College Principal

In the last few weeks, our Year 11 students have been through a rigorous selection process in their quest to become College Leaders for 2022/2023. This year, we have added a new role to the Prefect body and we introduce a Well Being Prefect to the team. We had over 85 students apply for leadership roles and 25 students applied for the role of College Captain alone. I am very clear with our students as to what we look for when a College Captain is selected and this includes a clear love for their school, a commitment to uphold the values we hold dear as a Catholic Dominican community, experience in leadership, a record of commitment to service and social justice, and someone who is articulate, confident and kind with a strong sense of integrity and humility.  We also look for students who can develop and initiate worthwhile projects who can take their fellow students on the journey to continue to keep our community connected.  This year’s cohort made the task incredibly difficult. Our current Year 11 students are outstanding young people, many have a strong track record of academic diligence, a broad involvement in the co-curricular life of the College, a commitment to Service and social justice advocacy and more than that, they are young women who are very good humans. If all twenty-five could have been College Captains, I would have been happy, but alas we can only have two. 

I am pleased to announce our Santa Sabina College Student Leadership Team for 2022/2023:

I offer a huge congratulations to these students on behalf of our school community. I have no doubt that they will work well together and be excellent ambassadors for our school. As a College community we undertake to support them to lead well, knowing that they will encounter challenges along the way but also knowing that they will be guided and supported to be resilient and persevere. I would like to acknowledge every student who applied for one role or another. To those young women who graciously accepted that this wasn’t their time to be in a formal leadership role, life will certainly give you other opportunities to step up and lead.  Not all of us can be on the school leadership team, but it doesn’t mean we can’t go on to be fabulous leaders in our workplaces and in our lives.  

Big thanks to the College staff who have planned, coordinated and supervised our Year 4 students when they went to camp at Tallong last week as well as to those on Year 8 Camp this week. We are providing Year 8 with a new and different experience this year and they are camping at Cockatoo Island while exploring Sydney. This experience allows them to develop skills in a variety of areas, one of these is in geocaching which is where they use tech skills and tools like GPS to find hidden treasures, a little like the Race Around the World. They are also immersing themselves in an Indigenous education experience, a wilderness lunch and hiking to Middle Head, just to give a brief outline. Camps like these are a very important part of our school curriculum and children are expected to participate.  Stepping out of their comfort zone is important for young people, actually important for all of us, because this is how we keep growing and learning. I was disappointed to hear that some students chose not to attend the Year 8 City Experience without good reasons. When we talk about empowering young people, building resilience and strength we do that in a variety of ways. One way is to ask our students to do things that make them uncomfortable so that they can learn to work through that discomfort and make it to the other side knowing that next time it will be easier. I ask parents to support the College in expecting our students to commit to their sporting or other teams even when they don’t want to and to go school camps, even if they don’t want to. Learning to overcome challenges is how we grow. All of us want our students to thrive in the world beyond school and one way to do this is to support them to take safe risks and try new things. 

I look forward to seeing dads and carers at our Father’s Day Masses next week and encourage dads to sign up to play some golf on Friday 9 September. This is a great way for dads to connect across our College community. 

Go gently.

Paulina Skerman
College Principal

Director of Mission and Pastoral Care P-12

‘There are many parts, but one body.’ (1 Corinthians 12:31)

In our Year 5-12 Assembly today we definitely celebrated our unity in community as we were introduced to the new Student Leadership Team who will lead our school for the next twelve months. The Scripture reading from Corinthians was chosen in order to allow us to consider the notion of unity in diversity and how this concept underlies the Christian message that we are all designed in the image of God.

A Reading from the Book of Corinthians (1Corinthians 12:12-31)

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so, the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.  And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The following reflection was offered to our students after today’s reading:

This reading from Corinthians, like so many of the messages we find in our Christian scriptures, is glorifying the dignity of all human persons. St Paul is reminding us not to confuse unity with uniformity. He tells us to love not just those neighbours who are like us but that we should embrace our neighbours in all their diversity. In fact it is the diversity that is the gift of unity, a gift that forms us and which means that we belong to each other as a unique and unified group. The gifts of all members of our community are equally valued and needed – no one person is worth more or less than any other. At Santa we are a Catholic, Dominican community and as such we respect the dignity of all.

When we fail to embrace the unique dignity of each person our community becomes less about unity and more about uniformity. When we make a homophobic or transphobic slur against another student or group of students we weaken our collective unity by expecting everyone to be just like us and if they are not then we think it is OK to discriminate and insult. It is not!  When we practice subtle or overt racism in our attitudes and words then we weaken our collective unity because we think it is OK to degrade and offend. It is not!  Sexual orientation, gender identity, race and culture are not factors used to measure our dignity as a person. Our Catholic Catechism tells us that these elements are irrelevant to a God who has made us all equally in his own design. 

In today’s reading from Corinthians it is a pleasure to be reminded that we are more alike than we are different. As a school we ask that each of you choose not to let difference and opposition define who we are but to let diversity and variety unite us.

Our Dominican pillar of Community has inclusivity at its core, and we will continue to promote this value in all facets of school life. We appreciate the support of all families with our endeavours in this area. 

RU OK Day 2022

The mental health initiative RU OK Day is coming up on 8 September and will be marked across the College throughout that week. Students will be involved in class and Homeroom activities, it will be celebrated at the Del Monte assembly that week and we will have students from Yr 10 leading activities and initiatives on Friday 8 September with classes at Del Monte. Our staff will be able to experience a taster of a Pastoral Care session from the different campuses and join together for an RU OK afternoon tea. We encourage all members of our community to wear a splash of yellow on Friday 8 September to mark this important initiative.

Melanie van der Meer
Director of Mission and Identity

Director of Teaching and Learning P-12

Where has the year gone? It is now a week since the students in Year 12 concluded their Trials and IB examination period. For HSC students, these examinations are just one of four assessment tasks (2 unit courses) and for the IB. The IB examinations were used as formative feedback. The results in both courses should be a guide on how students are tracking and an opportunity to gain feedback on what is working and what still needs to be done. Students have been given considerable support in the lead-up to these tasks with options to hand in practice essays or papers as well as lunchtime, after school and holiday workshops. For some students, writing for a prolonged period of time in a three-hour exam was gruelling. We will continue to work with the students by offering sessions on examination practice, managing stress and September holiday workshops. My advice for students who have not achieved the results that they were hoping for, is to keep reaching out to their teachers, collaborate with their peers, and share notes, as I have seen students make significant gains when they changed their study routine between the Trails and HSC. 

Year 11 Preliminary HSC and IB students are also heading into their final assessment block next week. Ms Imber, Dean of Studies has communicated with the students and their parents on the protocols and expectations surrounding examinations. The students who are unwell during an examination must contact Ms Imber or  Mrs Diomis immediately and follow the correct procedures for illness misadventure. 

Last week, I attended the Drama Showcase and was very impressed with the quality and variety of performances. Being able to see students performing in person was outstanding in this post-COVID-19 world.  Congratulations to the students and the exceptional staff who have led these students on their creative journey. As I write this piece, these students have just concluded their final performances for the external markers and can concentrate on the written aspect of the course. We look forward to our Visual Arts, Design and Technology and English Extension 2 evenings still to come. 

