Around the College

ANZAC Day Service

Pedagogy and Student Performance Leader, Patrick McCarthy, organized a poignant ANZAC Day service at our school. Students participated in readings, led a prayer, and laid a wreath, while our School Choir, led by Meg Doherty, sang the national anthem. This year, we were honoured to have one of our students represent his cadet unit, 317, and raise the flag in remembrance. Learning Leader for Arts & Technology and Instrumental Music Coordinator, Beth Winterhalter, played the Last Post. Thank you to all who participated in the service.

ANZAC Day Bake Sale

Our 12 Youth Ministry Team organised an ANZAC day bake sale where students and teachers kindly donated their time and resources to make some delicious ANZAC biscuits and slices. 

We aimed to raise money for RSL Australia to support the service men and women who sacrifice their time to protect and serve our country. We sold biscuits during lunch times on Tuesday the 23rd and Wednesday the 24th of April. We originally estimated that our sale would raise around $150 but combined with the chocolate toss event and the teacher fundraiser, the total amount raised from this communal effort was $371.53. This was much more money than we anticipated, and we would like to thank everyone who participated in the organisation of this event and are grateful also to those who gave their money to purchase these goods.

By Katie, Skáy, Christian, Seth, & Zac

VCE Theatre Studies Presents: Murder Among the Manuscripts 

The VCE Theatre Studies class will present their play, Murder Among the Manuscripts on Tuesday the 14th of May at Coal Creek Community Park and Museum, in the Pig and Whistle building. The classic Murder Mystery play features seven Year 11 and 12 students playing traditional Who Dunnit-style characters. Throughout the play, audiences will be enticed to solve the murder of Leonardo Craven, the rich billionaire recluse. The dark comedy plays homage to Film Noir music techniques and will take audiences on a tension-fueled journey of red herrings, motives, and accusations. 

The play is free to Mary Mackillop students, friends, and family. Please see the poster for ticket purchasing details. We welcome everyone to come along and support the VCE production and solve the murder. 

Girl Guides National Camp

Charlie Graham-Cross, a Year 8 student, recently attended the Governor General Camp in Canberra, the national Girl Guides camp. Embarking on a 12-hour bus trip from Cranbourne, Charlie was chosen to participate due to her outstanding leadership and communication skills. Throughout the camp, which took place from the 13th to the 19th, Charlie engaged in various activities on and off-site. The first day included visits to Questacon and The War Memorial, while the following days were dedicated to on-site activities. Evenings were filled with entertainment, including an Opening Ceremony, a bonfire, a magic show featuring Matt Hollywood, a talent show (where Charlie performed), and a Closing Ceremony followed by a disco. Charlie's participation in the camp was recently highlighted in the most recent edition of The South Gippsland Sentinel-Times.

Year 7 Gipps Tech Excursion

Year 7 students visited Gipps Tech this week to participate in ' A Renewable Future'.  During this program, students investigated the advantages and disadvantages of generating energy from renewable sources and some of the different ways that this can be achieved. They experimented with solar and wind energy generation and investigated energy storage as a way to combat one of the major challenges of renewable energy, intermittency.  Hydrogen was produced by electrolysis and used to produce electricity via a fuel cell. Students concluded their day by using their learning to design, build and test a model city with a focus on liveability, and powering their project using renewable energy.

Easter Liturgy 

Lent and Easter week are some of the most important weeks to the Catholic Church - they are the weeks in which we remember Jesus' death and resurrection from the dead. This is significant to the Catholic Church because it demonstrates the true power of Jesus’s love for His people, through sacrificing his own life. Catholics spend the 40 days of Lent giving up something in their life, to pay tribute to the 40 days and 40 nights Jesus spent fasting in the desert and being tempted by Satan. After this comes Easter, beginning with Palm Sunday, on which Jesus entered Jerusalem; then about a week later, Maundy Thursday,  the night which Jesus shared the last supper with his disciples before Judas betrayed him and he was arrested. Good Friday, the day on which Jesus was forced to carry his own cross and was brutally crucified; and finally Easter Sunday, on which Jesus rose from the dead. 40 days later, He rose into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. 

As we prepared ourselves for the Easter liturgy we had to get props made, write a script, a running sheet for our performance, and make time for rehearsal. Thanks to the maintenance staff and drama teachers, for making it easier by helping with the props. We had a busy term 1 with three Youth Ministry lessons a week to try to get this all perfect. While it was very stressful for us all, we got it done in the end, despite Ms Roscoe having kittens, everyone handled it like a superstar. At the start of each lesson, we split off into our allocated groups to cover different parts of our liturgy. We had a group who created the PowerPoint for the background while the liturgy was on, a group of readers who read off the PowerPoint, and a group of actors performing what was being read. We also wanted to engage the year 7s by getting them to make the candles for us.

The final day of term was filled with nerves for the team creating the liturgy, we had spent the whole term preparing. The performance went well, Seth (Jesus) sailed through the scenes bringing the story to life, along with the help of his disciples and the readers. The junior school students joined us on stage to bring light into the world through their creation of lanterns.  Mr Peace brought a modern interpretation of the values associated with the station that Veronica was involved in. Also, Mrs Roscoe-Smith came on to the stage to demonstrate how brutal Jesus’s death was, and how we compare it to the fictionalized stories of today. Finally, new life was brought onto the stage through Ms. Parry and Teniel bringing their newborn babies. Our performance took around half an hour and was an example of hard work from the Youth Min team.

We would like to thank first off Mrs Roscoe for the amazing work that she does for the Youth Min team. Also, we would like to thank, the year 12 youth min class, Mrs Mauranty (costumes), Ken and Boyd (structural design), Mrs Parry and Teneil for bringing in their babies, Mr Blencowe (lighting and presentation), Mrs Leslie and Mrs Buccilli (yr 7 organizations), Robbie (maintenance) and Yr 11 youth min students for filling in. 

Thanks for reading, 

From Ella C, Sophie K, Jasmine T, Laila W, Rebekah R, Ashlea GW, Alice E