MacKillop Bulletin - Term 2, Week 3, 2024

From the Acting Principal

Dear Families,

I would like to take the opportunity to say thank you to the staff, students and broader community who have welcomed me over the past week. As you may know, I have been seconded to MacKillop for the remainder of the 2024 school year. It is an absolute pleasure to be working at the College. I have found students overall to be kind and welcoming and staff to be professional and hard working. There are too many Essendon supporters on staff for my liking but no school is perfect!

For the first few weeks my main aim is to listen and understand the context of the College. If you want to share any positive or constructive feedback about the College, you are most welcome. My email address is bgill@mackillop.tas.edu.au.

Brendan Gill,
Acting Principal

From the Deputy Principal

Pathways Planning and Subject Selections for 2025

Year 10 Transition Week - Week 2 and 3

Year 10 students will participate in various workshops and presentations during Transition Week, all of which are an opportunity for students to begin to gather information to make informed decisions about school subjects, courses and careers in readiness for Year 11 subject selection. 

Creating Future’s Expo

In Week 5 of Term 2, the College will be holding the Creating Futures Expo to assist students to make informed subject selections for 2025.   All Year 9 -11 students and parents/guardians are strongly encouraged to attend this information evening as it is an important part in the process of ensuring students select the most appropriate subjects to study in 2025.  This is a wonderful opportunity to speak to subject teachers and Learning Leaders.  The Senior School Subject Guide will be given out. We look forward to seeing you at the Information Evenings and more information will be provided closer to the evenings. 

The Expo includes presentations for Year 10 2025 students and families, and Year 11 2025 students and families.  

Year 10 Subject Advice / Pathways Planning Interviews

The College will be inviting all Year 10 students and parents/guardians to make an appointment to attend a Year 10 Subject Advice / Pathway Planning interview with their child.  These interviews provide an opportunity to discuss career options and possible pathways, give a more detailed and personalised explanation of the TCE and ATAR and how each student can optimise their subject choices, including TASC subject choices and VET opportunities at the College in Years 11 and 12.  These interviews will be occurring in weeks 6 to 8 of this term in the lead up to students selecting their subjects before the end of term.  Parents/guardians will receive more information about booking an interview time.  You only need to book one appointment as each staff member involved covers the same information.

Year 11 Subject Advice /  Pathways Planning Interviews

Year 11 students and parents/guardians will also be invited to make an appointment to attend a Year 11 Subject Advice / Pathway Planning interview, either with their child after school or for Year 11 students on their own during the school day.  These interviews are designed for Year 11 students who need some support and guidance to assist them with their subject selections for year 12. 

Alanna Stretton
Deputy Principal

Director of Catholic Identity and Ministry

Timor Immersion July 2025 - Family Information Evening
An information Evening will be held on Wednesday 15 May at 5.30pm in the Rice Resource Centre (College Library). Families and students in Years 9, 10 & 11 in 2024 are most welcome to attend.

Mr Phil Stanley will speak about the immersion experience, Mr Patrick Fox from Catholic Mission will speak about the practicalities and safety aspects, and I will speak about the application process.

Students should collect an Expression of Interest form from Mr Marsh or Charlotte Davies (Youth Minister) for further details.

Please RSVP to Mr Marsh via email lmarsh@mackillop.tas.edu.au by Monday 13 May.

Year 7 Josephite Centre Excursions
Thank you to all Year 7 Theology and Spirituality Classes who attended the excursions to the Josephite Mission and History Centre to learn about the story of Mary MacKillop, Julian Tenison-Woods and the Sisters of St Joseph in Tasmania.  The excursion for 7E had to be postponed. Further information will be sent to families via Consent2Go.

MINISTRY EVENTS IN TERM 2
I am looking forward to another busy term in Catholic Identity and Ministry. Here are some of the key events coming up.

Spirituality Retreats

Year 10 Retreats are facilitated by adventurer and public speaker, Sam Clear. The first group of Year 10 students had a great experience had a great experience on Tuesday. The second group of Year 10s will attend on Thursday 16 May. Further information is available via Consent2Go.