Jacqueline Pugh
Director of Teaching and Learning P-12

Director of Strategic and Educational Operations P-12

Traffic in and around the College poses risks to both staff and students of the College.  I implore all members of the College community to consider the safety of others when driving.  We can do this by:

• Being aware of the traffic lights on the Boulevarde – students and parents regularly cross in these areas 
• Pick up and drop off only in the designated Kiss & Ride areas – The chapel carpark and the visitor carparks are not pick-up and drop off areas.  The gates to these areas will be closed during pick-up and drop off times to ensure the ongoing safety on campus.
• Stay within the designated speed limits – there is a speed camera located on the Boulevarde to assist with this
• Be alert for children crossing – despite there being designated crossing areas near the College, students may still cross in areas that they shouldn’t be
• Not using mobile phones while driving – If you look at the phone for just two seconds while driving:
  • At 40km/hr, you will travel blind for 22metres (almost the length of a tennis court)
  • At 50km/hr, you will travel blind for 28metres (almost the length of 3 buses)

The College is consistently working with both Strathfield and Burwood council and local police to promote the safety of our community members.

John Gilmore
Director of Strategic and Educational Operations

Director of Community Relations P-12

All fathers, grandfathers and carers  are warmly invited to join our Father’s Day celebrations on

Thursday 1 September 2022

7:30am Mass will be celebrated in the Santa Sabina Chapel
Open to all P – 12 students and families

Breakfast will be served in St Elizabeth’s following this Mass

9:15am Mass will be celebrated in the Santa Sabina Chapel
Open to all P – 4 students and families
Breakfast will be served before this Mass in the Del Monte Hall from 8:00am

Hospitality is generously provided by the P&F

Please book Mass time via Trybooking:

Book here

Yvette Graniero
Director of Community Relations

Head of Gioia House

It is hard to believe that we are now mid-way through Term 3. Last week we welcomed prospective families to the College for our Discovery Tour. Students were great ambassadors for the College, showing visitors around and telling them about all the wonderful opportunities on offer at the College. 

The Gioia students continue to enjoy a range of co-curricular and enrichment activities, including sports, music, debating and public speaking. Last Saturday, I enjoyed watching our Year 5 and 6 Netball teams compete for a place in the final. Both teams displayed outstanding sportsmanship and teamwork. We wish the Year 6 team good luck as they play in the final this Saturday.

Intervention and Differentiation 

At Gioia House, we are doing our very best to meet the needs of all students by designing engaging and targeted teaching and learning experiences. To assist the development of students who require a little more support, we have two intervention programs that work to develop their foundational understandings in Literacy and Numeracy. 
The Literacy targeted intervention has been designed to support students develop the application of their phonemic awareness and comprehension. The program is founded using the Macquarie University MultiLit and MacqLit Programs and is supported by a combination of other resources underpinned by current educational research.

The primary aim of the Numeracy program is to develop students’ understanding of number concepts and build student confidence in Mathematics.
 
Our in-class enrichment program extends the knowledge and skills of every student in every class, regardless of their starting point. The objective of differentiation is to lift the performance of all students. Differentiation benefits students across the learning continuum, including highly able and gifted students.  
When differentiating teaching to suit the needs of individual students, teachers use a variety of strategies to help students become personally invested in and take ownership of their learning.  Gioia House teachers use our comprehensive data to decide what to differentiate in their instruction, choosing from content, process, product and learning environment. 

Also, students in Gioia House are offered a range of co-curricular activities to further extend their interest and skills outside of the classroom hours.

We continually seek ways to modify and tweak the classroom and our teaching strategies to meet all students’ needs.

Stella Azizian
Head of Gioia House

Head of Primary P-4 Del Monte

On Thursday September 8 as a College we will be marking R U OK day.  On this day the students will be engaged in a variety of activities across both Campuses.  On the Santa Maria del Monte Campus we will commence with an assembly on Thursday 8 September led by our Year 2 students introducing the importance of the day. The theme will be helping our friends, classmates and family by having conversations.

During this assembly the students will also engage in a student to student experience where the Gioia House students will share some of the strategies that they use when they are not feeling ok and how they help their friends.

On Friday 9 September the children are invited to wear a splash of yellow.  Please note the students will still wear their normal school uniform with an added splash of yellow. Some ideas for a splash of colour are wearing yellow:

• shoelaces
• hair ribbons
• socks
• scrunchies
• head bands 
• Hats

During R U OK?  day the children will engage in age appropriate activities that incorporate ways to have an R U OK? conversation with their friends and families. The children will also continue to learn about how to be a good friend and how to utilise their support networks. Our Year 10 leaders will visit the campus and work with our students in the classrooms on the day.

The R U OK day activities will complement the social and emotional learning that the children already engage in their pastoral, personal development and health lessons. In the next Veritas Voice we will share some of the activities that the children completed as well as some of the learning we are already engaging in to build positive relationships and care for our friends.

Kids Helpline (24/7)
1800 55 1800
Kidshelpline.com.au

Year 4 Camp

On Wednesday 17 August the Year 4 children engaged in their first 2  night outdoor learning experience at Tallong.  I too was very excited for my first experience of Tallong! 

Here is what some of the Year 4 students had to say about the experience. 

One of the highlights was the flying fox because it was very fast and exciting. The food was very delicious and there were many types, including dessert. “Cheffrey” made most of the food. Cabin time was very fun, talking to my friends. Julian Park 

The new things I learnt were how to use a compass, camouflage myself, and how to ride a mountain bike. I ate some food I had never seen or tried before. I loved it so much. I hope my mum will make the food Geoffrey made for us. I also made a lot of new friends and we all used teamwork. Isabelle Boustani

A huge thank you to our fabulous teachers for taking such great care of our Year 4 Campers!

Learning Walks

Below are the dates for this Term’s Learning Walks.  The children are very much looking forward to showing you all of their wonderful learning. The children in the Literature Building are also looking forward to showing you their new classroom environments!

 Below is a copy of the dates and times of learning walks for your reference.

Upcoming Community events

Father’s Day Stall – Wednesday 31 August -Class will do their shopping throughout the school day

Fathers’s Day Breakfast – Thursday 1 September 8:00 am on the Santa Maria del Monte Piazza

Father’s Day Mass – Thursday 1 September 9.15am at the Santa Sabina Chapel

Colour Fun Run – Friday 16 September. We will be having a fun run organised by the P&F!  The Colour Run will take place after lunch on the Senior Campus. This event will be a P&F fundraising event. We are very much looking forward to the afternoon. 

Prep and MBH Athletics Carnival – Friday 16 September 9:30am to 10:30am. We will be having a Prep and Mary Bailey House Athletics carnival. The event will take place on the Del Monte Field and Prep and Mary Bailey house families are more than welcome to attend and cheer on our little athletes! 

LitterArty Schools Waste-Art competition

Congratulations to Flynn Lee and Audrey Tita from Year 1, Alfred Jin from year 2 and Ava Anderson and Sofia Mirarchi in Year 4 for making the final selections for the Volvo Ocean Lovers Festival Litterarty waste-art competition with their artwork. Their entries were highly competitive and earned them a spot in the exhibition which was viewed by the public as part of the festival. 

Mobile Phones

Just a little reminder about mobile phones and SMART watches. The agreed acceptable use of mobile phones and wearables at the College is determined by the student’s academic school year level. Here is an excerpt from our College Policy for the Santa Maria Del Monte Campus.

3.2 Students in Years P-4 

● are not permitted to have a mobile phone at all during the school day on their person or in their school bags. If they do own a mobile phone, they are to hand it in at the Del Monte Office upon arriving on campus and collect it at dismissal when leaving the campus. Students are to ensure their phone is switched off when handing it in at the office. 

● must make sure that if they are using wearables/smart watches that all notifications are switched off during the school day. Wearables are not to be worn at all during assessment tasks, particularly during tests.

The full policy can be found on veritas Online

Kindest regards

Joanne Giannini

Head of Primary 

Director of Mary Bailey House

Acknowledging Children’s Book Council of Australia Book Week (CBCA). This week, Mary Bailey House (MBH) acknowledged the CBCA Book Week theme Dreaming with eyes open… As the theme is associated with Aboriginal culture and the MBH team through our Aboriginal Reconciliation Action Plan is committed to raise awareness and respectfully educate our community about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories and ways of knowing and being, MBH teachers decided to use Aboriginal stories to explore it with the children.

