Learning  

Welcome back to our students and families to the start of 2026, in particular, welcome to our new families at Year 7 and to the large group of students starting in Years 8 – 12.  I hope you are all feeling part of the Academy Community.  It has been wonderful to see the positive start this year across all year levels.  

Over the last few weeks, as we were returning to school I have been particularly inspired by three very different people.   As a teacher of Mathematics, currently a teacher of Mathematics to girls and an advocate of promoting women in STEM, it was wonderful to see Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Australia’s first astronaut, be named Australian of the Year for 2026.  Katherine always dreamed of being an astronaut from a young age, at this time Australia didn’t have a space agency and so she had to move overseas to pursue her dream.  Katherine was often the only woman in a male dominated field and knows how challenging this is as a young woman.  She urges young people, in particular women, to stay in STEM fields, as they bring such a vital skillset and perspective and can be empowered to solve big problems and make discoveries. 

Katherine’s aim is  to  ‘show people the power of a dream, when you put in the effort, encourage people to back themselves in hard things, in technical pursuits for the love of ideas, because you want to solve a problem, because it’s a challenge and imagine what we can do with that courage to inspire’. 

This is such a key message and I encourage our young people to have a dream, put in effort and back themselves.  

Watching the Men’s semi finals in the Australian Open this year was also inspiring, in particular, to see Spanish tennis player, Carlos Alcaraz, who at 22 has become the youngest man to win the Career Grand Slam.  In his semi final, having won the first two sets, he was injured and looked like he may not be able to continue.  He lost the next two sets, and was trailing 3-5 in the fifth set.  He showed grit and determination and a never say die attitude to turn it around to win the semi final then the final to become champion.

He credited his attitude of never giving up, stating “Every step more, every one second more of suffering, one second more of fighting, is always worth it”. 

The message I take from this is, no matter how hard it gets and how big the mountain ahead is, by taking it one step at a time and believing in yourself, you can do it.  He also states “… you have to believe in yourself no matter what.  No matter what you’re struggling [with, what] you've been through, no matter anything, you gotta still believe in yourself all the time.” 

And finally, much closer to home, our 2025 College Dux, Alice Portz with an outstanding ATAR of 99.9.   

Alice is an inspiration to us all, especially her teachers, and is someone who, in her own words, displayed ‘the bravery to fully commit’ to her VCE, whilst also maintaining a balance, keeping her part-time job, being involved in extra-curricular activities and spending time with friends and family.  

In her address to the College Community last week, Alice also talked about how difficult, yet important, it can be to have the courage and belief in yourself mentioned previously. She explained that she dislikes the saying ‘just do your best’ as the ‘the ‘just’ overlooks how difficult this often can be - doing your best can be terrifying.  It’s a lot easier to not try that hard, and do badly, than to do all you can and still do badly.  But by having the courage to not discount your abilities, to believe in the guidance of your teachers and the strength of your own time and effort, you often will surprise yourself.  And it’s okay to still make mistakes and feel self doubt - we all do!  But something I kept coming back to throughout the year, was slowly learning to have better trust in myself.’ 

The common theme that all three of these inspirational people share, is believe in yourself, back yourself, have the courage to never give up.  So, as we start 2026, I encourage everyone to have the courage to care, the bravery to commit and the determination to keep going in order to strive for our dreams. 

Other Learning and Teaching Reminders 

Just a reminder to all parents to ensure they login to Compass where you can view information about student learning and wellbeing and other important information.

Instructions about accessing subject and class information is attached. 

Recently we have received several requests to share documents with people in the community using external accounts.  For privacy and security reasons, we are only able to share files with accounts linked to the Academy of Mary Immaculate, so, in order to have access to these, students need to login to their school account.  

If you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to contact me 

Ms Lucy Neil 

Deputy Principal - Learning & Teaching