Student Wellbeing

YearIt would be true to say that a lot can happen in a month….Our Year 12’s have finished their exams, our Years 9-11 have had their semester 2 exams, we are now in Step-Up for 2025, and we have had much to celebrate.

Awards Assembly

As previously mentioned in our last Marian News, our Awards Assembly was held this Monday 25th November. We celebrated the achievements of over 140 students who demonstrate one of the following core values of our school. 

• These are: Strength and Kindness, 
• Living with Hope, 
• Joy and Wonder
• Welcoming and Including All
• Practicing Justice and Service
• Love of Learning 

Year 7

Year 8

Year 9

Year 10

Year 11

We also recognised those students one from each level that received the Delany awards for:

• Achievement and Endeavour
• Sporting Achievement and Endeavour
• Performing Arts Achievement and Endeavour 

We had over 150 parents who attended the assembly and shared in the achievements of their children. This was such a pleasing part of the process to see many of our families share the morning with us.

In this edition of the Marian News, we will acknowledge all of our recipients. Any opportunity to recognise and celebrate achievements a good morning.

Student Leadership Process Since our last newsletter, we have carried out the election of our student leaders for 2025 in the following areas from Years 8 to 11.These roles are: Student Representative Council – two representatives at the level. House Captains – two representatives of each house at each level. We will elect our Student Participation representatives at the beginning of 2025.

We have also carried out the election process for our Social Justice Leaders. It is so very pleasing to see so many of our students willing to put their hand up for student leadership knowing that they have the ability to make a difference in our community. We look forward to sharing their work in 2025.

Risk Assessment for Big Day Out

We have carried out the risk assessment of Adventure Park Geelong in anticipation of our visit there on Wednesday 4th December for our 2025 students from Years 8-10. We acknowledge the work of Mrs Stafford and Ms Piccione who carried out the assessment to ensure that we have identified all of the possible risks on the day and how

we can reduce the impact of these risks on our community. We know that this will be a great day for all who attend.

Work of our Parent Child Safety Sub-Committee 

Given that we have reached the end of the school year, it is appropriate at this time to thank those parents who have joined the committee and contributed to making our community a safer place all children at Marian. At our final meeting, we identified ways that we can share with our parent community what the school is doing in the child safety space to keep all students safe. We look forward to sharing this with the community in 2025.

Wellbeing Framework 

Our wellbeing staff in the second half of the year have been working on developing a Wellbeing Framework for our community. This framework has clear goals and principles around how we build positive build authentic relationships that engage our students as learners, how we provide a safe environment for them to learn and how we empower them to have a say in the decision-making processes of the school. It also links to our pastoral program from Years 7-12 around resilience, rights and responsibilities, relationships and reaching out. This will work to develop our young people from a wellbeing and learning perspective and give them the opportunity to make a difference in the world that they will enter when they leave our community. We look forward to launching this with our community in 2025.

Step Up Program

With the start of our Step Up program, we continue to monitor those students from a wellbeing perspective that struggle with this change to ensure that this transition is as smooth as it could be. We know from our experience last year, that if we address these issues now that when our students return in 2025 they will be ready to begin learning from day 1, given that they have had work to do over the holidays in preparation of day 1.

With the arrival of Advent this week, may we remember the very small child that will be born in a manger that offers us hope and light of what our world can be. May we remember that light over Christmas and have a safe and happy festive season.

Kerrie Williams – Assistant to the Principal – Student Wellbeing