News

All Saints and All Souls

The celebrations of All Saints Day (this Wednesday) and All Souls Day (this Thursday) call us to remember all those who have been faithful to the Gospel and have inspired us to live a faith-filled life. And October 31 (Tuesday) is the pagan festival, Halloween, which is celebrated with growing enthusiasm in Australia. Interestingly, ‘hallow’ is an Old English word and literally means holy and can be used to describe saints. Halloween then actually means All Hallows Eve - or the day before All Saints Day.

These saints and these souls; these people, have gone before us and responded to the invitations of their time with an imagination, creativity and courage. In honouring their journey, we also commit ourselves to evolving our vibrant faith tradition in a way that honours the past, with excitement for the future, and confidence in a life beyond what we know.

Celebrating our Year 12 Students
Last Friday we formally acknowledged the rite of passage for our year 12 students and wished them well for the next critical stage of their learning journey.

I thank the students for the way they participated in the program of cooked breakfast, farewell assembly, morning tea with families and final Year 12 mass. 

I also thank the staff and parents who played their part in making a special day, as well as the Sugarloaf Café for their wonderful catering during the day, including a final celebratory cake for the Year 12 cohort.

At this time, I also offer deep thanks to the parish Rosary Beads Making Group, who presented hand-made rosary beads to each individual Year 12 student at their final mass together.

Student Leadership
At last week’s whole school assembly, we thanked our Year 12’s for their efforts over the past year as our senior leaders; efforts which have been noted and appreciated. Our Year 12 Senior Leaders also concluded their active leadership in the School so that they have time to prepare for their exams and concluding assignments. We thanked the Music Leaders, Sports Leaders, Faith, Wellbeing, Sustainability and House Leaders for their commitment to our College community, noting also the particular leadership of our College Captains, Lauren Holmes and Jordan Gould.

Lauren and Jordan had the pleasure of announcing that, from an outstanding array of young people who offered their talents, Evangelia Wichmann and Daniel Ker would be the College Captains for the next school year.

Following on from the student leadership this year, I am excited about the next year of student leadership in the College - and I pledge the College’s support for Evangelia and Daniel’s efforts so that their servant leadership will have an impact. I also expect that their leadership will be critical to what we as a school achieve and how the student’s voice is given expression in our school community.

Zayed Future Energy Prize
Tenison Woods College was encouraged to submit an application to the Zayed Future Energy Prize by a parent and Board member, Claude Cesario.  I am further delighted that our College is one of three schools in the Oceania region in the final of the Zayed Future Energy Prize. 

We are seeing large impacts on our school and wider communities through the actions of our student and adult sustainability teams. Many of the processes and initiatives identified in the Zayed application are now underway. For example, our College's Building and Grounds Committee has endorsed a $25,000 per year student-lead solar install that is to be implemented through an existing Senior School 'Electro-Technology' STEM subject.

The College Board has also endorsed the establishment of the Tenison Woods College - Renewable Energy Education and Sustainability (TREES) Academy to be established by 2020. The TREES Academy will aim to provide authentic learning and educational outcomes, primarily focusing on clean, green energy production, and creating pathways to industry. This further supports the College's ambition to be completely ‘off grid’ by 2030 and a leader of sustainable education, both at a national and international level. 

In collaboration with the City of Mount Gambier, Australian Federal Government, South Australian Government, Flinders University and University of South Australia, Tenison Woods College will also be aiming to ensure that the TREES Academy offers seamless articulation for students to the two recently announced local Innovation Hubs; the Limestone Coast New Ventures Institute Business Incubator and the National Institute for Forest Products Innovation Hub.

Exciting times and a credit to all the staff, students and parents who have committed themselves ecological stewardship and sustainability in our school community.

Read more about the Prize and our proposed innovative project here

Catholic School Funding and State Government Commitment
Please click here to follow this link to the Funding Facts sheet, which outlines the current situation of significant importance to the students, staff and families of Catholic Education South Australia.

These matters have been raised separately with the Premier of South Australia, the Honourable Jay Weatherill MP, and the Leader of the State Opposition, the Honourable Steven Marshall MP, and I consider them to be extremely relevant in the lead up to the state election in March 2018.

In summary, Catholic Education South Australia, which educates 46,000 students and employs more than 6,000 staff, is seeking commitments to the following:

• An increase in State Government recurrent funding commensurate with the average amount of state funding provided to Catholic systems across all states and territories in Australia.
• Provision of capital funding, commensurate with the Commonwealth Government’s $5.5m per annum, with appropriate indexation.
• An appropriate contribution to the costs associated with utilities and access to Allied Health services.
• Support for the transfer of all Year 7 students into a secondary setting and a guarantee that all Year 7 students in a secondary setting from 2018 will be funded at secondary funding levels.

I ask all members of our school community to ask these questions of our State Parliament candidates in the interests of fairly supporting the education of students in our school community, and indeed our state. For further details, please click here to visit this link to the Fair Funding Campaign.

Satisfaction Surveys
We at Tenison Woods College are constantly reviewing our offerings and approach, refining as required, with the aim of ensuring that we offer our young the best possible opportunities and outcomes.

To this end I invite our parents/carers to participate in a Satisfaction Survey that will offer us data to reflect on the type of learning community we are creating, and the type of issues we need to consider to make the College the best possible.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could take the time to complete the Parent Satisfaction Survey by Thursday 18 November. The link is below:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/C3CK6NW

Thank you for your contribution and should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me on 08 8725 5455.

Parish Pastoral Council Nominations 
Parish Pastoral Council nominations are now being sought. Nomination forms are located on the Bulletin Stands at the church entrances. Please fill in the form with the name of a person you wish to nominate and return to the Parish Office by Tuesday 31st October.

Parish Facebook Page
Check out the parish Facebook page, ‘like’ and ‘follow’ it at www.facebook.com/mtgambiercatholicparish

2018 Shining Lights
Now who should be one of our 2018 Shining Lights?

Criteria and nomination forms are available on our website, please click here to view.

Key dates for the commencement of 2018:
A full list of 2018 key dates will follow soon, but to assist with planning I inform our College community of dates to commence the academic year:

Tuesday 23 January 2018                  All Teaching Staff commence

Thursday 25 January 2018                 Book collection day

Friday 26 January 2018                      Australia Day Public Holiday

Monday 29 January 2018                   Reception, Years 6, 8, 10,11, 12 commence term 1.

Tuesday 30 January 2018                  All other students commence term 1.

You will note the staggered start to the commencement of the year for students.  This approach will assist students in the identified year levels to complete the best possible transition processes with the relevant teaching and support staff.  We also look forward to preparing transition programs that will accentuate our relationship with parents and carers in the support of student learning and wellbeing.

God Bless,

David Mezinec | Principal

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