Principal Introduction

Dear EMC Community,

Reaching out and giving back to the community is an integral part of the Elisabeth Murdoch College culture. We take enormous pride in students who continue to put up their hand to initiate and participate in voluntary programs across the college and wider community. 

Friday 25th March (3pm-6:30pm) is our annual College Working Bee. Working Bees enable our families, students and staff, to work actively together on school related projects to not only unite us as a community but also give our College grounds a refreshing upkeep.  We hope to see as many of you there to lend a helping hand and celebrate with a sausage sizzle being held afterwards at the tennis centre. We are very grateful as a school community to have such support over the last 11 years in running this event and we look forward to breaking our participation record of 111 people set in 2019. Participating in such an event will not only be an added certificate to your resume but also help our students proudly show off our College during Open Night on Monday 28th March. On this day, we will also be hosting the annual “clean up Australia day” for interested classes. We are grateful so far to the families that have already emailed their commitment for the upcoming working bee.

The recently appointed Student Representative Council (SRC) and Class Captains (lead by our Student Leadership Coordinator Ms Grinsted) will play a large component of student voice and college improvements again this year. Some of our student leadership team met last Friday and have divided themselves into the following groups; Arts, Equality Alliance, Green Team, Hums & Languages, Performing Arts, LIS, Music, Science, Technology, English, Murdoch, Maths and Sports. The SRC are in the planning stages of a number of events and activities to improve these areas across the College.  Year 9 students will soon have the opportunity to become Peer Mentors for our Year 7 students. The training date is set for Thursday 31st March and we are excited to again deliver this outstanding transition program in line with our THRIVE Home Group curriculum. Our four college captains have led the way with a number of assembly appearances and planning to deliver a leadership workshop at Woodlands Primary School on Thursday 10th March.  Student agency has been at the forefront of our instructional model and students will be already experiencing greater opportunity to have more agency in either the Learning Intention or Success Criteria. Our Professional Learning Specialist, Ian Price, has been passionately leading our staff to ensure these important phases of the lesson incorporate more student voice.

Congratulations to Sports Coordinators, Chris Kingston and Robbie Dyring alongside our newly appointed AFL trainee, Mackenzie Nichols, for leading an action packed Swimming Carnival. It was the return of the Kurunda sub school who regained the title after a 2 year absence. We wish all our gold medal winners all the best when they represent our college at the upcoming District Swimming Sports on Thursday 17th March. Whether it be coaching an inter-school sports team or spending days away from their loved ones in overnight camps, we extend our gratitude to these staff members that continually give up their own time for our students to THRIVE. We appreciate the long hours and hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make these events and programs a success.

Finally, thank you to all parents and students for your support in attending our photo days wearing immaculate uniform. Any student/sibling yet to have their photo taken can attend the School Pix office (in Hallam) before the start of the school holidays wearing full uniform.

Kind regards, 

Ciro Ferra

Assistant Principal