In Lilly Pilly Gully, the story that was chosen was the Dreamtime story, Tiddalick the Frog. In Daintree Rainforest the books chosen were ‘Mad Magpie’ by Gregg Driese and ‘KooKoo Kookaburra’ by Gregg Driese.

Another book, ‘Why Bats Hang Upside Down’ was authored by the Traditional Custodians of Strathfield, the Wangal people of the Dharug language group and told by Uncle Lex Dadd. In the lead up to book week, the teachers read these stories to their children and spoke with them about the messages that each one expressed about kindness and how we should treat others. When the children were familiar with each of the stories, the teachers then invited them to select a character from one the stories and asked them to create a mask to represent the character. Then this week during book week, the children were invited to wear their masks while each of the stories were told to all in the MBH community on two days during
the week.

Jackie Baxter
Director of Mary Bailey House and OOSH

Director of Tallong Campus

Kendal Hann
Director of Outdoor Education, Tallong Campus

IB Update

Year 12 

The Year 12 Cohort have just finished their Trial Examinations in preparation for their external exams which begin in October. These Trials should have helped them fine-tune any time management issues they may have and give them an indication of which areas of each subject they need to work on. It has been a very busy term for the cohort finalising CAS, Internal Assessment and final drafts of their Extended and TOK Essays. The students should now be focused on revision and finalising their UAC applications for next year.

Year 11’s 

We trialled an Extended Essay writing day for the first time on Friday 19 August and this gave the students an opportunity to spend the day researching and writing as well as defending their research question and meeting with their supervisor. Our EE Coordinator – Susan Lombardo has shared more information about the day below.  The Year 11’s are preparing for their first major exam block beginning on Monday. They are a motivated and inquisitive group and we wish them good luck. During this exam block, they will also undertake their Group 4 Project which we are looking forward to watching reporting on this in the next Veritas Voice. 

Year 10

The Year 10 subject selection interviews have been completed and 34 students have elected to complete the Diploma for 2023-24, they will be Santa’s 6th cohort.

Julie Harris

Dean of IB

IBDP Extended Essay Writing Day

The Extended Essay is a 4000-word, independent investigation into an issue of personal interest that is completed by our IBDP students.  Completing the essay provides our students with practical preparation for undergraduate research tasks and assists students to develop skills in formulating an appropriate research question, engaging in sustained, in-depth inquiry in a topic, communicating their ideas using formal, academic writing and developing an argument.

On Friday 19 August, the Year 11 IBDP cohort participated in their DDay and EE Writing day, where they presented their progress to date. Students were required to present to their supervisors and peers an oral defence of their research question, identifying why their investigation was a worthy addition to the existing body of knowledge surrounding their topic, as well as identifying challenges and strategies used to overcome obstacles to their research.

The students embodied the attributes of successful IB learners demonstrating passion and personal connection to their research and proving themselves to be knowledgeable and risk-takers.  

Some of the wide range of questions our students are investigating include:

• To what extent do contemporary ethics surrounding personhood and the definition of being influence the prospect of embryonic stem cell research? 

• To what extent does Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (2 CE) portray an accurate comparison of the influential political figures Demosthenes (384-322 BC) and Cicero (106-43 BC) in Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman history?

• To what extent does the film, Get Out (2017) utilise an antithetical approach to the White saviour trope to expose the disadvantaged reality of the ‘African American experience’ in the United States of America?

• How do texts such as Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion reflect the changing perceptions and ethical representations of autism and neurodiversity during their differing contexts?

• To what extent are schools in NSW, Australia secured against potential cyber-attacks, and how can they use knowledge and learnings from larger organisations’ security protocols/processes to better protect themselves against cyber threats?

It was exciting to witness the collaboration as students supported each other throughout the day, sharing ideas and understanding, challenging their thinking and planning the next steps in their investigation. 

Susan Lombardo

Extended Essay Coordinator (Acting)

Rainbow Matters

Abigail Dawson of Year 7 had no idea she was good at writing until last week – her work was shortlisted in the national writing competition, ‘What Matters’. Her stunning piece, ‘Rainbow Matters’, effectively and poetically conveys the important issue of respecting other cultures.

The competition, one of Santa Sabina’s enrichment opportunities for gifted students, is organised by The Whitlam Institute within the University of Western Sydney. Several Year 7 Santa Sabina students entered along with thousands of students from across Australia. They wrote on issues that were important to them.

Abigail originally wrote her piece in 2020 as a speech in response to the Black Lives Matter movement but it had remained unspoken.

‘I have always had interests in learning about different cultures and traditions’, she says.

‘​​I was very shocked to find out I had been shortlisted as I did not enter the competition in an attempt to win but just to see what happens in writing competitions and if I would continue doing this. Although it was unexpected I was very happy and proud when I got the results.’

This is Abigail’s first entry in a writing competition. 

You can read ‘Rainbow Matters’ here: https://www.whitlam.org/what-matters-2022-shortlisted-entries/2022/7/25/rainbow-matters

We congratulate Abigail on this significant achievement!

Victoria Harper
Publications and Marketing Officer

Year 10 Geography Excursion to Newtown and Barangaroo

The Year 10 Geography excursion is arguably the most fun and engaging excursion throughout the whole year. This term in Geography, we have been learning about the urban processes impacting on the city of Sydney. We have explored the sociocultural, economic and environmental factors which contribute to the liveability of an area. During the excursion to Newtown and Barangaroo, we were able to compare our class work with real-life experiences by investigating the many components of liveability, such as parks, heritage buildings, indigenous practices, restaurants, retail/shops, offices and recycling. As a group, we were able to capture primary evidence during our fieldwork by conducting surveys, taking photos and making observations. By comparing our findings with historical data and photos, we were able to recognise the urban processes that had occurred such as gentrification, suburbanisation, urbanisation and urban renewal. Through this excursion, we now have a much better understanding of the factors shaping our city and impacts these changes are having on its liveability.

Natalia Sukkar, Year 10

National recognition for AI concept

Microsoft Imagine Cup Junior

Year 10 IST students Alysia Rostirolla and Apostoleia Moulos placed in the top 10 entries in the country for the Microsoft Imagine Cup Junior Competition 2022.

With over 500 entries from across Australia the girls wowed Microsoft with their idea for an Artificial Intelligence system that would improve communication between hospitals and patients’ families, hoping to deliver and interpret medical results in a timely manner using layman’s terminology. 

Alysia and Apostoleia describe what it was like to participate in the competition:

The Imagine Cup Junior is a competition run by Microsoft for students aged 13-18 years to learn about Artificial Intelligence and how it can be used to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. In the challenge, we were tasked with creating a concept that uses Artificial Intelligence for good in the world. As a group, we chose to focus on the area of health and how we could help combat the shortage of medical professionals in hospitals and the misinformation gap between patients’ families and medical professionals.

In the last three years our hospitals have been overtaken by COVID-19 and as a result, there has been a significant strain on the medical field with the normal number of hospitalisations plus all the COVID-19 patients. This has caused a shortage of medical professionals in hospitals and has also meant that they don’t have as much time to spend with families of patients. We created an Artificial intelligence concept called ‘CONNECTo’ that collects and uses data within the hospitals’ database and interprets that data to terminology that the patient and their family can easily understand, which is done by using problem solving and linguistic Artificial Intelligence. For example, if a family member is in the hospital and has had a blood test taken, a nurse will log the blood test results into the hospital’s database. The AI in our software will take the blood test results, and will interpret them into simple terms, then explain the blood test results and decipher whether certain levels are higher or lower than others. A family member of the patient will be able to log into the app, view the blood test results, and the explanation of those results. 

