E-News 29 March 2022

Welcome to Week 9

In what has been a busy fortnight, our College community has enjoyed the opportunity to participate in a range of enriching and exciting activities.

Community Mass

We were pleased this week to gather as a whole school to celebrate our K-12 Community Mass. This very special event was initially planned to take place on the school oval at the beginning of the year with families and friends invited to attend, but as you know, it had to be postponed due to COVID.

We wanted the Mass to be an inclusive one and still involve everyone, so we utilised our ICT systems to live streamed the Mass to classrooms and out to our community. We are very grateful to Fr Phong and to the St Thomas More Parish community for their excellent support and allowing us to celebrate this auspicious occasion in the Parish Church.

In gathering as together as a whole school community, we formally celebrated the launch of our K-12 College community and recognise the many people who contributed to the wonderful growth and achievements of both Yidarra Catholic Primary School and Av�԰� Christi College since their inception.

In building our future story together as one community, we are excited for the rich learning, care and faith development opportunities we can provide students across the years as a K-12 school. In symbolising our one school, during the Mass we joined the flames of the Yidarra and Av�԰� Christi candles to light the new College candle.

We also reflected on the meaning of the Av�԰� Christi – that is the Body of Christ. As Fr Phong said during his Homily, we are one school, one community and one body in Christ. When we reflect on this, we understand that this one body is made up of many parts, each unique with its own special role to play.

We therefore encourage our students to celebrate their God-given talents for they “are the light of the world. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house”

As Av�԰� Christi College we therefore celebrate the individual gifts and talents of everyone and strive to create an inclusive environment which supports their growth to become outstanding for others.

College Open Day

Another example of the College innovating in the current COVID environment was the generation of an Open Day video in lieu of our planned on-campus Open Day.

This significant presentation highlighted the many wonderful aspects of our College and the multitude of experiences available to prospective students.

We acknowledge students Lilly Grace (Year 10), Emily Boudville (Year 9) and Leo Webb (Year 8) for their excellent contribution to the video and for the passionate and proud way that they represented themselves and the College. The Open Day video is available via www.corpus.wa.edu.au/virtual-tour

Harmony Week

Congratulations to students for their involvement in the different events across Harmony Week which was celebrated at the College last week. This significant event promotes inclusiveness and diversity and recognised the individuality of all.

The Primary school in particular was awash with orange and a range of different coloured costumes as students celebrated the week. In class activities were devoted to learning about inclusivity whilst our prayers focused on acknowledging the uniqueness of all.

Congratulations to our students for their excellent involvement in this special week. We are also grateful to parents and caregivers for their excellent support.

ACC Swimming Carnival

Congratulations to our swimmers who have competed in an adjusted ACC Swimming Carnival over the course of the past two weeks.

Like many events this year, the Carnivals had to be adjusted to accommodate COVID restriction protocols, but that did not stop the energy and excitement of competing at an inter-school competition.

Our swimmers did themselves and the College proud as they competed strongly to finish in 10th position overall in the ACC, which is an excellent result. They are to be acknowledged for their dedication and resilience in preparing for the event and for their commitment to the many hours of training. These attributes will stand them in very good stead for the many exciting future challenges they will experience. Please click here to see all of our participants and more photos from the days.

A special acknowledgement to Head of Sport Mr James Howard, Aquatic Centre Program and Operations Manager Mr Luke Gavin and college swim coaches for their efforts in preparing the students.

Inter-House Activities

The Inter-house activities have continued over the past fortnight with many different and engaging opportunities on offer to support student involvement and House spirit.

The events have been carefully planned to support student connection and wellness at a time when restrictions can sometimes make us feel isolated. They provide the chance for students to engage in the life of the school.

Upcoming Parent/Caregiver Engagement Opportunities

As you can we are a busy school which promotes which promotes opportunities for students. We want to develop them as whole persons and participate strongly in the many different learning pathways both in and out of the classroom.

We are also a school that looks to engage with its community. I have written recently of the positive impact of parent engagement on student learning outcomes, so we want our families heavily involved in the school. To this end, we have a series of future planned events that we invite you to be a part of, including:

Online Parent Forum – scheduled for this Wednesday 30 March, the forum is designed to allow parents input into the finalisation of our Vision, Mission and Values development process. Further information and registration details are available
Climate Survey - scheduled for early next term, this survey will allow staff, students and parents to provide their input and perspective into life the College. We look forward to providing you with more information at the start of Term 2 and encourage your involvement
Friends of Av�԰� – we look forward to working with families to design a ‘Friends of Av�԰�’ strategy during Term 2 which will allow parents and caregivers to regularly connect with the College
Parent-Student-Teacher Interviews – we were please to recently inform you of an adjusted Parent-Student-Teacher interview process considering current restrictions and also to support the alignment of strategy across the campus.

We wish you all of the very best for the remainder of the term and hope that you find the opportunity to spend some quality time together as a family over the holiday break. Thank you again for your wonderful support of the College in what has been a very busy and productive term.

