MacKillop Chronicles 2023 Term 3, Week 4

Thursday 10 August, 2023

College Photos - Order online now

First Holy Communion

Year 12 Visual Arts Exhibition

Little Lighthouse Playgroup

Primary Matters

Dear Community,

19^th Sunday Ordinary Time Gospel Account

"O you of little faith, why did you doubt? “Matthew 14: 22-33. ‘Oligopiste’ is a Greek term meaning little faith. It is often used to describe toddlers struggling with such things as walking and falling over. Peter saw Jesus on the water in the raging storm and he yelled out to Jesus who said leave the boat and walk to me on the water. He did as Jesus asked and was truly walking on water, but then the faith and trust in Jesus evaporated as he was caught up in the monstrous earthly storm. Fear took over and he began to sink, appealing for Jesus to help, which he did. Our faith is a bit like the toddler. We have a go and invest time and prayer and worship, but then earthly thinking takes over us and we, like Peter begin to sink. Have faith in the risen Lord. Give him your troubles and believe in him. Pray each day and each night and always trust in Jesus.

St Mary of the Cross MacKillop Feast Day

What a wonderful way to celebrate our feast day and to mark our 20^th anniversary with a beautiful Eucharistic liturgy concelebrated by Fr Phillip and Fr Brian. The children were simply wonderful as the ceremony was quite long. All were suitably pleased leaving with a special 20^th Celebration school badge. The army of parents who cooked the sausage sizzle for the children to enjoy and the tabloid events in the afternoon were enjoyed by all. My sincere thanks to the parents and staff who made this milestone a memorable day for all. The funds raised from the sausage sizzle totalled close to $2000 which we donated to Mary Mac’s at Woy Woy who feed the homeless each and every day.

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Footy, Netball, ICAS Tests and Number One in Athletics

This week we had multiple teams travel to Sydney, Newcastle and beyond to compete in the Rugby League and State netball championships. We also have a number of children sitting their ICAS assessments and our school was crowned the Central Coast Catholic Schools Athletics Champions. It was wonderful to also learn that many students had been selected to enter the Broken Bay Athletics Carnival in the coming weeks. My sincere thanks to all of the staff and parents for helping the children achieve their goals!

Kinder Yana begins in Week 5

We are looking forward to welcoming our new Kinder 2024 students as they begin their Big School journey with us in our Yana program next week. During this time, parents and the children, will work on investigative play-based tasks and begin to navigate their way around our College. Next year will be the biggest intake of kindergarten students in our school’s history and we now have waiting lists. The children will come on either Tuesday or Wednesday for the next four weeks between 9:15 and 10:45 in the current kindergarten rooms.

Curriculum Information Notes – Save the Dates

On Tuesday, 22 August at 6:30 pm, Mrs Shilling and Mrs Whitmore will conduct an information session on the new syllabus documents for English and Maths, K – 2. On the following Tuesday, 29 August, they will repeat the session, but the focus will be on Years 3 – 6. Look out for registration information in the coming weeks. Come and hear from our teacher coaches who will talk about the what, why and how of English and Maths for primary-aged students.

Numeracy in 3 Wattle

Over the past weeks, 3 Wattle has been learning about 3D objects, including making comparisons and describing the features of cubes, pyramids, spheres, cones and cylinders. Students brainstormed what they knew about 3D objects and sketched them. The students had great fun creating 3D objects using nets with success. We encourage all students to look for and identify real-world examples of these 3D objects around them at home.

Whole School Public Speaking Competition

This week the students began learning about public speaking and how it is used to persuade, inform and/or entertain people. The children will be taught how to write a speech/poem and the strategies to deliver the speech in front of an audience. Most of our public figures and politicians are good public speakers who have their speeches written for them. Each student will deliver a speech in front of their class peers and then from there, some will be selected to participate in public speaking finals held in Week 7 beginning 28 August. If your child is selected to participate in the finals, you most certainly can help them with speech cards and delivering the speeches. The place-getters from each stage will receive medallions.

Key Compass Events

Please be mindful of other key events coming up for the rest of the term. There is a full week of Book Week, Fathers’ Day events, Gala Days, Cluster Public Speaking and Debating, K – 2 Learn to Swim and Broken Bay sporting events. Your one source of truth is the Compass app so please use it always!

Leave Arrangements

At the end of next week, I will be on Long Service Leave till the end of the term. In my absence, Mrs Kenney will be Acting Principal, Mr Snelling Acting Assistant Principal and Mrs Whitmore Acting Religious Education Coordinator.

A Thought for the Week …

“Do not try to force anything. Let life be a deep let-go. See God opening millions of flowers every day without forcing the buds.” Bhagwan.