We are both incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate in this competition and have found this competition not only challenging, but it has enabled us to master a range of new skills while utilising new technologies to solve real world problems. 

Link to Video of our concept

Alysia Rostirolla & Apostoleia Moulos
Year 10 IST 

TAP challenge

Each year the TAS Department enters two textile art pieces from the Year 10 Textiles Technology class into the Technology Educators Associations Textile Art Project (TAP) Challenge. Congratulations to Natalie Guerrerio who received a Highly Commended Award for her entry last year. 

This year’s design brief was to design and produce a textile art piece that brings the viewer to an experience of ‘light’. Students created an array of textile art pieces including wall hangings, cushion covers and dream catchers that were embellished with surface decoration techniques such as embroidery, beading, weaving and applique. 

Congratulations to Lara Millward and Olivia Radford who have won the Santa Sabina TAP Challenge People’s Choice Award 2022. These pieces will be in sent as our 2022 entries. We congratulate Lara and Olivia and wish them the best of luck.

Maria Saliba

TAS Teacher

Library Chess Club

Learning in the Library

On 18 August, Nicole, Mira, Jayden, Michelle, Jana, and Kate from Year 7 – 9, participated in the NSW Interschool Girls Teams Chess Challenge 2022, run by the Sydney Academy of Chess. Over the course of the day, we played against many other schools from across NSW in a round robin style competition. Although we didn’t place in the top 3, we all had a lot of fun, and learnt many new strategies from the people we played against. For most of the team, this was the first formal chess competition they attended and all were very excited to be participating, later stating that it was an incredible first chess competition experience! 

As the chess captain, it was incredible to see these girls enjoying the competition, and most importantly the way everyone supported each other. I was so impressed by our team’s growth throughout the competition, and the way we respectfully interacted with other participants and the venue. 

Kate P

Food Truck Incursion 

Year 10 Food Technology received a visit from the ‘Grilled Gourmet’ food truck and its owner Troy. He gave an insightful talk helping us understand what it takes to create and start up a food truck business, as well as the various food, hygiene and safety practices he must follow as a licensed food industry business. This included but was not limited to: food preparation, which must occur inside the truck as it has been inspected and approved frequently by an environmental health officer, correct safety and hygiene practices such as separate designated sinks and chopping boards, ensuring food does not enter the temperature danger zone, and more. It was really engaging to see the theory we learned in our classroom lessons be applied in a real-life context, and to learn about more safe practices to put in place as we cook. He also provided an insight into what it takes to create a successful food truck, through marketing/advertising, an eye-catching, relevant logo, and location/audience. These tips will definitely help us in preparation for our assessment task, which is to design our own food truck concept. Finally, being able to step inside the truck and assess Troy’s thorough organisation as well as the various systems in place was an enjoyable experience too. We then got to try Troy’s burgers and fries with the help of our own students, it was delicious! Ultimately, the experience was highly valuable and insightful, enabling us to understand what it takes to develop a successful, safe food truck, greatly helping us with knowledge for our next assignment. Thank you Troy and Grilled Gourmet!

Sabrina White, Claudia Care and Maddie Douglas

Debbie Bachmann

Head of TAS

Learning in the Library

On 10 August the Youth Review Forum was held in the Lecture Theatre, with a group of keen readers from Year 10 joining with students from St Patrick’s College and Meriden to share thoughts about the 2022 CBCA titles with students from Year 9. SSC was represented at the forum by Georgia Long, Bronte Sprotte, Amanda Yparraguirre, Sienna Bova, Alyssia Rostirolla and Eloise Dahm. These students were articulate and demonstrated great critical and creative thinking in their analysis of the books they had read.

We discussed our views on the 6 books that were nominated for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards in the Older Reader’s Category. These books explored a range of issues facing teenagers, introducing unfamiliar concepts and challenging stereotypes facing minority groups such as the LGBTQIA+ society.  The forum gave us the opportunity to express our individual viewpoints about the multitude of aspects of novels that appeal to young adult readers, allowing us to develop a greater appreciation and understanding of literature. What’s more it also gave us the opportunity to share our opinions and listen to others’ perspectives, which was valuable to assist us to diversify our thinking and understanding of the novels. Through listening to the opinions of other readers we were exposed to alternative attitudes furthering our appreciation of literature. We would like to thank Mr Paul McDonald from the Children’s Bookshop for moderating our discussion and for his insights into YA literature. Elouise Dahm

Susan Lombardo

Head of Library and Information Services (Acting)

BIOTech Futures 2022 Finalists

BIOTech Futures is an innovation and mentorship program that aims to empower the brightest young minds. The initiative connects students with world-class academics to think creatively about scientific inspired solutions to challenges in the fields of Health, Medicine, Sustainability, Humanitarian aid and the Environment.

One of our Santa Teams are finalists of the Biotech Futures Challenge.

They will be required to present their project at a Symposium at USYD on August 29, 2022. We were told that our team’s project stood out among the countless submissions they read. On the day their work will be marked by an expert panel of judges and watched by distinguished guests in academia, industry, and Parliament.

Their Project is called Heart Connect – See poster attached. There will also be a poster presentation on the day. All students who entered this challenge will get to display their posters. The students Finalists are
Aditi Kamath Isabella and Huang Jayden Xie

Rachele Rugiero
Dean of Gifted Education

IPSHA Debating

Round 6

Our debaters have been busy again with a debate last Friday against Amity College. The topic was ‘That schools should only use modern books to teach English (eg Harry Potter).’ Both our teams presented very plausible arguments and increased confidence in engaging with the audience. Congratulations to these students, and good luck in the next debate.

Thank you to Ms Milicic for training these students, Ms Sulis for adjudicating the debates and Yasmin Hanna (Yr 10) for mentoring the debaters every Monday afternoon.

Stella Azizian

Head of Gioia House

National Science week

Science Week is Australia’s largest annual celebration of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). 

On Wednesday August 17, the students of Gioia House donned their lab coats and participated in a Science Symposium to celebrate National Science Week. They were provided with the opportunity to rotate through a variety of experiments and demonstrations that sparked their curiosity and encouraged them to be fascinated by the world we live in.

The students were challenged to beat gravity, use chemical reactions to make raisins dance and blow up balloons, test the density of liquids through the construction of lava lamps and rainbows, test aerodynamics through paper aircraft construction, and test engineering principles while constructing bridges. I enjoyed discovering that salt dissolved in water can change the mass and density of water. My group were able to create a segmented water rainbow in the test tube.Chloe

Gravity experiments where gravity pushes back. Also how we used different ingredients to make colours separate. Sophia Esber

I enjoyed all the different types of experiments that we got to do, particularly the gravity experiments where gravity pushes back. Also how we used different ingredients to make colours separate. Sophia Esber

I learnt that the reaction between bicarbonate soda and vinegar is strong enough to lift small objects such as raisins. Louise Thill
 
I liked using the pegs and paddle pop sticks to create a structure and test its stability. Sybella El-Haddad

In Mr Dunphy’s Science class we investigated gravity. We learnt about our base and centre of gravity, and how they affect what we are able to physically do. We participated in a series of demonstrations where we had to challenge gravity. One task required us to jump forward whilst holding our toes. This proved impossible because to jump forward, your centre of gravity must move ahead of your base. Holding onto your toes prevents you from making the balance shift. We discovered how the artful use of gravity can throw you totally off balance. Una Quinn 
 
This term in Science we have been experimenting with energy transformations as well as different types of energy.  In our latest Laboratory lesson, we observed Electrical energy transformations using lemons and potato batteries.  We enjoyed the experiment and look forward to our next lesson. Year 6 students

Stella Azizian

Head of Gioia House

test

Year 6 PDH healthy lifestyle choices

In Year 6, students have been learning about lifestyle choices and creating visual diagrams to convey their understanding of holistic healthy lifestyle choices by including examples of different components of each aspect of overall wellbeing.

