DEPUTY PRINCIPAL - TEACHING & LEARNING 

Vision for Teaching and Learning at St Mary MacKillop College - a statement that drives the development of a high performance learning culture at SMMC

At St Mary MacKillop College we have high expectations of our students as we equip them with the knowledge, skills and dispositions for lifelong learning. We pursue excellence through a teaching and learning environment that is inclusive, engaging and encourages growth. We value collaboration, innovation and building strong relationships.

Welcome back to Term 3! I hope everyone in our community had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday break. I hope the break provided an opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends, and to do activities that are not always possible to do during the busy term time. 

It has been wonderful to see all of our students back at school, refreshed after the two-week holiday break. Term 3 has started with LMR netball, Tertiary Information Service (TIS) in the JC and the State Cross Country. Rehearsals for this year’s musical production of Grease continue, and a group from the cast were involved in a promotional photoshoot on Thursday. The cast have been busy rehearsing for quite some time now, and I am sure this year’s production will be amazing as it always is.

The start of a new term and semester provides an opportunity to reflect on our achievements throughout the first half of the year, and to set goals moving forward. One way to do this is for parents and caregivers to review your child’s report with them and have a constructive conversation. Celebrate your child’s achievements from semester 1, and then identify areas of improvement and set future learning goals. During TA interviews throughout the semester, students will have an opportunity to discuss the progress they are making towards achieving their goals.

On Wednesday 13 August we have interviews for Year 11 and 12 students. Information on these interviews has been included in this newsletter.

I wish our students all the best for their studies in semester 2.

Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan

During the holidays I was fortunate to visit Japan, a country I have visited countless times. I think it must be almost 40 times by now! Japanese is one of the subject areas I teach, and I love going to Japan to immerse myself in the culture, to practise my Japanese, and to eat so much delicious Japanese food! Throughout my professional career and personal life, I have had the privilege of connecting with Japan through textbook and resource writing for various organisations, my work for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), and as President of the Japanese Language Teachers’ Association of Victoria Inc. (JLTAV), so it is a country that is very close to my heart.

At the end of last term, I attended the Year 11 camp. On the first day of the camp, we visited the Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre in East Melbourne and our students listened to a presentation by Sr Rita Malavisi rsj. Sr Rita is a wonderful speaker and I always learn something new from her. One of the things Sr Rita mentioned to us was that in the Italian Pavilion at this year’s World Expo in Osaka is a section on the Vatican. Way back in 1988 I went to the World Expo in Brisbane with my family. I remember the Expo being a big deal in Australia at the time, and even now when I walk through the South Bank area of Brisbane, I remember that this once was the location of the Expo. Before learning from Sr Rita that there was a Vatican section at the Expo, I had already intended to visit the Expo while I was in Osaka, but knowing the Vatican was also on display in the Italian Pavilion, I had to go there! The theme for the Vatican Expo is “Beauty brings hope”, and further information about this can be found here. On display in the Pavilion is also the “Deposition” by Michelangelo Merisi known as Caravaggio. ‘It represents the moment in which the body of Jesus is taken down from the Cross by Nicodemus and John and placed on the Stone of Anointing in the presence of the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Cleophas’. I have included a photo I took of this painting below. Further information on the artwork can be found here.

This year is the Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church and Luce, an anime-inspired character, is the official mascot. There is a nice connection between Luce and the Japanese culture. Anime is a popular part of Japanese culture, and Luce has been designed not only for the Jubilee Year, but also for the Vatican Pavilion at the Expo in Osaka. The Vatican hopes that Luce will resonate with young people and engage them with the Catholic church and the messages of the Jubilee Year and the World Expo. Further information on Luce can be found here.

2025 NAPLAN

Shortly an Individual Student Report (ISR) for each student who participated in NAPLAN in 2025 and Year 9 NAPLAN certificates of achievement for eligible students will be sent to families.

To assist parents and carers in understanding NAPLAN reporting, an information brochure for parents and carers is now available for download from the VCAA website. This brochure is available in multiple languages.

Home Study

It is timely at the start of a new semester to remind students of the expectations regarding home study. At St Mary MacKillop College we believe in developing and maintaining effective work habits from Year 7. Students from Years 7 to 12 will be given home study to complete. 

We believe that home study provides the opportunity for students to be responsible for their own learning. Home study complements and reinforces classroom learning; it fosters life-long learning, self-discipline, concentration and effective study habits and routines. Home study should require a reasonable commitment, but it should not be too onerous. Students should plan their home study to take into account their family, sporting and work commitments. Students should remember that home study does not only involve completing work from that day’s lesson, but also an opportunity for revision. In Years 7 -9, home study may include regular English and Mathematics homework tasks, revising for assessment tasks, reading of newspapers, watching the news, physical skills training or assignment and project completion. Home study also includes completion of formal reflection activities such as mind maps and a summary of the day’s learning. In Years 10 – 12 home study is determined more by the specific subject requirements. When students have not been assigned home study for a particular subject, they should still be revising and going over the content that has been presented to them during class. The time and frequency of home study is different for each year level. As a guide the following table outlines the suggested length of time for home study from Year 7 to 12.

A reminder that parents are advised to regularly log in to the Parent Access Module (PAM) and read the feedback provided on your child’s progress. Please be aware that at the start of the new semester there will not be much information uploaded within the first few weeks as teachers are currently in the process of organising and uploading content. Our staff use a variety of digital technologies to support the delivery of the curriculum.

Students may be asked to access work or upload assessments to Google Classroom, the Learning Areas on Simon and so on. You may like to ask your child to show you the work they are doing in these learning platforms.

Nathan Lane

Deputy Principal Teaching and Learning