Welcome to Term 4. I hope you have had an opportunity to relax and have some downtime.
Remote Learning Day
Our Year 12s will have their final assembly this Monday 16 October at a whole college assembly. Our 7 & 8s would normally be involved in this celebration and then remain on the Broadmeadows Campus for the remainder of the day, to allow the Grade 4s in our feeder primary schools to visit. Unfortunately, due to some staff shortages from COVID infections our 7 and 8 students will move to a remote learning day this Monday 16 October. This means that the assembly will be streamed for them to watch periods 1 & 2. Periods 3 to 6 our staff will be leaving work on their MyPenola class pages. The college apologises in advance for the late notice and the inability to staff both the Grade 4 visits and maintain a legal student and staff ratio at the Broadmeadows Campus.
Student Voice and Agency
As part of the Wellbeing Framework implementation and our colleges strategic plan we are currently developing a student voice and agency program that will look at involving students in curriculum development and delivery. Involving students in the best way to deliver content assists staff in not only creating engaging lessons but also to maximise student growth. This term we are trialling surveying students in some key learning areas, as well as asking some students to join key learning meetings. I will provide more updates as the program develops both this year and next.
Emotional Regulation Workshops
Near the end of Term 3 our Year 7 students participated in Emotional Regulation Workshops hosted by Toolbox Education. Students were provided with a set of tools to help in circumstances where conflict needs to be de-escalated, deal with emotions in a healthy way and lower the intensity of situations.
Welcome to Term 4, it has certainly been a busy start to the term with terrific opportunities to our students designed to enhance their learning and personal growth. Term 4 is a unique term as students will be coming to the end of their class work and assessments, prepare for examinations and then commence their 2024 classes during our Headstart period. Students are encouraged to continue to strive for their personal best and remain organised during this busy time.
Student Leadership
During the weekend of 6-8 October I was privileged to attend the Student Leadership Camp. The camp provided a terrific opportunity for our newly elected student leaders to come together and participate in a range of team building experiences, planning of student led initiatives and explore their leadership skills and talents reflecting upon leadership in a Catholic school and in the charism of our patron Saint, Mary of the Cross Mackillop. Congratulations to all students on their efforts and thank you to the staff who attended the camp. The 2024 College Captains and Portfolio Captains will be inducted at the College Assembly Monday 16 October.
Farewell to the Class of 2023
As we approach the end of formal classes for our Year 12 students I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their contributions to our College community. The school is very proud of their personal development and feels a sense of pride to have supported them during their secondary school journey in partnership with their families.
A range of activities will take place to celebrate the achievements of our Year 12 students including the traditional “dress up” morning on Tuesday 17 October. Please note that on this day the back gate will be locked in the morning and all students in Years 9 to 12 will be required to enter via the College front gates. The dress up celebrations and activities are for the Year 12 students only and students in Years 9 to 11 are expected to follow normal uniform and behaviour standard.
World Mental Health Day
World Mental Health Day took place on Tuesday 10 October. It is a day to talk about mental health and show everyone that mental health matters. It’s also a day to let people know that it’s okay to ask for help, no matter what you’re going through. A group of Year 10 students attended the Hume City Council Mental Health Expo earlier this week at the Broadmeadows Town Hall. The event included a presentation by Guy Sebastian, conversations about mental health challenges and connection to the local mental health services available in the community.
Something to Ponder
What, then, shall we say in response to these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:31
Risk and Dare Conference Sydney
On Thursday 24 and Friday 25 August, Gerard Knobel and Judy Matthews accompanied Year 10 students, Jwana S, Krish G, Mason H and Cong T to Mary MacKillop Place in Syndey to attend the Risk and Dare (RAD) Conference. The RAD conference is an initiative of the Josephite Sisters. The conference was a wonderful opportunity for our aspiring student leaders to engage with other like-minded young people and explore how to respond to Social Justice issues and to challenges in our society based on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching.
AJASS Immersion Experience Melbourne
On Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 September, four aspiring student leaders, Jwana S, Krish G, Cong T and Alyssa F joined with other students from Leongatha, Swan Hill, Werribee, Altona, Tasmania, and Canberra for the AJASS South-East cluster Josephite student immersion experience. The day was held at the Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre in East Melbourne and on the Broadmeadows campus. The students were intrigued with the story of Mary here at Broadmeadows and her work to establish the Children’s foundling home. Hearing the story made the photo, taken at the front of the Kerrsland building, where Mary herself once stood and walked in the very early 1900s, all-the-more meaningful! It was a fantastic experience in which students also explored the Josephite Charism and values that shape Josephite Leadership, namely creative courage, mutual respect, intentional inclusivity, and conscious compassion. Special thanks to Melissa Fry for her support in arranging food, transportation, and accommodation for the visiting schools.
