LIFE Summer Term Week Five
| Mon | 4 March | Labour Day Public Holiday – College Closed | |||
| Tue | 5 March | Home Study Day – College and Uniform Shop Closed | |||
| NEAS to be rescheduled | |||||
| Shrove Tuesday | |||||
| Wed | 6 March | Ash Wednesday | |||
| NEAS Yr 10 to Yr 12 vs La Salle | |||||
| OLNA Writing - First Round | |||||
| Thu | 7 March | NEAS Swim Meet at La Salle | 2:00pm to 5:00pm | ||
| OLNA Writing - First Round |
Parents please use Parent Coneqt for SEQTA Engage via this link for current letters and excursion information. SEQTA Engage
Villain School Updates!
The 2018 College Production of Villain School is coming together at a rapid pace. The following developments have taken place over the last couple of weeks:
- Students are beginning to put their scripts away and start experimenting with characteristics and expression with some awesome results. We are very lucky to have such a creative cast.
- Chloe Ryan (Year 12) along with Mrs Azzopardi and Miss Pratt have done a fantastic job in sourcing our colourful costumes, many of which have arrived already. We will be doing a character photo shoot next week!
- Plans have been put in place for our most technically ambitious production yet with new lighting and effects as well as a re-worked staging concept.
- Mr Matt Smyth will be hard at work next week putting our set pieces together, giving us the chance to rehearse with full set and props from Week 1 next Term.
Cast and Staff will be heading off to the Swan Valley Adventure Centre for Production Camp this weekend for an intensive two days of rehearsals and team building activities. This was a fantastic experience for students during the last whole College production and we look forward to what is set to be a fun and rewarding weekend. We will be very lucky to have former student and current Australian Performing Arts Network student Max Hughes joining us on the camp to run character and performance workshops with the students.
Mr Chris McRae
Learning Area Coordinator (The Arts)
Harmony Day 2018
On Wednesday 21 March, the College celebrated our students diversity by holding our annual Harmony Day Festival. The event is getting bigger and better every year!
In 2018, we had numerous food stalls selling international delights such as pizza, pasta, bubble tea and fried rice. There were table tennis games happening under San Salvador, cultural dancing in New Norcia, the senior school band playing outside the Cafe and Italian bocce outside the art room. The day had a great festival atmosphere with something for everyone to get involved with. Thank you very much to the Yr.10/11 Hospitality students with Mrs Croxford for cooking some delicious food and thank you to the student leaders for all their help with the day.
This year we raised a massive $1800 for Catholic Missions Australia. Amazing effort by everyone in the HCC community.
Thanks Ms Kelly Bond
In 2018, we had numerous food stalls selling international delights such as pizza, pasta, bubble tea and fried rice. There were table tennis games happening under San Salvador, cultural dancing in New Norcia, the senior school band playing outside the Cafe and Italian bocce outside the art room. The day had a great festival atmosphere with something for everyone to get involved with. Thank you very much to the Yr.10/11 Hospitality students with Mrs Croxford for cooking some delicious food and thank you to the student leaders for all their help with the day.
This year we raised a massive $1800 for Catholic Missions Australia. Amazing effort by everyone in the HCC community.
Thanks Ms Kelly Bond
YEAR 9 STUDENTS BRING LUNCHTIME TO LIFE
As a culmination of their work in this term’s Big Ideas project, Year 9 students brought lunchtime to life on Thursday, 29 March. Exploring their big question How can we bring lunchtimes to LIFE?’, the Year 9s investigated how they can make lunchtimes more active and engaging for students of Holy Cross College, while connecting them more closely with one or more of the LIFE pillars. Students developed their collaboration, citizenship, creative thinking and communication skills to develop a business prototype to offer active engagement for students of other year groups.
As part of the preparation for the day, students undertook market research to establish needs and areas of interest amongst the student body. They designed and presented a proposal for a business idea and they engaged teachers to support them in resourcing and supervising their activity.