Stella Azizian
Head of Gioia House

Interdisciplinary Units

One way ticket to Australia

This term in Interdisciplinary, the Year 5 students are learning about European Settlement and through the 19th century. They first revisited previous learning about Colonisation and have extended on this by exploring the reasons for the establishment of colonies after 1800. The students have researched the Goldrush and Eureka Stockade and how these have influenced migration of people to Australia. Students created a poster demonstrating their understanding of the Eureka Stockade.

Our Nation’s story has many perspectives

This term, Year 6 students are researching migration to Australia in the twentieth century and exploring the contribution of individuals and groups to the development of Australian society. They are reading the historical fiction novel titled ‘Snowy’ by Siobhan McHugh to expand their understanding of multiculturalism and the important contribution of immigrants to the development of the Snowy Mountain Scheme. Students are bringing in artefacts that represent their family immigration journey and heritage linked to their Interdisciplinary Unit. As part of their assessment task, they will create a documentary about their family’s journey to Australia. Students also explore multiple perspectives and develop an appreciation for diversity. They will apply a variety of historical inquiry, research and communication skills throughout the unit. So far, we have been impressed by the variety of artefacts and stories behind those items. 

 
We thank you for sharing your stories and artefacts to support your daughters.

Stella Azizian
Head of Gioia House

Year 5 Action Girls – Rock and Water

As part of our Action Girl pastoral program, the students have been taking part in Rock and Water activities which allow the students to identify ways they can respond to everyday situations. The most recent Rock and Water session focused on identifying ways we can continue to ground ourselves and use breathing techniques to help us remain calm during different situations eg: before you are about to present a speech, or take the goal kick at soccer, or when you need to stand up for yourself. The students learnt that

“Exhaling brings you back to the balance and makes you feel more confident”.

Congratulations to our Action Girls

At our last Gioia House assembly, we congratulated the following students for their commitment to their learning as well as the positivity they bring to Gioia House each day. The students have demonstrated a dedicated approach to their learning and always show kindness, compassion and inclusivity through their daily interactions.

Congratulations to the following Action Girls:

Year 5

Sophie May

Isabelle Middleton

Zoe Mihaljek

Minty Slattery

Year 6

Natalie Bechara

Amelia Hone

Olivia He

Alessia Rinaudo

eSafety Live Webinar Parent Guide to TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube

As mentioned in the last newsletter, the eSafety commissioner is offering online webinars for parents and carers of young children aged 8 – 13 to learn more about popular online apps to ensure we have the knowledge and skills to support our young people. It is important to keep up to date with the eSafety guidelines on apps such as Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. There is a final live webinar session on Thursday 25 August 12:30pm.  If you would like to join this eSafety live webinar please use this link to register eSafety Parent Webinar

If you are unable to attend this live webinar the eSafety Commision website has some fantastic resources and information to ensure as parents, carers and educators, we deepen our knowledge and understanding of social media and online apps and develop skills to be able to support our children.

Marisa Maks

Assistant Head of Gioia House

Book Week

This year’s theme is Dreaming with eyes open

Throughout the week, Gioia House Teachers developed a range of engaging activities and ran interclass competitions where students created colourful book cover displays. Students brought artefacts and clues from their favourite stories to engage in discussions about books. Students read and listened to stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading. 

Stella Azizian

Head of Gioia House

Stella Azizian

Head of Gioia House

Sporting Achievements

Congratulations to all the girls on their hard work and outstanding achievements. We wish them success in their future performances.

Stella Azizian

Head of Gioia House

Pastoral – Are you OK Day

R U OK? Day – Friday 9 September

The College will be marking R U OK day.  On this day the students will be engaged in a variety of activities across both Campuses. The theme will be helping our friends, classmates and family by having conversations.

The Gioia House leaders will also share some of the strategies that they use when they are not feeling ok and how they help their friends at the Del Monte assembly on Thursday.

The children are invited to wear a splash of yellow.  Please note the students will still wear their normal school uniform with an added splash of yellow. Some ideas for a splash of colour are wearing yellow:

• shoelaces
• hair ribbons
• socks
• scrunchies
• head bands 
• Hats

During R U OK?  day the children will engage in age appropriate activities that incorporate ways to have an R U OK? conversation with their friends and families. The children will also continue to learn about how to be a good friend and how to utilise their support networks. Our Year 10 leaders will visit the campus and work with our students in the classrooms on the day.The R U OK day activities will complement the social and emotional learning that the children already engage in their pastoral, personal development and health lessons.

Kids Helpline (24/7)
1800 55 1800
Kidshelpline.com.au

Religious Education news

Hail Mary, Full of Grace,

The Lord is with thee.

Blessed at thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us

Hail Mary, Full of Grace,

The Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of

thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and

at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Last week on Monday, August 15, the students on the Del Monte campus celebrated The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On this Feast, we traditionally celebrate Mary going to heaven. The tradition is that ‘God took Mary, body and soul, to heaven after her life on earth had come to an end’.

YEAR 4 WELCOME LITURGY IN THE TALLONG CHAPEL

During the Year 4 camp last week the students participated in a very special camp liturgy on the first day celebrated at the outdoor Tallong Chapel. This was a perfect backdrop for the children to spend some time in prayer and reflection. Prayer is an important part of our Catholic tradition. Sharing the scripture and proclaiming God’s word, is an integral part of whom we are as a Community. The students are to be congratulated for the reverence and respect demonstrated in this time of prayer and reflection where they were asked to think about their role as stewards of our world.

FATHER’S DAY NEXT WEEK

On Sunday 4 September, we will celebrate the special men in our lives. Father’s Day gives us an opportunity to recall and affirm the particular gifts that fathers bring to families. This includes fathers, grandfathers, uncles and important father figures in our lives.

I was fortunate enough to be blessed by a wonderful father who had a huge influence on my life. I am forever indebted to him for the many sacrifices he made for our family so that we could be where we are today. Whether it is their sense of humour, ability to see the positive side of difficult situations, patience even when they are tired, or their wise words of encouragement and love.

I hope that all Santa Sabina dads, granddads and uncles enjoy a wonderful day. We hope your day will be special and filled with many blessings.

Tina Nicotina

Year 4 Tallong Campus Experience 2022

Outdoor Education Experience

In Week 5, our Year 4 students visited the Santa Sabina Tallong Outdoor Education Campus. The students had fun learning new skills and participating in new and exciting experiences such as mountain bike riding, the flying fox, and camp fire cooking. It was wonderful to see our students trying new things, strengthening friendships and growing as learners, all the while maintaining our school values of community, service, prayer and study.

Year 4 Reflections

“Camp was amazing! We got to go on an enormous flying fox, orienteer our way using a compass and have a super loud slumber party with our friends.”  Molly and Michelle

“I had a good time hanging out with all my friends and having cake for my birthday!”  Jacob

“The chefs name is Cheffery and his food is so good, you will never go hungry.” Gabby

“I had a great time on camp last week and I would do it over and over again.” Ella

Rock: Something I rocked at, or am proud of, during the camp was being with my friends all day and night long Leaf: Something I want to leave behind is missing my family and hurting my ankle Stick: Something that will stick in my memories is overcoming the Flying fox and celebrating the outdoor liturgy. Nicholas

“My camp experience was amazing and brought me out of my comfort zone. The Year 10 leaders joined us on camp and ensured we had a fun time. Best of all we had a singing competition and even the teachers sang with us!” Chloe

Year 4 Team

PYP Update

Our current units of inquiry:

Karen Campbell
Curriculum (PYP) Coordinator

Director of Sport & Co-curricular Activities

On Monday of this week the year 7-12 students were involved in sport, music and cocurricular photos. Photos for Primary students, years 1-6, will occur at a later date and this will be communicated to all parents and staff. Congratulations and thank you to all students who arrived in their gear for their photos and while it was disappointing that some students could not have their photo taken with their team, the day went very smoothly. Thank you to Ms Larkin who organised the day along with Mrs Touma from the music department who both worked to make this day happen. This is the first time in many years that Santa Sabina has organised formal sport, music and cocurricular photos. I am sure we will be able to improve on this in the future so that all students are able to attend and have their photos with their team.