You can read more about Sam’s story below:

Year 7 Retreats will commence next week and are facilitated by the College Ministry Team.
Further information will be sent to families via Consent2Go.  Dates and classes are as follows:

• May 20 (7F)
• May 21 (7A & 7G)
• May 27 (7C & 7D)
• May 28 (7B & 7E)

Year 11 and Year 12 overnight retreats will be held on Thursday 27 and Friday 28 June.

The Year 11 Retreat will be at Spring Bay Mill facilitated by the College Ministry Team.

The Year 12 Retreat will be held at Spring Beach Youth Camp facilitated by Passionist Youth Ministry.
You can find out more about PYM in the below link.

Further information will be sent to families via Consent2Go.

Year 8 Mass – Friday 7 June
All Year 8 students will attend Mass at Corpus Christi at 9.30am to celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The order founded by Mary MacKillop and Julian Tenison Woods are the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. Families are most welcome to join us for Mass.

Real Talk Australia Presentation - Tuesday 18 June

Real Talk Australia is the Archdiocese of Hobart’s approved organisation to deliver relationships education in Catholic Secondary Schools within a Catholic context. Real Talk have been working with MacKillop for the past three years.
The presentations this year are as follows:
Year 9 - Love and Life (Periods 1 & 2)
Year 8 – Consent and Respect. (Periods 3 & 4)
Year 7 – The Digital World (Periods 5 & 6)

You can find out more about Real Talk Australia in the below link.

Lachlan Marsh 
Director of Catholic Identity and Ministry

Director of Pastoral Care

Year 7 - 10 (Social and Emotional) - Personal Development Program

Lutha - which translates to gum tree in palawa kani, the language of Tasmanian Aborigines, is the name given to our Years 7 - 10 Social and Emotional Personal Development Program. This program is embedded around the philosophy of Positive Psychology and is designed to empower students.

Positive Psychology is grounded in the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within them, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play. 

To foster learning in this area, our Years 7 and 8 students navigate learning via The Resilience Project (TRP). The fundamentals of this program help students to learn and grow through Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness activities and reflections.

In addition, The Resilience Project (TRP) not only offers resources and support for students and teachers, but they also run a series of online webinars to support parents and caregivers, too. This year, we have engaged TRP to share valuable insight into the topic of ‘Digital Wellbeing’ in a webinar scheduled for Wednesday 15 May from 6.30pm to 7.30pm. We invite you to access the below flyer for information and you can use the below link to register for this webinar. 

Our Year 9 students work through a hybrid of lessons both focussed on Social Emotional Learning and positive study skills via the Study Skills Handbook linked via our College Website.

Building upon the resilience skills acquired during Years 7 and 8, our Year 9 students explore learnings to enhance personal growth in the areas of: Self Awareness, Self Management, Responsible Decision Making, Social Awareness and Relationship skills. They are challenged to review and question perspectives, understand values and emotions of self and others, build tolerance and empathy within the Social Awareness arena and learn how to ‘control’ their emotions and reactions when faced with adversity and complex situations. 

This is an adjusted program for our Year 9 students and will grow in possibilities as we roll it out. Our goal is that students will develop positive coping strategies for any scenario, that they will contribute positively to their communities and will navigate conflict and complex situations with a sense of empathy, tolerance and understanding, encapsulated in a growth mindset.

By the time our students reach Year 10, we hope that they are equipped with a developing growth mindset to support future driven choices and self development. Units in the Year 10 Lutha program centre on the fundamentals of Positive Psychology, developing positive relationships, positive attitudes, respectful relationships and a sense of purpose/meaning. For students to develop throughout each of these units, they also review and evaluate their approaches to sleep, time management, health, resilience and communication. 