Jeff Allen
Principal

News (all years)

Week 10 K-12 Assembly

Next Tuesday 5 April 2022 from 8.50am-9.30am, the College will hold its end of term assembly.

Students will participate online and parents and caregivers will be able to tune into the livestream via:

K-12 Student Badges

This morning students across the College were given commemorative badges to mark the first year of Av�԰� Christi College as a Kindergarten to Year 12 College. We look forward to seeing our students proudly wearing them on their school uniforms!

Student Success

Amelia McIvor (Year 4)

Amelia recently competed in the Swimming WA Junior Long Course State Championships at HBF Stadium.

She had a very successful meet and came away with a silver medal in the 9 year old girls 200m freestyle and a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle. She also placed 4th in the 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke, and had a clean sweep of personal best times.

This is a huge achievement from such a dedicated hard working swimmer. Well done Amelia!

Madison Lewis (Year 5)

Madison also participated in the Swimming WA Junior Long Course State Championships at HBF Stadium.

She won a massive 8 gold in 8 races with 4 new personal bests! This follows her fantastic February fundraising efforts doing laps for Starlight.

Madison’s commitment to training 5 days a week has definitely paid off. Well done Madison!

With two of the top 9 year old swimmers in WA at Av�԰� Christi Primary, the future of swimming at Av�԰� looks bright!

Mischa Pizzo (Year 11)

Merici student Mischa has been involved in Dance for Sick Kids for the last couple of years.

This year she is Dancing for Sick Kids again, giving her an opportunity to get moving and grooving to help raise funds to support thousands of families in Australia that rely on Ronald McDonald House Charities each year.

Dance for Sick Kids runs from 23 to 29 May 2022, with Mischa already raising $328 toward her final goal of $700.

By fundraising for RMHC, Mischa will be helping provide valuable family-centred care that plays an important role for families while their child receives treatment.

To find out more about her challenge and to support her fundraising efforts, visit:

⭐ Share Your Story ⭐

We love celebrating student success, so if you have a story to share please send details and a photo to:

marketing@corpus.wa.edu.au

Year 6 Polos

This week on our Primary campus, our Year 6 cohort received their Class of 2022 polos!

They were really excited to receive their individually personalised polos - this marks their final year as Primary students! 🙌

Year 6 Cricket Carnival

On the 15th March 2022, a group of Year 6 boys and girls represented our school at the C.C.P.S. Inter School Cricket Carnival 2022.

Our students competed against four other schools, versing against each school once. All boys and girls did exceptionally well; the boys finished second and the girls came first, winning the shield! Our girls will be representing Av�԰� Christi College at the C.C.P.S. State Finals in Term 4.

Most importantly, It was a great day and everyone had heaps of fun! We also showed great sportsmanship towards our opponents on the day!

By Lachlan Ernst & Jonathan Detata (Year 6)

Secondary All Years (Years 7-12)

Photo Day - Save the Date

Portrait day for the secondary campus will be held Wednesday of Week 2, Term 2.

Uniform Shop Appointments

Year 7 Students

There are three days which are allocated for Year 7 students Winter Uniform fitting appointments:
Day 1 – 12 April
Day 2 – 13 April
Day 3 – 20 April
These days will have 72 appointments available per day.
Parents and students with an appointment are asked to meet at James Nestor Hall foyer, where they will be seated until their appointment is available.
These appointments are reserved strictly for Year 7 students only.
If there are siblings of Year 7 students in other year levels, they may try items on as required but this must be done in the James Nestor Hall toilets.
Please do not book multiple appointments/attendees, only one appointment per student is permitted so that all students have an opportunity to be fitted.
If you are unable to make your appointment time, please Phone: (08) 6332 2581 or Email: uniform@corpus.wa.edu.au

All Secondary Students

The Uniform Shop Open Day is 22 April 2022 from 9.00am – 3.30pm.
There are 54 appointments available.
These will be prioritised to new students to the College who commenced in 2022 (Year 8 – 12).
Parents and students with an appointment are asked to meet at James Nestor Hall foyer, where they will be seated until their appointment is available.
All other existing students who require uniform items are encouraged to order online and collect on this day.
Please do not book multiple appointments/attendees, only one appointment per student is permitted so that all students have an opportunity to be fitted.
If you are unable to make your appointment time, please Phone: (08) 6332 2581 or Email: uniform@corpus.wa.edu.au

Middle School (Years 7-9)

And just like that Term 1 closes in on the finish line, juggling what arguably is the busiest time of a term, students are faced with the challenging task of juggling extra-curricular involvement, their final assessments for the term and NAPLAN prep activities. It is here that conversations around organisation, time management, Study Skills and remaining resilient around ‘high pressure’ times become key. Consistency is the key here to ensuring that one aspect of school life doesn’t take hold whilst students learn to keep juggling.

Our pastoral focus saw the Homeroom Banner competition come alive in Week 7 where students were challenged to build House spirit in a covid safe environment, bringing alive their respective Patron values, colours and emblems. Week 8 saw us recognise and celebrate Australia’s cultural diversity through Harmony Week culminating in our belated Community Mass. Livestreamed across the College, Primary and Secondary joined together in prayer with a very special Mass run by our Ministry Team.

