Learning  

Dear Parents and Guardians 

In our final newsletter of 2025, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting your daughter’s learning.  One of the highlights of teaching is seeing the progress students make and watching students rise to, and overcome, challenges. The learning process is not easy, students are required to think hard, continually revise content and practise using the knowledge and skills they learn in order to store it in their long term memory.  It is wonderful to be able to see so many put in the effort and achieve things they never thought possible, whether that be speaking to a room full of parents, achieving an award, passing a Maths test, scoring 5 points in a basketball game, performing on stage or communicating with people in a different language.  

The Celebration of Excellence was a wonderful evening celebrating the success of our high achievers in their studies, performing arts, sports and justice.  The evening culminated in a speech by our 2026 College Co-Captains Zoe Dafnias and Grace Tull. Using Zoe’s and Grace’s words, I would like to congratulate all the award winners for their ‘passion for learning, their efforts, hard work and determination throughout the year and setting goals that motivate them to grow.’  The award winners demonstrate ‘a passion for learning that has inspired their peers, teachers, families and friends and ensures our world and society continue to evolve with time.  ’The 2025 College Theme is ‘Courage to Care’ and these students have shown ‘the courage to overcome bumps in the road and demonstrate true commitment and care for the privilege of education that they are fortunate to receive.’ 

As a Premier Learning Community and a Mercy school, it is important that we celebrate both growth and excellence.  This year, we were able to celebrate student growth and achievement in Year 9 NAPLAN at our Term 3 Assembly, and I would like to congratulate again our Year 9 Award winners.  ACARA have recently published school growth from Year 7 to Year 9 and I am very proud to announce that our Year 9 students, overall as a cohort, have shown above average growth in Reading, Writing and Numeracy.  Congratulations to the Year 9 cohort and their teachers over the last three years. 

During our upcoming Professional Learning Week, our staff will be working with Andrew Fuller, a renowned clinical psychologist, author and speaker.  We will be exploring strategies to build confidence, increase motivation, improve learning and support neurodiverse students.  

In one of his publications about empowering girls, Fuller states that the increased online presence during the pandemic had a more negative impact on girls, for various reasons. One of the impacts he has noticed is that girls are more likely to want to achieve perfection and are less willing to try in case of failure.  He wrote “Everyone makes mistakes. Great people use their mistakes to get smarter and stronger.  You don’t overcome perfectionism by not making mistakes.  You overcome perfectionism by making mistakes and learning how to use that knowledge to create different outcomes in the future.  All great undertakings require overcoming adversity and setbacks.”  

This was reiterated by Chris Cairns, former New Zealand Cricketer, who was our guest speaker at the Fathers’ Day Breakfast, when he talked about success and failure.  He stated that success is rare and that failure comes more readily than success, he explained that failure is inevitable, but it is our biggest teacher.  Failures are not something to push away, instead they are opportunities that we can learn from.   

Reports will be available next week, while the reports are a snapshot of student learning, more detailed feedback can be found on Compass in the Learning Task section.  Many assessments now include rubrics where students can identify the next step in their learning.  I encourage you to look through the feedback on the learning tasks with your daughter, celebrate her successes as well as looking at what mistakes were made and what can be learned from these to achieve greater things in the future. 

Finally, Sam Di Camillo has provided information about the Social Media Ban that starts on 10 December for under 16s.  Many students might be wondering what they are going to do, here are some suggestions:

• Pick up a book and experience the joy of reading; 
• Enjoy the outdoors; 

• Take time to connect with each other in person. 

   

Perhaps, I should self-impose a social media ban and limit screen time so that I can also spend more time reading over the holidays! 

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you all have a safe and happy holiday.  I look forward to seeing you and working with you all in 2026. 

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or feedback. 

Ms Lucy Neil 

Deputy Principal – Learning and Teaching