MacKillop Chronicles Term 1, Week 4

Thursday 29 February, 2024

A Message from our College Principal

Dear Families,

Strategic Direction of the College

After three weeks of consultation with a range of stakeholders, I am pleased to provide families with a copy of the College Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan has been written to cover a 2-year period, and it will inform our direction. This plan also identifies and includes mention of the Educational Model. Like the Strategic Plan, the Educational Model will also provide a blueprint of how we prepare our students to be confident, compassionate, and future-ready students. The College teaching staff will target both documents over the next two years as we measure our progress.

I look forward to sharing more information with you as we delve a little deeper into The Educational Model at MacKillop.

I hope both documents will be available on the College website within the next few weeks.  

In the meantime, I invite you to read the Strategic Plan 2024-2025.

The work of the College Principal

The work of the College Principal is interesting and complex in that it entails many aspects, such as College engagement with the Catholic faith tradition and our relationship with the Parish, change management, learning focus and improvement, the development of operational efficiencies, finance management, master plan development and many other things.  It is certainly work that gives me an enormous sense of personal and professional satisfaction. As a system leader, I am charged with the responsibility of the development and implementation of the Catholic Schools Broken Bay Strategic Plan and other system initiatives.

Engaging our Parents

As a new Leadership Team, we are working towards improving communication with our families. To this end, this week we held two meetings that enabled families to engage with the 3 members of the College Leadership Team. I learnt a great deal from these meetings. Below is a summary of these rich conversations:  

• Our families would like more strategic updates about the Master Plan. They are keen to understand how the College works.
• They would appreciate better understanding how the HSC works and in particular how the choice of courses/subjects impacts on ATAR.
• Families are interested in having a forum that enables Year 7 parents to have a transition-style meeting so that they can get a snapshot on what is happening in the classrooms and how they can better help with children.
• They would like some support in navigating our digital communication channels.
• Our families want to know what strategies we are going to put in place as we increase in size because they do not want their child (or any child) to slip through the cracks.
• Families were keen to know if it would be possible to offer any kind of micro-credentialing to support tertiary study from Year 9 onwards.
• They were keen to discuss the possibility of having a laptop program in Year 7 that may be hired.
• Families were keen for us to have high expectations of their children but also wanted to ensure that we as educators understood that all students are different and have levels of capacity.
• Some families were keen to discuss the notion of greater sensory opportunities, places and spaces available across the playground & College.
• Two families were keen to discuss the role of therapy dogs in the school context.  
• New families to the College were keen to engage more closely with teachers.
• Families wanted to remind teachers that if their child is falling behind in their literacy or numeracy ( or any other area of their learning) that teachers need to contact home as quickly as possible.
• One family was keen to discuss the role of Artificial Intelligence in Learning.
• Families were supportive of re-visiting the uniform and grooming policy.

Our shared Commitment

When I asked parents if they wanted to meet up again, both groups were pleased to have regular meetings. So, to stay true to our word and honour our commitment to our families, we will endeavour to have further meetings both face-to-face and online via Zoom in the evening. I will also share the College Strategic Plan with families after it has been disseminated to the staff, and I also reassured parents that the plans of the new Primary school would be available for Open Day.

I would like to very much thank the many families who participated in these meetings and for their shared wisdom.

 God Bless,

Tanya Appleby

College Principal

Primary Matters

SUNDAY  

3^rd Sunday of LENT

Gospel Acclamation: 

John 3:16 “God loved the world so much, he gave his only Son, that all who believe in him might have eternal life.”

Dear Parents and Carers,

Message from the Principal

It was wonderful to connect with so many parents, carers and grandparents during last week’s Goal setting Interviews.  I know teachers enjoyed meeting with you and your children (in older grades) to discuss the shared objectives for the coming weeks and bigger goals for the months ahead.

Our Primary Assembly was moved to the Church on Friday due to the extreme heat and it was a great relief to have access to the air-conditioned space.  We are very grateful to Fr. Philip for making the Church available and allowing us to deliver it to classes via a live stream.

The annual CSBB Diocesan Staff Mass was held at the Diocesan Cathedral Waitara on Thursday. This Mass is an opportunity for staff across the diocese to gather as a community of faith. Bishop Anthony presided together with many of our diocesan Parish Priests, including Fr. Philip. There was a special commissioning of new leaders, including Mrs Tanya Appleby. Mrs Mel McGuiness was recognised for 25 Years of service to Catholic Education. We congratulate them and commend them for their service to Catholic Education in our diocese.

I have enjoyed spending time on Sunday mornings with our young people, preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I thank them and their parents for taking the time to focus on their faith.

A beautiful quote from one young person, “When you tell God you have done something wrong, it’s like the weight is lifted and you feel lighter, you feel free.”

Allied Health Professionals at MacKillop - 2024

Our core business at MacKillop is to support and nurture the academic, social/emotional, and physical growth of all our students. One of the important ways we can do this is to have all children in class during daily literacy and numeracy time. Our goal is to ensure that MacKillop Catholic College students become well-rounded, engaged critical thinkers.

This year, we are blocking out important literacy and numeracy time each day in our morning session to minimise interruptions and to allow explicit teaching to take place. As such, we are requesting that all visitors who come to our school to work with students in an allied health capacity, such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, and psychology, commence their sessions from 11:30 am onwards.

We are proud to have welcomed a large number of therapists on site over many years to work with our children and value the insights and expertise that they provide to further support our students in their learning.

Should your child access an allied health provider during school hours, please ensure that the therapist has first made contact with Mrs Maryellen Lowe, K-12 Leader of Learning Support, so that she can ensure that the school has all the necessary documentation required by Catholic Schools Broken Bay for visitors and also to make certain that a room is available for therapy sessions to occur.

She can be contacted via email: maryellen.lowe@dbb.catholic.edu.au

We sincerely thank you, parents and carers, for your understanding and ongoing support as we endeavour to ensure that our children have quality, uninterrupted time to learn each day.

Positive Behaviour for Learning

We will continue to focus on our environment over the next week as we prepare MCC for Open Day. It will be wonderful to welcome visitors into the College and present our community with pride.  As we focus on our personal and communal responsibility to care for our Common Home we reflect on our continued focus for the week.

This weekend is also the launch of Clean Up Australia Day

Respecting our environment is one of our school rules at MacKillop!

As a community, we are called to:

• Keep our school clean.
• Use equipment responsibly.
• Care for our surroundings.

Blessings for a wonderful weekend,

Kerry Power

Acting Primary Principal

Primary Events

Little Lighthouse Playgroup

A Word from the Front Office

Enrolments for 2025 - Siblings enrol now!

Open Day 6 March 2024

Kinder Connect

Mary's Faithful Wardrobe and Mary's Formal Closet

1-2-3 Magic & Emotional Coaching

Is your child achieving in an area outside of school?

Term 1 Dates