MacKillop Chronicles 2023 Term 1, Week 9

Thursday 30 March 2023

Primary Matters

Dear Community,

Palm Sunday Gospel Account

"What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?" They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.” Matthew 26:14-27:66. This Sunday is known as Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday. It is the start of the greatest and holiest week in the church’s calendar. If I could have one wish for all families of our school is that you take the children to all the events of Holy Week to get a full understanding of why Easter is at the core of our beliefs. There will be a procession Gospel into the church where parishioners are asked to walk in with a palm which is a symbol of the time Jesus was triumphantly led into Jerusalem before his betrayal, trial, death, and resurrection. The reading of the word will contain a much longer Gospel account of his passion. Judas spoke the words above as he sold out Jesus to his captors. He later would kill himself and sold his soul for thirty pieces of silver. Judas quite simply was filled with greed. There is a message in his story for all of us as we sometimes get lost in our earthly lives that we forget what we are called to do.

Palm Sunday @ Assembly this Friday at 1:20 in the Hall

The Year 6 students will re-enact the events of Palm Sunday to the children at this week’s Friday assembly. The stations of the cross will be re-enacted on Holy Thursday @ 11:30. Both events will take place in the hall where parents are invited to come along and witness. As I often say to the children, a believer of the Christian faith is also known as an Easter person. Our faith is about Easter. If we do not believe in this story, then all other stories are irrelevant!

Harmony Day and Second Step.

This week at MacKillop we celebrated Harmony Day. We engaged in CLAN activities about inclusiveness, respect and belonging for all Australians, regardless of cultural or linguistic background. These CLAN activities were after our Liturgy reflecting on how we are all equal. Students finished off the celebration with International Sausage orders. The German Kransky was a highlight. Thank you to all our Parent BBQ helpers!!!

At MacKillop, we are committed to learning and developing skills for life. These skills are taught in our Second Step, Social Emotional Learning program.  Here is what the kids have said about Second Steps last week:

• We learnt about predicting people’s emotions based on their body language and how to show empathy towards other people. Aiobhinn 5G
• We watched a video that showed us how to look at somebody feeling sad and ask about their feelings appropriately. Jazon and Ava 5W
• We learnt how to ask each other how we are feeling and how to use language to explain how we are feeling. Teleah 5B

Christine Owen and Kellie Denneman

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Secondary News

Prayer: Harmony Day:

Harmony Week is the celebration that recognises our diversity and brings together Australians from all different backgrounds. It’s about inclusiveness, respect, and a sense of belonging for everyone. At MacKillop we are celebrated Harmony Day on Tuesday 28^th March.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it; you shall love your neighbour as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two great commandments. (Matthew 22: 37-40)

Good and gracious God,
who loves and delights in all people,
we stand in awe before you,
knowing that the spark of life within each person
is the spark of your divine life.

Differences among cultures and races are
multi-coloured manifestations of your light.
May our hearts and minds be open to celebrate
similarities and differences among our sisters and brothers.

Please send your healing and reconciling Spirit in order to bind
the wounds created by racism and racial hatred,
and to promote understanding, justice, and love.

We place our hopes for racial harmony in our committed action
and in your living presence in our neighbour.

May all peoples live in peace!
Amen.

Learning:

Vertical Pastoral:

Many of the Pastoral Teachers are introducing activities into these classes to assist the students across the forms to get to know each other well. Whilst the majority of the time is for study and reading there is also time for bonding and community building.

Here is one example of a class's activities:

‘Fitzroy 5 have one day per week “getting to know you” challenges.  It’s usually on Wacky Wednesday or Friendship Friday. Students can only sit next to friends on friendship day. Other days it's with a buddy.  I started the first couple of challenges: Maltese chopstick races and Mr McNamara created a music challenge for class. All challenges are run by the students, including the arm-wrestling competition.

Collaborative Coaching:

Catholic Schools Broken Bay has invested 8 million dollars into this project called Collaborative Coaching. It is a project in all 44 schools in the Diocese and looks slightly different in each Secondary College. At MacKillop we have all our staff attending Professional Learning Teams that meet each Tuesday afternoon to collaborate to ensure that at MacKillop we are developing our students in the areas of literacy and numeracy. Teachers have also been given an extra lesson each week to be able to develop and expand their skills in these areas through a variety of teaching and learning activities.

