From The Principal

During a recent spin class, just as most of us were about to be defeated by a particularly gruelling few minutes, the instructor urged us on by emphasising the importance of becoming ‘comfortable with discomfort’. While it was not what I wanted to hear at that moment, it was certainly what I needed to hear, and despite the discomfort, I was able to get through it without giving in to my desire to back off and take it easy. His words have stuck with me, and I have found myself reflecting on them and quoting them to myself.

The notion of becoming ‘comfortable with discomfort’ is an incredibly important life skill, and one that we must encourage in our children if they are to achieve all of which they are capable and to have the best chance of successfully navigating the challenges that life presents to us all.

Whether learning a musical instrument, learning a new language, or playing a new sport, there is a point at which we realise that we can’t do something very well. It is hard, not particularly enjoyable and we are tempted to give up. However, if we acknowledge our discomfort, continue to give our best and accept that mistakes are part of learning, we do improve, not just in the chosen activity, but in our ability to navigate any challenging situation.

While it can be tempting to jump in and rescue our children when they are upset about not achieving as highly as they would like on an assignment or test, or report that something at camp was very hard, by encouraging them to view the discomfort as a natural part of learning and an indication that they are challenging themselves, we can assist them to become ‘comfortable with discomfort’ and thereby develop resilience and self-confidence.

– Lisa Moloney
Principal

* Feature photograph shows our Year 5 Girls at Camp – embracing the chance to be ‘comfortable with discomfort’.

Year 7 to Year 11 Scholarships for 2024 Entry Reminder

Scholarship registrations for Year 7 to Year 11 in 2024 will close on Thursday 6 October 2022.

The Examination Day will be held on Saturday 15 October 2022.

Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to the School for an activity morning. Please note that not all shortlisted candidates will be offered a scholarship.

For more information about scholarships please visit our website, or contact our Registrar Nerida Coman on 02 8741 3165 or email enrol@mlcsyd.nsw.edu.au.

Interviews for 2025 Places Start Soon

Enrolment interviews start approximately two and a half years before the student’s starting year. Families with applications for 2025 will be contacted shortly for interviews, starting with daughters of Old Girls and siblings of current families.

To ensure your daughter can progress to an enrolment interview, it is highly recommended that your application be made by her first birthday or at least three years prior to the nominated entry level. Putting in an application the year before your desired starting year is likely to mean that we will be unable to find a place for your daughter.

For information on enrolment entry levels and enrolment steps please click here.

Should you wish to apply for your daughter you can now do so online here.

The enrolments team are always available to answer your questions, please contact either:

• Nerida Coman, Registrar by email or directly on 8741 3165, or
• Fadia Aoun, Enrolments Administrator by email or directly on 8741 3116

All applicants must observe the School’s enrolment procedures.

MLC School is Top Debating Girls’ School

MLC School won two age groups in the Archdale Grand Finals and was named the Top Debating Girls school for 2022.

Held at SCEGGS Darlinghurst, the undefeated Year 8A team and ISDA Champions took the Affirmative side against Kambala and were narrowly defeated.

The Year 8B team are FED (Friday Evening Debating) Champions and were also undefeated this season. They took the Negative side against Kambala and were the winners.

The Year 9 team are previous Archdale Champions and were determined to defeat Mount Saint Benedicts in their debate. They were named the winners after a long nervous wait as the three adjudicators conferred.

There was much celebration from the students, coaches, and proud parents and our new Debating Captain was also there to lend support. The smiles in the photos as we clutch our trophies says it all.

A big thank you to the talented and dedicated Archdale debating coaches, all the parents who have quietly supported me and all the debaters throughout the year. 

* The Archdale Shield award goes to the School who has accumulated the most points throughout the competition.

– Andrea Rowe
Oratory Coordinator

Click on the image gallery below to view full-sized images.

 

 

Encouraging Girls’ Participation in Sport

I was recently fortunate enough to attend the Heads of Sport Conference. One of the keynote sessions particularly resonated with me and what we are trying to achieve regarding girls and their involvement in physical activity here at MLC School and into their adult lives.

“Evidence shows girls who play sport are more likely to graduate from secondary school, receive post-graduate degrees and earn more money. Globally however, Australia is ranked one of the worst performers for girls aged 11-17 years with over 90% surveyed reporting insufficient levels of activity.” – AISNSW

What are some of the barriers girls face when deciding to participate in sport?

