From the Principal

Dear Parents/Carers, Students and Friends of St Virgil’s,

Treaty Match 

Each year the St Virgil’s College Treaty Day Football Match is played as close to the 6 August. The date is of great significance as it marks the day that George Augustus Robinson shook hands with Mannalargenna, the leader of the Northeast Pairrebeenne clan, making an agreement that many believe compelled the Aboriginal people to go peacefully to Flinders Island on the understanding that they would one day be allowed to return to their Country. 

Treaty Match is played between two teams of mixed Year 9 and 10 students because Tasmanian Aboriginal history and Treaty and Land Rights have direct links to the Year 9 and 10 curriculum across several subjects. The teams wear Reconciliation jumpers, designed by SVC students using motifs describing the plants, animals and landscapes of muwinina Country. Both year groups experienced a focused presentation by Tasmanian Aboriginal Elders and community members about Treaty before partaking in the match. This whole school event began with an Acknowledgement of Country and Smoking Ceremony and concluded with several individual match awards and participation certificates for all players. I thank Mrs Bridget Jenkins – Head of Reconciliation Education for her coordination of this important event and the Year 9-10 students who participated on the day. Treaty Match is an authentic expression of our values and mission as a Catholic school in the Edmund Rice tradition committed to and building a more just and reconciled society.

Saint Mary MacKillop

 Next week during morning prayer we will celebrate the life of one Australian who ran the race to the end, kept the faith and in doing so created a greater legacy for Australia. Next Tuesday is the feast day of Saint Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first officially recognised saint. Starting her race in the humble town of Penola, Mary MacKillop’s journey to provide schools, orphanages and shelters for the poor, the young, the homeless and destitute, the aged and the infirm, and those suffering in our society, driven not by a quest for glory but by love of God and her fellow humans. And in its simplicity and focus, an example anyone can emulate, in small or large ways.

Feast of the Assumption 

There used to be a number ‘Holy Days of Obligation’ in the Catholic calendar – special days, apart from Sunday, when Catholics are expected to attend mass. Now, apart from the obvious example of Christmas, the only one that really stands out is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary on the 15 August when we will celebrate mass as a school. The Assumption of Mary is a quandary to some and a mystery to all. Trying to make sense of it to school students during a Religious Education lesson is something of a challenge, and I do not feel I have ever successfully conveyed an adequate sense of its meaning. However, given the special devotion Blessed Edmund Rice had for Mary, we have extra reason to give time to the mystery that surrounds the Mother of God.

Christians hope for life beyond the grave, and the Feast of the Assumption celebrates the living truth that Christ’s promises of life after death are not empty. Mary is that living truth – assumed ‘bodily’ into heaven after her death. Our bodies are an integral part of our humanity, and the love of God extends to our whole being, eternally. The ‘living truth’ of Mary becomes more than an abstract hope in the future, when it comes to us in the form of people who live out the spirit of Mary in our world. Devotion to Mary is a central strand of a Catholic spirituality. It is devotion to a figure who herself lived a life of unconditional loving devotion to her son, Jesus. Such a love transcends the rational but is always true. And as with Mary, it combines loving contemplation of the divine, with humble actions of love towards others, particularly those in need.

Turning to Mary in times of need, including desperate need, is not the superstition some characterise it as. Our reasoning is not always enough, and our hearts can point us to a deeper truth, that of the eternal and undefeatable love of Mary for her Son, a love which also encompasses us.

2024 Year 9&10 Subject Selection Evening 

On Thursday 31 August Year 8 and 9 students and their families will gather in the Joyce Performance Centre from 6.00 pm to discuss subject selections for 2024. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the subjects on offer, subject pathways and learn about senior secondary education and the Tasmanian Certificate of Education. Students and parents will also have an opportunity to speak with Heads of Department to discuss options for 2024. As such I encourage all students and parents to attend this important evening. An invitation to this event has been sent via EdSmart.

Student Free Day – Senior School 

On Friday 1 September, the Senior School will hold a Student Free Day. Senior Secondary staff will participate in a moderation day with other Senior Secondary teachers across the state from Government, Catholic and Independent schools. The purpose of moderation provides teachers with an opportunity to work on and how to improve student learning outcomes and improve consistency of judgements. These connections with other senior secondary teachers will be highly important for our teaching staff with the introduction of Year 11 this year and our first cohort of Year 12 commencing in 2024. As such, students will not be required to attend the senior school on this day.

Best wishes for the week ahead.

Jon Franzin

PRINCIPAL