Monday 15 July & Tuesday 16 July: Student-free Days and Front Office closed
Wednesday 17 July: Term 3 commences for all students
Monday 22 July: Semester 1 reports open to families
Thursday 25 July, 2:00-7:00pm: Year 10 Pathways Parent Interviews (Online)
Thursday 1 August, 4:30-7:30pm: VCE/VM Subject Conferences (Online)
Friday 9 August: Mary MacKillop Feast Day Celebrations – Early Finish 2:30pm
Thursday 29 August, 3:40-8:00pm: Years 7-10 P/T/S Conferences (Face-to-Face)
Friday 30 August, 8:30am-2:00pm: Year 7-10 P/T/S Conferences (Online) – Student-free Day
It’s always busy in the Performing Arts. We have had a very big first semester and lots to look forward to in the coming months. We’ve had MMADD Day which is always a highlight of the year. The Instrumental concert series at the end of Term 2, 4-24 June, went extremely well and was well attended. These concerts are a wonderful way for the students to be able to perform for their friends and family and show all the new skills they have gained over the semester. This is also a great way to gain more performance experience in a safe and supportive environment. Congratulations to all in the Instrumental program that took this opportunity to perform. The next big concert for the Instrumental program will be 12 September. This concert will feature large ensemble pieces using students from across all instruments making music together. It’s going to be a special night.
We are in the midst of rehearsal for Variety Night, Moments in Time, a specially written show for the 60th Anniversary of the opening of MSJ, highlighting some of the special times had over the years. The cast and band are working hard to bring you this show so please come and join us, especially our alumni. The show is free to attend, enjoy BYO food and drinks and a cabaret style evening of song, dance and comedy. It will also be the inaugural performance on our new Yamaha C3 grand piano.
Dates for your diary: Moments in Time, 22 August, 7pm in the MMC
Instrumental Performance Night, 12 September, 7pm
MMADD Day is always a blast! It is a day to celebrate art in all forms - Music, Media, Art, Drama and Dance. This year’s focus was Media, specifically the world of Gaming.
Our day began with an assembly where some of our music students showcased their talents to the school community, followed by our guest speaker for the day, Lisy Kane, a videogames producer and co-founder of Girl Geek Academy. Lisy was an inspirational and engaging speaker who showed that there is a path for young women in technology, whether it be through STEM or the arts. No two journeys are the same.
The workshops for the day revolved around playing games in person and online, designing, coding and developing games, creating characters through costume, painting, headdresses and even learning to move like video game characters using self-defence techniques.
But the highlight of the day for the students is always the House performance competition. The Year 7 and 12 students from each house join together to represent their house. Each House was given a game to take their music, costumes and settings from, and they did not disappoint. It was a wonderful spectacle of animation and movement, music, dance and colourful characters. It is obvious the work that has gone into choreographing and learning the dances over days and weeks. Rehearsals are intense but filled with laughter, fun and collaboration. It is a special day for all involved, students and teachers alike, all embracing the chance to wear costumes. But we will not talk about the staff dance…
Trudi Camilleri - Music and Performing Arts Coordinator
On Thursday 9 May, three members of the Year 12 Physics class went to the Williams Angliss Institute in the city to attend the Girls in Physics Breakfast. We were surrounded by other like minded physics students as well as female physicists who represented a wide range of fields and were keen to share their experiences and passions with us. Our main presenter, Professor Susan Coppersmith from UNSW, spoke about Quantum Computers as well as her pathway into physics and how you go from learning physics in a classroom to being on the cutting edge of breakthroughs in science. Overall, this excursion was a valuable experience and gave me an insight as to the possibilities in pursuing a career in physics.
Jade Longmuir - Senior Providence 1
Year 9 students Gargi Amit & Manuela Cano Salas were chosen to attend sheCommerce. This is an immersive and academic enrichment program delivered by the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Business and Economics. sheCommerce is for Year 9-12 high school students who idare passionate about leadership and pursuing a career where they can impact change. The program allows students to meet like-minded peers, current Bachelor of Commerce students, alumni and inspiring academics who are making a difference in industry and through their research.