• Confidence/Lack of self-belief
• Unaware of the benefits of playing sport (physical and mental benefits)
• Feel like they are being judged
• Body image concerns
• Clashes with other co-curricular activities
• Pressures of schoolwork
• Perception that they can’t participate in sport when they have their period
• Missing out on social activities
• Brother’s compulsory sport takes priority over her sporting commitments

All these concerns can cause significant issues for girls that lead to their disengagement in physical activity. The impact of the pandemic has contributed to this disengagement, so it is critical at this time to encourage girls to be active. The pandemic and long periods of lockdown and illness has contributed to mental health issues including anxiety and depression.

We will be looking at these key findings to see what we can do as a school community to reframe sport for teenage girls. Put simply, we want the MLC School student to understand the benefits of an active lifestyle, enjoy being active either for competition or recreation and to be empowered by being in control of their active lifestyle choices. We want the MLC School students to be passionate and excited about their decisions to be active and to take this passion and excitement with them beyond their time here at MLC School and to be relatable role models for future generations of girls.

– Lisa Filby
Director of Sport

STEM Update – RoboCup Winners!

Three MLC School teams with students from the Junior and Senior School competed in the RoboCup Junior NSW Open in the Onstage Division. OnStage challenges teams of students to design, build, and program robots to create a performance. This performance can be in the form of a dance in time with the beat of the music, or a theatrical presentation. Teams are scored on their performance and technical interview.

We are so incredibly proud of all our teams. They put in many hours after school, during lunchtimes and in the school holidays overcoming many challenges. Congratulations to the Year 6 team whose surprise robot wedding turned robot disco dance party earnt them first place in the OnStage Primary Division and to the Year 7 team whose viral YouTube videos come to life earnt them second place in the OnStage Secondary Division.

– Marie Cassar and Bede Schofield
Junior School STEM Coordinators

Please click on the gallery below for full sized pictures and captions, the main picture shows Year 6 Robotic Revelations. 

 

 

 

 

 

Top Production and Performance Awards for Wakakirri Groups

MLC Junior School for their Story-Dance titled, Who Is Your Superhero? 

‘Discovering our personal Super-heroes as imagination runs wild in the classroom!’ – Scott Irwin 

Performance and Production awards:  

• Excellent lead cast
• Excellent performance teamwork
• Excellent artwork on sets
• Excellent ensemble
• Excellent polished performance

Nominated for the National Festival Award: Entertainment Story Award

Panel feedback from Scott Irwin:
‘Great work from a well-mannered and enthusiastic group! Lovely storytelling and acting, and good variety of choreography for different skill levels. Simple in story – told with energy and was clearly well-rehearsed. Nice clear message, and great work from leads and ensemble.’

 

MLC School Senior School for their Story-Dance titled Guernica 

‘Breathtaking, visually stunning, and emotionally powerful piece exploring Picasso’s “Guernica”. – Scott Irwin 

Performance and Production awards:  

• Best direction: Combination of dancing and acting
• Excellent staging: combination of all aspects
• Excellent set movement and staging
• Excellent polished performance
• Excellent theme/concept

Nominated for the National Festival Award: History Story Award

Panel feedback from Scott Irwin:
‘Incredible. My written notes are full of superlatives. I would like to commend you for the most exciting, thoroughly entertaining and powerful piece I’ve had the pleasure of seeing for a long while. Absolute commitment from every single performer, and storytelling at the highest level. With costuming, sets, lighting and makeup to match. The choreography was excellent and executed a such a high standard. This ticks every box for Wakakirri. Congratulations to one and all!’ 

On the evening of the performance, the Senior School students were also awarded the following Off-Stage Awards

• Best Backstage Crew Award
• Best Teamwork Award
• Best Individual Costume Design Award

What’s Next? 

Both teams have been nominated for a National Story award for 2022, with a live streamed Wakakirri TV ceremony to take place on Monday 17 October 2022 at 1pm (AEST). 

Additionally, our Senior Years students (Year 7 to Year 12) have been invited back to the NIDA Parade Theatre stage to participate in the 2022 State Awards Night on Friday 23 September 2022.   

 – Jenna Skepper
Dance Coordinator

 

Click on the image gallery below to view full-sized images.

 

 

 

 

 

Significant Award for Head of Composition

Congratulations to Tristan Coelho, Head of Composition, on winning the APRA AMCOS Australian Music Centre Art Music Award for Chamber Work of the Year!

Tristan’s winning piece Hokusai Mixtape for flute, viola, harp and electronics can be heard here along with some of Tristan’s other works.

Tristan has been recently working very hard with our Year 12 students to help them complete their final compositions. We are fortunate to have Tristan at MLC School and are thrilled that he has been recognised with this prestigious award.

