Dear members of the Mary MacKillop Catholic College community,

Thank you to the staff, students and parents of Mary MacKillop Catholic College Wakeley for the kindness and warm welcome that I have received since commencing at the College. It is a privilege to be a principal, especially in such a wonderful Catholic learning community, and I will do my best to honour the community by committing to provide the best Catholic education for the girls in my care. I begin the role acknowledging the contribution of the great leaders of the past from Sr Judith Sippel through to Mrs Narelle Archer. In particular I want acknowledge the recent work of Mrs Archer, which has resulted in the College achieving its best ever HSC results in 2017.

 

HSC High Achievers’ Assembly

On Friday 16 February we celebrated our 2017 HSC results at our High Achievers’ Assembly. Our impressive results were due to the growth mindset, high aspirations and goal setting of our students, their collaboration with their classmates and the continual support, direction and challenge they received from their families and their teachers.

Our teachers are to be commended for enabling their success. They set high expectations of our students and balance this with high support. Their selfless teachers did the extra things beyond what happens in the classroom to help them succeed, such as, providing them with endless hours of additional marking, practice and scaffolding answers, and providing outside school hour lessons.

 

 

Our 2018 Theme for the Year is “Do It Scared”. This theme was created by our new student leadership team and is embodied by our HSC students of 2017. These students took chances; sometimes they succeeded and sometimes they failed, however, they kept trying despite any setbacks. They displayed resilience, courage and commitment. They believed in themselves and believed that near enough was not good enough, so that even when they felt afraid, tired or lost they did another practice essay, or completed another past paper, or worked to perfect their major work and so on, determined to succeed.

 

There is no better way to prove that having a growth mindset works, than through our 2017 HSC results.  MMCC had 17 girls achieve an ATAR over 90 with 9 of them achieving an ATAR over 95. In fact, just under half our Year 12 students achieved an ATAR over 70. Current and future students and their families can be reassured that MMCC is leading the way in education in the South-West of Sydney. An education at MMCC is one to be proud of.

 

JJAMM

From Saturday 10 February until Wednesday 14 February, Erin Zappia (College Captain), Mary Khousho (Vice-Captain-Well Being) and I attended JJAMM (Joseph, Julian and Mary MacKillop), the Josephite schools’ student leadership conference. JJAMM provides a special leadership experience for students in schools sharing the spirit of Mary MacKillop and Julian Tenison Woods, the co-founders of the Sisters of St Joseph. This year our students joined students from 28 schools across Australia and New Zealand.

At JJAMM the leaders identify with the core values of the Josephite tradition, explore the nature of leadership, are assisted to recognise Mary MacKillop as a role model for living the Gospel and develop their responsibilities in representing the legacy of Mary MacKillop and the Sisters of St Joseph. We spent time at Mary MacKillop Place in North Sydney and at St Joseph’s Kincumber. As well as being an uplifting learning experience for the students, I found it inspirational as a leader in a Josephite school. I thank Sr Jan Barnett and her team for organising and facilitating this experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God Bless,

Ms Gilda Pussich

Principal