God Bless

Frank Cohen
Primary Principal

Read, Grow Inspire - Book Week 2023

Monthly Youth Group and Mass

Tuning Into Kids Parenting Program

Secondary News

From the Secondary Principal

Newsletter Term 3 Week 4

Prayer: Mary MacKillop’s Feast Day

God of the prophets you gifted Mary MacKillop with vision and courage.

In her, we see one who was not afraid to speak fearlessly your gospel of love.

We pray for the sensitivity and imagination to read the signs of our times, and to articulate new possibilities for our own day.

Like Mary, may we learn to confront all that is oppressive and unjust, and empower others towards true freedom and integrity.

 Spirit of wisdom, be with us as we face new horizons. 

St Mary of the Cross

Pray for us

Amen

Mary MacKillop’s Feast Day and our 20^th Anniversary:

MacKillop Catholic College accepted its first Year 7 cohort in 2003. Now 20 years later the College has grown from 13 teachers and 131 students to a school of nearly 1600 with 150 staff. We have seen many changes and we are thrilled to celebrate our 20^th anniversary.

Last Tuesday was also Mary MacKillop’s Feast Day and so a large day of celebration for our entire College.

Every student and staff member received a 20^th anniversary badge and the traditional M&Ms. Badges were also given to all who attended on the day including parishioners, parents, special guests and former staff.  The beautiful K-12 Mass was concelebrated by Fr Philip and Fr Brian Moloney, who was the inaugural parish priest. Following Mass, our special guests attended a lovely morning tea.

After communion, I spoke on behalf of the teachers who have been at MacKillop since 2003 and shared a PowerPoint showing many pictures of the last 20 years.

In the afternoon all the students across K-12 were engaged in games and performances to celebrate our Feast Day. Here is what students opted to do in Secondary on our Feast Day afternoon.

In the words of Mary MacKillop of “never seeing a need without doing something about it” our school, along with every other diocesan school, also collected a gold coin from each student to go to Mary Macs at Woy Woy.

Keep an eye out as members of our Parent Group are also looking at a night out for all parents to celebrate our 20th year.

What is Mary Macs?

Mary Mac’s traditionally supplies a sit-down meal served to our companions by our wonderful volunteers.  But it’s more than just a place to get a meal – it provides connection, value and belonging without judgement. Mary Mac’s offers a place to shower and to wash clothes. They offer friendly support and companionship to address the experience of isolation and loneliness of some vulnerable people in our community.

Mary Mac’s can provide a pathway to other services like Legal Aid, homelessness support services and health assistance. With assistance from community partners, a selection of food is available daily as a take home for those in need, and from time-to-time they can provide food hampers.

Mary Mac’s provides social, community and friendship opportunities for men, women, families, young people, the elderly, and the socially and economically disadvantaged.

It was commenced by parishioners of St John the Baptist Church Woy Woy, and the work has continued through Catholic Care, supported by many volunteers. They rely solely on donations.

We have a World Gold Medallist:

The Dwarf World Games are completed and we are so proud that Cohan Szypica will be bringing home a gold medal for Australia in basketball!! He absolutely dominated and got King of the Court (player of the tournament). We are so incredibly proud! We cannot wait to have him tell us all about this.

Learning:

Year 12 CSSA Trial Exams:

These have continued all this week and will end on Monday next week. We have been very impressed with our Senior class throughout this time.

Japanese Sister School:

We were so excited to have our Sister School Nihon Daiichi visit us again after 4 years.  They arrived on Monday 24 July, and left on Sunday 6 August. We welcomed 20 students and 3 staff, Assistant Principal Mr Hatoyama, Mr Yuhara and Ms Endo. It was lovely to be able to do this face-to-face again. Last year we did an exchange via Zoom, but this was so much better.

One thing that we have found interesting is that in Japan, school students at Nichidai still must wear masks to school. Even when they are eating, they only pull their masks down to eat and then back up. The Nichidai students only took off their masks 5 minutes before they arrived at MacKillop. So the students had never seen each other’s whole faces.

We have had many fun times in the two weeks, from English and music lessons, dance, and cooking, as well as visiting and enjoying activities with Year 5 primary students. We all visited The Reptile Park together; this was a great afternoon. The students got to feed the animals and have their photos taken with the koalas. We wish to thank all the staff that helped this visit be such a success. 

On Friday, we had a farewell assembly run by Mr Kilham and the Year 11 Japanese students. This was attended by all of Year 5 as well as host students and families. The students involved in the exchange were presented with certificates and the Japanese students read out thank you letters to their host students.