Pivotal to our Year 10 Lutha program is the emphasis placed on supporting students to prepare for, participate in, and evaluate their Work Experience participation. Engagement in Work Experience traditionally is one of the most memorable experiences that our Year 10 students have during the first of their senior years. In addition, from this experience, students engage in conversations about future career directions and decisions. Lutha sessions provide students with the opportunity to explore fully skills needed to see them ‘career ready’ - or at the very least, to see them able to make more responsible decisions around possible study pathways to support possible future career directions.

Within our curriculum, the place of Lutha is fully focused on the personal development of each individual and therefore we do not conduct assessments, tests etc. The sessions are designed for students to seek their own personal points of alignment within and across each of the topics covered. Should you wish to know more about our Lutha - Personal Development program, please feel free to contact your child’s Personal Development teacher, Pastoral Care teacher or Kim Rowlands, Director of Pastoral Support.

Kim Rowlands
Director of Pastoral Care

Director of Junior School

Buzzing Along

The Junior School was buzzing and rolling and humming along on Friday morning last week and I thought you might like a peek at some of the industry and creativity.  Isn't it marvellous to witness?

Alison Stevens
Director of Junior School

Careers and Pathways

Southern Catholic College Career Expo
On Thursday 23 May, we will be taking our Year 10, 11 and 12 students to the Southern Catholic College Careers Expo at Mac02.

This event is run by Catholic Education Tasmania in conjunction with a number of Southern Catholic Colleges – including MacKillop!

The expo will feature around 40 organisations across various sectors including:

• emergency services and defence
• health and community services
• building and construction
• business and finance
• education, training and employment
• STEM
• tourism
• agriculture

Students will have the opportunity to meet with several employers, ask questions and get a range of pathways information. We are really looking forward to taking students to this wonderful event.

The expo will be open for parents and families to attend on the day from 3.15pm – 5.00pm.
This is a great chance for students who want to return to the expo with their families or perhaps students in younger year levels who want to see the expo.

To read more, click below.

Year 10 Work Experience and Transition Weeks:
Last week, our Year 10s in Sion, Tenison and Waterford Houses completed their action packed transition week, while our Year 10s in Fitzroy, Penola and Rice were out on work experience!

Stay tuned for our next bulletin and on our social media in the coming weeks to see a full recap of these fantastic two weeks.

I hope all Year 10 students enjoyed last week and are looking forward to this one!

Careers Office Bookings:
A reminder to all students and families that the Careers Office is open for bookings and they can be made via the following link:

Sarah Gurney
Program Leader - Careers and Pathway Planning

Year 10 Work Experience

I visited four of our students on Building sites today.  They were all enjoying the opportunity and seemed to be doing a very good job!

The highlight was walking onto the Fairbrother site and seeing Rohan Pickersgill smiling and fully engaged in the task of building a section of flooring that will extend a classroom at Sorell School.

I also had a great visit to one of the Lyden Homes sites where I was greeted by the Site foreman, our year 10 student Max, a leaver from last year who is loving his school based apprenticeship through GYC and a former Sacred Heart student of mine that I helped to get a school based apprenticeship through TasBGAS.  He has now finished year 12 and is working full time and is about to start the third year of his apprenticeship.  All of these three boys were looking so happy, they were very positive about the school based apprenticeship opportunity and said that it was a great opportunity to complete 11/12 whilst beginning their trade.

I have had a most rewarding day talking to current students, past students and employers.

Craig Fullarton
Teacher

Year 7 HaSS

Investigating Primary and Secondary Sources

We are very lucky in our learning area to have several staff who have a penchant for collecting. It might come to the point where we need to set up a mini museum just to display all of their collections! What this means is our students have the opportunity to work with "real" historical sources as part of their studies.

In Year 7 HaSS we have started our study of history and we are learning about the key historical concepts before we begin our unit, Deep Time Australia. To this end, we are working with primary and secondary sources to find out what they can tell us about different historical events and people. Students have been asked to identify whether a source is primary or secondary, to think about its origins and to then explain what information it offers about a particular time in history.