– Elizabeth Gilberthorpe
Assistant Director of Music

 

Tournament of Minds Honour Awards

For six weeks nearly 100 girls, across Year 5 to Year 10, prepared to perform in the Tournament of Minds competition. Tournament of Minds (TOM) is a program for all primary and secondary students providing the opportunity to solve authentic, open-ended challenges that foster creative and divergent thinking. The program also focuses on developing collaborative enterprise, excellence and teamwork. Challenges are set in the following disciplines: The Arts, Language Literature, Social Sciences and STEM.

The regional division was held on Sunday 28 August at Randwick Boys High School. There was a lot of fun had by everyone.

We are very proud of the following teams who won Honour awards:

• Senior Stem comprising of students from Year 8 and Year 9
• Junior Arts comprising of students from Year 5 and Year 6
• Junior Language Literature comprising of students from Year 5 and Year 6

– Jan Falls
Mind Challenges Coordinator

Click on the image gallery below to view full-sized images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MLC School Excels at Snowsports

Nine MLC School students travelled to Perisher for the 2022 Interschools State Snowsports Championships, representing MLC School across five disciplines.

Congratulations to all our athletes who braved some wild conditions on the mountain, competing through blizzards and high winds. Two students (Year 1 and Year 2) competed strongly in both Alpine and Ski X placing in the mid 20s. 

A Year 9 student competed fantastically in the Snowboard Giant Slalom and Snowboard Ski X also placing in the mid 20s positions.

Two Year 4 students competed in both Alpine and Ski X. The team placed 13^th in Ski Cross, with both girls earning fantastic rankings individually and one narrowly missing out on a National place in Alpine.

It was a bluebird day for the Cross-Country event with six students ranging from Year 4 up to Year 9 all competing spectacularly in their divisions. Congratulations to the four students who qualified individually for the 2022 National Interschools Snowsports Championships in Perisher.

– Kylie Bickerstaff
Assistant Director of Sport

Operation Art 2022 Exhibition

Each year, schools across New South Wales are invited to participate in Operation Art, an initiative of The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Operation Art is a program which provides students with a forum to display their artworks publicly through exhibitions at the Armory Gallery, Sydney Olympic Park and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. 

This year the Operation Art exhibition showcases 630 artworks from students in Kindergarten to Year 10 across the state. Of these artworks, 50 have been selected by a team of judges to tour NSW regional art galleries before being gifted to The Children’s Hospital at Westmead as part of their collection, promoting health and wellbeing through art.

Four of our MLC School artists are showcasing their artworks in this exhibition. You can see their artworks below.

Olivia – My Pastel House (2021)

Colette  – My Pastel Farm House (2021)

Zoe – Fluorescent Still Life (2021)

Sienna – Coogee Beach (2022)

To support Operation Art, Sydney Olympic Park will be displaying the artworks at key areas around the Park: 

Armory Gallery Exhibition
Where: Within Newington Armory, through the gates at the Armory Visitor Centre.
When: 10am–4pm, Saturday 17 September to Sunday 30 October (weekends only) and during the school holidays Monday 26 September to Friday 7 October

Jacaranda Square 
Where: Park Street opposite Olympic Park Train Station
When: Saturday 17 September to Sunday 30 October
The top 50 artworks from Operation Art will be displayed at Jacaranda Square as an open outdoor exhibition until mid October. 

Pullman Projection
Where: Pullman Link Laneway off Herb Elliott Avenue Sydney Olympic Park 
When: 6pm–10pm, Saturday 17 September to Sunday 30 October
All 630 artworks will be projected onto the Pullman Hotel every evening from 6pm–10 pm until the end of October.  

– Victoria Bradshaw, Lesley Snelgrove and Liane Simpson
Junior School Visual Arts Department  

The Joy of Book Week in Junior School

Book week in Junior School – always a time to celebrate!

There were so many events for students to enjoy across Junior School during Book Week.

Events included visits and presentations by authors, morning reading sessions, a Book Fair, Book Swap and numerous lunchtime activities.

Book Week culminated in the the ever-popular Book Parade when it appeared that many of the characters that we have grown to love and cherish had stepped out of their books and into our Junior School playground. Students from Pre-K to Year 6 and staff dressed up as curious creatures with wild minds.

A special highlight was the teacher dance and having Year 6 students join in the fun. It was exciting to watch and students are to be congratulated on their imaginative and inspired costume choices. 

– Jody Gilroy
Junior School Teacher Librarian

Click on the image gallery below to view full-sized images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The much-loved Dad & Daughter Cardboard Challenge

Junior School saw the triumphant return of the Dad & Daughter Cardboard Challenge after a two-year hiatus. The threat of wet weather did not deter the large number of participants from attending, giving this community event the lively and friendly atmosphere that it has become known for. Even the eventual downpour right at the end of the night couldn’t dampen the spirits as we ran for cover!

