First Place - 'Cookie Monster'
Below: Second Place: 'Winnie the Pooh' by Dakota Macourt, Year 10
Below: Third Place: Wonder by Chelsy Loder and Maggie Eisenhauer, Year 8
(More photos of fantastic cake entries in the Learning Resource Centre article).
Friday 26 June: Last day of Term 2 lessons. "Snug as a bug in a rug" Day.
Friday 26 June: Boarding House closes 6.00pm.
Friday 26 June: Year 11 Drama Play 2020 - Play released at 4.00pm (see Performing Arts article this issue) - link to the trailer is below for a sneak peek!
https://sites.google.com/stvincents.nsw.edu.au/ditchthe80s/trailer .
Monday 20 July: Years 7 and 9 Parent Teacher Interviews via Google Meet.
Monday 20 July: Boarders return 4.00pm-6.00pm.
Tuesday 21 July: Term 3 lessons begin.
Monday 27 July: Years 8 Parent-Teacher Interviews Google Meetings between the Tutor and parents.
Monday 10 August: Year 11 Parent-Teacher Interviews.
2021 Term Dates: Link to the dates is in Mrs Fry's article in 12 June issue - and HERE
Dear Parents and Carers
The simple acts of cake decorating and cake eating brought great joy and excitement into the College this week. During the shut-down, many in the community turned to the kitchen for an outlet for their creativity and to produce quality food for their families. It is now clear that many of our students must have followed this "iso-baking" trend, as the efforts they made to produce an edible book (cake) were magnificent. Record numbers of cakes were entered, and an outstanding amount of $853 was raised through an online auction and sales of individual slices. I think the novelty of actually being able to share the preparation, and physically rather than virtually participate, was another key ingredient on this occasion. I have always understood that calories consumed for charitable purposes never does us any harm, which is just as well considering the generous layers of butter cream, fondant and candy that brought the edible books to life! Congratulations to all bakers, decorators and designers. A special acknowledgement of Mrs Jody McDonnell, Ms Lyndal Rose and Ms Silvia Munoz (the library staff) for their hosting of this annual event.
1st Place Cookie Monster by Stephanie Pantazis, Year 7
2nd Place Winnie the Pooh by Dakota Macourt, Year 10
3rd Place Wonder by Chelsy Loder and Maggie Eisenhauer, Year 8
I was very pleased to see the integration of our College ethos into the concept of one of our cake designers who featured, "To Kill a Mockingbird". On the description of her cake, the Year 7 student wrote that she had chosen this particular book and had marbled a chocolate and vanilla cake to illustrate the positive result possible from reconciliation and racial equality. I think this creativity shows how immersed our Year 7 students already are in the culture of St Vincent's College.
Last Friday the government announced an easing of many of the restrictions that have governed our operation as a College since our return to face-to-face teaching in May. I enclose the list here for your information and consideration. While everything is and must remain conditional on government policy, we are preparing now for a new semester that will look very different to the one we are just finishing!
Last weekend in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, an alumni of the College, Kerry Bray, was recognised for her outstanding service to the community. It was great to see that the formation she receiving during her time at St Vincent's continues to shape her community service. We congratulate Kerry and express our ongoing pride in her achievements. Kerry was Aikenhead Captain in her graduating year of 1960, and has distinguished herself in community sport (particularly running), support of the Red Cross Blood Service and her volunteer work during the Sydney Olympics.
The Chair of the College Board, Ms Mary Ronzani, has stepped down from her role. I take this opportunity to thank her, and all Directors for the work they undertake in partnership with the Trustees of Mary Aikenhead Ministries to provide good governance for the College. Ms Fiona O'Loughlin has been appointed as Acting Chair of the Board. Fiona has been Deputy Chair of the Board and her interim appointment will ensure a smooth transition as the Board continues to undertake the strategic and capital planning that will take the College forward into the next 50 years of its extraordinary history.
Yours sincerely
We are finding ourselves saying it was in some ways easier to prepare ourselves for the onset of COVID than the return to life post this time of uncertainty and upheaval paralleled with the protection of being home. A little bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole - it just happened, and it happened quickly, but now we are navigating our way out of the rabbit hole along with an array of characters, all with their own experience, whilst reconnecting as a shared community still in a time of flux.
