Dear members of the MLMC community

Welcome back. It is with great pleasure that I welcome you back and welcome all our students back to on-campus learning and ‘the Hill’. The College is certainly a far more welcoming place with students filling the classrooms, corridors and interactive spaces. At the College Advisory Council, which met via Zoom last night, I commented that since the May meeting our students have not been on campus for more than three consecutive days. This is due to a range of things including lockdown 4, lockdown 5, public holidays, Staff Professional Development days, storms and, of course, the much-needed Term 2 holidays. Hopefully this will no longer be the case and with the restrictions currently in place and the vaccination program continuing we will remain in on-campus learning.

Having said the above, we continue to look ahead and plan in an ever-changing environment and continue to receive almost daily changes to the ways we operate. Currently, we are restricted in that we cannot have large group assemblies or incursions and must limit all visitors to the College. We are continually looking at the College calendar to re-evaluate what we are able to undertake, what must be postponed and what must be cancelled. Last week, I wrote to you to inform you that the College Musical has been moved to the week of 16 August and the Year 11 Debutante Balls to the second week of the September school holidays. In the coming months, we have a number of important events like subject confirmation interviews, Year 7 2023 interviews, College assemblies, book launch and 125 year celebrations, the Frayne Speech Festival, parent seminars and Mercy Day.

Events that can be reimagined and done remotely will be and others will be postponed where possible or cancelled.

The current restrictions are expected to last until 11.59pm on 10 August and so at that time the College will make final decisions about all events moving forward until the end of the term.

Last night, the College hosted a webinar for parents entitled ‘Parenting in a Pandemic’ hosted by the College Counselling and Wellbeing team. Topics included:

1. Understanding common responses from young people to the challenging environment: what are you noticing?
2. What you, as a parent/guardian, can do to help the young person. This section contains information about resources — apps, websites and the like
3. Self-care for parents/guardians.

This session was informative, well worth attending and hopefully of use to those who joined.

I hope you all continue to be well.

God bless

Philip A Morison
Principal

In our current climate it would be easy to focus on the negative and to lose hope, yet St. Paul urges us to put our trust in God and through our faith we will experience the peace and joy that comes from the Holy Spirit.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

Loving Creator,
We asked for strength, and you gave us difficulties to make us strong.
We asked for wisdom, and you gave us problems to solve.
We asked for prosperity, and you gave us purpose and brains to use.
We asked for courage, and you gave us fears to overcome.
We asked for patience, and you gave us situations where we were forced to wait.
We asked for love, and you gave us troubled people to help.
We asked for justice, and you called us to be just and lead with integrity.
Lord, we have received nothing that we asked for or wanted.
And yet, we receive everything that we needed.
For this we give thanks.

— by Colleen Hanycz, PhD, Xavier University

Important dates

• Monday 2 August-Monday 9 August — Year 7-11 web preferences open
• 2-6 August — LOTE Week
• Thursday 12 August — General Achievement Test (GAT)
• 16-20 August — Science Week
• 19-21 August — Matilda performances (Note: new dates).
  

CSEF application date extension

To support parents and guardians through COVID-19 restrictions, the Education Department has extended the deadline for schools to submit Camps, Sports and Excursion Fund (CSEF) applications to Friday 13 August 2021. The CSEF is provided by the Victorian Government to assist eligible families to cover the costs of school excursions, camps and sporting activities.

If you have not already applied for CSEF funding this year, if you hold or have recently received a valid means-tested concession card, are a temporary foster parent or a student between 16 to 18 years old and have a means-tested Disability Pension or Youth Allowance card, you may be eligible for CSEF. The allowance is paid directly to the school to use towards expenses relating to camps, excursions or sporting activities for the benefit of your child, but is credited to your school fee account.

The annual CSEF amount per student is $225 for secondary school students.

Parents that received CSEF at the school in 2020 do not need to complete an application form in 2021 unless any of the following changes have occurred:

• new student enrolments: your child has started or changed schools in 2021 or you did not apply at the same school in 2020; or
• changed family circumstances: such as a change of custody, change of name, concession card number, or new siblings commencing at the school in 2021.

If a form was not lodged in 2020, parents or legal guardians are required to complete a CSEF application form and lodge it with their child’s school for processing. Application forms should be completed and lodged with schools as soon as possible in Term 3. Schools will be able to accept and process applications up until FRIDAY 13 AUGUST 2021. CSEF payments are for the current application year and cannot be claimed retrospectively for prior years.