Running their businesses at lunchtime truly brought the College to life, with students across year levels engaging with a wide range of activities such as ping-pong, hop scotch, skipping, basketball and dodgeball tournaments, dance competitions, karaoke and planting. The Year 9s showed professionalism and skill in engaging students and truly did bring lunchtime to LIFE. They will collect customer feedback and refine their business prototype in order to present another active lunchtime early in Autumn term.
Ms Karen Taylor
Year 9 Learning Innovator
4 April 2018
Junior School Update
The Year 2 students have been very busy over the last few weeks, continuing to extend what they had learnt in Year 1; including the 5 Ws (When, Who, Where, What and Why) with Recount writing during our Literacy lessons and recognising the value of 3 digit numbers in Numeracy.
On Wednesday, 21 March, Fr Bona came to visit the students and discussed a special time in the Church’s calendar – LENT. He spoke about how Lent is a preparation for the feast of Easter and reminded the children to think of it as a time to Leave Every Negative Thing. Fr Bona mentioned that negative things include bad habits, such as not listening to our parents or teachers and not caring for those around us.
Wednesday 21stMarch was also Harmony Day. Harmony Day first started in 1999 and has been celebrated on this date ever since. The central message of Harmony Day is that ‘everyone belongs’ and this reminds us that everyone is unique. It is a time for all Australians to remember and respect our diverse cultural backgrounds, and to share what we have in common. The Year 2s made Harmony Day cylinders representing 3 Australian environments and paper figures illustrating the rich variety of people living in Australia.
We hope everyone has a lovely Easter.
Crunch and Sip
Some exciting news this week at Holy Cross… we are an officially certified Crunch and Sip school!
We have loved seeing all of the fresh fruit and vegetables students have been bringing in across the classrooms as well as the plain water to accompany them.
Thank you to all the parents who have been helping their child/ren make a healthy choice with Crunch and Sip.
We look forward to seeing more healthy snacks in our lunchboxes!
Miss Hannah Sibbald
Crunch and Sip Co-ordinator
We have loved seeing all of the fresh fruit and vegetables students have been bringing in across the classrooms as well as the plain water to accompany them.
Thank you to all the parents who have been helping their child/ren make a healthy choice with Crunch and Sip.
We look forward to seeing more healthy snacks in our lunchboxes!
Miss Hannah Sibbald
Crunch and Sip Co-ordinator
Villain School COMING SOON!
The 2018 Holy Cross College Production of VILLAIN SCHOOL will be taking to the stage in Week 8 next term. The cast and crew have been working particularly hard this term on developing some exciting aspects to the show including digital backdrops, a dance chorus and some very funky costumes. Also in development is a series of teaser videos, put together by Year 12 James Evans with the assistance of Mr Jackson and Miss Vaini, which will precede the main show documentary. The first of these explores the backstory to main character Frank Stein who arrives at the Villain's Institute for Learning Evil (VILE) as the new kid with an attitude. See below for your first sneak peek into the world of Villain School!
Mr Chris McRae
Production Director and Learning Area Coordinator (The Arts)
Mr Chris McRae
Production Director and Learning Area Coordinator (The Arts)
Latest Careers Newsletter -April
In this newsletter you will find information on up and coming events and opportunities for Year 10, 11 and 12 students.
If you require any more information come and see me Mrs Susan Wilson in the Careers Office.
April Careers Newsletter
If you require any more information come and see me Mrs Susan Wilson in the Careers Office.
April Careers Newsletter
NEAS Sport Update
The NEAS Summer Season has seen Holy Cross field 8 teams in Basketball and Ultimate Frisbee. Our boys, girls and mixed teams have been fantastic in their committment, organisation and efforts on game day. This has been matched by the brilliant guidance and wisdom shared by our coaches. Our thanks to Mr Falcone, Mr Pisano, Ms Maher, Ms Sibbald, Ms Armenti, Ms Hickey, Mr Elliott and Mr Gotti for the time and effort they have put in to coaching these teams to a high standard.