The cardboard castles, created by each House for the medieval theme, were soaked and toppling over by the end. But they were mighty to behold as they developed over the evening, complete with defensive walls, drawbridges, impressively tall towers, and some, perhaps historically-inaccurate, indoor amenities. The students loved playing in the castles, bearing the crowns, tiaras, shields, and mini catapults they made in the craft zone. Many took a break from the castle construction during the evening to participate in the Catapult Catch Challenge, firing a tennis ball from our large catapult for their accompanying adult to catch. 

We are proud to be presenting this event to the MLC School community again and have already begun planning for next year. What will the theme be?

For more photos from the event, please visit the MLC School Facebook page.

– Bede Schofield and Marie Cassar
Junior School STEM Lab Co-ordinators

Click on the image gallery below to view full-sized images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Father’s Day Breakfast

The Principal’s lawn and Boarder’s Quad was buzzing with the sound of fathers and their daughters at the recent Father’s Day breakfast!

All in all, over 400 were in attendance – including dads, granddads and special father figures. Looking at the photos below you can see the delight on all our girls’ faces, so proud to be there with their dads.

Café 1886 certainly came to the party –  preparing 300+ fruit cups, 300+ yogurts, 300+ croissants, 500+ bacon and egg muffins, 100s of waffles and serving over 200 coffees!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you imagine a world without discrimination? – Year 6 Showcase

The Year 6 students have been busy this term preparing for Showcase! Our Collaborative Learning Project (CLP) unit this term was called ‘Inclusion Over Time’, where we investigated diverse groups that make up Australian communities, the ways in which they have experienced discrimination over time and how we can create a more positive and inclusive future. These groups included women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities, refugees and migrants and the LGBTQIA+ community. Each student then chose one of these groups, created three inquiry questions to focus their research around and then set to work becoming experts in this topic.

After a month of preparation, on Monday 12 September 2022, the Year 6 families were welcomed into the Year 6 Centre to see and interact with the incredible Showcase stalls. Creativity, innovation and lively discussion filled the room as students shared their knowledge through websites, videos, podcasts, games, infographics, interviews, picture books, models, posters and much more! The students also performed a song from their upcoming musical, some persuasive speeches and a variety of tasks from their specialist classes. The evening was enjoyed by all!

– Danielle Collins, Rebecca Putna, Courtney Simmons, Michelle Wyatt
Year 6 teachers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year 9 English Engagement with Indigenous Culture

As a part of the School’s wider goal to integrate a more authentic engagement with Indigenous culture, Year 9 has been studying the YA novel Nona & Me, by Sydney author Clare Atkins. 

This novel is a part of a Unit of Work called, Home is Where the Heart is… and forms a cornerstone of the English Department goal for 2022 of constructing learning experiences for our students which foster a genuine engagement with Indigenous culture. The novel is studied in comparison with some great indigenous poets such as Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Jack Davis and Ellen Van Neerven.

We were lucky enough to invite Clare Atkins to come and speak with the students. Clare spoke for over an hour and detailed aspects of her life and creative process to the students who were fascinated by how her creative process worked. Students loved being able to access the creator of a text they were currently studying and being able to directly ask questions.

In true MLC School style, what started with a few questions soon became a nuanced and pertinent discussion of issues such as ‘casual racism’ and how an author’s personal experience can come to shape their philosophy and artistic expression.

Clare is not an Aboriginal or Torres-Strait Islander person herself, being Vietnamese-Australian, but had spent many years living in Arnhem Land and the Northern Territory and been adopted by a Yolngu family. She spoke at length about how she hired cultural consultants to help her construct those aspects of the text that directly pertained to the Yolngu people in a respectful way. At MLC School, we are conscious that we need to get authentic voices to represent real experiences. Clare was able to address this aspiration in a very refined and compassionate way with the students. Hopefully, as we continue to develop this course, we will be able to access Indigenous voices more directly.

– Dave O’Donohue
Year 9 English Teacher

Click on the image gallery below to view full-sized images.

 

Bravo MLC School Musicians!

On the evening of Wednesday 15 June 2022, the Music Department was thrilled to present their first major concert since 2019. The concert was a celebration of different cultures and genres of Music that reflects the diversity of the school and the Music department. Below is a link to the concert video recordings for those not lucky enough to make it on the night or any who might be keen to relive the moment.

Click here, password is ‘Music’

– Trevor Mee
Director of Music