CSEF application forms are available to download below or from either our MLMC Finance Website or from education.vic.gov.au

Parents must lodge a CSEF application form with a photocopy of your Health Care/Pension card or email all the relevant information to mkirkwood@mlmc.vic.edu.au. Parents and guardians are reminded that late applications cannot be accepted.

Lilydale station works

The boom gates at Maroondah Highway in Lilydale will be gone and the new station will be open by Christmas, months ahead of schedule. The below works alert provides an overview of planned construction activities and changes to the way families will need to travel in the area.

Changes to the way you travel

For further details about upcoming works in the area, please visit the Level Crossing Removal Project website.

On Thursday 15 July our Senior VCAL students experienced a full-day workshop exploring issues around homelessness and poverty, working closely with mentors from Kids in Philanthropy.

Kids In Philanthropy (Kip) is a community organisation that mobilises others to directly make a difference by working alongside charities who provide benevolent relief to those in need and make the world a better place.

Students listened to guest speakers Sherreen Barker from charity organisation Discovery Community Care and Holy Fools founder and CEO Neal Taylor, as well as embarking on the creation of items to make life better for those less fortunate in our community.

Together the students made 88 scarves as well as preparing 166 chocolate crackles in the College’s kitchen to add to bags of donated goods to be distributed by Discovery Care and Holy Fools.

They also painted 50 cardboard figures as part of Holy Fools' Field of Hope campaign, with each figure intended to represent the number of homeless people in Australia as part of Homelessness Week, from 1-7 August.

Holy Fools is a not-for-profit charity focusing on the Yarra Ranges, partnering with the community to end homelessness.

“It was a very successful day with KiP,” Year 12 student Mitchell D’Aloisio said. “I learnt a lot about homelessness in the Yarra Valley — most surprisingly that many homeless people are my age. It felt great to give back through the activities we participated in.”

The workshop was part of the Personal Development Studies subject. The next step in the students’ Community Projects is for them to form a partnership with an external community organisation and develop a way to either contribute, advocate, volunteer or educate in their identified area.

We look forward to seeing the differences that can be made. Well done to everyone involved in the workshop.

On the first day of Term 3 an English incursion was held for all Year 11 students. The incursion with the Eagle's Nest Theatre Company offered our students the ability to not only experience two separate texts to better understand them, but also teach them the skills involved when comparing two separate texts and analysing their themes, messages and characters.

Here are two students’ reflections of the incursion:

This incursion involved a small group of students joining the actors on stage, which helped us immerse ourselves within the story, giving us the chance to analyse it from a different perspective. Not only were the performances filled with entertainment and talent, but they were very educational at the same time. Every bit of information that was given was relevant, concise and easy to understand.
— Scott Colliver (Year 11 Bronze)

Our incursion offered an engaging chance to learn about close passage analysis and the two texts On the Waterfront and Twelve Angry Men. Being able to view each text side by side allowed for a fun chance to compare each of the works and their thematic similarities. By starting a discussion around key scenes and ideas the process of creating a comparative essay became less daunting as we were taught how to identify and evaluate narrative similarities that may have gone unnoticed at first glance. The actors were able to relate the scenes back to us in a way that was easier to understand and the laidback, friendly nature of the performance allowed for more comfort throughout the show which helped to later engage in discussions and reflections of the texts.
— Ella Preston (Year 11 Bronze)

To celebrate Sustainability Week at the College, held 26-30 July, the College has undertaken a few activities to make the most of students being back on campus from midweek.

Year 7 students were involved in planting trees around the College grounds, while Year 12 students spent period 4 on Friday without as much power in the MLC building as possible. Year 12s had their own ‘Earth Hour’ experience, with students allowed to wear a beanie and scarf as they went without heating in classrooms to raise awareness of the consumption of energy.

We are a current four-star Sustainability Victoria ResourceSmart School, beavering toward our fifth and final star. The College earned the fourth star earlier this year.

We have also received a $10,000 grant from Melbourne Water to revegetate the Nelson Rd creek, located on the way down to our off-campus sports fields on Quarry Rd. This work commenced last year and will continue with the assistance of VET Agriculture students and Year 11 VCAL students in the next few weeks.

The College has developed a School Environmental Management Plan (SEMP) which outlines our commitment to sustainability. It highlights our achievements to date and a plan for what we would like to achieve in the future.

This SEMP has been developed as part of ResourceSmart Schools, which we joined in 2015. ResourceSmart Schools is a Victorian Government initiative that will help our school benefit from embedding sustainability in everything we do. Our school will continue to take action to minimise waste, save energy and water, promote biodiversity and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions where possible.

