Principal 

Dear Academy Community,

Welcome to the 2022 School Year!  May it be a happy and rewarding year for each and every member of our wonderful College community. 

2022 is a new beginning for all. It is certainly an exciting new beginning for our Year 7 students and we are delighted to formally welcome them into the College as Academy students.   

I offer a special welcome to all our Year 7 students and also to the new students across other year levels. I trust that they are already feeling at home and have enjoyed their first days at the Academy of Mary Immaculate. A warm welcome, too, to our new parents and families.

A school without students is a somewhat empty place and it was delightful to see our girls back at the College and to witness the joy with which they greeted each other and their obvious pleasure at being back at the Academy.

Year 7 students have spent a significant period of time over the past couple of days with their Year 12 Big Sisters engaged in a number of activities including a tour of the College and support in setting up their laptops.  Hopefully this positive relationship between the oldest and youngest members of our community will continue throughout the year with the Year 12 students offering support and friendship to the Year 7 students during their first year at the Academy. 

This week began with our whole school College Mass – a very significant event in the College calendar.  In addition to Mass we also welcomed back and congratulated our 2021 VCE High Achievers and acknowledged our Senior Student Leadership team.  The Year 7 Little Sisters of our Leaders had a significant role in the Investiture ceremony through their participation in the blazer ritual.  We are very proud of our 2022 Senior Student Leadership Team and we look forward to the leadership they will offer the College this year.

Our College theme this year is, most appropriately, “Together in Mercy”.    This theme was chosen by our 2022 Senior Student Leadership team and is a call and a challenge for each of us to reconnect with each other, to acknowledge that it is the Mercy charism that binds us together and to move forward as one strong and united community.  We look forward to our Senior Student Leadership Team further unpacking this theme throughout the year.  

Congratulations to 2021 Dux of the College, Francesca Perri for her excellent speech delivered at the Assembly, reflecting on her time at the College and providing advice to our student body on how to achieve success.   Congratulations, too, to 2022 College Captain Ruby Hoare and Justice Captain, Yasmin Pitisano for their very meaningful inaugural speeches to the College Community. View our Gallery here, or watch the opening College Mass here.

While for the second year in a row, our Opening Mass and Assembly had to be an online event, this did not detract from the feeling of connectedness that permeated the ceremony.  Students participated from their Mentor Group rooms with our College Leaders and their Little Sisters onsite in the Dillon Centre. 

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our new members of staff:

Ms Liz Rush, English and Religious Education. Ms Hannah Hale, Religious Education 

Ms Marie Claire Charchar, Biology and Science. Ms Elena Camera, English Language and Italian

We were also delighted to welcome back to the College, Ms Alex Cowin after a year of Parental Leave.  I am also sure you will share our joy in the safe arrival of Mrs Marie McCarthy’s son Theodore Huan McCarthy (to be known as Theo). 

At the Academy of Mary Immaculate, we are committed to being a nurturing, child-safe school where our students are respected, their voices are heard, and where they are safe and feel safe. Our commitment and responsibility to child safety is driven by Jesus Christ’s message of hope, love and care for all. Please read more on our comprehensive approach here and feedback is always welcome.

Please take time to read some important messages from College operations on the iNFORMATION page.

May the academic year begin well for you and may God favour us all with many blessings. 

Every blessing,

Sr Mary Moloney rsm 

Principal

Loving God, we come to you at this new beginning of the school year.

We have been many places during the summer and our journey has brought us back to this place and to this time together.

We know that this is not by accident, but by your intimate design for each of us.

As we turn towards you at the beginning of this year as a school community, we begin by saying thank you--- thank you for this call to service in this community.

Thank you for where we are on our journey and for the journey ahead.

Thank you for where we are on the path of our life.

Be with us as we begin the year.

Steady our hearts and our minds to be open to what is being constantly revealed through your loving presence.

Give us joy-filled hearts-- a warm and friendly attitude that is open to the movement of your spirit and to others.

We ask these things through Christ our Lord

Amen