Recently our students competed in the CGSSSA Athletics carnival at SOPAC against other Catholic schools. Our students performed and behaved as we all expect and I would like to congratulate them all for their efforts, commitment and skill with a number of outstanding performances. Students who have been selected to compete at the NSWCCC championship include

Lily Stewart, Charlotte Rudd, Janice Leelapatra, Amariah Kakala, Verena Gerges and Emma Wheadon. There were also so many of our students who received medals but missed out on selection to the next level. Only one student in each discipline is able to progress. We wish these students all the best as they represent CGSSSA at the championship.

For our Primary students, a number of our girls have made it through to Sydney Catholic schools Athletics championship representing conference two, which we are in. Noele Nader, Scarlett Chidiac, Mikayla Tadros and Stefania Lazanja. Again, there were many students who received medals but missed out on selection to this next level. Congratulations to all our students who competed and performed at their best on the day.

While many of our students have been busy playing and competing in sport or debating against other schools, our Dance teams have been busy performing at the various Eisteddfods around Sydney. This outstanding squad of students has demonstrated what hard work and dedication can achieve, winning and placing in a number of competitions. Congratulations to Ms Williams and her team of coaches who have directed them on this journey in 2022. Many of the students will be competing in the CGSSSA Dance Championship on Wednesday 24 August held at Santa Sabina Hall. We wish them all well for that event as well as another upcoming Eisteddfod at the University of NSW this coming Friday.

Our Representative Volleyball teams are gearing up for another State challenge this term. Our senior teams 1 & 2 will be competing on 25 and 26 August at SOPAC. Santa 3, 4 and 5 teams will be competing on 1 and 2 September. We wish them all the best as they build up for the end of year tour to the Gold Coast for the Australian Schools Championship in December.

The Santa Sabina Netball representative teams competed at the NSWCCC Championship last week at Penrith. The competition was extraordinary strong with teams from all over the state. Well done to all our girls who represented the College with pride and great sportsmanship. While we did not progress through to the next level, we played some wonderful netball and they all should be very proud of themselves.

Finally, I would like to invite all our community to come and watch our five Netball teams compete in the Grand Finals of the ERNA competition this coming Saturday. Four of our teams will be playing at 10:00am while our SSC 3 will be competing at 2:00pm at Meadowbank. Wishing our students all the very best no matter the result. I would also like to congratulate the rest of our Netballers who have played the 14 rounds and many who made it through to the final’s series. See you at Meadowbank.

George Ayoub

Director of Sport and Cocurricular Activities

Artistic Director

Major Music Performances for Terms 3 and 4

Please mark the following dates in your diaries. All parents and friends are welcome to the following free events:

Chamber Music Recital

Date: Wednesday 14 September 

Venue: Santa Sabina Chapel

Recital Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm

The following Chamber Music Groups will be performing:

Chamber Orchestra

Chamber Choir

Brass Ensemble

Percussion Ensemble

Flute Ensemble

Senior String Quartet

Junior String Quartet

String Trio

Piano Trio

Violin Duets

Primary Chamber String Ensemble

A Celebration of Music Concert

Date: Saturday 5 November

Venue: Sydney Conservatorium of Music – Verbruggen Hall, Macquarie St.

Concert Time: 6:00pm – 8:30pm

Rehearsals at venue: 9:00am – 5:00pm

The following Music Groups will be performing:

Symphony Orchestra

Chamber Orchestra

Sinfonietta Primary Years

Chamber Strings

Primary Years Siena Singers

College Choir

Chamber Choir

Wind Ensemble

Stage Band

Band Ensemble

Senior and Junior Taiko

Senior Percussion Ensemble

Select Chamber Music

Advent Festival of Readings and Carols

Date: Wednesday 30 November

Venue: Santa Sabina Chapel

Performance Time: 6:00pm-8:00pm

Rehearsals: 2:30pm-5:30pm

The following Chamber Music Groups will be performing:

College Choir

Chamber Choir

Chamber Orchestra

Siena Singers 

Brass Ensemble

Eisteddfod Success

Congratulations to four of Ms Angela Kim’s (Piano Tutor/Accompanist, Class of 2019) piano students from Del Monte who competed in their first piano competition at the City of Penrith Eisteddfod last weekend. In addition, Ms Kim has been invited to perform in Carnegie Hall in New York for the Winners Recital at the end of this year, as she received first prize in the “Golden Classical Music Awards International Competiton 2022”.

This will be her second time performing at an international competition since 2018.

Dominique Portelli Year 3 – 1st and 3rd prize in two sections 

Soopia Chang Year 2 – 1st Prize in two sections

Aria Leung Year 2 – 2nd prize and Highly Commended

Esther Chiew Year 3 – Highly Commended 

Independent Girls’ Schools Association (IGSA) – Inaugural Choral Festival

Congratulations to our five vocalists and instrumentalists who performed gracefully and confidently at last weekend’s festival hosted by Queenwood. Directing the Festival and conducting the performances will be Warren Trevelyn-Jones – Head of Music St James’ Church, Sydney and Chorus Master of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. 

Soprano 1 – Grace Benedict Year 9

Soprano 2 – Angelina Filipovski Year 7

Alto 1 – Amedea Khoury Year 10; Maia Khoury Year 7

Alto 2 – Isabel Marturia Year 10

Violin – Jina Lee (8) ; Celine Choi Year 7 ; Eloise Dahm Year 10

Viola – Estelle Gilmovich Year 5

Bassoon – Rose Hart Year 10

There wil be a 2nd performance (free event) on Sunday 4 September 3:30pm – 4:30pm at St James’ Church, King St, Sydney. The repertoire will include: Vivaldi – Magnificat in G minor RV.611 and Michael Leighton Jones – Five Irish Folk Songs.

Trybooking link: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing?eid=938069&

A few weekends ago, we attended the IGSA Choral Festival. Half sang in the choir, while the other half played in the chamber orchestra. During our rehearsals for the IGSA Choral Festival, we made new friends from different schools in Sydney while improving our sight reading skills and learning helpful singing techniques. The concert at the end of three full days of rehearsing felt very rewarding and was an amazing experience. We also listened to the Choir of St James’ King Street perform, which was extremely enjoyable. We are excited to perform again in a few weeks! In the orchestra, we met members of the Muffat Collective, chamber musicians specialising in historically informed performances. We learnt about the techniques and style of baroque music. The strings were able to experiment with playing with baroque bows that are accurate to the baroque time period. We are glad we could participate in this event and value this experience greatly. We are so grateful and privileged to have worked with these amazing experts, as it has allowed us to look into baroque music more deeply. It was fun and exciting, and we are all looking forward to the performance of these pieces in early September. Eloise Dahm Year 10 (Violin)

On 12-14 of August, Santa Sabina College was represented in the IGSA Choral Festival. 10 girls from the College participated in the concert and 15 other independent girl schools. It was an amazing experience as it required all the girls to join together and sing harmoniously for the concert after 2 days of rehearsals. It was directed by Warren Trevelyan-Jones, and the concert’s atmosphere was pleasant and melodic. It was a great honour and privilege to represent our College, Santa Sabina, among the other schools. We sang various pieces, strengthening our sight reading skills and increasing our musical knowledge. It is one of the most memorable experiences I’ve been through, and I thank Mr Chung for this great opportunity. Grace Benedict Year 9 (Soprano)

