Cookies for Christmas

The Cookies for Christmas group is making cookies and biscuits for distribution to the homeless.  These items will be decoratively packaged and given to people who may not otherwise receive a Christmas gift by the not-for-profit charity Hawkesbury Helping Hands.

What A Mess!

What A Mess! is a group of eleven students supervised by Mr. Adams. The group are spending the next three days cleaning out and organising the PDHPE storeroom in the Auditorium as well as the storage containers on the Oval.

So far they have counted all the equipment in the store room and have started the process of reorganisation. The goal for the week is to have all PDHPE storage areas clean and tidy.

“I am enjoying the company of the people and making new friends.” – Maxwell G. 

“The Service Days program  is a really good program that can and will help others.” – Ruan.  

Reporters: Felicity, Tara and Rowan

Stop The Press

Students in this group document the activities in the Service Learning program through the creation of blog posts.  Members of this group visit other activities, interview students and teachers and take photographs in order to communicate events to the wider College community.

Getting all the information

Interviewing the Feeding Frenzy group

Bridging The Gap

The Bridging The Gap group visit local retirement homes in order to spend time with and entertain the older generation.  Students undertake some light gardening and share in some morning or afternoon tea, engage in conversation and play some board games with their audience.

Toys Are Us

In the Wood Technology room Mr. New and fourteen students are constructing, sanding and painting wooden toys such as aeroplanes and ambulances suitable for toddlers ready to be sold at next years Hills Harvest. The money raised will be used for future College service trips.

 

Most of the students that we talked to were completing this activity for the first time and were enjoying creating the toys to be sold for a good cause whilst being able to hang out with their friends in the group.  Many students said they would join the group next year and would encourage their friends to join the activity too.

"Everyone's co-operating in the activities." - Dylan

 

 Reporters: Ben, Monique, Anna

 

Constructing,

sanding and

painting.

 

Tweety Houses

In F3 Mrs. Anderson and eleven hard working students are creating wooden bird houses to enhance the natural surroundings of the College.  They are assembling and painting the houses that will be suitable for many different types of birds in the area.

"Making the bird houses is so much fun." Miss Anderson

Most of the students in this group are currently in Years Seven and Eight and for some this was their first time participating in the Tweety Houses group. There were also some who had joined this activity in previous years and they reported that they were enjoying the task even more the second time around. 

Reporters: Ben, Monique and Anna

 

Lavish Lavatories

The group Lavish Lavatories is made up of fourteen students who are using their artistic abilities and skills to design and create new paintings for the doors in the students' bathrooms. Our reporters visited the group and all the students, led by Mrs. New, were working hard at the paintings and two girls already had one of the designs complete and ready to be installed.

"We are 'fabulising' the bathrooms" - Megan M.  

Mrs. New commented that she was enjoying the activity because these students loved their work and she was looking forward to seeing the end results. 

 

Reporters: Ben, Monique and Anna

 

 

Books To Go

Mrs. Hogan is supervising a group of ten students that are sorting donated second hand books to sell at a stall on Wednesday.  The stall will help raise money for the Sunshine Cambodia to support their education program. Sunshine Cambodia is an education centre designed to provide a place that is safe, supportive, caring, enriching and stimulating for children.  The children at the centre are from families that earn less than USD $2 per day.

Our reporters noticed that they had many different types of books, ranging from some that would suit a very young audience and some for a more mature demographic. The also had a mixed range of genres as well including action, romance, comedy and even some spy books for the younger kids.

Most of the students interviewed had not worked on the Books to Go project in previous years 
and they seemed to be excited about the job that they are doing for the next three days.

Reporters: Ben, Monique, Anna


Lots to sort through



Lots of donations



Sim City

Sim City is a group of twelve students working with Mrs Harris and Mrs Tweed.  In this activity students design and create play mats with three dimensional cities, towns and roadways painted onto rubber mats for younger children at the College. The group aims to complete five play mats during Service Days. Whilst we were visiting the students were outlining designs in pencil onto the mats and starting to paint the foam boards.

A student comments

“It is important to know that we are helping families in need.” By Jacob N.

Reporters: Tara, Felicity and Rowan

 

 

Design inspiration
 

Let's get started

 

The first phase



Secret Garden

The Secret Garden group are helping with the gardening and landscaping of the New Secret Garden site, a not-for-profit community garden and nursery set on five acres at the University of Western Sydney campus in Richmond.  

The Secret Garden offers training and educational programs for the whole community in horticulture, permaculture, animal husbandry, vegetable and fruit production and specialised engagement and training opportunities for school children and individuals with a disability. The therapy garden offers a safe, supportive and educational environment where people with mental illness and other disabilities can learn horticultural skills and the sale of plants grown in the nursery helps finance this successful project.

Team talk



Working hard

Hardly working

Feeding Frenzy

Over the next three days, the Feeding Frenzy crew are going to be selling food (hot and cold) to the students of Rouse Hill Anglican College during lunch times. The group of ten students under the direction of Mrs Scanlan and Miss Davies will be raising money for Hawkesbury Helping Hands, a not for profit charity which supplies hot meals, food hampers and emergency hampers to the homeless, less fortunate and those who just need a hand to get through a tough stage in their life. 

Spreading the word

"Serving the food will be great fun and it's for a good cause" - Josh K.

 Students in this group will visit other activities being held around the College to promote the food on sale each day.  Earlier today they visited the busy Stop the Press headquarters to let us know about the spiders that they will be selling at lunch time. All the students seemed to be enjoying themselves and can't wait to do more.

Looks delicious

 

 

A happy customer

Even happier customers!

Lunch time food stall in action

 

 

 

Reporters: Ben, Monique and Anna

 

 

Service Days 2015 - All systems go!

Years Seven to Nine have started off their 2015 Service Days.  The day began with the College Christmas Service and the important reminder of the purpose of Christmas.  Afterwards students joined their Service Days group and began planning for the days ahead. 

The 'Stop The Press' blogging team in action first thing Monday.

An introduction to Service Days

At Rouse Hill Anglican College, our Welfare Program, and indeed all that occurs in Senior School, is from the understanding that we are all made in the image of God.  It is our desire as educators to see each individual student explore their God given potential and develop as a whole person.  It is also our great desire to develop our student body in a corporate sense, building strong relationships with the student body, as well as helping our students to recognise the needs of others within the College and wider community, and more importantly, responding to and serving those needs.

It is our yearning to see a practical out-working of our College Core values, beyond the school gate.  In the book of Micah, the Bible clearly reminds us of our responsibility to care for others. "The Lord God has told us what is right and what he demands: See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern, and humbly obey your God." (Micah 6:8)  Moreover, the words of James calls us to act upon our faith by serving His people, reminding us that "Anyone who doesn't breathe is dead, and faith that doesn't do anything is just as dead!" (James 2:26)

Central to our program is considering what justice for all people looks like.  Who needs mercy?  How can we humbly obey the call of God?  How can we actively live out our faith? How can we demonstrate care, commitment, respect and responsibility?

These are big questions and ones we are keen for our students to explore.  To that end, the College continues to place value on a service learning program for Years Seven, Eight and Nine, which focuses on actively serving the needs of others.  In the last week of Term Four, students will be engaged in a three day Service Learning program, which aims firstly to educate the students about the broad range of need in our local and global communities and then provide them with an opportunity to respond with practical service.

We encourage students to think about their God given gifts and where and how they could use these to respond to the needs of others.  There is a vast number of Service Activities and a broad range of organisations with whom we will partner for this venture.  Students will be asked to nominate a number of activities which interest them.  They will be allocated to one activity for the Service Learning Program.