their uses across a variety of contexts. Year 10 students developed an understanding of the internet and website development.
In Visual Arts, Year 9 students completed a painting unit based on exploring techniques from Modernism and a study of landscape painting. Year 10 developed a conceptual project, where students examined a ritual/tradition and completed a work focussed on the idea of appropriating an art image or style from the past. This work was based on the study of Post Modern artist, Yasumasa Morimura.
Photographic and Digital media students in Year 9 focussed on the landscape and learning the skills of picture building, use of the SLR camera, photographic darkroom work and exploring digital editing in Photoshop. Year 10 students worked on portraiture and particularly the contemporary idea of the ‘selfie’ or self-portrait.
Stage 6
In Stage 6, Year 11 Information Processes and Technology students studied information skills and systems and tools for information processes while the Year 12 students completed the units on Information Systems and Databases and Communication Systems and two optional topics – TPS (Transaction Processing System) and MS (Multimedia Systems).
Students in Year 11 Design, Technology and Visual Arts explored the skills needed for both theory and practical work in the senior years.
Year 12 students are focussed on their Major Design Project in Design and Technology and the Body of Work in Visual Arts with associated theory. Our students have demonstrated flexibility, resilience and agility in their response to the unique challenges posed by remote learning and are now close to finishing their major projects.
As part of an exhibition of creative arts at the College, the HSC virtual Showcase will be launched on 21 September. This will replace the annual HSC Showcase that is not possible in 2020 given the social distancing requirements.
Remote and Continuous Learning
During Phase 1 of Continuous Learning, students were presented with some unique challenges within Art, Design and Technology. However, this time also revealed many positive learning experiences. For subjects relying on practical in-class experiences, teachers were able to focus on theory during this time. Students studying TAS subjects were able to explore the design process of researching, sketching and annotating ideas for their final designs.
In Visual Arts, the focus was on developing and evolving skills in writing about artists and artworks, particularly in the senior years. Students in Stage 4, with their art kits at home, were able to work on their Art Diary skills.
Of note were the Year 10 Photography students who presented some unique self-portraits that were able to illustrate their experiences of isolation at home and identify some of the issues in a contemplative and sometimes playful way (such as the toilet paper shortages).
Mr Stephen Dufty
Leader of Learning Art, Design and Technology
OLMC Connect
Public Speaking
Public Speaking
Australian Debating and Public Speaking Titles
As reported in the previous newsletter, eight outstanding speakers have been selected to participate in the Australian Debating and Public Speaking Titles. In 2020, the girls in the Junior team (their competition is called Speakfest) are Sophie Assaad, Avni Mathur and Tia Monga of Year 8 as well as Karshini Dahal of Year 9. The Senior AIDPSC team comprises Maeve Nolan and Stephanie Ogle (Year 10) and Sabrina Catania and Riley Rodewald (Year 11).
Although there are two months to go before the competition, the training of these two teams began in the July holidays with an all-day workshop taking the girls through each event. The contribution of four other students must be mentioned. Freya Scothern and Ambeikaa Mishra (Year 9), Anne Nguyen (Year 11) and Daphne Fong (Year 12) gave up their day voluntarily to help in so many ways: giving advice, adjudicating practice debates and providing feedback and encouragement. These four girls were all part of last year’s teams and their contribution to the workshop was immeasurable. A sincere thank you to all of them and indeed to all the girls who worked so hard on the day.
World Titles
Each year, the top speakers in the Senior Australian Titles are selected to represent our country in the World Titles. Last year’s titles saw Yasmine Alwakal (now Year 11 and our new Head Girl) being selected in the Australian team after her outstanding performances but after the original venue (Shanghai) and the next option (Brisbane) were ruled out because of the pandemic, it seemed that Yasmine was to miss an opportunity she so richly deserved. Then, a trial competition run on similar lines proved to be successful so the titles are now going ahead through Zoom from the 14-24 August. Yasmine has already begun her preparation and we wish her the very best in the competition.
Student Speak
Last term, Student Speak was launched and although there are at least five or six students who have written their speeches, their videos need to be submitted for this site. We look forward to building a bank of excellent speeches over time. One girl has not only submitted her speech but has at least four more she is producing. Annoushka Maikap of Year 7 is to be commended not only for her enthusiasm but also for the quality of her presentation. You can see Annoushka’s speech on 'Hobbies' on Student Speak. Go to CANVAS/Courses/2020 Student Speak/Student Speak Videos.
Mr Christopher Ostrowski
Public Speaking Coordinator