A few weeks ago I spoke of the challenge of students resetting their school routines as they returned to school in reference to punctuality, uniform, jewellery, and use of mobile phones. On the surface these may seem regulations for regulation sake, whilst in fact our experience at school can see how these outward signs of readiness and compliance can signify a student’s commitment to engage in schooling and express a level of social emotional health and wellbeing. When we blur the expectation for adolescents, we are making it difficult for them to navigate boundaries that put onus on them to grow in personal responsibility. It may be arriving in the gates at 8.45am coffee cup in hand or the way in which the sports uniform is worn with a grey pullover, or the choice of dangling earrings coupled with the shoulder bag that allows the mobile phone to be kept out of the locker. The foundation on which all student expectations sit is the shared responsibility to contribute to a safe and inclusive community that enhances positive relationships and respectful learning. We desire our students to arrive at school ready for a commitment to the relationships and learning that await. Respect for and acceptance of the personal responsibilities for punctuality, uniform and use of technology are visual signals of a healthy attitude and psychology that lies beneath. It is this layer that is so very important to nourish.
All members of the community are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions and live the values of the College. St Vincent's College abides by The Australian Student Wellbeing Framework which is based on the following overarching vision - "Australian schools are learning communities that promote student wellbeing, safety and positive relationships so that students can reach their potential". Students who feel connected, safe and secure are more likely to be active participants in their learning and to achieve better physical, emotional, social and educational outcomes. In this Year of Service of the Poor, we are encouraged to identify the situations where we may detract from positive relationships and lessen the wellbeing of ourselves and others. As we approach the end of Term 2, the students have been provided an opportunity to respond to a Half-Year Student Check-in about their feelings of safety, inclusion and wellbeing. Navigating out of the rabbit hole has not been without worry. We have observed fragility and uncertainty in our students and in their relationships - finding one’s fit amongst friends and peers, discerning choices in socialising as adolescents venture out of the safety of home, feeling overwhelmed or unmotivated as she re-establishes her learning routines. I hope that you as parents and carers can be comforted by the knowledge that your daughter’s experience may be part of this current landscape whilst also mindful of the significant role you play in guiding and supporting her in this space.
The response to our Student Check-in so far has been very positive, whereby the opportunity for online identification of areas of concern and expression of ways we could improve to be a more inclusive and caring community. I am often in awe of the honesty of young people - they are able to articulate hope whilst desiring the tools to journey there.
Term 3 we will press RESET. Students are to demonstrate a visible commitment to the standards of our College community in the small and big choices they make. With easing of COVID-19 restrictions, we too will return to the expectation of students using changerooms and lockers. No longer will students wear their sports uniform to and from school or bring fashionable shoulder bags to carry around the College. We will be informed by the data gathered in our online Student Check-in to shine a light on their own authentic voice, and work with students in our pastoral care programs to shape attitudes and actions to support their growth towards being more compassionate women of action. As always, such growth of character and relationships are nurtured in the home and I encourage and thank you as parents and carers for your engagement in these conversations with your daughters and with each other.
Even before the pandemic, NSW Education was in the process of undergoing a major transformation that will go on long after the virus subsides. The NSW Curriculum Review led by Professor Geoff Masters, was due to be released to parliament when COVID-19 struck. What will soon recalibrate is the main intention behind these reforms to overhaul curriculum, content delivery and report cards, that pigeon hole students into learning at a set stage or predetermined grade. There is much dialogue stemming from these reform discussions that indicate that educators are seeking a holistic understanding of where an individual student is on the learning continuum, in terms of their twenty first century learning capabilities. Professor Masters' vision is that every student who graduates high school is ready for the dynamically altered workplaces and tertiary institutions they will enter, based on key competencies and skills that enable deep learning for life. The NSW Review proposes a scrapping of the ATAR, however, Professor Shergold, Chair of NESA, is keen to keep the ATAR - Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank, but rather than use it as the magical key to opening tertiary access, his desire is to couple it with a teacher informed statement of learning about a student to create an educational passport to vocational pursuits. It is with this thinking that he is hopeful that students and teachers would welcome a move where the HSC captured academic results, yet also incorporated a learning profile of the whole person, including lessons learnt from inside as well as outside the school experience.
At St Vincent's College, our Ignatian pedagogy fully supports this move and our academic care of the whole person is something we take on board every lesson every day. We are fully cognisant in any decision we make about learning, that we have fully factored in the many diverse needs of our students as people, as well as, learners. As we emerge from Foxford, we continue to monitor our students’ learning and wellbeing to ensure that they have agency over their learning yet the resilience and curiosity to learn how to learn deeply about themselves and their curriculum. It is this deep learning that enables students to ignite the passion for lifelong learning. As whole people, our academic reports capture exactly what we know about our students and how they learn (which is incidentally the first ‘Australian Professional Standard for Teachers’). We know who our students are as learners, as members of our community and we recognise all that makes them uniquely different and valued. This is why our Academic Reports include our pastoral profiling of our students, their co-curricular pursuits as well as their academic achievements evidenced in both formal and informal learning activities. We believe that our students’ learning is way more definitive than a mark or a grade and therefore as a College, we acknowledge our students strengths, areas for improvement holistically in their subjects, not just based on the marks from one or two assessment activities. It is knowing one's areas of strength and deficits that can be powerful motivators for change. Therefore, our feedback model on all assessment activities is designed to go way beyond the mark or grade. It is designed to keep arming the student with skills and strategies, whilst nurturing and propelling the student along the continuum of learning.
