Necessity is literally the mother of all inventions
Despite the limitations placed upon us by COVID-19, we have had a wonderful beginning to Term 3 and our students and staff have fully embraced all activities with renewed energy and optimism.
Plato is attributed with this quote:
“Necessity is literally the mother of all inventions”
COVID-19 has certainly forced our hand and because of the almost daily changing landscape continues to force us to think outside the box. Any other response would lead to paralysis – an inability to act at all.
At the end of term 2, we made the decision to Zoom our Year 7 to 10 parents-teacher meetings. Over the three days, over 4,000 interviews were conducted enabling parents to hear about their daughter’s progress and to speak with teachers about their daughter’s next learning steps towards improvement. Thank you to the many families who have commented on how easy and effective this process was for you.
This term we have also adapted a range of our activities to suit our new way of working:
Semester 1 Junior Award ceremonies
One year group at a time and unfortunately without the luxury and presence of the families who would normally attend to share this moment with their daughter, nevertheless, the ceremony needed to go on.
Each year group acknowledged and celebrated the effort of their peers, demonstrating our students’ commitment to their learning during a very unusual Semester 1.
Photographs were skillfully taken by our Year 11 photographers and these were posted to year groups so that even though parents could not attend they could see their daughter’s acclamation in this ceremony. A full list of award recipients and their photos are shared in this newsletter.
Debating
The debating season has recommenced but in a modified way. As the host school, we had no supper, no spectators, and in fact no physical competitors. Each of the debates was zoomed between ourselves and Good Samaritan College Hinchinbrook demonstrating again that the show must adapt and go on!
NAIDOC Week
Last week we celebrated NAIDOC week. Usually, this would involve a formal whole College assembly with a guest speaker and a moving liturgy. In true adaptable fashion, we made this a whole week of recognition and celebration with pastoral class activities to foster understanding as well as a wide range of activities for student participation each day of the week. Some of the activities included rock painting, bush jam pancakes, a water ceremony, and the painting of water tanks alongside our indigenous garden. Our indigenous students aided by our own Visual Arts Coordinator, Mrs Mary Hayman, Aunty Emma as well as her mother Aunty Denise and daughter Aunty Coral spent time reflecting on the message that they wished to convey, then designed and painted the tanks transforming their bulky ugliness to truly a work of art from the heart. My congratulations to Mr Horder for his coordination of all of the activities during the week.
Year 11 Reflection Day
Our Year 11 Leadership reflection day using Kahoot, Wordle and Tik Tok explored a range of ideas linked to being a leader in an Ursuline school. This is the final discernment phase for our students as they will now decide whether they will nominate for the leadership of our student community. Here is the Wordle our Year 11 students created to summarise what qualities they believe a leader should have:
I was privileged to be involved in the day with the girls which is usually an offsite experience in more natural surroundings. I was very impressed by their level of engagement, who would have known that a chocolate prize could engender such positive competition or how a Kahoot based on their knowledge of our College history could reveal so many interesting (mis)understandings of when Angela Merici lived?
Who would have thought that our Tik Tok more or less coordinated movements would have been received with such peels of good-natured laughter and raucous applause and who could have imagined that our last session – a silent affirmation could be so silent, so affirming, so respectful? This was a spectacular success and my thanks go to Mrs Monk, our Religious Education Coordinator, and the team of staff who worked with her in planning and delivering the day.
Whole College Assembly – Livestreamed today
Finally, we held our first whole College assembly today – one year group in Merici socially distanced and live-streamed into the rest of the College. We wanted to have this assembly today so we could launch our big St Ursula’s Day fundraiser with all monies going to support our Ursuline Sisters in Cambodia. This is an important part of our fundamental identity – our motto Serviam.
We have had to adapt, and be flexible, all the while being understanding and very mindful that we need to offer optimism, joy, lightness, and some “ normality”.So we will continue to think creatively about other opportunities for us to come together as a College community to applaud and to laugh and to rejoice.
Angela Merici was not afraid of change, rather she embraced the need for change and led down paths which at that time were untrodden and unknown, trusting in God’s providence all the while.
As we continue to be a community in these circumstances, let us take courage and be inspired again by Angela’s own words:
“Do not lose heart… He who called you will not desert you, but the moment you are in need, he will stretch out his saving hand”.
God bless you and your family and keep well and safe.
Take care