So far, we have run two coordinated NAPLAN practice sessions for Year 3, 5, 7 and 9. Our Middle School years have successfully been exposed to the software package, load tested our Network and realised the importance of being fully prepared with charged iPad and earphones. These sessions were not without incident but this is exactly why we run them, they are a practice to establish key areas to improve on and ensure consistency for the actual testing in Term 2.

Patrick Woolley
Deputy Principal Middle School

Senior School (Years 10-12)

Term One Reflections

Student self-assessment and self-reflection are processes that can be utilised to help students learn today— and become lifelong learners. As an ongoing practice, self-assessment & reflection help students learn more about their own strengths and challenges. Self-assessment helps students to define themselves as learners. Teaching students how to think about their own thinking—or the process of metacognition has far-reaching.

Early next term, students in Year 10-12 will reflect on their personal and academic goals set at the beginning of the year. These reflections will be used by the students to create new goals.

The students will use page 34 and 35 of the College Diary as well as a personal reflection sheet which will be given to them in Homeroom. Encourage your child to start reflecting on their term thus far and coinciding with the report begin to set new targets for Term 2.

Careers and Courses Exploration- Year 10 & 12 (Term 1)

All Year 10 students are currently completing a 7 week program ‘Finding Your Track’ with our College Careers Counsellor and Head of VET and Transitions, to gain an understanding of:

Five Senior School pathways offered at the College
Career Exploration tools and quizzes
Drafting Senior School Subject Selections
Identifying 4 jobs of interest and mapping educational pathway
Exploring university degrees and TAFE courses of interest and pre-requisites
Exploring opportunities for Workplace Learning this year
Completing an Individual Year 11 and 12 Course & Career Plan
Received hardcopy Course Guides to take home

All Year 12 students have participated in a TISC Teams meeting in preparation for TISC applications opening online on 4th March 2022. Senior students have also had the opportunity to attend a university information session in the College Theatre this week with:

Monday: Curtin University
Tuesday: UWA
Wednesday: TISC
Thursday: Murdoch University
Friday: Notre Dame

Due to current covid restrictions, Notre Dame and ECU have provided students with online resources to access up to date course information. Further TISC informational videos here

Damian Scali
Deputy Principal Senior School

Vinnies – All secondary students are invited to attend

Last week we held our first Vinnies group for the year. We had around 20 students attend from years 7 to 12, which is a great start to the term! If you want to know more about this, check Seqta Notices or come to the meeting which will be facilitated by Ms Macpherson and Mrs Chong (when she returns from long service leave) on Tuesday afternoons, 3:30-4:15 in the TCC. We follow the COVID safe practices and have different year groups in each of the different classrooms in TCC.

FIA hours will be rewarded as well as a light afternoon tea provided. Come on down and see what is happening!

Year 10 and 11 FIA

Below are some possible opportunities for our Senior School Students to complete their 15 FIA Hours, please check SEQTA Notices for more information:

Creating Greeting Cards – form needs to be completed
Cooking for St Patricks – form needs to be completed
Containers for Change Sorting – Thursday afternoons 3:30 to 4:30pm TCC
Vinnies Group – Tuesday afternoons 3:30-4:15pm TCC
Greening Project – form needs to be completed
Breast Cancer Awareness Fundraiser – see below

Helping to support a community event for the Breast Cancer Foundation at the Leeming Bowling Club on Sunday 10 April from 7:30am to 4:00pm, doing the following, and please contact breastcancercarewafundraiser@gmail.com

Sell Raffle Tickets
Help serve on 2nd hand clothing, books, handbag & shoe stalls
Serve and or take payments at the Sausage Sizzle, Cake & produce & plant stall
Lend a hand in other areas where needed
Set up & pull down

Year 10 Retreat – Wednesday and Thursday

Our Year 10s will be participating in their retreat this week. All students should have received an email from Ms Thomas detailing where they are going for the middle session of the Faith in Action Day. Stay tuned for the next e-News to see how they went and what the retreat was all about.

The Season of Lent into Easter

As we coming to the end of Lent and moving into Easter, we need to think about our neighbour, and how they are going this Lenten/Easter Season. Have they become a close contact? Have they contracted COVID? Have they not been able to see a family for the past two years? Have they not been out of the house because of isolation/quarantine? If they have maybe, YOU could help them in some way that might help them to feel a little better. I will leave you with some quotes that might allow you to explore this a little deeper.

Stations of the Cross

In the lead up to Easter we invite families to view the Stations of the Cross video, provided by the Archdiocesan Centre for Liturgy. The Stations of the Cross are generally prayed/reflected on, on Fridays throughout Lent and on Good Friday.

Av�԰� Australia Holiday Program

Click here for more information

Code Av�԰�

Breast Cancer Fundraiser

Breast Cancer Care WA provides personalised emotional, practical and financial support and care to all West Australians and their families affected by breast cancer.

Support services are offered free of charge and are personalised to support a broad range of specific client needs.