We are now heading towards the second part of Term 3 and we start to see a little more sun, the spring blossom starting to make an appearance, and we start to move out of the winter darkness we should recognise some of the work that has been happening over this term….

Student Representative Council – Bullying NO WAY

Over the first part of this term the Student Representative Council have been working on collecting data from our community in relation to Bullying and Harassment – both at school and online.

This has involved the Student Body looking at the questions that they have created for the survey and seeking advise from their levels as to how we could effectively carry out the survey.

This took place last week which was BULLYING NO WAY WEEK and involved distribution of purple ribbons on Friday to our Years 7-10 and orange ribbons and wristbands to our Seniors that support the theme of:

BE BOLD, BE KIND and SPEAK UP

We have collected data from about 40% of the school community and the student leaders have started to analyse this data and we look forward to sharing this information with our parent community.

The student leaders will present this data to the student body at the end of term assembly on Wednesday 10th September.

The next part of the work of the Student Leaders will be on a focus of Child Safety and how we can make this a focus amongst our students – which is particularly linked to our Bullying and Harassment Survey.

Student Leaders representing the School – Celebrating the achievements of Sr Brigid Arthur – former Principal of the College

On Wednesday 4th August our Year 12 Leaders – Alina Nguyen our Lamp Bearer and Swedal Gonsalves – one of our Year 12 Student Representative Council members represented not just Marian College but all KEM schools and a very special presentation to our former Principal – Sr Brigid Arthur.

Sr Brigid received the International Woman of Courage award from the United Nations organisation – UNANIMA – for her work in assisting many refugees to our country and for starting the organisation – Brigidine Asylum Seekers project that support many of our most vulnerable members of our community as they begin new lives in Australia.

No better example do our students have of Servant Leadership than that of Sr Brigid. Our student leaders were in awe of the work of Sr Brigid and her commitment to serve those less vulnerable than herself. She is truly an inspiration to us all.

Sudanese/Burmese Parent Information Night

On Wednesday the 20th of August we held our second gathering of our Sudanese/Burmese families for this year.

This gathering was facilitated by both Ngunsang Liathang and Manyiel Aleth our Liaison Officers and the agenda covered the following key points:

School Update on what is happening
School Reports
Planning for 2026 – Subject Selection etc
Child Safety Update and their thoughts
Presentation of some of the Information from the Bullying and Harassment Survey that we had collected from students
Planning and recommendations for 2026

The families suggested a couple of key points over the evening:

They would like to continue to run both groups together as it builds community
They would like to explore ways of having more contact with the school – what do Parent Teacher interviews look like moving forward?
They are very keen to gain an insight into the key safety aspects of our school when their children are here – school audit
Would like to explore ways of getting more members to the meetings which they think give them a voice – which they believe is very important

We thank our parents who attended the meeting and look forward to sharing more of their work into the future.

New Staff Member - School Nurse

As of Monday 18th August, we are very pleased to inform the community that we now have a school nurse who has joined our staff.

She may be calling you over the next little while to follow up information on your OPEROO profile.

We will also keep you informed of changes to our medical management processes as we work on adjusting these to now meet the needs of our community.

Her name is Sabrina Cornally and we are very happy to welcome her to our community and know that her work her at the College will be invaluable in looking after the needs of our students.

Medical Update

Our Medical management team are now working with our School Nurse who started this week to review or processes and procedures and how we best support the students in our care both when they are on campus and out on excursions and camps.

This is a very exciting step for us and we look forward to sharing with our community our work in this space.

Can we also remind all our families that as we head towards the end of term 3 that we will be asking again for our families to check all of their relevant information on SEQTA to see that it is accurate and the most up to date information.

We are unable to send students home if they are unwell if we cannot contact families and if the people coming to collect them are not listed on our system.

Now we need to remind our community of aspects that make our community a better place….

Uniform Reminders

Sadly, over the course of this term we have found a number of members of our community who are struggling with our uniform expectations in relation to grooming such as false eyelashes or nails or facial piercings. This has required our Community Leaders and Director of Students to either withdraw students or send them home to correct these concerns. We made adjustments to our piercings policy this year – where students can have a plug but not the stud etc during the school day but a number of our students feel that this may not apply to them.

We thank all of our students and families that support our uniform expectations by ensuring that their students are in the correct uniform on a daily basis.

Attendance Reminders

Thank you to all of our families that support our attendance processes by calling the school and confirming that their child is absent for the day and the reason why.

Can we also remind families that if you know that your child has an appointment during the day and needs to leave early, that if they bring a note in the morning that this will be checked by their homeroom teacher and they will be given a leaving early pass that they will present at student reception when they depart.

Finally, a government expectation is that all families explain their child’s absence when this occurs. We remind our families that our expectation is the government expectation. This includes completing the Attendance Follow up documents if your child brings them home.

We are now only a few days before we enter September and near the end of term 3. It is hard to believe that term 4 is just around the corner. How time flies… in the meantime take care of yourself and your wellbeing and check on a friend to see how they are travelling as well.

The strength of a community is its collective wellbeing …

Father's Day Breakfast