As this is the last Principal’s Updates for 2017 I wish to thank all members of the Santa Sabina community for their support of the College this year. I hope to see many of you at the Festival of Carols on 29 November, and the Year 4/5 Farewell Mass on 5 December. With the end of Term 4 approaching, we have shared and celebrated remarkable student and staff achievements. The most recent news was of Year 10 student, Olivia Porter, who has been selected as Team Captain of the Cricket Australia U/18 Cricket Team, for the U/18 National Championships in Canberra. Congratulations Olivia #likeasantagirl!
Our recent Sports Awards and Music Awards evenings highlighted very broad student participation, and exceptional quality. Congratulations to all students and teachers. Speech Night at the Town Hall on the 20th November for students in Years 6-12 was Santa Sabina at its best. The music performances were exceptional. Year 9 violinist Catherine Zhang’s solo performance of the Bruch concerto clearly was remarkable. As well, the College Symphony Orchestra demonstrated outstanding growth in numbers and capability in performing this very complex piece. The achievement of both soloist and orchestra reflects a dedication to practice that underpins all examples of excellence. The inclusion of the HSC Drama group’s performance of their play, Sabotage, clearly demonstrated why they have been nominated for the HSC Showcase, OnSTAGE. What a wonderful opportunity for these young people to perform their piece to a packed Town Hall audience. Our guest speaker, ex-student Sarah Dale, challenged us all to reflect on what a Santa Sabina education stands for. She repeated the call to “Veritas”, and what it has meant for her as a lawyer advocating for refugees and asylum seekers. I am confident that she inspired current students to believe that they too can make a difference for the better in their chosen fields. Congratulations to all students who achieved awards, and to every student in Years 6-12 who has worked hard to achieve her personal best, academically as well as in other areas of school life. I now look forward to the Primary Years Speech Day on 1 December.
Please see the snippet from our Years 3 – 5 Combined Orchestra to get you in the mood for Christmas – “The Little Drummer Boy.”! What a journey our young musicians have taken this year! Well done
We have an exciting new communications and learning portal, Veritas Online, for parents, staff and students. It is currently under construction and will replace HAIKU in 2018. An early release for parents this term, however, will enable them to access Semester 2 reports. Year 10 parents have already been notified as their daughters’ reports are now ready to read. Parents of all other students will be notified later next week about how to log on to Veritas Online, and view their children’s reports.
Our students receive many accolades both within and beyond the school gates. The recognition is not just about scholastic achievement but about their citizenship qualities. Chloe Rixon had been placed First in the Year 7 Individual Category in the MANSW Investigating with Maths Competition with her investigation into “Aged Care Treats”. I recently received the following email about Chloe from Susie Carter, General Manager, Bupa Aged Care at Ashfield.
“I would like to share my thoughts around – Chloe Rixon who is one of your amazing students. She contacted me initially and explained her maths project, came and introduced herself, interviewed me around the residents’ needs and then finally completed her project with such success that I felt I needed to share this with her school.
The time she spent with our team and the residents was wonderful, they enjoyed her dessert and really felt proud of her when she won the state award.
We wish her all the best and I have no doubt she will continue to succeed and really develop confidence in the coming years. We were so happy with her participation with our residents that she was placed in the Bupa wide national internal website as a great young achiever within the community!
Congratulations to the school and especially to Chloe.”
And, finally, the Dominican Sisters celebrated their past 150 years with Gratitude, at their recent Chapter meeting, and looked carefully at how they live their present reality with Passion, and embraced their future as Gospel preachers with Hope, confident that God is leading them into new expressions of what it means to be Dominican today. Discussion centred around how Sisters might realise more effectively their missionary presence in the Church, the world and the cosmos. Inspired by their motto “Veritas” and building on the four pillars of our Dominican tradition, Sisters committed to continuing to inform themselves, reflect upon, respond and give voice to the critical issues of our fractured world.
A new Leadership Team was then elected to facilitate this next phase of the Congregation’s journey:
Prioress: Mary-Clare Holland OP
Councillors: Jennifer Gerathy OP, Loretta Arohikeni OP, Julianna Drobik OP, Teresa Tebaia OP and Elizabeth Hellwig OP.