This was then followed by a school assembly where they performed three items, a dance to  Jamboree Mickey, followed by them singing 'Its a Small World' and finally Soran Bushi, a fisherman dance.

On Friday afternoon the Year 11 hospitality students as well as Mr Murphy, Mrs Pearce and Mrs King helped prepare a BBQ to enjoy together. The Japanese students prepared a festival with many games. The host students and families were invited to enjoy the afternoon together.

We cannot thank the host students and families enough, without you this experience would not be possible. Many friendships have been made again and as language teachers this has made Mr Kilham and Mrs Beech very happy. 

We look forward to seeing them again next year and then visiting them next September in Japan.

Academic Excellence Awards Semester 1:

Last Friday we experienced an enjoyable assembly and we were so grateful and pleased with the large number of parents present. It commenced with the farewell to our Japanese Sister School who also performed for us. We then continued with the academic assembly for Semester 1. Almost 300 awards were presented, illustrating the number of students who excel in various areas. These awards honour those hard-working students and, hopefully, encourage all to aspire to gain awards at the end of the year.

Book Week: READ, GROW, INSPIRE

Term 3, Week 7, 28 August – 1 Sept

Book Week is always a wonderful time in our school calendar to celebrate books and reading.

We love this year's Book Week theme, READ, GROW, INSPIRE, and hope that through opportunities to read our students will expand their minds and find inspiration to explore the world around them!

On Wednesday, 30 August we will have our Annual Book Week Parade. All staff and students from Kinder to Year 12 are asked to dress as a book character. K-6 students will begin the Book Parade at 10.30 and Year 7-12 will join the fun in the hall during Break 1 at 11.20.  There will be prizes for the best costumes in each Year group from Year 7-12.

On Friday, 1 September students in Years 7-10 will listen to our guest speaker Paul MacDonald. Paul is an author, owner of The Children’s Bookshop in Sydney and an expert in children’s and teen literature.

Leading up to Book Week we will start advertising various competitions and events so please check Compass for Book Week updates.

Homelessness Week

Last week was Homelessness Week (August 7- 13). Students from JUMP MacKillop participated in cooking dinner at Coast Shelter Gosford.  The monthly visit to Coast Shelter increases awareness of homelessness whilst providing dinner for some of the Central Coast's most vulnerable people.

MacKillop’s Montana-Rose takes her soccer skills to Kansas City

Former MCC student Montana reflected on her journey through our Catholic Schools Broken Bay Sporting Pathways, which have shaped her development and opened the door for an incredible overseas tertiary education experience. Montana attended MacKillop from Kindergarten to Year 12 and was a Senior Student Parliament Leader. 

'It was actually my participation in primary Broken Bay girls’ soccer pathway that led me to where I am today. I made the Broken Bay team all the way back in Year Five. However, it was the immense disappointment after being unsuccessful in making the Polding team, that led me to realise how much I loved the sport, and how I wanted to start taking it more seriously. I made the Polding team and narrowly missed out on the state team the following year.  

During High school, I realised I wanted to take my football even more seriously. After being spotted during a couple of my games, I was offered a spot at Northern Tigers in 2019 playing in the youth program which competes in the first division of the NPL. This decision led to many challenges, such as having to commute all the way to Sydney multiple times a week to play and train due to living on the Central Coast.  

I continued my school soccer journey making the Broken Bay open girls team in Year 8, captaining the side in Year 12, and then onto assisting with selection this year.  

I will be leaving at the end of July to start my Pre-Season in Kansas City at Johnson County Community College. The date is swiftly approaching, and it is something I look towards with excitement and nervousness. I know the next four years of my life are not completely certain and planned out compared to if I had decided to stay on the coast and go to a local university. However, I know that these next years bring with them many new life lessons, experiences and will mould me into a better athlete and player in the sport that I love.'

Important Dates for T3 Week 5:

• Mon- Fri –WYD away Mon and Tues / Yr 12 HSC Trial exams on Monday only / VET Work placement / Science Week
• Tues - Feast of the Assumption/ HSC Dance Day / Yr 9 Intro to their Camp
• Wed – K-12 Tuition afternoon
• Thurs – Dance Eisteddfod
• Fri –assembly- parents always welcome

New Phone System:

Our new number is 7256 2116. We do expect that issues and problems may arise for the next few weeks, so please be patient whilst we work through any hiccups with the new system.

Final Word

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

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

God bless.

Debra Ferguson
Secondary Principal

Santa Maria Festival

PARENT WEBINARS - ONLINE SAFETY

Changes to School Fee Payments

Getting to know Ms Kathy Yates

Indigenous Literacy Foundation 2nd hand Book Sale

COMPASS Sign-in Update

Download the app so you are always up to date with school events.