Mabo House News

Hello Mabo Students and Families, 

Welcome to Term 4!!

We are so happy to see you all back and enjoying yourselves in the classroom. On behalf of the Mabo team, we would like to give praise to all students who have come prepared to learn and have started the year in a fantastic manner. It has been a tough week with the passing of Eric Narann in Year 7 Mabo, and we would like to pass on our condolences to Eric’s family and loved ones. We are so proud of how students and staff have supported each other through this difficult time. In honour of Eric’s life, we had a free dress day where everyone wore a splash of red and yellow, two of his favourite colours. Donations have been raised to support Eric’s family and we are blown away by the community’s generosity, thank you for this. 

All Year 8-12 students participated in a start up program with the focus on learning dispositions. The key areas covered were collaboration, resilience, and critical and creative thinking. Through these workshops students explored these concepts and how to apply them in their learning to strive for excellence. A huge thank you to Ms Newton for organising this. Meanwhile, our year 7 students were involved in a weeklong start up to support them in settling into their high school journey. A big thank you to Mr Andrews for his leadership of this. The students had a blast doing virtual reality sessions, “Me as a HP Learner”, ICT led by Ms Attard and house spirit sessions led by the PE team and much more. 

Last year Mabo were so proud of your efforts in all House competitions. We won the swimming, athletics, values nominations and more and it is a credit to all our Mabo staff and students for getting involved and demonstrating teamwork and house spirit. On behalf of all Mabo staff CONGRATULATIONS for 2022 and we are looking forward to taking the championship win 2 years running!

The Mabo team looks a bit different this year so for your reference: 

For Year 7 & 8 business please see Mr Musa

For Year 9 & 10 business please see Ms Beattie

For year 11 & 12 business please see Ms Grove

On behalf of the Mabo team, we wish you and your family the best for term one and we look forward to working with all of you this year. 

Take care, 

Erin Louden - Head of House

Swimming Carnival

On Friday 10th March we have our annual Swimming Carnival. We encourage all students to attend and wear their house colours, participate in as many events as possible to earn points for Mabo. There will be novelty events in and outside the pool and competitive swimming events so there is definitely something for everyone. We look forward to having a fantastic day at the pool!

Peer Support Program

Our Peer Support program is off to a flying start this term, with 3 sessions completely planned and led by our Peer Support leaders from years 10 – 11. The first few sessions have been all about supporting our Year 7 Students to integrate from Primary School on their high school journey. By all accounts it is a lot of fun!

Leader connectedness and HP Pride have been the focus, with students engaging in ‘get to know you’ activities and team building. This includes a scavenger hunt for our Year 7s to support them in understanding the map of the college and where the key things are. 

Rugby Academy 

On behalf of the college, I would like to welcome Mr Illangakoon as one of our new Rugby Academy Coordinators. The students in the program have had a stellar start, with their SEPEP touch rugby tournament where they have been competing and running their own competition, refereeing, coaching, scoring, training and playing. You have shown fantastic leadership and teamwork and we cannot wait to see your progress as a team. Our upcoming Academy 7s Gala Day in March is our first competition against other academy schools. We have been working with the Melbourne Rebels coaches on ball handling and Rugby Laws. We look forward to continuing this partnership in 2023 and beyond!

Reminders

Lockers: These were given out at the beginning of the first week. Please make sure you're in the locker allocated to you. Locker checks will occur regularly this year and conversations will be had for those who aren't managing to use their locker correctly. 

Timetables: Make sure you are following the timetable on Compass each day and checking for room changes and reading lesson plans. Your Compass can be accessed through your device. 

Laptops: Please bring these to school, charged, so you are ready to learn. Any issues with your laptop, see IT in the morning or make a time with them. If you are needing to borrow a laptop, see us in the Mabo office. 

Mobile Phones and ear pods: These devices are not permitted in classes or throughout the school day. Leave these items in your locker, switched off. Refer to the mobile phone policy if you aren't sure. 

Uniform: Please make sure that you are wearing full sports or full school uniform every day. If you are needing assistance with uniform or out of uniform for any reason, bring a note from home and speak to us in the Mabo office first thing that morning. 

Attendance: Get your parent/guardian to call the school if you're going to be absent. Please inform us if you are going to be away for a longer period of time. If absent for more than 3 days, you must have a medical certificate. We are aiming for every student to be at or above 95% attendance for the year. 

Mabo Student Article of the Month 

by Zenani Onekon

During the holidays, I attended a camp called Golden Valleys. They organised camps from the start of the holidays, and mainly for children from year three to six. The last camp organised by Golden Valleys was a high school camp consisting of children 12-16 years old. The camp at Golden Valleys was free and paid for by the Government. The camp was divided into three groups; those who came on Monday and left on Wednesday, those who came on Wednesday and left on Friday, and those who came on Monday and left on Friday.

 On arrival, you were given a wristband to show what team you were in. There were the green, orange, blue and red team. Each team had two team leaders one male and a female. The teams were made to help facilitate the running of the camp. People participated in activities in their teams. The whole camp could not be at one activity at once, since not everyone would be guaranteed a turn and it would disrupt the camp schedule.

 Activities involved, giant swing, climbing wall, vertical challenge, leap of faith, flying fox (a zipline) and crate stacking. These activities were safe since they all required harnesses. There were also activities known as adventure activities. These activities were chosen by you and did not require to be with your teams but rather with other campers who also chose that activity. These consisted of vertical challenge, pool, archery, drama games, boards games and sports games.

After dinner there were games called wide games. Wide games required the whole camp participating. There were usually two teams playing during wide games. This meant that the four teams were usually combined to make two large teams. During wide games, the involvement of camp leaders was also required, perfectly fitting the name wide games.

After wide games, there would be campfire. The campers sang songs and the camp leaders shared different stories. At the end of the day, there were two people awarded campers of the day. A boy and a girl were given gifts to commemorate their outstanding behaviour throughout the day. 

Values Nominations 

Congratulations to our students for demonstrating our college values in and outside the classroom what a great start to the year, our stats so far are:

Mabo Staff Member of the Month

Mabo Student of the Month