This brings me to the Years 7-10 Academic Reports for Semester 1 learning - a semester that was unprecedented. Interrupted, yet injected with learning that made all think outside the square. These will arrive home in the first week of our winter break and I do hope that when your daughter’s reports reach you, that you enjoy reading about the gains made in her learning as well as the gains made in her sense of courage and resilience from Foxford to Face-to-Face. To our Senior students, good luck with the final completion of your assessment activities this term and to our HSC students, we look forward to the extended long weekend of HSC learning that will take place as part of our consolidation of learning in the HSC Workshops on offer by Year 12 teachers.
It’s been a big week of fundraising, experiences, prayer and sleeping bags - and next week there’s more to come. It feels like we are making up for lost time. Last weekend was the SVC Winter Sleepout with over 50 people braving the cold of concrete floors and damp balconies to get an experience that they don’t want to forget. Dads, mums, teachers and lots of students grabbed their woolly socks and crawled into their sleeping bags for the night. Even a group of St Ignatius boys crawled into a tent in a park in solidarity of their sisters here at Vinnies, mindful that they too want to change society for the better. There have been great stories of frozen toes, hungry bellies and sleep deprivation headaches the next day. The prayers and challenges were well received.
Of course, you didn’t need to sleep out to support St Canice’s. You are still able to donate via the online fee payment method if you would like.
Go to College website, under MENU click online fee payment, OR try this address https://www.bpoint.com.au/pay/stvincentscollege.
The bpoint screen will appear. In the FAMILY CODE field write SLEEPOUT. click next. Key in donation amount. $20 minimum accepted. There will be a surcharge of 0.75% on any amounts. Choose your favourite card and fill in details as appropriate.
Next Friday we will have three big events, Snug as a Bug - in solidarity with our Earth, Donut Hug Me - supporting Vinnies Winter Appeal, and Wear A Beanie: Bring a Blanket - a liturgy and blanket donation event to support our homeless brothers and sisters who are cared for by The Wayside Chapel and St Canice’s parish. Wayside is extremely pleased that this initiative has been dreamed up by our Charism Captain, Isabeau Gallardo Walker. If you have any blankets or doonas that might like a new home, please send them along any day next week. All students are welcome to attend the liturgy at 8.00am on Friday, sporting their beanies and sitting on a blanket. It’s going to be a big day.
The next big day will be Sunday. Parish churches are opening up again. Mass as we have known it for some decades is making a come back, and the question is being asked, “Will people go back?”. We have been without this most precious sacrament since Easter. How are we different because we have been without it? There is certainly something missing in our faith lives. Many people have talked to me about what they are doing with their ‘Mass Time’. Many are watching Mass online and many others are engaging in specific activities that speak to what they have found nourishes them; they are reading, gardening, cooking and spending more time with their families. We are calling friends more and shopping for house-bound neighbours. We are learning about situations of injustice and arming ourselves with knowledge that we can call on later. We are giving thanks for the people we love and the opportunities we have been given to love a little bit more; and that is Eucharist.
Our older friends and relatives are aching to get back to Mass. For them and us too, it’s about community, stability, reliability and predictability. There’s learning involved if the Homily is ‘good’ and always a challenge from the Gospel. Christ can always be relied upon to help us feel irritated about injustice. Sunday’s Gospel is about how God knows us even better than we know ourselves. He knows every hair on our head. God of course loves all those we are trying to help through our fundraising too. God knows, we are giving it a shot.
Donut Hug Me - $5 for a donut and a hot chocolate - and donate a blanket if you can.
On Saturday 13 June, there was a highly-competitive basketball/netball hybrid game played on the College courts. The game was played by Year 7 and Year 9 VS Year 8 (including SCEGGS Boarders).
Year 8 won in an impressive 5-1 victory over Year 7. Notable players of the match were Isabella Quinn (Year 8), Natayleah Georgetown and Heavenly Dwyer (SCEGGS Boarders). Elliane Davies was most heavily pulled up for 'contact' with other players.
Naylise Thompson (SCEGGS) returned from a stomach bug that morning to take to the court and Alyrah Harriott (Year 7) went "to the toilet" five minutes into the game and didn’t return - forcing Coops to play for five minutes until Naylise stepped in. (see photos below)
Anette Cooper
Years 7/8/9 Boarding Coordinator
Term 2 ends next Friday 26 June. Boarders who are on School Transport will be leaving on Friday morning bright and early, and we wish them a safe journey home. Boarders who reside in Sydney will be at school on the Friday and will go home after classes that day. It has been a short term face-to-face, but it felt like a long term abiding by the COVID-19 restrictions. This weekend would normally be an In Weekend, however, it was decided to keep our 'Just Dance-Off' competition tonight. Mia Freemantle (Year 11) is not happy about the possibility of losing her crown!