From Gargi:
'sheCommerce' was an immensely enriching and amazing experience. On our first day, we had a workshop on Economics and Marketing by Australia's leading professor. Programs like sheCommerce encourage women to have a career pathway in fields where there are not a lot of women present. When I received the email that I had gotten selected, I was really surprised that out of more than 500 applicants, I had been selected.
From Manuela:
I got selected for the selective program at the University of Melbourne for SheCommerce. Out of over 500 girls who applied they only selected 125 and I was lucky enough to be one of them. The selection process was only answering some questions and then sending your responses within a 100 word limit . When you got selected they sent out an email offering you a day workshop where you had two lectures and then lunch. The two lectures were two hours long and they had multiple guest speakers there. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet many like minded girls from all over melbourne and different schools and what they taught us within those lectures was extremely valuable and could be applied within your day to day life. The food was also extremely good.
Gargi and Manuela will also participate in Girl Power In Engineering and IT. Commencing in Year 9, approximately 40 (out of appox. 700-800 applicants) students are selected to participate in the camp during the July term holidays, where they will have the opportunity to:
Joseph’s Corner extends heartfelt thanks to our community for your ongoing support, especially for our role in making the High Tea in April such a fabulous event. Many attendees commented on the wonderful atmosphere and the strong sense of community. Building on this success, Joseph’s Corner is expanding its database to connect with new clients in the western suburbs. While they have traditionally relied on word of mouth, they now aim to reach a wider audience so more people in need can access their support.
How can you help? They would greatly appreciate it if you could "like" their new Facebook cover page. This simple gesture will help Joseph’s Corner reach those who are struggling and may not yet know about the support available to them. Click below to visit their new Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/Merrijig
On Tuesday 14 May, we hosted the annual Year 10 Reflection Day, perfectly aligning with the current Year 10 Religious Education curriculum and setting a strong foundation for future coursework. This event was designed to delve into the nine aspects of religion, fostering interfaith dialogue, healing, and reconciliation among students.
The day began with an engaging Aboriginal Spirituality workshop led by Kiera Hunter and Hailey George from Djirri Djirr, a Wurundjeri women's dance group. Students were warmly welcomed, learning about Aboriginal culture, language, ceremonies, and rituals, and were inspired through active participation in traditional dance.
In the afternoon, students embarked on a unique journey, visiting various places of worship and museums. We extend our gratitude to the facilitators who generously opened their sacred spaces to our community, providing our students with a meaningful and educational experience. This immersion into different religious environments helped students gain a deeper understanding of diverse religious practices and beliefs, promoting respect, tolerance, cultural awareness, and critical thinking about their own values and perspectives.
The places visited included:
"I enjoyed visiting the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. Observing its unique characteristics gave me an insightful perspective on how the religion operates." - Emma Andrade-Diaz, Year 10 student
"The Jewish Synagogue was fascinating. We learned about a religion unfamiliar to us and fully immersed ourselves in its environment." - Hannah Brewer & Amelia Bui, Year 10 students
“As part of the Year 10 Religious Education in Term 2, students were given the opportunity to visit eight different places of worship across Melbourne. We are fortunate to live in such a multicultural, pluralistic society that the students were able to witness the different faiths they are learning about in real life with their own eyes. When we learn about others, we learn more about ourselves and our own faith.” – Robert Herrera, Faith and Identity Curriculum Leader
Statements have been emailed to families 18 June 2024.
For those families that do not have a regular, scheduled payment arrangement in place, we would kindly remind you that your fees should be approximately 65% settled by the end of June (as we aim to have fees paid in full by September).
If you already have a payment plan in place, please retain the statement for your records.
For families paying by term instalments please note, the 3rd instalment is due 23 July 2024.
Your assistance in ensuring that your account is up to date is greatly appreciated.
Daniel O’Malley - Business Manager
There have been lots of fun and interesting things happening in the Learning Resource Centre this term.
In Makerspace, students made a trinket dish from air dry clay. The students used clay rollers and stencils to create their individual designs, which they then varnished. The next Makerspace project is polymer clay jewellery.
Monday is Tech Club day! This week, we had Year 11 students running a Sphero lunchtime challenge to see who could program the robot ball to reach the centre of the bullseye in the least number of moves - thank you Bianca Anderson for your organisation and coordination!
On Tuesdays, Photography Club students have been learning about editing photos and using the DSLR cameras. They’ve taken photos of the beautiful autumn leaves around our school, they’ve been investigating shadows and reflections and one day did a scavenger hunt by alphabet.
