COLLEGE NEWS

IMPORTANT DATES

Read upcoming important dates here.

COLLEGE TOUR AND TEACUP TUESDAY

Families interested in enrolment for 2020 are warmly invited to attend a College Tour, which can give you an insight into life at the College. Following the tour, we invite attendees to a morning tea with the Principal, Mrs Marg Blythman, and the College Executive Team.

The next College Tour and Teacup Tuesday will be held on September 3, 2019. For more information and to make a booking, click here.

PADUA HOMEROOMS

The configuration of Padua homerooms has changed slightly from Thursday August 1. Homeroom HPA01E has been dissolved and student members from this homeroom have been placed into the remaining seven homerooms. Parents and students of HPA01E and St Joseph’s College staff have been informed and a process was followed ensuring fairness, transparency and student wellbeing.

Year 8 students joined their new homerooms in week four. If you have any concerns please feel free to contact Mr John Menhennett, Padua House Leader at the College.

Ms Courtney Hug

Director of Students

SUN-SMART POLICY

As the weather starts to warm up, we must start to encourage and implement a combination of Sun Protection Measures. These include reviewing our Sun-Smart Policy, wearing suitable clothing, sunscreen, hats and utilising shade areas and structures. The UV levels are what often causes damage to your skin.

We emphasis the Sun Smart Policy (see PDF link below) applies for Term 1 and Term 4 during the hotter terms, but we also promote and encourage sun-smart measures from mid-August to late April.

Homeroom teachers will be displaying the UV Rating Index each morning during morning homeroom to promote and raise awareness of UV levels. We ask that parents or guardians also encourage your children to be sun smart. While it is not compulsory until Term 4 to wear a hat, students can certainly wear them especially at recess, lunch and on excursions.

For further information go to google Cancer Council Sun Smart or download the Sun Smart App which at touch of the App displays the daily forecast UV Rating.

Sunsmart Policy COL 17.pdf

Mr Warren Henderson

Risk, Compliance and Asset Manager

VCE MUSIC PERFORMANCE CONCERT

The St Joseph's College community are invited to attend our annual VCE Music Performance Concert at the Mercy Theatre on Tuesday September 3 from 7:30pm. The primary aim of this concert is student exam preparation where students from the VCE Music Performance and course will perform their entire exam repertoires. It is also a night of fun and entertainment with some fantastic, quality music in a contemporary capacity. Entry is via gold coin donation. We look forward to seeing you there.

Mr John Menhennett

Padua House Leader and VCE Music Performance Teacher

MONASH MINI MEDICINE ACADEMY DAY

On Thursday July 25, 11 students attended the Monash Mini Medicine Academy Day at Monash Rural School of Medicine Mildura. Students were greeted by fifth-year Medicine student and ex-St Joseph’s College graduate Ms Tanzina Kazi. I was happy to see Tanzina as she worked very closely with me from Year 10 through to VCE and with her medicine applications.

ADELAIDE PEDAL PRIX

Round four of the 2019 Australian International Pedal Prix season was held at Victoria Park in Adelaide over the weekend of July 27 and 28. St Joseph’s College entered two vehicles into both days of racing and came away with some very pleasing results.

BLESSING OF CECILIA ROOM AND COOLOCK LIBRARY RESOURCE CENTRE

On Tuesday August 13, Fr Michael McKinnon blessed our new College facilities at the Mercy Campus. The Cecilia Room is a sacred space for our students to hold class liturgies and meditations in so they can have a special place for prayer and reflection. The Cecilia room is named after one of our early Sisters of Mercy, Sr Cecilia who professed her vows in Sunraysia in 1916. While the library is named after the Coolock Estate where Catherine McAuley cared for Mr and Mrs Callaghan. Coolock was the first house in Ireland where Catherine began her work of helping young women and children in need.

SPECIALIST MUSIC DAY

Specialist Music Day five was held on Tuesday August 13. The day focused on a cultural music unit followed by solo and group performances.

'I love doing specialist music because you can hang out with and play with other musicians. We do loads of cool new stuff like playing Latin music and theory. Everyone always has a great time hanging out with each other and it’s always fun to play music together. Sometimes we also do stuff like adding music to a cartoon. We once did an assignment where we were given a short film (Wallice and Gromit) and had to add music and sound effects. It was super fun seeing everybody’s unique and creative film'.

Hannah Woollard

Year 7 Student

MODEL UN CONFERENCE

'The Model UN conference held on the last Thursday of Term 2 was a great experience for the four Year 11 students and one Year 10 student, who took part. Our team represented Canada, while our peers from other schools represented other countries from around the world. The day was run by the United Nations Association of Australia, Victorian Division and it was run as close to a normal conference at the UN as possible. We took part in moderated discussion and voting as nations to create our own laws and rules governing refugees. The day was very fun and an extremely valued experience'.

Jorja Arthur and Kobe Byrne

Year 11 Students

LANGUAGES WEEK

Spaghetti Eating Contest

Cheese Rolling Competition

Staff vs Student Soccer Match

FRAYNE SPEECH FESTIVAL

Students from St Josephs College made a strong showing at the annual Frayne Speech Festival held at Sacred Heart College Geelong this year. Mrs Helen Gowers and Dr Tony Finn accompanied students and Principal Mrs Marg Blythman was also in attendance supporting our debaters and public speakers. Georgie Martin-Abbot competed in the public speaking and Jorja Arthur, Jorja Johnston, Laney Smith and Ella Higgins made up the debating team.

The Debating team won a round against Catherine McAuley College Bendigo with a well-structured and well-presented argument on ‘Green cities’ and Jorja Arthur also took out the coveted title of best speaker in that round as awarded by the adjudicator. All students are keen to participate again next year, lots of fun was had and many new friends were made.

Mrs Helen Gowers

English Teacher