Feast Day Fund Raising
Money raised this year during JJAMM week and on Feast Day totaled $23,994.29 and was donated to the respective year level charities. Thanks to everyone once again for their support and contribution to the Feast Day celebrations. Cheques will be presented to the various charities at our whole school assembly on Monday 16 October.
Father’s Day Mass
To celebrate the fathers in our community and Father’s Day, Mass was celebrated in St. Joseph’s chapel on Friday 1 September at 7:15am. Breakfast was provided following Mass in the ASH for fathers and their sons and/or daughters. Thanks to those who supported Angela Xidias in preparing the breakfast.
Welcome New Youth Minister
Our newly appointed Youth Minister, Marc Salazar commenced his role with us on 3 October. Mark has a deep faith and significant experience in Youth Ministry and a strong skillset in IT and multi-media. As a school we hope to benefit from his skillset and to engage students in ministry activities and events.
Memorial Mass
We will celebrate our annual memorial Mass on Thursday 9 November in St Joseph’s Chapel on Broadmeadows Campus commencing at 7pm. Please forward any photos of departed loved ones who you would like acknowledged in the memorial mass to Melissa Fry mfry@penola.vic.edu.au
by Friday 3 November.
Year 12 Graduation Mass
Our Year 12 Graduation Mass is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 17 October at Our Lady Guardian of Plants Chaldean Catholic Parish Church in Campbellfield commencing at 7pm.
Students have been preparing for this occasion in RE classes since the beginning of term 4. This is a time of reflection and great excitement. Please keep the year 12 students and teachers in your prayers over the coming weeks as they complete classes, begin revision and prepare for final examinations.
A 4 Part Series of Reflections for Advent in Preparation for Christmas
Part 1
“Come, Lord Jesus,” the Advent mantra, means that all Christian history has to live out of a kind of deliberate emptiness, a kind of chosen non-fulfillment. Perfect fullness is always to come, and we do not need to demand it now. This keeps the field of life wide open and especially open to grace and to a future created by God rather than ourselves. This is exactly what it means to be “awake,” as the gospel urges us! We can use other A words for Advent: aware, alive, attentive, alert, awake are all appropriate! Advent is, above all else, a call to full consciousness and a forewarning about the high price of consciousness.
When we demand satisfaction of one another, when we demand any completion of history on our terms, when we demand that our anxiety or any dissatisfaction be taken away, saying as it were, “Why weren’t you this to me? Why didn’t life do that for me?” we are refusing to say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” We are refusing to hold out for the FULL PICTURE that is always given by God.
“Come, Lord Jesus,” is a leap into the kind of freedom and surrender that is rightly called the virtue of hope. The theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution, and still be content and even happy because our satisfaction is now at another level, and our Source is beyond ourselves. We are able to trust that he Will come again, just as Jesus has come into our past, into our private dilemmas and into our suffering world. Our Christian past then becomes our Christian prologue, and “Come, Lord Jesus” is not a cry of desperation but an accord shout of cosmic hope.
What expectations and demands of life can you let go of so that you can be more prepared for the coming of Jesus?
Part 2
John the Baptist’s qualities are most rare and yet crucial for any reform or authentic transformations of persons or groups. That is why we focus on John the Baptist every Advent and why Jesus trusts him and accepts his non-temple, offbeat nature ritual, while also going far beyond him. Water is only the container; fire and Spirit are the contents, John says. Yet if we are not like the great John, we will invariably substitute our own little container for the real contents. We will substitute rituals for reality instead of letting the rituals point us beyond themselves.
John the Baptiser is the strangest combination of conviction and humility, morality and mysticism, radical prophet and living in the present. This son of the priestly temple class does his own thing down by the riverside; he is a man born into privilege who dresses like a hippie; he is a super star who is willing to let go of everything, creating his own water baptism and then saying that what really matters is the baptism of “Spirit and Fire”! He is a living paradox, as even Jesus says of him:” There is no man greater than John…but he is also the least” in the new reality that I am bringing about (Matthew 11.11). John, both gets it and not get it at all, which is why he has to exit stage right early in the drama. He has played his single and important part, and he knows it. His is brilliantly a spirituality of descent, not ascent. “He must grow bigger; I must grow smaller” (John 3.30)
The only way such freedom could happen is if John learned to be very empty of himself already as a young man, before he even built his tower of success. His ego was out of the way so much so that he could let go of his own ego, his own message and even his own life. This is surely the real meaning of his head on a platter! Some have cleverly said that ego is an acronym for “Edging God Out.” There’s got to be such emptiness, or we cannot point beyond ourselves to Jesus, as John did. Such emptiness doesn’t just fall into our laps; such humility does not just happen. It is surely the end product of a thousand letting goes and a thousand acts of devotion, which for John the Baptist gradually edged God in.