We have fielded teams in:
Year 7 Boys Basketball
Year 7 Girls Basketball
Year 8/9 Boys Basketball
Year 8/9 Girls Basketball
Senior Boys Basketball
Senior Girls Basketball
Middle School Mixed Ulitmate Frisbee
Senior School Mixed Ultimate Frisbee
Our season so far has seen a mix come from behind victories, keenly contested games and excellent sportsmanship. As it stands in this, the last week of fixtures, we have three of our teams with a chance to play in next week’s finals. This will be determined by the results of this week’s games.
Good luck to all teams this week!
Grip Leadership Conference
Caterpillars transform into butterflies, seeds transform into plants and a spark transforms into a fire. Transformation is the act of making a change.
The Executive Student Leaders attended the GRIP Leadership Conference on Monday. Ronan McGinniss the managing director of GRIP Leadership, used the word, “transform” as the basis and the theme for all the activities that followed throughout the day. This conference was both interactive and informative and reminded us all that leadership was not a battle, but rather something that we should all work together on. This was demonstrated to us in the first session through a game of noughts and crosses. The task was simple. Finish as many games as possible. For most of the thousand atttendees the first attempt was ineffective. Most only completed about 3-4 rounds. The GRIP team then reminded us that the goal was to play as many games as possible. This required us to stop competing against each other, but to work together. This time, most of the people in the crowd reached about 14-15 games in one minute. This demonstrated to us the importance of transforming team work.
After this quick session we were given a chance to mingle with not only other students but other schools, ranging from St Lukes College in Karratha to Swan Valley Anglican Community School. This was also a perfect opportunity to network and see what issues and problems were occurring in other places and how they dealt with them. To conclude the first session we were introduced to ‘Loud Noises’ which was provided as the entertainment for the day.
After the morning tea break, Session two and three allowed for us to attend some concurrent workshop electives. These electives allowed us to focus on things in our school that might benefit us more as leaders. We elected to split into teams and proceeded to go to each different elective. Two of the first electives were ‘Transforming My Capacity’ and ‘Transforming Event Participation’. ‘My capacity’ discussed the challenges of having a heavy load and how to delegate tasks and take smaller workloads. Event Participation focussed on how to maximise participate in school events.
One of my highlights during the day was during the lunch break. I was lucky enough to have a discussion with the director of GRIP Leadership, Ronan McGinniss. In this discussion I asked Ronan, ‘what in your mind makes a good leader?’. His response was “focusing on others, rather than then your own interests, another thing is using your own talents and interests to put forward who you really are.” This was something that really resonated with me. Too many times you will see a leader change something for their own benefit, not for the benefits of others, and generally you will see a facade in a leader, where they will try to be someone or something they are not.
The next two concurrent sessions were, ‘Transforming School Pride’, and ‘Transforming the Effectiveness of Our Team’. School Pride aimed to empower us as leaders to help students to speak positively of our school communities. ‘Effectiveness of Our Team’ equiped us with some skills to keep our team on task and focused.
The day conluded with small networking activity, a Q and A with the GRIP team and one last “loud noises” intermission. This last Loud Noises session was particularly enjoyable as it was a dance off. 5 different schools were picked and then for a special treat, two teachers, one of which was our very own Mr Shelton (who had bust a move on stage).
Overall, it is fair to say that all of us as leaders now feel more wise. We also feel equiped to be a better leader than when we left in the morning.
Riley Wilson
Year 12
Executive Student Secretary
The Executive Student Leaders attended the GRIP Leadership Conference on Monday. Ronan McGinniss the managing director of GRIP Leadership, used the word, “transform” as the basis and the theme for all the activities that followed throughout the day. This conference was both interactive and informative and reminded us all that leadership was not a battle, but rather something that we should all work together on. This was demonstrated to us in the first session through a game of noughts and crosses. The task was simple. Finish as many games as possible. For most of the thousand atttendees the first attempt was ineffective. Most only completed about 3-4 rounds. The GRIP team then reminded us that the goal was to play as many games as possible. This required us to stop competing against each other, but to work together. This time, most of the people in the crowd reached about 14-15 games in one minute. This demonstrated to us the importance of transforming team work.
