Magdalene Catholic High School
Newsletter Vol 20 Term: 3 Week 9 - 21 September 2018
Principal's Blog
CARRINGTON AGED-CARE INTERGENERATIONAL PROJECT
Last Tuesday I had the absolute pleasure of attending the final presentations for the 2018 Carrington Aged-Care Intergenerational Project.
Our Year 11 students: Aleesha Austin, Annabelle Azzi, Kirsten Burgess, Caitlyn Burke, Kyle Burland, Kayla Ciccone, Zoe Cooper, Lara Davison, Emily Grech, Evelyn Jeffs, Selena Khuth-Lopes, Tara Lewis, Elizabeth Lopez, Tess Mullin, Gemma Nelson, Monique Newton, Alysha Olegario, Emily Said and Arianna Vella have been incredibly generous with their time over the past three months and have involved themselves in a meaningful manner.
The Project itself sees our students partner with residents from Carrington Aged Care. Two to three students are matched with each older person and they visited them every week during Tuesday sport (across Terms Two and Three). These meetings allowed our students to listen to the resident’s story, learn about their lives and hear the wisdom of residents (who often reflect/ed on key life lessons).
The beauty of these visits is that wonderful connections are built and the residents are given the opportunity to share and reminisce significant events and people in their lives, as well as the seemingly “little things” which have provided meaning to even mundane moments. Speaking to our students I know they felt privileged to be able to share such personal tales.
The final presentations saw students share PowerPoint Presentations which included photographs of the residents’ lives, wonderful anecdotes, music and stories about families, work, joys, sorrows, etc. These presentations were shared collectively with residents and family members and at times there wasn’t a dry eye in the Hall.
I felt very proud to attend and see our students shine. I particularly would like to thank Mrs Shareen Borg for her tireless work in organising students and the programme itself. I also thank Mr Collins for assisting with transport.
I look forward to our ongoing connection with Carrington Care as this project moves into its ninth year in 2019
FINAL WEEK FOR YEAR 12
Next week is a significant week for our Year 12s as various events, their final day, Picnic Afternoon, Breakfast, Final Assembly and Graduation Mass & Awards Night occur. I would publically like to thank our Year 12 cohort of 2018. They have been excellent role models and have very much understood the values of Magdalene and what we stand for.
I look forward to all of the events next week and look forward to capturing these special moments in a subsequent newsletter.
Prayer
At times of need, we can all find great solace in the Lord. The following prayer is quite a lovely one as it provides the opportunity to stay open to the Spirit.
Healing Prayer of Surrender
Dear Lord Jesus, it is my will to surrender to You everything that I am and everything that I’m striving to be. I open the deepest recesses of my heart and invite Your Holy Spirit to dwell inside of me.
I offer You my life, heart, mind, body, soul, spirit, all my hopes, plans and dreams. I surrender to You my past, present and future problems, habits, character defects, attitudes, livelihood, resources, finances, medical coverage, occupation and all my relationships.
I give You my health, physical appearance, disabilities, family, marriage, children and friendships. I ask You to take Lordship over every aspect of my life. I surrender to You all of my hurt, pain, worry, doubt, fear and anxiety, and I ask You to wash me clean.
I release everything into Your compassionate care. Please speak to me clearly, Lord. Open my ears to hear Your voice. Open my heart to commune with You more deeply. I want to feel Your loving embrace. Open the doors that need to be opened and close the doors that need to be closed. Please set my feet upon the straight and narrow road that leads to everlasting life. Amen.
A message from the Principal.
Peer Acknowledgement Awards
Year 10 - Larissa Hooper - Assisting others with their learning
Year 11 - Henry Zhang - Assisting others with their learning
Year 12 - Katelyn Beller - Commitment to learning
Year 7 - Amelia Musico - Committed to helping others with their learning
Year 8 - Sara Papandrea - Committed to learning
Year 9 - Beau Severin - Committed to learning and assisting others with their learning.