How is your spirituality one of ascent or descent?
At the end of Term 3, we welcomed the Youth Ministry Team to engage with the Year 8 students for their Religious Education Reflection Days.
The program explored life choices and students were eager in participating in a range of activities that invited them to:
The day was great fun and we thank YMT for sharing their faith and enthusiasm with us.
As part of VCE Dance Unit 2, Students are studying the contribution and works of Bangarra Dance Theatre Company. This week we visited the Art Centre to see their latest work, Yuldea which tells the powerful story of the impact and devastation by the building of the Trans-Australian Railway in the early 1900s, and secondly by the atomic testing at Maralinga, just north of Yuldea. The toxicity from the atomic waste dried up water in the area causing destruction to the animals, environment and community.
October
Monday 16 October - Year 12 College Assembly
Tuesday 17 October - Year 12 Graduation Mass
November
Monday 6 November - Student Free Day
Tuesday 7 November - Melbourne Cup Public Holiday
Thursday 9 November - Memorial Mass
Monday 27 November - Student Free Day
Monday 27 November - Awards Night
December
Wednesday 6 December - Term 4 Concludes
A 4 Part Series of Reflections for Advent in Preparation for Christmas
Part 1
“Come, Lord Jesus,” the Advent mantra, means that all Christian history has to live out of a kind of deliberate emptiness, a kind of chosen non-fulfillment. Perfect fullness is always to come, and we do not need to demand it now. This keeps the field of life wide open and especially open to grace and to a future created by God rather than ourselves. This is exactly what it means to be “awake,” as the gospel urges us! We can use other A words for Advent: aware, alive, attentive, alert, awake are all appropriate! Advent is, above all else, a call to full consciousness and a forewarning about the high price of consciousness.
When we demand satisfaction of one another, when we demand any completion of history on our terms, when we demand that our anxiety or any dissatisfaction be taken away, saying as it were, “Why weren’t you this to me? Why didn’t life do that for me?” we are refusing to say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” We are refusing to hold out for the FULL PICTURE that is always given by God.
“Come, Lord Jesus,” is a leap into the kind of freedom and surrender that is rightly called the virtue of hope. The theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution, and still be content and even happy because our satisfaction is now at another level, and our Source is beyond ourselves. We are able to trust that he Will come again, just as Jesus has come into our past, into our private dilemmas and into our suffering world. Our Christian past then becomes our Christian prologue, and “Come, Lord Jesus” is not a cry of desperation but an accord shout of cosmic hope.
What expectations and demands of life can you let go of so that you can be more prepared for the coming of Jesus?
Part 2
John the Baptist’s qualities are most rare and yet crucial for any reform or authentic transformations of persons or groups. That is why we focus on John the Baptist every Advent and why Jesus trusts him and accepts his non-temple, offbeat nature ritual, while also going far beyond him. Water is only the container; fire and Spirit are the contents, John says. Yet if we are not like the great John, we will invariably substitute our own little container for the real contents. We will substitute rituals for reality instead of letting the rituals point us beyond themselves.
John the Baptiser is the strangest combination of conviction and humility, morality and mysticism, radical prophet and living in the present. This son of the priestly temple class does his own thing down by the riverside; he is a man born into privilege who dresses like a hippie; he is a super star who is willing to let go of everything, creating his own water baptism and then saying that what really matters is the baptism of “Spirit and Fire”! He is a living paradox, as even Jesus says of him:” There is no man greater than John…but he is also the least” in the new reality that I am bringing about (Matthew 11.11). John, both gets it and not get it at all, which is why he has to exit stage right early in the drama. He has played his single and important part, and he knows it. His is brilliantly a spirituality of descent, not ascent. “He must grow bigger; I must grow smaller” (John 3.30)
The only way such freedom could happen is if John learned to be very empty of himself already as a young man, before he even built his tower of success. His ego was out of the way so much so that he could let go of his own ego, his own message and even his own life. This is surely the real meaning of his head on a platter! Some have cleverly said that ego is an acronym for “Edging God Out.” There’s got to be such emptiness, or we cannot point beyond ourselves to Jesus, as John did. Such emptiness doesn’t just fall into our laps; such humility does not just happen. It is surely the end product of a thousand letting goes and a thousand acts of devotion, which for John the Baptist gradually edged God in.
How is your spirituality one of ascent or descent?