On Wednesday 14 July two of our debating teams competed in the final round of the Debaters Association of Victoria (DAV) Ringwood regional debating competition. Our debaters, Alannah Rudan, Anika Lil, Terenja Bork, Amelia McDonald, Poppi Davies and Shiloh Thurrowgood contested the topic 'That smokers should not have their medical treatments subsidised'.

Our speakers presented with confidence and poise, winning both of their debates against Ringwood Secondary College and Tintern Grammar. Poppi Davies must be congratulated for being acknowledged as 'Best Speaker' in her debate.

We are so proud of the College’s debaters, their hard work and dedication. They have all developed their confidence and debating skills during the season and we wish them continued success.

Thank you so much to Ms Emma Whitehouse and Ms Carrie Baker for their leadership, guidance and support of the debating teams.

As the College’s production of Matilda approaches, it is interesting to note that the College held its very first concert in 1907 and, from all accounts, the concert was of high quality. From then until now, the College has always produced high quality performances with excellent talent available for its productions.

1907 — The concerts

The first concert held for the College was in September 1896 at the Athenaeum Hall, to raise money to help build the Convent and school. The idea of a fundraising concert then became an annual event and the one that followed in 1897 was a grand affair. The evening began with a performance by the Lilydale Brass Band after which there was entertainment from the students, including a cantata called ‘The White Garland’ and a comedic play entitled ‘My Aunt’s Heiress’.

Over the years that followed, the concerts were hailed for the quality and variety of talent displayed by the students and they were always well patronised by the community. The 1900 concert, for example, was proclaimed a “gigantic success” by the Lilydale Express newspaper, which added that “the attendance was large and the children excelled themselves”.

For the 1907 concert, the same newspaper extolled the fact that “the programme was rendered entirely by the Convent pupils, and the excellence with which each of the items was presented, proved clearly that beside the other high branches of education in the Convent school curriculum, the study of Music, both in theory and practice, is given especial care and attention”.

Pathways and Subject Selection is underway at MLMC this term. This is a very exciting time in the academic calendar because students have the opportunity to frame their Learning Program for 2022.

Making good choices…

For our 2022 Barak Campus students, this is a time to pause and reflect on which Pathway stream and subjects will allow access to a preferred tertiary course or career. Essentially our senior students need to be asking themselves that very important question: How will my Pathway choices help my future? A career goal should be aspirational, it should be something that will give our graduates a sense of satisfaction and most importantly allow them to make a meaningful contribution to the world. A career goal also needs to take into consideration academic strengths and weaknesses so that success is achieved in that field of endeavour. Students do not need to make Pathway Stream and Subject Selection choices alone. Students should rely on advice from parents, teachers and Year Level Learning Advisors. They should also review their Semester 1 report to help identify their learning interests and academic strengths and weaknesses. Students should also seek support from our Careers team and Campus Learning Advisors on the more difficult questions such as the differences between VCE, VCE/VET and VCAL Pathway Streams.

...from MLMC’s vast range of opportunities

Our online Pathways Portal offers information on the wonderful breadth of curriculum and varied resources at MLMC. Students can study a wide range of subjects from VCE Agriculture and Horticulture in our award-winning vineyard and McAuley Park Farm to VCE Physics and VCE Chemistry in our purpose-built Harley Science building. We also offer VCE and VCAL Pathway Streams that enable students to incorporate a VET subject into their learning program. Students could study a range of VET subjects on-site at the College from Certificate II in Hospitality in our industry-standard commercial kitchen, to Certificate II in Music Industry Performance, where they could train in our purpose-built sound studio in Centennial Hall. Our strong relationship with many external VET providers also ensures students access to an even wider range of courses from Certificate II in Beauty Services to Certificate II in Electrotechnology (electrical pre-apprenticeship course). In addition, our relationship with Virtual School Victoria and Victorian School of Languages ensures if a student has an interest in a niche subject or language, for example if a language other than English is spoken at home, we can offer access to it as part of their learning program.

The breadth of subjects on offer at MLMC ensures that regardless of a student’s post-school pathway, there is a combination of subjects that will offer all our students the knowledge and skill they will need to be successful in our ever changing world.

Supporting students and parents with Pathway choice-making

Our Web Preferences system is open for students to enter their Pathway and Subject Selections from Monday 2 August to Monday 9 August. To help students and parents ensure they make the best available choices — we will be facilitating ‘confirmation interviews’:

• Year 10 (2022) Pathway and Subject Confirmation Interviews Evening — Wednesday 11 August
• Year 11 (2022) Pathway and Subject Confirmation Interviews Evening — Thursday 12 August.

Interview bookings are made online in the same manner as Student Progress Interviews. If parents need assistance making bookings please call the College and speak to our administration team.