Last Friday we marked All Saints Day, 1 November at our Whole College Assembly and on Monday we will pause in our classes to commemorate Remembrance Day, 11 November. These opportunities for prayer enrich our College life and enhance students and staff ability to pause and reflect on our blessings.

College Awards of Excellence

On Wednesday next week we will join as a whole College community for our annual Awards of Excellence ceremony and farewell to our Year 12 students. Families are welcome to join us for this occasion - seating will be available with the front section of seating being designated for Year 12 parents and then directly behind these seats will be more parent and family seating.

Families have been notified via Parent Portal if your child/ren is receiving an award. This can be seen if your child/ren are attached to an activity titled “Awards of Excellence 2024”. We have 174 students receiving awards, all of whom have shown excellence this year in one of our four domains, Academia, Spirituality, Sport, Arts. We will have a rehearsal with these students on Tuesday morning to ensure they know what to do at the ceremony.

All students should wear full formal uniform (tie included for Year 5-12) on Wednesday. If Wednesday is normally a sports day for your class, please wear on Tuesday or Thursday instead. This is a good opportunity to check that all shoes are polished and that our presentation is correctly following the College uniform guidelines.

The weather is forecast to cool next week from this week’s mid to high 30’s down to just 31. Hopefully a rain shower or two in the days leading up to it will cool it down further. With this in mind, students will be allowed to take a small plastic waterbottle with them to the awards ceremony if they wish. They should bring a bottle specifically for this purpose. No metal water bottles will be allowed in the MPC and only water in the bottles. The bottle should be stored sealed under their seat when not being used. 

It is our hope to livestream the award ceremony on Facebook. An email to confirm this will be sent to families on Tuesday once rehearsal has taken place.

Each year we take photos of the award presentations, capturing the moments and the groups, these will be uploaded to our College Website once the gallery is formatted.  Details for each of our awards can be found on our College Website – About Us – College Awards of Excellence.

Graduation Mass

On Friday 15 November, we will celebrate our Year 12 students graduation with our Graduation Mass at St Joseph’s at 10:00am. Year 10 and Year 11 students will travel to the Church with College staff to attend this mass. All Year 10-12 students should wear full formal uniform with tie for this occasion. They may wear their sports uniform on Thursday to substitute for this. 

Sacraments at St Joseph's Parish – Reconciliation

Our local parish, St Joseph’s runs the Sacrament Program for local children. As a strong member of the Parish, our College supports this program where we can, and we encourage students who are baptised Catholic to take part in these as they reach these milestones (year level based). Reconciliation is usually conducted in November each year and is open to children in Year 2 or above who have already received the Sacrament of Baptism. Communion and Confirmation follows then in the next year, usually in May celebrated in the same week, with the Bishop presiding at Confirmation and Fr Jim presiding at Communion. These sacraments are open to students who have received the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If your child is ready to receive the Sacraments contact St Joseph’s Parish so they can be added to the list. Communication about the programs and all that they entails comes from the wonderful staff at the Parish. 

Upcoming Events – not to be missed

13 November – College Awards of Excellence Ceremony

15 November – Year 12 Graduation Mass

28 November – College Colour Run

2 December – College Christmas Carols (twilight)

4 December – UP Day

5 December – Early Years Nativity Play (during school day)

6 December – last day of Term 4 (10-week term) RE-SET Day supervision only

Cate Brennan

Deputy Principal Religious Education