Hartzer Program

The Hartzer Program is a unique opportunity where our students spend four weeks in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, building their independence and completing their curriculum in a different setting and format.

The residential program provides our students with the opportunity to celebrate their giftedness, grow in faith, embrace their learning, build positive relationships and teamwork skills, venture beyond their comfort zones, develop confidence and connect with our OLSH history.

The program includes two days in Canberra visiting Parliament House, the Royal Australian Mint and the Australian War Memorial, and day trips to Sydney to explore the sites and complete the Bondi to Coogee walk.

The girls also make connection with our OLSH heritage, visiting the OLSH Sisters in Kensington, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church Randwick and St Bernard's Primary School in Botany. There are day trips and hikes in the areas surrounding Bowral, such as Fitzroy Falls and Mount Gibraltar, and weekend visits to the Bowral township.

Onsite at Hartzer Park, the girls embrace the daily routines completing project work, personal training sessions, sharing meals and evening study time together, and making connections through the shared experience.

As the program draws to a close, there is a retreat day where the girls have the space and time to reflect on the experience, acknowledging the lifelong skills they have developed, before a welcome return to family and loved ones.

Je Suis Program

Our Je Suis program looks outwards, taking the students on a journey of discovery of their local community and beyond. The students are encouraged to make connections, be inspired and challenged and develop their awareness and curiosity through cross-curricular activities.

A highlight of the program is a visit to the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, spending time with a local Indigenous Elder who educates about the use of Indigenous plants by the original inhabitants of the land for food and medicine.

The Elder also performs a Welcome to Country and takes the girls through the gardens to visit important landmarks and identify Indigenous plants. As a follow up to the visit, the girls have an Indigenous cooking session where they use a range of local Indigenous ingredients in each item they cook.

The students also spend several days exploring Melbourne, focusing on different themes each time – architecture and buildings, laneways and arcades and the Southbank/Federation Square precinct.

They also spend another day in Oakleigh, Springvale and Dandenong, taking in the cultural diversity of these suburbs and sampling culinary treats from each culture.

Back onsite at school, the students take time to reflect on their place in our diverse world and their connection with their local community. These reflections are integrated into assessment pieces that include digital presentations and creative team tasks that further develop negotiation, communication and collaboration skills.

Nous Sommes Program

The Nous Sommes program allows for areas of the Victorian curriculum to be taught in creative and dynamic ways. It uses inquiry-based learning and encourages the girls to develop their creativity and design thinking, work collaboratively in teams and develop their independence.

Activities include a forensics day where the girls learn about blood typing and DNA, a cheerleading and ninja warrior day with internationally recognised trainers and the production of a mini musical-drama where the girls work together to script, rehearse and present a movie in a five-minute performance.

One of the major pieces of work in the Nous Sommes program is the Heart Project, where students spend 14 periods responding to the question What touches my heart? This inquiry-based learning presents an authentic task to students that requires complex thought and time for exploration. The students are involved in decision making about content and the breadth of the activity provides for individual approaches to research and presentation of the topic to the whole school in an expo-style format, reflecting their personal learning style and growth through the program.

Core and specialist subjects

Our Issoudun students complete six core subjects for the full year:

• Religious Education
• English
• Humanities
• Mathematics
• Health and PE
• Science

In addition to the core subjects, students select six elective subjects to be studied as semester units – three per semester.

We support subject selection through discussions with relevant teachers and meetings with parents/guardians, to ensure our students are informed about subject content and suitability for future year subject selection. We encourage students to continue studying a language other than English, offering Chinese and Italian through to VCE. Where a language is selected as an elective, it is studied for both semesters.

Elective subject disciplines for Issoudun students are:

Laptop and calculator

Our Issoudun students continue to use leased school laptop and their Texas Instruments TI-30XB Scientific Calculator for Year 9.

Booklist

A range of textbooks support the curriculum for the Issoudun program. Campion Education are the supplier used by the College.

2024 Issoudun booklist

To purchase books via Campion Education, you will need to set up an account. Any concern or queries with ordering should be directed to Campion Books 1300 433 982.

If you wish to buy or sell second-hand books, we recommend the Sustainable School Shop.