This is a great way to get students thinking about evidence, perspectives, contestability and empathy - some of the historical concepts we have been studying in class. It will also allow our students to evaluate sources from a historical perspective and this important skill can be applied to all the learning activities we undertake.

Jacinta Pearce
Learning Leader - HaSS

Year 10 Visual Arts

Year 10 Visual Art students have been looking into the tradition of Portraiture in Term 1. Beginning with learning the basics of proportion and exercises in developing tone, depth and expressive qualities in their work, students progressed from their 'better half' self portraits in pencil, to creating portraits of themselves using only single colours and a poster-like approach.

The major assessment for the term was their 'Typographic Portraits'. Students chose a person of significance to them and created portraits using only text. The text is in some way expected to convey meaning about the person, and at the same time represent tonal qualities and the person's features. These remarkable works and many more, will all be on display later in the year at our MacKillop College's Fusion exhibition. 

Lincoln Beddoe
Teacher

Dance

MacKillop Catholic College was represented last week at the Sunshine Coast Dancing Eisteddfod at Caloundra. Mrs Williams, Mrs Tew and 16 of our talented students ventured to the Sunshine State to perform their hip-hop and jazz routines and year 11 lyrical solos. Educational school groups from all over Queensland travelled to Caloundra to compete over the 4 days in various age groups and dance styles. The standard was high, and the groups were huge!

We flew into Brisbane before making our way up to Caloundra, just in time for Karl and Hannah to perform their solos. These solos are part of the year 11 choreography component of the TASC course. Karl and Hannah showcased their choreographic talents and confidently performed in a tough section of 17 soloists from years 11 and 12.

After a rehearsal at a local dance school and a little shopping at Maroochydore, all students were pumped up and ready to perform our hip-hop routine with 23 other school groups on Thursday evening. The audience was electric, and we sure did bring our energy to the stage. With the adrenaline running, and excitement levels at an absolute high, we went into the auditorium to watch the other groups in the section, including our fellow Tasmanian’s The Hutchins School. The atmosphere in the auditorium was supportive and encouraging, everyone cheered, clapped, and engaged with the performers in the most positive way. It was a vibe!

Friday evening, after a morning rehearsal and a quieter day, we performed our Tina Turner-inspired Jazz routine, the girls were amazing, they lit up the stage in their gold sequined dresses and huge smiles. They danced their hearts out with their iconic choreography and were thrilled to be mentioned as a “Very Highly Commended” in the section.

We could not have been prouder of the students have how they conducted themselves over the four busy days of traveling, rehearsing, and performing. We cannot wait to do it all again in 2025!

Students choosing to study Dance in 2025 should keep an eye out for expressions of interest for the
2025 trip, this will be advertised in early term 3 this year.

Sally Tew & Rachel Williams 
Learning Leaders - The Arts

Cross Country 2024 Highlights

Our Cross Country was held in the first week back of this term at Wentworth Park.  The day was a huge sucess with great participation from our Year 7s through to our 11 and 12 open division. Congratulations to all our Champions and Runners Up from the day and the below houses for winning the relevant Shield for the day:

Overall House: PENOLA  I  Boys Aggregate: SION  I  Girls Aggregate: PENOLA

Below are some highlights of the day.

Student Achievements

Our students are always achieving amazing results in extra curricular activities.  

Harry Donald (Year 10) is representing the State in the Australian Gymnastics Championships and will be competing in Trampolining on the Gold Coast in Week 4 of this Term.  We wish you all the best Harry!

Aiden Flack (Year 11) has been selected to play in the Tasmanian State Rugby Team. Congratulations Aiden!

Our own Thomas Gunson features in this below article about his involvement in the Southern Tasmanian Badminton Association Junior Championships late last year.  Well done Thomas!

Is your son or daughter doing something outstanding, amazing, or extraordinary that they want to share with us? We would love to hear from you!

Please send your stories and photos to Fiona Medwin, fmedwin@mackillop.tas.edu.au and we will highlight achievements in our bulletin.