Yours in Boarding
Thank you to the following imaginative, generous and creative bakers who made edible book masterpieces for us this year:
Elizabeth Howells, Elise George, Abbie Burnell, Alexa Rubenstein, Sophia Feletto, Lola Clapshaw, Bina Mellis, Iyla Maguire, Sylvie Moss, Samantha Gribben, Layla Conway, Jess O’Mara, Jemima Gooch, Dakota Macourt, Stella Devery, Issie Hunter, Zahli Daly, Amalie Pyne, Asher Thompson, Zoe Vella, Leila Spies and Sophia Costello, Alexandra Haddock, Alice Murcutt, Olivia Williams, Ava Hogan, Jemima Hickey, Saskia Emery, Tyler Ellis, Mollie Trinca, Amy Hetherington, Sarah See, Chelsy Loder, Maggie Eisenhauer, Polly Sewell, Tilly Gill, Isabelle Nusco, Bronte Bookallil, Alannah Trim, Heidi Trim, Stephanie Pantazis, Alice Hempton, Molly Griffin, Sadie Adair, Poppy Nicholson, Frankie Duffy, Charlie Coelho.
Your culinary magic was outstanding, and after cakes were voted on they were either auctioned as a whole cake to staff or sliced and sold to the student body at lunch. We fed many and raised a record amount of $853 which will be donated to Matt Talbot. This St Vincent de Paul run hostel provides beds and meals for homeless or nearly homeless men, and continued to do this during the COVID-19 shutdown.
Thank you again and we look forward to seeing what 2021 Edible Book Festival will bring.
Annually Year 11 Drama students perform a play to help them understand the elements and roles of a production. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, Year 11 cannot have a live audience this year, so the production morphed into an episodic drama using the medium of film.
"A Year 11 Drama class is trying to put on a play. Their teacher, Mr Walsh, wants to put on a 1930's murder mystery but the students have other ideas. As the story progresses the class overtake Walsh’s plan, turning it into a murder mystery set in the 80's, filled with leotards and lycra".
Following is the trailer for a sneak peek - and the play is released next Friday 26 June at 4.00pm.
https://sites.google.com/stvincents.nsw.edu.au/ditchthe80s/trailer .
Term 3 Sports Staff Contacts:
Co-ordinator of Sport: Ms Jacinta Jacobs: 0418 416 663 / jacobsj@stvincents.nsw.edu.au
Athletics and Fitness: Ms Natasha Stenberg: 0412 099 882.
Netball and Basketball: Ms Elyse Harmanis: 0434 610 870
Hockey: Ms Laura Wiggins: 0418 329 929
Five-a-Side Soccer: Mr Nick Schroeder: 0431 117 565.
Website details: www.stvincents.nsw.edu.au/learning/sport
=============================================================
Please keep the Sports staff informed of any good sporting results held outside of the College. Information and photos can be emailed to jacobsj@stvincents.nsw.edu.au
AISNSW (Association of Independent Schools) Resource
https://www.aisnsw.edu.au/learning-from-home/wellbeing#parents.
Greater Good Science Centre: COVID-19 parent wellbeing resources and activities
The Office of eSafety: COVID-19: an online safety kit for parents and carers
Keeping children educated and entertained during COVID-19 crisis…It’s easy as ABC
Mindspot
https://mindspot.org.au/assets/pdf/10_Tips_for_Coping_with_Infectious_Diseases.pdf
Beyond Blue
Headspace
https://headspace.org.au/young-people/how-to-cope-with-stress-related-to-covid-19/
ReachOut Parent discussion forum
https://forums.parents.au.reachout.com/
ReachOut Youth discussion forums
https://forums.au.reachout.com/
ReachOut.com One-on-One Support
The Brave Program
https://www.brave-online.com/beating-stress-and-worries-about-coronavirus-covid-19/
FACE COVID ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
If you or anyone you know needs help:
● Lifeline on 13 11 14
● beyondblue on 1300 224 636
● MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978
● Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
● Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800
● Headspace on 1800 650 890
● QLife on 1800 184 527.
Government Agencies:
NSW Department of Health
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/alerts/Pages/coronavirus-faqs.aspx
NSW Department of Education
https://education.nsw.gov.au/public-schools/school-safety/novel-coronavirus.html
National Coronavirus Health Information Line 1800 020 080 - operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
