Director of Pastoral Care
The Marian Way
The Marian Way, is a small section that seeks to highlight those who are truly living the Marian spirit. It is a simple way to focus some attention on those who are doing great things that sometimes go unnoticed.
Following on from our last edition and the success of Hannah Shrives, this week we are looking at another outstanding effort from a MCC student. A year 8 student by the name of Delroy Kasawaya. In the last fortnight Delroy competed in the NSW All Schools Athletics Carnival in Sydney. His results at this level are outstanding to say the least and a credit to the talent of this young man.
Delroy competed in the Under 13's 800m race & was placed 2nd with a time of 2min 9.25 seconds.1st place was 2min 9.24 seconds. Delroy was only just beaten by last year’s national champion! It is our understanding that Delroy is now off to Adelaide in December to compete in the Nationals. Now this alone is enough to demonstrate that Delroy is a great example for his peers in the sporting world. What makes it better is the comments from Delroy when he was questioned about his race and losing by such a small margin. His response was along the lines of ‘It’s alright, I will get him next time.”
With that attitude we are sure that you will. We wish Delroy best of luck and congratulate him on his sportsmanship and accolades thus far. This is the Marian spirit shining through and therefore deserves recognition in this editions Marian Way. Congratulations Delroy MCC wishes you best of luck.
Mr Heath Neville
Director of Pastoral Care (Acting)
In 2017, the Pastoral Team has been incredibly busy looking after the wellbeing and welfare of our students. They have paid particular attention to providing opportunities at all times for our students to be supported and grow as a human being as a whole. In the past two weeks alone we have seen shining examples of this. It starts every day with our Year 12’s and staff surrounding them before they enter each and every exam to wish them well and offer them strength. Every morning before they enter the hall their Year coordinator leads them in prayer and different staff members join in this small ritual.
It is these efforts from staff and students that show a deep sense of care and family here at MCC. This is our aim and mission. To have that sense of belonging and family and for it to be clear and evident for others to see. Another example that resonates while writing this is our observational rounds that we conducted last week through Academic Pastoral Care. Mr Le Broque and I were amazed at what we witnessed Wednesday morning during this session. We managed to visit certain classes and were blown away by the effort and positive approach they had taken. I encourage you all to speak to your kids around what they are completing in this time with their homeroom teachers. When we asked for feedback they gave glowing reports around the activities their teachers were running them through. We could clearly see this as we stepped into each room. Year 7 was concentrating on ‘Personal Brand Identity’ where students engaged in an activity where they were asked to comment on each other by answering such questions in a positive manner such as:
I would say you are….
I would describe you as….
Please see a copy of one of the handouts below so you may also like to go through it with your child again as a reflection.
On the other side of the school we had Year 9 homerooms discussing positive and negative relationships and dialogue and how that impacts our daily live. Once again the students were enthusiastic and insightful as they answered questions in Mr Munro’s, Mrs Shannon’s and Ms Crofts session. Unfortunately, we would have loved to have observed others. It was a great way to start our day and the teachers were doing a marvellous job with what appeared to be some well-prepared APC sessions.
This combined with what the sportsmanship I witnessed at our successful tri-sport challenge against the other local high schools where we demonstrated great perseverance and determination to become tri sport champions. I was fortunate to witness our students attempting sports that they would not normally play in a highly competitive setting. There healthy competitive nature and the support of the teachers there was another fine example of our family nature and wellbeing aspect we have here at Marian.
Lastly, around opportunities provided for students here at Marian, it was a privilege to be invited to the attend the Year 10 St Vinnies Sleep out that was conducted in the College language Centre last night. Over 40 students were involved in experiencing what It meant to be homeless for a night and raising awareness around the issue of homelessness. The students were immersed in opportunity to learn about this issue and it was put best by our future captains when they challenged the students attending “what are you going to do about it?” It was a positive experience and I left asking myself the same question and better for it.
This is also a good Segway into acknowledging the assistance we received from the Marian Community in the deconstruction of the orange sculpture last Sunday at 7:30 in the morning. We had an outstanding response who swiftly dismantled the artwork safely and set for next year.
PEER SUPPORT
This week we received recongnition from Peer Support Australia acknowledging our ongoing committment to mental health and well being of our students.
This is a tremendous effort and students and staff should be congratulated on their involvement in this process. This Award highlights five years of a successful program that is live and well this term and in the future. Planning and training is currently being conducted for our 2018 Leaders.
With all of these opportunities, I strongly recommend that all students are finding a way to be involved and be apart of all of these experiences that helps as all grow as a whole human being. Great things are happening here everyday and I challenge every student to find out how they can be the next great thing.
SUN SAFETY & UNIFORM
I would just like to echo the big message to students for this term around sun safety. ALL students should now be wearing a hat at lunchtimes no matter where they are. To assist this we have made it clear at assembly that if you do not have a hat on then you will not be able to be in unsheltered areas at lunch and this includes anywhere on the oval. I also advise remind students to applying sunscreen as well in an extra effort to protect themselves from harm.
A variety of college hats are available from the College Uniform shop at a very reasonable price. Also available at the College shop is our new MCC sports socks. We are strongly encouraging all students to purchase these socks. It will also most likely be an initiative for our coming Year 7’s. It simply is a positive compliment to our existing sports uniform and eliminates the confusion of what is acceptable.
Also on an exciting note, the new College app is now available. The Marian ‘SkoolBag’ app is available to freely download and offers exciting new opportunities for the Pastoral Team in the future. We will be discussing how to best utilise this new service over the coming weeks and encourage everyone to download it and start familiarising themselves with it.
This will be my final report as Acting Director of Pastoral Care and it has been an absolute pleasure in occupying this role in Mrs Segrave’s leave. It has been challenging but highly rewarding as I have been able to witness the positive growth of our MCC community from a welfare and wellbeing perspective. We welcome back Mrs Segrave in the coming weeks and are excited to have her back leading the Pastoral Team.
Once again I wish everyone the best in this final term and remember if you have any questions or queries around what is happening at the College please contact us at any time through the office or email.
That is all from me this week. Have a great weekend!
Kind Regards and God bless.
Heath Neville
Director of Pastoral Care (Acting)