After this quick session we were given a chance to mingle with not only other students but other schools, ranging from St Lukes College in Karratha to Swan Valley Anglican Community School. This was also a perfect opportunity to network and see what issues and problems were occurring in other places and how they dealt with them. To conclude the first session we were introduced to ‘Loud Noises’ which was provided as the entertainment for the day.
After the morning tea break, Session two and three allowed for us to attend some concurrent workshop electives. These electives allowed us to focus on things in our school that might benefit us more as leaders. We elected to split into teams and proceeded to go to each different elective. Two of the first electives were ‘Transforming My Capacity’ and ‘Transforming Event Participation’. ‘My capacity’ discussed the challenges of having a heavy load and how to delegate tasks and take smaller workloads. Event Participation focussed on how to maximise participate in school events.
One of my highlights during the day was during the lunch break. I was lucky enough to have a discussion with the director of GRIP Leadership, Ronan McGinniss. In this discussion I asked Ronan, ‘what in your mind makes a good leader?’. His response was “focusing on others, rather than then your own interests, another thing is using your own talents and interests to put forward who you really are.” This was something that really resonated with me. Too many times you will see a leader change something for their own benefit, not for the benefits of others, and generally you will see a facade in a leader, where they will try to be someone or something they are not.
The next two concurrent sessions were, ‘Transforming School Pride’, and ‘Transforming the Effectiveness of Our Team’. School Pride aimed to empower us as leaders to help students to speak positively of our school communities. ‘Effectiveness of Our Team’ equiped us with some skills to keep our team on task and focused.
The day conluded with small networking activity, a Q and A with the GRIP team and one last “loud noises” intermission. This last Loud Noises session was particularly enjoyable as it was a dance off. 5 different schools were picked and then for a special treat, two teachers, one of which was our very own Mr Shelton (who had bust a move on stage).
Overall, it is fair to say that all of us as leaders now feel more wise. We also feel equiped to be a better leader than when we left in the morning.
Riley Wilson
Year 12
Executive Student Secretary
ACC Swimming Carnival
Wednesday 14 March saw the Holy Cross College ACC Swimming team make their way to Challenge Stadium to compete in the F Division Carnival for 2018. This year saw our most committed and thorough preparation phase with around 40 students at training from 6:50am every Tuesday and Friday morning. The team’s preparation was greatly aided by Mr Jarrad Pisano, Fiona de Courcier and Mrs Orilee Ryan’s fantastic coaching and technical modification which was also well supported by the Senior Students taking ownership of selected training sessions.
As the training phase drew to a close, we successfully participated in the NEAS Swimming Meet and our annual training morning at Bayswater Waves which signified our readiness for the Carnival. Our final team gathering before the big day was our Squad Breakfast where we gave out final pieces of information and announced our Squad Captains for 2018. Congratulations to Hannah Schnell and Chloe Ryan who lead the team fantastically in the training phase and on the Carnival day itself.
The Carnival was a day of mixed results with some fantastic efforts and achievements paired with some swims that were just below what we were hoping for as a team. As the day wore on, the committment and spirit that was apparent since day one of training shone through with a number of students stepping up into different events for the benefit of the team.
A strong showing in the relays saw us finish the day in 4th position overall which, while pleasing, will serve as the motivation for an even better result in 2019. The culture and committment developed by the students in recent years with regards to effort and preparation has been brilliant and I have no doubt that the returning students will have their eyes on bigger and better things in 2019.
This was the last ACC Swimming Carnival for our Year 12 students, these students have played a large role in developing the culture and expectations mentioned earlier and they should be extremely proud of this.
We look ahead to our next ACC event, the Cross Country Carnival in Term 2 with excitement.