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Principals’ Pilbara Visit 2022
Have you been considering boarding school for your child? We invite families considering a boarding school education for their son, or daughter to join us for an informal chat with the Principals of St Brigid’s College and Mazenod College. https://meettheprincipalspilbara2022.paperform.co/  
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Other News
Notice of CSPWA AGM
Dear Parents, The Catholic School Parents WA Annual General Meeting will take place in 4 weeks on Thursday the 16th June 2022. We are now in the process of setting the agenda and so we are now calling for agenda items. Please forward any items to admin@csp.wa.edu.au by Wednesday 1st June. We also invite members from schools who are financially affiliated with CSPWA to consider nominating to Council at the AGM. In addition to contributing to the work of the council at the state and local level, Council members have the opportunity to represent CSPWA on national, state and Catholic education sector committees and working parties according to their experience. If this is something you might be interested in or if you would like to find out more, please contact Siobhan Allen, Executive Director CSPWA on 0409 025 683. Please find below the link to the 2022/23 Council nomination form and AGM flyer. 2022 CSPWA AGM Notice CSPWA New Councillor Nomination Form 2022 Thank you.
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Careers Transition / VET
Career Expo 2022
Where did the Year 10 students go on Thursday, May 12? They went to the Careers Expo 2022 hosted at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. It was a marketplace where exhibitors plied their courses, services, inventions and promotional items to students, teachers and visitors. On entering the centre, we were mesmerised by UU, the Japanese robot programmed to dance to a disco tune that captured our interest. According to the student designers, two other objects that stood out from the rest of the exhibitions were the electric racing car designed by Edith Cowan University students, which reaches 110 km per hour. The Army installed a truck in full camouflage, which looked every bit the part. The atmosphere was electric as our students embraced the many opportunities to learn more about careers and training. Netball hoops were installed, and many students, including our girls, lined up to demonstrate their sporting prowess. The icing on the cake for some students was collecting the many promoting items from sunglasses, hats, bags, lollies and pens. It was a fantastic and educational event!
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From the Principal
From the Principal
We are now well into Term 2, and we have certainly had some unusual weeks! After finishing Term 1 with plans for the new COVID regulations to commence in Term 2, things changed dramatically on the first day of school! From a completely closed campus and masks to ‘freedom again’, we have contacted, traced, and reported cases to the Health Department and now are learning to live with significant numbers of student and staff absences. Despite all of this, our staff have been marvellous in ensuring our classes are able to run, and many are multitasking to help ensure that things run smoothly. I am sure you will join me in thanking our staff. We also would like to thank our families for your patience as we all navigate the changing COVID landscape. As life returned to the College, we were pleased to be able to enjoy our Junior School Swimming Carnival (albeit with masks that week!), our Mother’s Day Assembly and Morning Tea, and the Year 12 Mother and Daughter Dinner and our Secondary Interhouse Athletics Carnival. Thank you to the families who have been involved in these events. We appreciate that quarantine and home situations have made it difficult for families to attend some events, but we hope that things will be back to normal with time. These last few weeks, some students have been sitting NAPLAN and ESTS. This too has been a juggling act of sitting these compulsory assessments or trying to catch up upon return to school. We thank Mr Sills and Ms Kathryn White, who has vigilantly planned and replanned for students to have the opportunity to sit these assessments. Our Years 11-12 students are now busily preparing for their examinations which will commence on 30 May. While Year 10 examinations begin on 9 June. Students will receive detailed timetables and instructions. On the social justice aspect, our school has commenced a fundraising effort for LifeLink. This term, our students support LifeLink by collecting gold coin donations by donating non-perishable goods for to ‘The Shopfront’ to support needy families. We encourage our students to promote and support these great initiatives through friendly competition between each House. The Year 10s students also joined the Seeds of Justice Conference on 19 May. The students participated in storytelling, ritual and traditions sessions that encompass our Mercy Ethos as we work towards a nation of equity and justice. The theme for the first event was ‘Stories of reconciliation and mercy’. This was a great opportunity to network with students from other Mercy schools. Next week we will have our first College Twilight Tour on 27 May at 4.00 pm. We encourage you to invite any friends or family who are interested in our College. Registration is via this link. As winter solidly approaches, we hope that your families continue to stay safe and safety. We continue to pray to the Lord for the safekeeping of our students and their families. God Bless, Carmen Cox Principal
