Year 10 Pastoral Guardian

There has been much happening for our Year 10 students since our last Parent Corner prior to the holidays, when we were entering into another lockdown.  Week 1 of Term 2 ended with Year 10 students eagerly attending two Career Immersion Days organised by the staff in our Mount Alvernia College Futures Hub – Mr Terry Donaghue, Ms Mel Loveday, and Mrs Shelley Halverson.  On Thursday, students visited the University of Queensland (UQ) where they attended many lectures covering a variety of careers and courses, followed by a guided tour of the St Lucia campus.  On Friday, students firstly attended sessions where they heard from a range of professional women and industry panel members discussing a variety of careers options and sharing their experiences. They then attended a Futures Expo where they eagerly asked questions, collected brochures, and gathered as much information as possible from the range of career opportunities available from ADF, ACU, Bond, Griffith, QUT, TAFE Brisbane, USC, UQ, and Redmako.  Talking to Year 10 students over the last few weeks, they are definitely becoming more focused on their future career paths and looking forward to the SET Plan and subject selection information sessions that will continue throughout the next few months. 

It was a pleasure today to have the students and our Year 10 horizontal teachers attend our year level assembly.  This is an opportunity I personally value and enjoy, as it is a time to gather together as a whole Year 10 cohort.  During this time, our Clare School Leaders launched our theme for the term - Turn your attitude into gratitude.  This was accompanied by an activity where each student wrote a note of gratitude which was placed on the Mt A Wall of Gratitude display in the iCentre.  It was obvious during this activity that there are many reasons for us all to be grateful - as girls found it hard to write down just one point.  

During the term, a majority of Year 10 students has been involved in many aspects of college life, as well as participating in activities offered outside of school.  Congratulations to Sophia Papantoniou and Shanelle James, who recently travelled to Bathurst for the U15 National Hockey Championships in Queensland teams.  Sophia’s team finished with a bronze, and Shanelle’s team finished in sixth place.  Sophia also received an award for leading goal scorer. 

Congratulations also to Sofia Poy, who is currently a member of the Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, and Lizzie Johnson, Caitlin Howard, and Jessica Chripczuk-Morales, who are members of the Lord Mayor’s Young Environmental Leadership Network.  To find out more about their commitment to these programs, please read their articles below. 

This term, Year 10 students have been involved in Musical rehearsals, cocurricular teams, preparing for Open Day, attending Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences, attending the Mother/Daughter Celebration, and participating in Yellow Day to raise awareness and funds for childhood cancer.  As you can see, this has been a very busy term so far and we are only just coming to the end of Week 4. 

Finally, I would like to warmly welcome a new Year 10 student and her family to the Mount Alvernia community – Christina Chimbila.

I wish all Year 10s the best for the rest of the term, while they continue to successfully juggle their daily activities and still find time to rest, recharge, and rejuvenate. 

Teena Christofis

Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council

The Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council is comprised of student representatives - one from each school - in Year 10.  The Council holds numerous workshops and discussions about a variety of topics debated amongst the students and council members, including the Lord Mayor.  Currently, the Council is focusing on a wide variety of current issues such as environmental management, mental health awareness, domestic violence, discrimination against race, gender, and sexuality, and youth homelessness.  The Youth Advisory Council has allowed me to be deeply involved and connected with the youth all across Brisbane through termly meetings as well as volunteer opportunities.  For example, I recently volunteered for two days during Youth Week at a youth centre called Visible Ink. There, I toured new visitors to the centre and ran a few of the workshops such as badge making, live music performances, and skateboard painting. 

So far, I have deeply enjoyed working with other students across Brisbane and assisting with the wellbeing of the city.  I have truly been able to expand and develop new skills such as collaboration and leadership as a consequence of being a part of this council.

Sofia Poy

Lord Mayor’s Young Environmental Leadership Network

Year 10 students were offered an opportunity to join the Lord Mayor’s Young Environmental Leadership Network (LMYELN).  This is a project-based leadership opportunity that allows two to three students to participate in meetings at the City Hall, in conjunction with the planning and implementation of a project in our school.  The project aims to make our school more environmentally friendly and aware.  We are tasked with going to all-day meetings once a month or so, and then identifying a problem in our school that needs to be solved, environmentally.

As a group, we have noticed the plastic that is used to wrap foods in La Cucina is put into general recycling.  After much research and discussion, we’ve found a new way of recycling plastic; there is a way that we believe will help Mt A become more sustainable and raise awareness about our plastic waste among staff and students at the College. Replas is an Australian company that receives waste from specific bins - located mostly in supermarkets such as your local Woolies or Coles - and recycles them into furniture, such as benches and tables.  We can collect specific plastics in a separate bin, and then transport them to the closest Replas bin or have one implemented in our college.  This is a good way of sustainably recycling the plastic we use, and as well buying tables and/or benches from Replas may add more seating areas around our college.  To motivate students to participate in this project, we have ideas to create incentives and use our competitive houses’ spirit to encourage students to recycle their plastics.  I’m sure our House Guardians will be keen to be involved in some friendly competition - the Who Can Collect The Most Plastic edition.

The LMYELN program has been an excellent opportunity for us to develop our communication and leadership skills, as well as responsibility and organisational skills.  We are tasked with communicating information from meetings to our supervising teacher, Ms Christofis, and then coming up with project ideas with the help of our wonderful Environmental Committee - dubbed the Sprout Squad, subsequently, pitching our ideas to the relevant staff and groundsmen.  We look forward to every meeting and coming together to plan our project.  It is an honour and privilege to be able to help our college take action in such an important way, that will help us move towards a more sustainable future. 

Lizzie Johnson, Caitlin Howard, and Jessica Chripczuk-Morales