Last weekend, 10 girls from Santa Sabina combined with other schools for a weekend of rehearsals, tutorials and performances at Queenwood School. We played a great repertoire alongside professional musicians from the Muffat Collective. Even though I play the viola, I sat right next to the harpsichord, and I was fascinated by the harpsichord! We were even given real baroque bows to play on. They’re rare, and I never used one before  – I’m gonna get one for Christmas. I like playing with professional musicians, it shows you what your future can be if you practice hard and never quit. At lunchtime, the Santa Sabina girls would sneak out and relax at Balmoral Beach. I made friends from Years 7, 8, 9 and 10. Music lets you meet people with something in common, and you all need to work together fast to perform a concert. We have another performance at St James church on Father’s Day – I’m sure we’ll play well! Estelle Jacono Year 5 (Viola)

Year 12 HSC Music Recital

Congratulations to our Music 1 and Music 2 HSC musicians who performed magnificently to an enthusiastic audience of staff, family and friends last Friday in Holyrood. We wish them well for the performance exams in the coming weeks and thank them for their outstanding contribution to our ensembles over their time at the College. Many of our Yr 12 students are multi-skilled in singing or playing two or more instruments so we will miss them immensely. We wish them all the best in their future endeavours. 

Tim Chung

Artistic Director P -12

Representative Sport Update

Congratulations to Armani Jamieson who recently represented NSWCCC at the NSW v QLD Water Polo Exchange in Noosa, Queensland at the end of last month. Whilst Armani’s team didn’t get the results they were hoping for, individually, Armani had a great tournament scoring a number of goals for the team. Armani has also been selected for the NSW Born ’07 Waratahs State team competing at the National Championships in September. We also congratulate fellow Water Polo player Abbie Crakanthorp, who has also been selected for the NSW Waratahs State team (Born ‘08 ) and will represent the state at the National Championships.

Outside of the pool, Annika Ingwersen recently ran for NSWCCC at the All Schools Cross Country Championships. Emma Wheadon also qualified for the event, but was unfortunately unable to attend. Based on submitted times, Emma has been selected to compete at the Australian Cross Country Championships. Well done to Annika for a great run at Sydney Motorsport Park and Congratulations to Emma. Claudia Cicco played a number of games over 2 days in June for the NSWCCC team at the All Schools Football Championships at Valentine Sports Park in Glenwood. Congratulations to Claudia. Most recently, Honey Kim, placed 1 st at the catholic Primary schools MacKillop Golf Selection event over the 18 hole course. Honey will represent MacKillop at the NSWPSSA Golf Tournament in September.

Have we missed something? Please let us know via sport@ssc.nsw.edu.au.

Rachael Simmons
Representative Sport Coordinator.

CSDA & Archdale Debating

Following the Grand final of the Catholic Schools Debating Association (CSDA) competition several weeks ago, Santa Sabina was named overall winners of the Senior Aggregate Shield, and joint winners of the Junior Aggregate Shield alongside St Pats and Bethlehem.

These are awarded to the school or schools who have had the highest number of teams progress past the regular rounds. In our IGSA Archdale competition, the Year 9 and Senior teams both progressed through to the Quarter Finals and at the time of writing, we are waiting to see if they progress through to the Semi Finals next week. The year 7B and 8A teams narrowly missed out on the Quartern Finals on a countback.

Congratulations to all of our debating teams in both the IGSA Archdale and CSDA debating competitions, you have all done Santa Sabina very proud.

We also congratulate Molly Hoogland (Y10), who was selected into the IGSA representative debating team. The team consists of 13 students from years 10-12 from IGSA schools. Molly will train with the team and debate against other representative squads across the state. Molly is the first representative from Santa Sabina to be selected in a number of years, and is a wonderful achievement.

Rachael Simmons
Debating Coordinator

Hockey Update

Round 5 of the IGSA Saturday Sport was held last weekend, with Santa 2 and 3 finishing
their games in spectacular fashion, scoring off a short corner after the final buzzer. For Santa
2, it was the match winner after an impressive second half come back from being 2-0 down
against Ascham. A goal for Santa 3 pushed their final score out to 4-0 over opponents
Danebank and should see them move up the ladder, recording their first win of the season,
after a draw in round 3.

With two rounds remaining before finals, all teams will play a ‘home’ game this weekend at
Sydney University before traveling to Mittagong to play against Frensham. Santa 1 and 2,
currently sit in 2nd place in their divisions and will be hoping to firm their position on the
ladder before the Semi Final on Saturday 10 September.

Briars Summer Comp

For any students or parents interested in playing in the Briars Hockey Summer 7s comp.
Please email Ms Simmons r.simmons@ssc.nsw.edu.au , so that you can be placed into a
team.
The competition will run for 9 weeks on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening from October 18.

Rachael Simmons

Sports Administrator 

Netball

Congratulations to all our teams for a fantastic netball season, we hope you have enjoyed the season and we look forward to your return in 2023.

We had 10 teams through to the Semi-Finals, 7 teams progressed through to the Preliminary Finals and 4 teams have progress through to the Grand Final. We wish the following teams all the best for their Grand Final being played at Meadowbank Park playing at 10.00am Year 6 SSC 16, Year 7 SSC 12, Year 8 SSC
10 and playing at 2.00pm Year 10 SSC 3.

We look forward in celebrating your achievements.

Natalie Avellino
Sports Co-ordinator

Term 4 Invitational Basketball and Volleyball

All teams have been finalised and are now on the Sports Notice Board. All students must have the school black singlet with a number on it and black school shorts. Numbers can be obtained from the Sports office. Once the final draw has been completed this will be posted on
the sports tiles page on VO with general information about the competition.

Natalie Avellino
Sports Co-ordinator

P&F Updates

“Time fly’s when you’re having fun”.  As we approach mid-way term 3, here is a quick snapshot of what has been happening…

13 August: Trivia night was a success with over 100 people attending the event.  It’s always great to see the SSC community coming together and enjoying a fun night out together.  The competition between the teams was intense, but we all had many laughs along the way.

Congratulations to the Middleton table for taking first prize valued at $500 kindly donated by Massey Park Golf Club. I also want to acknowledge the rest of the kind prize donors; Betty Pardalis, HF Wedding Car Hire, Sweet Sis Delights & The Sunday Baker.

17 August: Discovery Tours were conducted by the College across both campuses for all potential and future families to see Santa Sabina College in action. I would like to thank Kate Davis, Rachael Middleton and Sia Zannon for helping to welcome families and serve morning tea. 

What’s coming up…

• 31 August:  Fathers Day stall for students from Mary Bailey House to Gioia House.
  A variety of gifts will be available for your child’s selection for fathers and loved ones.  To pre-order gifts please visit the trybooking site https://www.trybooking.com/CBXCJ

• 1 September: Fathers day mass & breakfast.  What a great way to kick off the day.  It’s great to also celebrate Father’s day with other SSC dads- getting to know and catching up with SSC friends over some breakfast and coffee. If anyone is able to volunteer to support the P&F serving breakfast on this day please Alex Cantali 0414 582 876

• 9 September: Golf day– You don’t have to be a professional to participate.  It is a great opportunity for dads to connect across the whole College community and grow friendships over a round of golf.  This event is also open to friends of the SSC community.  Limited spots available, so get in quick.  Here is a link to book https://www.trybooking.com/CBLRG

• 16 September: Prep to Year 4 students Colour fun run. The children are really excited and looking forward to this event as they will be running around while being covered in coloured paint.

• 28 November: P&F Annual General meeting I look forward to seeing you all at the next Annual General Meeting with elections being held.