Also on Tuesdays, we lay out a range of technology for Gaming Club - this term, the students have enjoyed playing on the iPads and many have been competing for the best completion time in ‘Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes!’, a Virtual Reality game where ‘you’re alone in a room with a bomb. Your friends, the “Experts”, have the manual needed to defuse it. But there’s a catch: the Experts can’t see the bomb, so everyone will need to talk it out – fast!’ The Term 2 winners will be announced very soon!
The latest edition of the student magazine Lilium Scribes came out this week with some wonderful stories about MSJ students, including Swara Agrawal’s experience with the Girls on Fire program, Lola Refardt’s Royal Melbourne Show dress design entry and Alice Gill’s Highland dance success. There were also makeup, movie and book reviews, stories on the upcoming Olympic Games and lots of photos from our MMADD (Media, Music, Arts, Dance and Drama) Day celebrations. Congratulations to all the students involved in the magazine - it’s a fantastic edition.
We were so excited to have Hobsons Bay Libraries share some of their tech toys with us for MMADD Day.
Tech toys included Sphero Bolt - a robotic ball used for coding; Sphero Specdrums - app-connected rings that allow you to play a piano; and the interactive Cue Robot. All of these can be borrowed from Hobsons Bay Libraries ‘Library of Things’. Students also enjoyed some quieter MMADD Day activities in the LRC, including building with Lego and crafting bookmarks.
Some of our keen readers have signed up for the 2024 Premiers’ Reading Challenge. The challenge is to read 15 books before 6 September. Our challengers also give each book a star rating out of five and write a brief book review. The challenge at MSJ has been running for most of this term. So far, our 28 challengers have read 155 books - a super impressive achievement. The books they have given five stars include Better than the movies by Lynn Painter, Letters from the inside by John Marsden, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Peski kids: Bear in the woods by R A Spratt, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, The ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan and the Heartstopper graphic novels 1-5 by Alice Oseman. If anyone is looking for a great read, why not try one of these highly recommended books? Most of them are available from the school library and also from council libraries.
The two major displays in the LRC this semester were the CBCA Book of the Year and National Reconciliation Week (27 May - 3 June). As part of Reconciliation Week, we added lots of new titles to our First Nations collection, including Freedom Day - Vincent Lingiari and the story of the wave hill walk-off by Rosie Smiler, Charlie’s Swim by Edith Wright and Charmain Leaden-Lewis, Storm warning by Lauren Boyle and Alyssa Mason, The Little Red Yellow Black Book: An introduction to Indigenous Australia, Koori Princess by Anita Heiss, Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson, Songlines The Power and Promise by Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly, We Come With This Place by Debra Dank and Uncle Xbox by Jared Thomas.
We also added to our Fantasy and Love Stories collections with The prisoner’s throne by Holly Black and the Twin Crowns series by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber, The woven kingdom series by Tahareh Mafi and the Withering by Sea series by Judith Rossell. Judith is visiting MSJ next term as part of our Book Week celebrations. Tristan Bancks, the author of Detention, which the Year 7s are studying, is also visiting MSJ next term.
Enjoy the holidays. We hope you find time to relax with a good book.
The Learning Resource Centre Team
On Wednesday 5 June, five members of the Student Leadership Team including the College Captains, Wellbeing Leader, Co-curricular Leader and Diversity Leader, made the long trek to Melbourne Girls' College via public transport. MGC’s large leadership team had planned and executed the day perfectly. The conference included guest speakers and activities. It began informatively with two brilliant guest speakers who motivationally encouraged us to go beyond and push our limits in the things we pursue. In attendance were a range of other schools from University High to Siena College. We participated in fun games, such as agree or disagree, which challenged perceptions and sparked debates between the different schools on topics that included same sex schools, cancel culture and use of AI in the classroom. We explored teamwork and worked together in small groups with other schools to overcome challenges such as ranking items to survive on the moon. At the end of the day, we shared ideas from each of the schools and learnt how different leadership systems operated. We learnt valuable ideas and overall had a great day at the beautiful Melbourne Girls' College campus. Thank you to Ms Simcic and Mr McCartney for taking us!
Sarah Trigger (2024 College Captain)