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From the Deputy Prinicpal
From the Deputy Principal
Term Two has begun with the juggling of a raft of testing across the College, with NAPLAN in Years 3, 5, 7 and  9 and the Externally Set Task for the Year 12 General students. I would like to extend my appreciation to both staff and students for their flexibility and resilience during these weeks, as they have been working around the challenges of Covid isolation periods, catch up sessions plus maintaining their regular classes. For our NAPLAN students each year I remind them that this is only a snapshot of their abilities and talents in a small number of areas, these do not measure the creative, sporting, spiritual and relational gifts that you possess.  We see the incredible amount of work that goes into each lesson you attend and the tasks completed in the classroom throughout the years, we value the progress that your teachers and parents see each day. We will use the results in our planning and tracking of overall progress across time, to affirm the quality of teaching and learning we see each day. To our General students, we are looking forward to seeing your results, as we know you have been working hard this past term and a half, to continue to demonstrate your potential. Our Year 10 – 12 students are all moving towards our examination week (and our School of Distance Education students the week prior).  Teachers are available to assist students not only during class but have availed themselves to be able to assist at various times during the day, please do encourage your student(s) to take advantage of the times offered.  Some simple hints for the weeks ahead Start revision early Prepare your revision notes ahead of time Develop a study schedule to be balanced Find a ‘study buddy’ someone that will keep you motivated and focussed Find a good place to study without distractions Maintain time for yourself during the examination period – this includes eating a healthy diet and getting plenty of sleep Ask your teachers questions well before the exam Use a variety of study techniques Minimise mobile phone and social media time – it’s a great time to have a break from such distractions Learn from your success this past semester and the challenges you are faced with I also wish our certification students and Flexitrack High students all the best, as they are involved in some intensive study days during these weeks. The planning for the upcoming Subject Selection process for Year 11 2023 is well underway and in the coming weeks Year, 10 teachers will be speaking with students re: offerings and entry requirements.  As noted in the College Calendar our evening is scheduled for the 29th of June (Wednesday) and will be via TEAMs again this year.  We decided to continue this format due to the importance of the content and the unfortunate possibility that we will have families unable to attend face to face in a few weeks’ time. Our feedback from the past years has been very positive and the format well received. I would also like to extend my huge thank you to our Parent Forum for their generous donation to the Lexile Reading programme at the College, across 2021/2022 over 500 books have been able to be purchased for students in both the Primary and Secondary to access.  It has been amazing to keep building our collection! Remember ‘Learn continually – there’s always ‘one more thing’ to learn’’ (Steve Jobs)   Janine Walsh Deputy Principal
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Secondary School
Secondary News
We started the term off wearing masks and ended our first week removing our facial masks. It was great to see the young ladies smiling again and enjoying the freedom of coming to school mask free. However, if your daughter still wants to wear a mask or has been classified as close contact, she has to wear a mask. Our cohorts are now allowed to mix, so the young ladies in our care had to opportunity to join their colleagues in big groups instead of just their Homeroom and enjoyed their first face to face House Assembly for 2022. Term Two has seen all the clubs we offer at the college starts again. Clubs run either before or after school and at lunchtime. We encourage the young people in our care to go to the club if they need some extra assistance with their work, assessments, or to complete their homework. It is great that we can now have face to face guest speakers coming to speak to the students. We were very fortunate to have Paul Litherland talk to the girls and parents about the importance of staying safe while online. He talked to the students about things they should do to keep safe while online and how he could locate information on 176 students 