Yours in friendship,

Joseph Gittani – SSC P&F President 

Keep up to date

If you haven’t signed up to WhatsApp for your year group and want to please click here to be added. If you are having issues with signing up please reach out to pnfcomms@ssc.nsw.edu.au

Parent Education – Debra Brodowski

Friend or Friendly?  When Kindness is Key

The 2020’s have been characterised so far by uncertainty and ongoing change. For our young people this has had a destabilising effect on wellbeing. Symptoms of anxiety are on the rise. One of the consequences that has been noticed as a result of all these circumstances is the impact that uncertainty, change, wellbeing, and anxiety have had on friendships.

One of the ways that the young mind tries to cope with these circumstances is to gain a feeling of control over their lives. What has this all meant in terms of friends?

• There has been an increase in “in-group out-group behaviour”. Simply put, this has meant forming strong friendship bonds for those within the “in-group”. As a consequence, this can create a feeling of being left out, “otherness”, and not fitting in for those who are not part of the “in-group” (in other words, the “out-group”).
• There have been sudden and dramatic shifts in friendships if there is a disagreement. The “friendship fall-out” can leave feelings of grief and loss for the situation and comes with intense feelings for all.
• There becomes increased friction with the forming of “cliques”; groups of friends that are in conflict with one another.

Having friends is a wonderful part of life. They form bonds of trust, openness, honesty, and vulnerability through shared experiences. It is also not realistic to be friends with everyone. We naturally have common interests with others which forge the bonds of friendship. As such, it is important to have friends, but also be friendly to others.

How can we support our young people in navigating friendships through life? Helping your young person cultivate the following behaviours is important:

• Be kind. We don’t know what’s happening in the lives of others, being kind to others allows our young people to feel good, whilst also allowing the other party to feel the same.
• Be friendly. Include others who seem to be lost and alone. Encourage your other friends to do the same. Including others and being friendly does not have a negative impact on your current friendships.
• Be genuine. Pretending to be kind and friendly is being a “frenemy”. A frenemy is “a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry”. Helping your child understand that school is about an individual and not a competition with others.
• Be respectful. Whether it be with friends, or simply being friendly, disagreements are a part of life. Disagreements are able to be worked through without disrespecting the other person or disintegrating the friendship.
• Be open. An openness to ideas and experiences enriches lives and allows the opportunity to grow and become enriched.

Being friends or being simply just friendly can boost wellbeing, happiness, and helps build wonderful and meaningful memories of school life.

Ex-Student’s Association

Annual General Meeting

Our AGM will be held of Tuesday 11 October at 7.30 pm via zoom. This will allow as many of our community as possible to take part in the meeting. All Ex-students are welcome and eligible to join the committee comprising of 14 members plus two who are rural based.

Please consider being a part of this committee which will meet late in October to plan for 2023. In 2002 we had four new members join. If you wish to attend the AGM or would like more information about the Association please contact our secretary Coralee, on santaexstudents@gmail.com.

Podcast Series on Exceptional

Have you listened to our latest podcast on Exceptional?

Ann Maree Mulders is an ovarian cancer survivor. She listened to her body when no one else did and became her own advocate in what was a hard journey through surgery, treatment and healing. She now advocates for others as an Ovarian Cancer Australia ambassador. This is her story, through cancer and out the other side. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Please click here to listen.

Save the date

Our annual Melbourne Cup luncheon will be held Tuesday November 1 at Angelos on the Bay, Cabarita. Please look out for our invitation in this newsletter.

To learn more about the ex-students association please visit us here.

Elizabeth Pooley
President

Introducing Bryony Williams, Dance Coordinator and Year 5 Teacher

STAFF STORY

Term 3 is Dance season and barely a weekend goes by without news of a swag of eisteddfod medals for Santa Sabina students. Behind our Dance Program success is Bryony Williams, Dance Coordinator and Year 5 teacher.

‘Miss Bryony’ has been dancing since she was ‘three or four’ and teaching dance since she was 17. An ex-student (Class of 2012), Bryony never really left the College as she commenced coaching in our dance program while studying for the HSC and continued during her professional studies and career as a performer in musical theatre. When the position of Dance Coordinator became vacant, Bryony was the natural successor. She has responded to community demand and built the program and its reputation despite the lockdowns of COVID since she was appointed.

Bryony’s career in the performing arts is in her genes. Her grandmother was greatly influential although she ironically believes that Tap is the only style of dance worthwhile. At Christmas and other important family occasions, Bryony’s family danced and sang around the piano and there was no option but to get involved and take on dancing as the number one extracurricular growing up. But she hasn’t looked back. Dance has taken Bryony from university studies to involvement in local amateur musical theatre to performance tours overseas. Bryony, however, came to the realisation that she feels more satisfaction from watching her students perform than from performing herself.

‘I feel more passion and more of a thrill watching my students and thinking I taught them that and we did that together’, she explains.

So Bryony augmented her coaching by studying primary teaching at the Australian Catholic University. In 2022 Bryony starts her days before school running the Dance Program which involves 115 students, four coaches and one assistant coach (a Year 12 student – an echo of Bryony’s own start in the dance coaching scene). Although Ballet is considered absolutely fundamental; Hip Hop, Jazz, Tap and Contemporary are the dance styles of today. The students range from Year 1 to Year 12 and they appreciate the added benefit of interacting together, despite the difference in ages.

‘Our dance teams have done really well thanks to their strong commitment to practice and their great coaches’, Bryony says. There is magic and creativity in dance but our dancers also learn self-discipline, respect for others, punctuality and perseverance. 

Once the school day begins, Bryony inhabits a bright and airy upstairs classroom in Gioia House teaching 23 Year 5 students. The life skills learnt in dance are brought by Bryony into the Year 5 classroom where high expectations are the norm, curiosity is nurtured and joy abounds. Even when difficult maths concepts are on the timetable! In both Bryony’s work settings, positive energy and good wellbeing are evident.

On weekends and holidays, when it’s not the competition season of Term 3 (Saturdays AND Sundays), Bryony enjoys spending time with her family and friends, going to the theatre and travelling. And her favourite dance style for herself right now? Jazz. She also follows closely the US dance scene and takes inspiration from it – a country where dance has immense popularity and innovative routines are every day.

Overriding all this is the sense of balance achieved thanks to the physical demands of being a dancer.

‘As both a student and teacher I value physical activity so much for all. It truly balanced me as a student and continues now as an adult as well. Whether it be dancing, Volleyball or Netball, maintaining a physical activity truly teaches life lessons which stay with people for life (including mine). I encourage all my students to do the same throughout their entire schooling, including Year 12, again, as I did.’

Victoria Harper
Publications and Marketing Officer

Japanese Cultural Exchange Opportunity 2023

Every year for the past 30 years, we have enjoyed hosting Japanese exchange students from Japan in Term One. In return, Santa Sabina students are hosted by Japanese families during our school visit to Japan or invited to experience short-term exchanges during the holidays. These exchanges have provided a valuable learning experience for both hosted and hosting students and fostered many ever-lasting friendships. If you would be interested in hosting one of these students next year, please indicate below and ask your daughter to return the slip to Student Services.

The students are looking forward to this opportunity to live in Australia and share customs, traditions and culture with Australian families. Australia is a multi-cultural society and the students enjoyed host families of different backgrounds. However, if you are hosting a student, please speak in English when the student is present. The students will be arriving on the weekend of first week of February or the end of January and leaving on the first week of April. We are asking families to host for two, three or four weeks during this time. The exchange student will contribute a weekly fee of $250 to each host family.

A meeting will be held towards the end of Term Four to introduce host families to each other and to answer any questions you may have. In the past, Australian families have thoroughly enjoyed the hosting experience and have recommended it to others.

Please click here to register your interest.

We thank you in anticipation of your assistance.

Ms. Kusumoto and Mr. Arkell