Data and work samples are being examined and discussed regularly with the staff being very committed to improvement for all our students.

We often show pictures of our students at work, however, our teachers also work collaboratively together as can be seen in the following pictures, where teachers gathered across faculties to discuss a sample of student work and how the teaching supported the learning. Teachers were able to reflect on their pedagogy and consider alternative approaches as the discussion progressed.

New Zealand Sports and Cultural Tour, 2024

Information has been distributed in various ways about the upcoming NZ tour in April 2024.

There will be a parent and student information meeting on Tuesday 4th April at 6pm in the College library for all those interested in hearing more about this and for everyone who wishes to be part of this tour.

This meeting will provide information from the tour company Student Horizons. The information will be regarding the tour of the North Island of New Zealand, ANZAC Day dawn service, sporting teams, sponsorship and the payment plan.

If you are unable to attend, please contact Duncan Black at the College: 02 43929399

or email: duncanblack@dbb.catholic.edu.au

Vertical Pastoral Survey:

Tomorrow in Pastoral class, every student from Yr 7 to Yr 11 will be completing a survey about their participation in and their thoughts about the new Vertical Pastoral System. This will give our students a voice and allow us to examine what is occurring and any changes we may need to engage.

As a staff, we have observed some positive results of this change and the 2 hours of study time so the survey will assist us further to look at relevant data.

Yr. 12 Ace your Exams

Yr. 12 have commenced their ‘Ace Your Exams’ Week and we are very impressed with their attitude to these and their understanding of why these practice exams are so valuable. The results will allow the students and staff to see what skills and knowledge are being developed and which areas need more assistance. It also allows students to sit exams under HSC conditions to be able to cope with these better.

Thursday Sport Term 2

Sport selections were open to all Year 8 to 10 students on Tuesday 28^th March and letters were sent with instructions through COMPASS which explain in detail about how to make selections and all information needed to consider wen making the selection. The selection site will close at 9:00am Monday 3rd April.

Harmony Day:
Each year we celebrate Harmony Day at MCC with the theme 'everyone belongs'. In Australia, Harmony Day is on 21st March, however, at MCC this year we celebrated on Tuesday 28th March due to the NAPLAN exams. It is always fantastic to be able to come together and reflect on the importance of this day, which is all about social cohesion and racial harmony, diversity, respect as well as belonging.
During the day, students were able to purchase meal deals including ‘sausage sandwiches from around the world’ to celebrate cultural diversity here at MCC. There was also amazing Harmony Day merchandise available, orange ribbons and we had tote bags with motivational quotes to promote inclusivity.
The JUMP Variety Group created an art installation whereby every student in the college 7 - 12 was invited to write a message, fact or hashtag in response to the theme of Harmony Day. The visual display is a wonderful symbol of unity and represents our belonging to the MCC community. This artwork is now on display in the College Library. Students wore orange mufti or cultural dress and were asked to make a gold coin donation with all funds going towards our Project Compassion Pledge.
Overall, our Harmony Day Fundraiser contributed over $2000 and brings our Project Compassion Pledge to well over $3000. What an outstanding achievement and one our whole College can be so proud of. What a different this will make!
 Congratulations to all involved and thank you for your generosity.

Harmony Day secondary

Smashed Alcohol Presentation:

Last week we reported on this presentation to Yr. 8. This week, on Tuesday our Years 9 and 10 attended this presentation. The Smashed theatre presentation explored and reflected on vital underage drinking themes including; relationships, consent, health, safety and career aspirations.

Camp Breakaway:
 Last Wednesday, 22nd March, a group of Year 8 and Year 10 students, along with Mr Webster and Sr Jiji attended Camp Breakaway for their Mini-Olympics. Camp Breakaway is located at San Remo and provides respite or holidays for children and adults living with a disability.
Our students had a wonderful time; helping to run the games, assisting attendees with participation in events and, most importantly, dressing up and the cheer-offs!

At the conclusion of the games, there was a presentation and awards ceremony for all involved.
This is such a wonderful opportunity for our students to see what it might like to be a support worker or NDIS officer and we are so very grateful to Camp Breakaway for their continued partnership with our college. We look forward to attending again in May.

