It has been a smooth transition into the last term of the year.

The three new students, Nancy, Harriot and Carolyn, have settled well into the new routine and have already been asking for co-curricular activities! This is encouraging that they are proactive and keen to emerge into the wider community.

The Pathways students are enjoying the full-on timetable with a wide variety of subjects. I sat in their Mathematics class and it was hard! The terminology sounds like an alien language and makes understanding the concepts tricky. Monday Science practical lessons are always full of surprise – Ms Miller made the task mysterious and interesting and the students just want to investigate further. Mrs Perez-Garcia’s Learning English Through Stories class is always filled with sound effects (by Mrs Perez-Garcia) and laughter. On Wednesday afternoons, they often bring back a container, with their names on, with the food Mrs Kumar taught them in the Food Technology class. 

Of course, the most important component of the Pathways program is English language learning. With Mrs Sennett’s culture building class, Ms Priebbenow’s literacy class (they are reading Narnia now!) and Mrs Arnold’s English skill class, the students are commenting that they have been absorbing English through so many angles. They are often surprised how things can be linked together when in the past, they only belonged to each subject. 

As week 3 comes to an end, Mrs Sennett is heading back to Bathurst and will continue her lessons virtually. We thank Mrs Sennett for her effort and willingness to travel all the way from Bathurst to run such a successful start of the term and help the students settle. It has been a great pleasure to have Mrs Sennett visiting and working with not only the Pathways teachers but also the PLC Armidale teachers to build up a structured program for the students.

The Year 12 students are excited that they are so close to the end of the HSC exams. We are very proud of the girls that despite the pressure, they can still smile and crack jokes (or even sleep in…). It’s sad that they are leaving school but also rewarding seeing them completing a chapter of their journey in Australia and are ready to start the next one.