News

Harmony Day Activities

This year at MSJ, we celebrated Harmony Day after the Opening College Mass on 23 February. The Harmony Day theme for 2018 is 'Everyone Belongs' and through a variety of different cultural activities, we tried to demonstrate this theme throughout the College. After a shared lunch on the oval, we had students participating in flag drawing, rock drawing, henna tattoos, fingerprint tree, world map activities, Latin dance, Bollywood dance, African dance, Indigenous story telling, Chinese dragon performance, cultural board games, Winter Olympics, International music quiz, International tasting and many more…..

On Harmony Day 2018, my friends and I decided that we would bring in some food from our own countries. Since I am from India, I decided to bring in biryani. Biryani is a rice dish that is known all around India. It can be made with different meats or it can be vegetarian as well. Everyone loved it, in fact, within 20 minutes of me bringing my food to the oval, it was already gone. Even though it was a hot day, it seemed as if everyone had fun and I can’t wait to contribute next year as well.

By Enakshi Fuloria, 9 Cameron

On Harmony Day 2018, I came up with the idea to set a stall up with some friends to show the diversity in our schools community. We made an international fingerprint tree. It was very successful and will be showcased in the library. We did have some ups and downs on the day, such as the rain and wind knocking the picture over but that turned out to be minor problems. It was a really fun experience getting to see everyone contributing to our stall and I can’t wait for many more Harmony Days.

By Sophia Pomazan, 9 Providence

On Harmony Day 2018, my friendship group focused on the delicacies of Asia. We settled on 5 countries within Asia; China, Korea, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam. Each of us took charge of a stall, and carefully planned on the cost, type of food and how to properly deliver it to our fellow peers. In result, each of the stalls had incredible foods which were very popular among the students, it was high in demand and we ran out of food within minutes. Overall it was a successful and enjoyable experience in sharing and promoting the “Taste of Asia”. Next year’s Harmony Day will be even better!

By Jeanelle Uy, 9 Penola

2018 Italy & France Study Tour

MSJ is pleased to announce details for the 2018 Italy and France Study Tour which will depart during the Term 3 holidays. Proposed travels are Wednesday 19 September to Saturday 6 October.

Students will participate in a wide variety of activities that will appeal to different interests and link with various curriculum areas such as Languages, Food Technology, Art, History and Religious Education. Highlights include Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice, Lyon, Dijon and Paris. In Florence and Paris, students will participate in cooking classes conducted in Italian/English and French/English.

The full itinerary, tour cost and payment schedule will be provided at a Parent Information Night to be held at the College on Tuesday 13th March at 6.30pm.

Please register your interest in attending the Parent Information Night via this link.

For any further information, please contact Luisa Ragusa at lragusa@msj.vic.edu.au.

Peace Exchange Host Families Wanted

30 Japanese students are coming to MSJ from our sister school Seirei on 22nd July for two weeks. We are looking for 30 families to host a Japanese student. If you are interested in becoming a host family for the entire two weeks, please sign in the google form HERE or contact Mr. Hayashi thayashi@msj.vic.edu.au by Thursday 29th March.

The Tail of a Big Heart

MSJ student, Alanna Sutton-Jones recently donated her long hair to help children undergoing cancer treatments and who has lost their own hair. Alanna's ponytail will be made into wigs as part of Variety's "Hair with Heart" national hair donation initiative.

The college is very proud of Alanna's gesture and is true to the heart of  Mary MacKillop's words, "Never see a need without doing something about it"

Alanna's donation featured on page 7 in the February 7 edition of the Maribyrnong and Hobson's Bay Star Weekly. You can read more about Alanna by following this link HERE.

Winner of Holiday Reading Competition

Congratulations to Year 10 student, Nicole Pizzuti, who won the MSJ Holiday Reading Competition and an iTunes voucher! To encourage students to read over the school holidays, students were invited to take a photo of themselves reading a book or eBook either: in a location related to the genre, theme, or characters in the book, or wearing a costume related to the genre, theme, or characters in the book. Well done to Nicole on her creative entry!

Year 9 Program- Amazing Race in Altona

The Year 9 Students were fortunate enough to take part in an Amazing Race around Altona. Students were put into groups of 4 to 6 within their House groups and given a booklet containing difficult riddles that they needed to solve and that would lead their team to numerous locations where they took various photos. Each correct riddle solved would earn the groups a certain amount of points and an individual group and House overall with the most points were to win a prize.

As well as the puzzles there was also a huge range of bonus points students could earn as well to increase their point count. Everyone also had the option to stop at any time to purchase their own food. We all enjoyed the warm Melbourne weather near the beach. 

Many groups began their adventure on a train heading straight to Altona where many of the solutions were hidden. During this day, teachers could be seen stationed near and around checkpoints to give assistance to the Year 9 students as they made their way around Altona. 

This experience encourages the Year 9 students to promote their sense of cooperation and teamwork as well as helping to support their problem-solving skills. It was overall, an enjoyable activity to start off RISE this year.

We all agreed that at the end of the day, we all discovered plenty of new and interesting facts about our very own suburb, Altona.

By Jeanelle Uy  9 Penola and Norisha Sethi 9 Solomon