From the Principal

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

We have certainly made a fabulous start to Term 3, with student learning and activities now in full swing! I wish to acknowledge the outstanding show of support and engagement by our students, staff and parents in our recent Homeroom Mentoring and SET Planning Meetings. We can proudly proclaim an average 93% participation rate across the Year 7–10-year levels. Thank you to those families who have already expressed their feedback around the worthwhile nature of these conversations and equally, to those of you who have personally contacted our staff members expressing your personal thanks and gratitude.  We look forward to continuing to work with our students in helping to shape their pathways here with us at Mt A and beyond! It is extremely gratifying to have you share this journey in partnership with us.  

In another fine example of our shared partnership and community, it was wonderful to see so many of our students and parents at Mass last Sunday evening embodying a sense of “Faith Hope and Love” for the commencement of Catholic Education Week 2024.  Our Year 7’s and 11's embodied this beautifully on Monday in a drone photograph to celebrate the week. 

A huge congratulations and thanks to our iCentre Team for curating and facilitating Literacy Week last week. The week highlighted yet another phenomenally successful “Read with your Dad” event with author Tristan Bancks. The breadth of engaging activities for our students throughout the week was truly impressive and included our author in residence experience, the launch of our Mt A Cookbook, and a silent disco no less! Great fun for all.  Congratulations and thanks to all who participated, and much gratitude from us all to our fabulous iCentre Team.

Many in our community will have also attended our recent performances of Alice at Wonderland. What a sensation! To the brilliant cast, your performances were all fabulous – witty, engaging and accomplished in every way. Coupled with some of the most creative design, costume and media work I have seen!  Thank you again to the dedicated staff: Karen Farrow, Penny Evans, Justine Hawkins, Eve Longley, Skubi Testa and Claire Hatchman led by Maria Conway for facilitating this experience for our buddying thespians and stage crew. It was a triumphant performance and came with the stamp of approval from our St Anthony’s School visitors on Wednesday morning. Congratulations to all involved.

Link to program.

We also congratulate all of our Academic Achievement and Academic Improvement Award recipients who were presented at our Assembly on Thursday. This assembly showcased our largest cohorts of Gold and Silver Award recipients since we commenced these awards – what an exceptional achievement! It is further evidence of the hard work, dedication and grit of our students and a testament to our mantra of ‘High support, High challenge’. Congratulations to all students who have worked so hard in their strive for improvement and excellence. It was great to see so many parents and carers in attendance as well. We are so proud of our students! 

Our Parent Partnership Panel look forward to hosting with our parent and carers community our very first “Christmas in July” this Saturday. We hope you have a fabulous time together and look forward to sharing some photos from the evening. Kitsch Christmas novelty jumpers are encouraged! We extend our thanks again to our local sponsors for the generous support of this event and to the Parent Partnership Panel for their organisation of what is sure to be a great night.

Kindness is a service. 

In 2024 we have been embracing our Franciscan value of Service, and it has been humbling to watch so many of our students engage in ways that continue to lift their peers up and to serve others. At the commencement of the school year, I spoke to our students and staff of the need to embody kindness as the first expression of service. In some cohorts however, we have recently departed from this objective and instead, some have chosen to embrace acts of unkindness, nastiness, exclusion or at its very worst – behaviours that cause emotional harm to others.’ Mean girls’ behaviours or in their extreme and repetitive format; bullying behaviours, are completely unacceptable at Mount Alvernia College and will not be tolerated. Student behaviour that is not in keeping with our ethos will be followed up and is continually being followed up. 

Our comprehensive personal best program, reflection days, home room programs and assemblies each continue to outline, model and highlight our expectations in relation to positive and respectful relationships. We thank our SRC who are currently working with Ms Licina as important student voices in helping us to identify and remediate these unacceptable behaviours demonstrated by a handful in our community. Our work in this area continues with our students and as always, we ask for parent partnership in helping us to reinforce ‘kindness is a service’ in the safe and responsible use of devices after hours. Together, let’s help our students see the value of kindness for themselves, their peers and others. 

As an advocate of a strengths-based approach to all manner of things, I wanted to share with you these helpful extracts from Melissa Brodrick of Harvard Health Publishing. 

"Give to give, not to receive

The purest form of kindness may have no audience and offer no credit. Kindness to accumulate thanks is self-serving at best. Some may even say it's an effort to control or make the recipient feel indebted. But when we are kind even if — maybe especially if — there's no such payback, the rewards may be all the sweeter. 

We become kinder with practice

So, practice. Aesop, the ancient Greek storyteller, once said, "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." If random acts of kindness don't come easily to you, try this challenge: do one small, kind thing each day for someone. Then pay attention to the impact on you. Does it become easier the more you do it? Do you start to notice and act on more opportunities to be kind in your world? Do you start to feel lighter? Kinder?

Kindness begets kindness

Just as a bully of a boss can foster a culture of bullying and fear down the hierarchical line, so can kindness from one help to foster kindness in others. We often take our cues from leaders, coworkers, labmates, and others we live with many hours a day. Why not be the kind person from whom others take their cues? The one who helps people turn to one another in small and big ways that illustrate a spirit of generosity?"

As educators and parents, let us continue, to model, in words and deeds, all what we want to see in our young people.

We pray for all of our Catholic schools this week as we celebrate Catholic Education Week and we give thanks for a very special community of which we are all a part.

Peace and all good,

Samantha Jensen

Principal