Around the College

Xanadu Performances a Great Success

The performances for the College production of Xanadu this year are now complete and were a great success and tribute to all involved. The four performances were very well attended equaling the wonderful numbers seen for the previous years production of Hairspray. We also had the privilege of welcoming over 450 primary students from St Elizabeths, St Gerards, St Simons and Silverton who attended the Wednesday matinee which made for an exciting first up show for the performing students.

Nazareth College would like to sincerely extend their gratitude to the Nazareth College Parents Association for their work preparing refreshments for patrons and feeding the kids during rehearsals, and also to the many teachers and parents who took time out of their busy schedules to help with costumes, sets, props, back stage and make up. It takes many hours of work from many people to get a musical up off the ground and the work on Xanadu seen in the completed performances has shown how hard this group of students and teachers have worked to produce a show of such a high quality.

The college also extends their gratitude to the Director Mr Julian Ashton, Choreographer Ms Kathleen Taura and the Musical Director Ms Tatiana Vega for their countless hours of tireless work training the students to the standards required of the show. The quality of the work seen in the performances was ample evidence of the standard of training received by the students in rehearsals. The students involved have also gained invaluable experience in their performances to build upon their other work in the college's Performing Arts Program and for those students leaving at the end of the year, in their work and studies in the wider community. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the following teachers and parents who spent many hours sewing costumes and building sets for the students; Barbara Murphy, Maria Hatzis, Jotishma Singh, John Palomares, Michelle Noguiera, Caitlin Mackay, Sue La Bruna, Sue Illman, Michelle Quintrell, Rose-Marie Rambert, Geethika Chandrasekera and Jade Baker. We would also like to thank Mish Mackay and Joshua Aiello for their work taking photographs of the cast and crew and preparing the program.

Lastly, we would like to extend a big thank you to all those people friends, parents and relations who purchased tickets to support the work of the students and staff in the show. It is greatly appreciated.

Nicholas Fitter

Performing Arts Coordinator 

Engineering Students @ Work Challenge 2017

Venue: Engineers Australia. - Discovery Hub & Presentation Area

Dates:  Monday 27 November – Friday 1 December 1st 2017 – tentatively booked

                Monday – Thursday Discovery Hub Level 31

                Friday afternoon – Level 30 Presentation Area

Time:     9:00 am – 4:00 pm daily

Dress:   Neat Casual

Teams: Teams of  Yr 9 students (5 to 6) – will participate covered by Work Experience Form

Contact Miss Gurm: gurms@nazareth.vic.edu.au

The Engineering Students @ Work (ES@W) program aims to provide a realistic engineering experience for secondary school students and provides a five-day opportunity for a teams of 5-6 students during which they:

• Learn about the diversity & viability of engineering
• Work with professional engineers
• Participate in experiential learning, and
• Develop an understanding of and an ability to develop sustainable engineering design solutions.

Additional benefits the students gain and are encouraged to use include:

• Creative thinking and analytical skills to develop engineering projects and solve problems with sustainable outcomes in mind
• Student communication skills to enable collaboration in a team situation and to justify their decisions and actions
• Information and communications technology and learning skills to research, acquire and manage information relevant to project development
• Interpersonal skills through collaborative working in teams to achieve a common objective
• Opportunity to learn and use/implement current technology, and
• Encourages students to consider engineering as study path and future career.

Ms Sheba Gurm

Learning Area Leader, Science

National Science Week - 14th till 18th of August 

National Science Week was a huge success. It was particularly pleasing to see the Nazareth students participating eagerly in the Sci Quiz. 

Chris Kouvelis (Knox 5) was the overall winner along with Jessica Zhao (Macauley 5)

Sheldon Cooper Prize: Violet Mangiavillano (Mackillop 2)

Ms Sheba Gurm

Learning Area Leader, Science

Year 8 Science

This Term Year 8 Science made cell model on plants and animals along with a video explaining the functions of the cell organelles.

Miss Gurm's class also did a short activity on body systems. The girls have yet to learn about the different systems, where they are in the body and what their functions are. This is what the girls think of the systems and their functions at the moment! 

Ms Sheba Gurm

Learning Area Leader, Science

Romeo and Juliet Incursion

On the 11th of August, the Year 10 students were visited by two members of The Flying Bookworm Theatre Company who performed various scenes from Shakespeare's famous play Romeo and Juliet. The duo performed the scenes, first traditionally, and then in modern language, so we could gain a better understanding of the dialogue. Not only did this opportunity provide us with great insight into the plot, but it also allowed us to connect with the characters to a further extent.

One of the main highlights of this incursion was when students were called up and assigned different characters as well as given costumes to act out particular scenes within the play. As an audience, we all had such a great laugh as our peers helped bring scenes to life and we came to understand Shakespeare’s humour.  Overall the incursion was undoubtedly amazing with many entertaining jokes made by the duo. Most students left the play feeling more confident and excited about studying this play as a part of the Year 10 English curriculum.

 Malshani Hettiarachchi and Emily Brennan

Year 10

Writers’ Workshops with visiting author, Archimede Fusillo

Author Archimede Fusillo visited Nazareth College last Thursday to work with students in Years 7 and 8 Laurel English. Gareth Morgan from Year 7 and Angela Cremona from Year 8 have written about their respective experiences.

Archimede Fusillo is an Italian-Australian author who came to visit our school on the 17thof August. His stories focus on the migrant voice. He writes about Italian-Australians simply because there were no stories about kids like him while he was growing up. He talked to our class about writing techniques. Two things that I thought were interesting were the importance of drafting and not attempting a problem multiple times from different angles, but rather starting afresh with new ideas. Drafting is important because these days we simply want to write, and not plan. This puts us in a position where we will eventually get stuck, and have nothing to refer to, to get us back on track.

One of the other activities we did was some sort of writing game. We would use the letters of our name as the first letter of each sentence in a piece of writing, and then integrate the three most important elements of a story: characters, a setting and a complication. It was fun and made us think, and I personally thank Archie (as he is most commonly called) for what he taught me about literature and writing.

Gareth Morgan.

Year 7 Laurel English

On Thursday 17th August, the Year 8 Laurel English class was the given the opportunity to participate in a writer's workshop, led by author Archimede (Archie) Fusillo. We participated in activities that helped us to improve our writing techniques and methods. We started the morning by copying out a piece of writing given to us by Archie. He told us to rate it, and give reasons for our rating. Each member of the class rated differently, providing unique reasons to why they believed so.

Most of us thought the piece was amazing and very well written; however, Archie went on to edit the piece himself, and pointed out errors we didn't even notice. In this particular piece, the errors were not spelling mistakes or punctuation errors, the mistakes were actually in the sentence content. For example, in one sentence, the writer contradicts their own point, as they say the air was 'snap frozen' but 'not cold enough for gloves. He asked each of us to rewrite the paragraph in 30 words or less, which proved to be easier said than done.

After about 10 mins of frantically scribbling down words, some of us were chosen to read out our pieces. Archie showed us the simple flaws we all make in our writing, and explained to us how we can improve them. With his engaging presentation and insightful suggestions, Archie Fusillo has inspired many of us to be great writers and maybe one day, great authors.

Angela Cremona

Year 8 Laurel English

Winter Sleep out!

Please support our Winter Sleep out to be held this Friday, 25th August from 8pm to 8am. You can do this by either: participating in the event (forms available in Student Services) or sponsoring a student who is already attending. Don't forget to pack your Onesie!

Ms Lisa Douglass

Mini Vinnie's Co-ordinator