86 of these students. He was able to see their videos, and 4 of them he could see were filmed in the toilet blocks at the college. This is one of the reasons we have a mobile phone policy which states that students need to lock their phones in their locker or keep them at home. Paul spoke at the parent’s session about the six stages of grooming. The stages go from targeting a victim – gaining trust-fulfilling a need- isolating the victim to reaching their ultimate goal of maintaining control of their victim. Paul provided information on who can help if you need to report something. Paul also provided tips on setting up your modem/router with parental controls. Having Paul come and speak to the students leads perfectly to the next article on SchoolTv, “Managing Screen Time.” SchoolTv “Parents have an important part to play in role modelling a positive approach to using screens and assisting young people in navigating the content they watch.” Dr Michael Carr-Gregg Many parents have reported excessive screen time as the number one health concern affecting kids, especially now in the hyperconnected world we live in. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that there should be no screen time for children under two, less than an hour a day for children aged from two to five, and less than two hours for five to seventeen-year-olds. However, experts have disputed these guidelines, and families often ignore them. Parents must play an important role in modelling a positive approach to using screens and assisting children in navigating the content they access. More information about this is located on the latest SchoolTv report, which is located Here. It was fantastic seeing the young ladies being able to participate in the Secondary Athletics Carnival with a trial structure that according to the young ladies was really good. That night the year 12 young ladies had the opportunity to celebrate Mother’s Day with their mums. The evening was full of laughter, especially during the ‘take a Selfie’ with mum and daughter, where photos were sent using Snap Chat Filters.   Fiona Hepi Head of Secondary
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Junior School
Primary News
The first week we returned after our break, we had the swimming carnival. The timing was perfect with the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, which brought us together at the pool to cheer on our friends and our Houses. We also had the Mass for the year 3 in the church. It was amazing to watch the students sing and attend Mass with the parish community of Lesmurdie. Year 2 had their liturgy in the Wandju room. Mrs Cox, our Principal conducted the homily and vividly explained the meaning of Confirmation and the Holy Spirit.  Parents and pupils stood in awe of the liturgy.  We received a lot of compliments and positive praises that it was touching and beautiful. We also commemorated Mother’s Day.  Year 5 Green took the stage and honoured the mothers in their assembly.  The students made us laugh and cry, speaking explicitly of their love and appreciation for their mothers who love them so much.  After the gathering, we offered the parents delicious boxes of sweets.  The beautiful boxes had been carefully and thoughtfully designed by our marvellous Community Relations and administration staff. Students in Year 3 and Year 5 had their NAPLAN.  There was no nervousness because students had the ability and knowledge to address the challenges they faced. In the last newsletter, I talked a little about the importance of cybersecurity. This term, we had a guest speaker, Paul Litherland who gave a good message about caution around the use of various social platforms. As usual, lots of learning is taking place on the primary campus.  Grade 5 students are working on their robotics, and kindergartens are involved in their learning using play exploration. Year two used nature as a creative inspiration for their Mother’s Day cards.  Grade 6 pupils are busy working with Mrs Openshaw in the garden, growing potatoes. We were confronted with graffiti problems in the newly furnished boys’ toilets.  Students were guided to be proud of their school and the importance of keeping an eye on our environment.  We also highlighted positive behaviours and congratulated the students when they displayed them.    We saw students working to make sure that the school looked clean.  They were magnificent demonstrations of pride and love for the college.  It also coincided with Pope Francis’ Laudato Si. “… We are called to be instruments of God our Father so that our planet might be what he desired when he created it and correspond with his plan for peace, beauty and fullness.” LaudatoSi’ n.53   Prayer God of creation, The earth is full of your goodness and beauty. Help us to hear the cry of the earth, so that we can fully understand how our decisions impact the environment. May we work to look after your incredible gift of creation. We make this prayer through Christ, our Lord. Amen.   Term 2 is very exciting as we engage in more activities and look forward to welcoming them enthusiastically.   God Bless Anne Tan Head of Primary
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