Naplan Results released
All students received their NAPLAN results on Wednesday of Week 9 in the form of Student Reports. Student Reports give an overview of individual student achievement as well as achievement against National Minimum Standards (NMS).
Year 7 reports show Bands 4 to 9, with the NMS at Band 5. Year 9 reports show Bands 5 to 10, with the NMS at Band 6.
NAPLAN offers insight into critical Literacy and Numeracy skills at key stages of learning. At a school level, staff will be using 2018 NAPLAN data to inform their teaching and design learning interventions and extensions.
Please contact Miss Stephanie Phillips if you have any questions about your child’s results.
Miss S. Phillips
English Coordinator (acting)
Literacy Teacher
Mathematics
mBot Coding Competition – Magdalene Catholic High School
Last week Magdalene was represented by three teams of year 7 students (Kate Williams, Cynthia David, Charlie Roberts, Sophia Wolf and Declan Bone-Wright). They participated in a coding and robotics competition at St Clare’s Narellan Vale. Students entered two of the three competitions (Sumo wrestling and Dancing). The Sumo challenge involved students designing and programming an mBot to find their opponent on an 80cm round Sumo ring and then push them out of the ring. In the dance challenge, students were given a song and then had 30 minutes to program and code their mBot to dance to the song.
During the day students constantly worked on improving their code skills and were fully engaged on all aspects of the competition, they constantly evaluated their performance and in the 30 seconds between rounds made changes to their code to improve their performance. The thing that impressed me the most was that our students identified younger primary school students that were having problems with coding and went out of their to help them improve their code.
Congratulations to all three teams they all now progress to the grand final in October and a special mention to Declan who was unbeaten in the Sumo category.
Danny Avalos
Learning Technologies Coordinator
Magdalene Catholic High School
Careers News
UNSW Civil and Environmental Engineering Work Experience Program 2018
Recently Jeremiah Chan from Year 10 was a successful applicant for an organised week of work experience with the University of New South Wales. During the week he participated in visits, laboratory work and information sessions about Civil and Environmental Engineering courses and careers. The University’s message to me was: “Your student was part of a bright and enthusiastic group from schools around the state, and we were pleased to have him attend for the week.”
Congratulations to Jeremiah on his drive to succeed!
Mrs Dobbie
SPORTS NEWS
Term 3 MISA Boys Basketball Team
Diocesan Athletics Carnival
On the 16th of August, the Magdalene Athletics Team competed at the Diocesan Athletics Carnival held at Campbelltown Sports Stadium. All competitors gave of their best displaying positive spirit and good sportsmanship. There were some standout performances on the day and all the students enjoyed the experience of the next level of competition.
Thanks to the following people for assisting on the day:
Mr Chapman, Mr Bubb, Kate McDermott (Sports Captain), Connor McFarlane (School Captain).
Mr Kennedy
Standout performances:
Koby King: 1st in U12s 800M and 1500M (Qualified for NSWCCC)
Sofie Kourembes: 2nd in U12s High Jump
Samuel Speakman: 3rd in U13s Shotput
Katarina Wojcik: 2nd in U12s Discuss
Jack Zitignani: 2nd in U13s 200M and 3rd in 100M
Luke Small: great performances in all his events (Qualified for NSWCCC)
Mia Warby: 2nd in U14s Shot Put
Tyrone Fergie: 1st in U15s Long Jump and 1st in Triple Jump (Qualified for NSWCCC)
Blair Hopkins: 1st in U15s 1500M and 2nd in 800M (Qualified for NSWCCC)
Jessica Kourembes: 3rd in U15s 400M
Aleesha Austin: 2nd in U16s 1500M (Qualified for NSWCCC)
Congratulations
Congratulations to all of our students who were involved in this success.
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COMMUNITY NEWS
NOTICEBOARD
Magdalene Catholic High School
Email: info@mchsdow.catholic.edu.au
Website: mchsdow.catholic.edu.au
Location: Smeaton Grange, New South Wales, Australia
Phone: 02 4631 3300
Facebook: facebook.com/magdalenecatholichigh
Twitter: @mchsnarellan