Admin Updates

Year 11 and 12 Student Absences

As we approach the end of the term, I would like to remind parents about completing their child's absence justifications. Years 11 to 12 reports will be distributed at the end of Term 3 and explained absences ensure your child’s attendance records are accurate and reported correctly.

To complete your child's absence reports:

1. Log in to your Sentral Parent Portal
2. Navigate to the Absences section
3. Review your unexplained absences and provide a brief explanation for each.

Parents can review their child’s attendance records by selecting their child's profile and navigating to Attendance.

Spaghetti Trigonometry

Last week, the Year 10A Maths class embarked on a unique mathematical journey. They used spaghetti to create the three trigonometric curves. This engaging exercise reinforced their understanding of trigonometric functions and allowed them to visualise and physically model the Sine, Cosine, and Tangent functions.

The students were given graph paper, rulers, the unit circle and uncooked spaghetti to mark key points of the functions. Once these points were identified, the students used spaghetti strands to connect the dots, forming the curves of the sine, cosine, and tangent functions.

This hands-on approach allowed them to see how the functions behaved over a cycle, with the spaghetti visually representing the smooth, continuous nature of trigonometric curves. It also offered an opportunity to discuss the important features of these functions.

Student Reflections

What connection can you make between the unit circle and the trig graphs you have seen?

Tan doesn't have an answer for 90 degrees (Miki)

The unit circle can be used to graph the sine, cosine and tangent functions. By drawing lines vertically and horizontally on the right-angled triangles we could graph the different trig ratios as a continuous wave. (Lukas)

The length of the opposite side of every 15 degrees is the height of the spaghetti we made for the sine graph. The length of the adjacent side of every 15 degrees is the height of the spaghetti for the cosine graph. (Emily)

On the sine graph, anything on the positive y-axis will always be on top of the line whereas everything on the negative y-axis is on the bottom underneath the line. (Cooper)

Name and describe one of the trigonometric graph features that will help you recognise it.

The sine graph intersects the axis at 0 and 180 degrees and peaks at 90 degrees (Arielle)

The cosine graph was recognisable as it starts at 1 at 0 degrees then goes down to 0 at 90 degrees and reaches -1 at 180 degrees, goes back up to 0 at 270 degrees and finally reaches 1 again at 360 degrees (Charley)

The sine graph starts at zero. (Oscar)

On the tan graph, at 90 degrees and 270 degrees, the line will not ever touch the x-axis, therefore it is easy to identify as it will have a dotted line at 90 and 270 degrees. (Chelsea)

This week's reminders

• Year 11 exams continue into Week 9 from Monday 16 September to Thursday 19 September.
• On Friday 20 September, Year 9 students will participate in their pastoral day.
• Year 10 has their Y2K24 Showdown day on the College oval on Monday 23 September.
• On Tuesday 24 September, Year 12 students are invited to join their teachers for breakfast from 7.30am in the senior courtyard.
• The Year 12 Graduation Mass and Assembly will be held at St Bernard’s Church on Tuesday 24 September at 5.00pm.
• On Wednesday 25 September, the Year 12 Farewell assembly will take place, followed by a luncheon.
• The last day of Term 3 is Thursday 26 September.
• Friday 27 September is a pupil-free day.
• School resumes for Term 4 on Tuesday 15 October.

Mrs Sandra Harris
Administration Coordinator