World Youth Day Formation Session

Last Saturday our World Youth Day pilgrims and leaders completed their first formation session with other Broken Bay leaders and pilgrims at St Patrick’s primary school and the JPII Shrine in East Gosford. The day started with a picnic lunch, followed by icebreakers and games. The lead team presented lots of information about the pilgrimage and even covered details like accommodation, travel insurance and other logistical details. The final part of the day was spent in the church where the pilgrims learnt about St John Paul II; his life and inspiration to start World Youth Day. Both students and staff were able to pray before the relics of JPII before the parish Vigil Mass with the Bishop began. Once Mass was over the students had dinner with the parish before boarding the bus back to MacKillop. It was a great day, and we thank Sr Jiji, Ms Gorman, Ms Goodwin, Mr Legge, and Mr Tomsett for supporting our pilgrims.

MacKillop Monthly Youth Mass

On Sunday we celebrated our monthly Youth Mass at MacKillop. Most of the World Youth Day students attended, and we are so proud of the way the students assisted in different ministries to make the celebration so beautiful. Thank you to our readers, musicians, altar servers, singers, the students who took the collections and ran the games after Mass. Before the final hymn, Noah and Ryan shared their experience at the Youth Ministry Equipping School, Canberra and Lucinda shared her experience of the Venio Youth Ministry Retreat.  Several parishioners made comments about how they love listening to our students share and talk about their faith. Thank you to Sr Jiji, Mrs Camilleri, and Ms Goodwin for assisting our students and to Mr Zammit for playing his trumpet with the band. The next Youth Mass will be on Sunday 28th May. 

Youth Leadership Academy Australia

On Monday of this week, three senior and three junior leaders attended the Youth Leadership Academy at the ICC in Darling Harbour. They were accompanied by Sr Jiji and Mrs Tenev and despite the early start to the day, the group enjoyed the day together and got to listen to a range of speakers, meet new people, learn about different styles of leadership, as well as reflect on their own leadership within the school community. On the way back to Central, the group enjoyed some ice cream to finish off a great day.

To keep up to date with YMCC, click on the links to our social media and website.

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/YMCCWarnervale   

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ymcc_centralcoast/   

YMCC Website https://sites.google.com/dbb.catholic.edu.au/ymcc

Important Dates for Week 10:

Mon – ANZAC Day Ceremony in the Hall – parents welcome at 12noon.

Mon & Tues- Yr 12 Exams

Tues – Yr 7 Vaccinations – Please check information on COMPASS to register for this or your child will miss out

Thursday – Holy Thursday – Liturgy for Holy Week at 11.30am / Last Day of school for Term 1

Final Word

If you have any questions or concerns always, please contact the College.

Remember to check COMPASS, our website and, our Facebook pages for information.

God bless.

Debra Ferguson

Secondary Principal

Japanese Cultural Tour Information Night

Please save the date, the Japanese cultural tour information night will in  Term 2, week 3 - Monday  8  May at 6:30 in the Japanese rooms. Whether you have registered or just want to know more please come along!

New Zealand Multi-Sport Tour 2024

There will be a parent and student information meeting next week on Tuesday 4 April at 6pm in the College Library.

The tour company, Student Horizons will be presenting information about the tour of the North Island of New Zealand, ANZAC Day dawn service, and sporting teams. There will also be information provided about sponsorship and the payment plan. This session is open to anyone thinking about taking part from Years 8 to 11.

Change to Bus service

Please see attached letter advising of changes to your School’s Bus Service, commencing Monday 24^th April 2023 (first day of Term 2).

The attached letter will be distributed to students on the affected Busways services, however, we ask that you please also pass this information directly on to parents or include it in your school newsletters.

For further information please contact Busways Customer Service at 1300 69 2929 or Infoline@busways.com.au.

Alternatively, you can view all of your schools timetabled services at: https://www.busways.com.au/nsw/school-services/school-timetables and select the link adjacent to your schools name; “New timetable | 24 April 2023”. 

Grief/Loss and Bereavement Counselling for Young People

Photography Permission

Even if you have completed the form in pervious years you must complete it again for 2023. Log into COMPASS and it will show as an event waiting to be approved. It is important for you to keep us informed of your preferences.

Year 7 Taster Day - Spread the word

This is not just for MCC year 6 students, if you have family or friends looking for a High school, our taster day will be the perfect experience for their child. 

Register at our website Year 7 Taster Day – MacKillop Catholic College