Principal’s Updates
On 1 March, Pope Francis was at Santa Sabina Rome to begin the holy season of Lent. In his homily during Eucharistic celebration of Ash Wednesday Pope Francis reminded us of the meaning and benefits of the Lenten season:
In this season of grace that begins today, we once again turn our eyes to his mercy. Lent is a path: it leads to the triumph of mercy over all that would crush us or reduce us to something unworthy of our dignity as God’s children. Lent is the road leading from slavery to freedom, from suffering to joy, from death to life.
With the words of the Prophet Joel, “Return to me with all your heart… return to the Lord” (Jl 2:12, 13), he invited us all to a season of deep reflections.
– www.OP.org
The 2017 Project Compassion theme, “Love your neighbour”, demonstrates how love for our neighbours can transform lives. Throughout Project Compassion 2017, inspiring stories from the Philippines, Timor-Leste, Australia, Vietnam and Fiji will be shared, highlighting the importance of working hand in hand with communities around the world. Our Lenten season for both Del Monte and Santa Sabina College students began with beautiful liturgies focused on this season of loving our neighbours. The secondary students challenged us directly and personally with the question, “do you love your neighbour?” It’s sometimes easier for us to love neighbours in the abstract rather than the people living or working right next to us. So I encourage families to support Project Compassion this year through prayer and giving. You are most welcome to attend the House community Masses during this season of Lent. Our students have been advised that there’s an app (of course) for Project Compassion. It can be downloaded from iTunes (2017 Lent Calendar), and has prayers, stories about the work of Caritas Australia, and daily scriptural readings. A good way to start the day.
I express my sincere appreciation to those families who opened their homes to host the 69 Danish students of the Sankt Annæ Choir from Copenhagen over the weekend. These students attend a specialist music school in Copenhagen, and are regarded as one of the world’s best youth choirs. Your welcome and hospitality for these students meant that our staff and students were able to hear the choir perform for us, as well as having the Santa choir join a part of the performance. One of our parents generously wrote, “it’s been an absolute joy to host these fine, young, cultured and talented Danish ambassadors”.
I also acknowledge and appreciate our Artistic Director, Karen Carey, Head of Music Curriculum, Sarah Feltham, and Music administrator, Gladys Uy, for the tremendous amount of work in preparing, organising and implementing this wonderful musical opportunity.
This week we celebrate International Women’s Day (8 March), and the celebrations have been led by senior students. As well a representative group of students from Primary, Middle and Senior Years attended, along with the staff, the IWD breakfast (organised by UN Women) at Darling Harbour on Thursday morning. Among the guest speakers were Muniba Mazari, Pakistan’s National UN Women’s Ambassador. Munibar Mazari advocates for the UN Women’s initiative Step It Up for GenderEquality and other campaigns promoting women’s empowerment. Mazari, who has been in a wheelchair following a car accident seven years ago which left her with spinal cord injury, has represented the voice of people across Pakistan on important issues including gender inequalities and discrimination. Mazari was named as one of BBC’s 100 Women for 2015 and says:
I am a strong supporter of UN Women and the role we have in ending gender-based discrimination, working towards gender equality and making it a lived reality by 2030. This is the time to empower women and girls because when you empower one woman, you empower the whole generation.
At the University of NSW on Tuesday night, I received a significant award on behalf of Santa Sabina College, for community engagement with the university. We were nominated by Professor Andrew Martin for our extensive partnership with the university in researching student engagement and motivation. There are benefits to the university in being able work with large numbers of students, but there are also decided benefits for us. Professor Martin’s reports about our own students, as well as those across Australia, provide us with important data about student motivation in Years 7-10. When we receive his final report which is currently being completed, the results will be shared with staff and parents.
As a former student I have very clear memories of tennis at the College. Wearing our green and white striped, box-pleated tunics complete with same colour bloomers, we’d see the tennis courts fully occupied before, during and after school. It was always a very popular sport. While there’s been a proliferation of sports since then, tennis remains a highly skilled, engaging and very social game. It is one of those skill sets that we can carry throughout our adult lives, even if it’s only ever for social purposes. Given its prominence in the history of Santa, it is great news to learn that we are participating in the prestigious Tildesley Tennis Shield Competition. The 99-year-old competition is IGSSA’s (Independent Girls Schools Sporting Association) longest running carnival. It will be held on Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 March 2017 at Pennant Hills. This is the first time that the College has been invited to attend since the 1970s, and we are proud of the growth of tennis in the past two seasons. Our students have been training and preparing well for the tournament so we wish them the best. We have nine girls participating in the singles squad, and five sets of doubles. We are also required to supply a number of students to act as line-girls for the two days, and we have had approximately 19 girls volunteer to be trained as line-girls for this event. Best wishes to all of the students competing at Tildesley.
I wish our Year 5s and their Year 10 Outdoor Education Leaders a fantastic experience at Tallong next week. This type of link between our primary and secondary students is just one of the great advantages of a P-12 school. I was privileged to be interviewed by a Year 4 student this week as part of her Unit of Inquiry on Leadership. Deftly avoiding her question about when I was born, I was very happy to share all other details about place, family and early ambitions. This student organised the interview herself by simply emailing me and requesting that I participate. How good is it that our young students have this confidence and independence to initiate, organise and complete aspects of their learning.
Take a couple of minutes to be inspired and uplifted by Year 12 student Lauren Ramjan’s story in Heart Out magazine. She was invited to write on a topic of her own choice.
We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.
– Pope Francis, Laudato Si
You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
– Matthew 22:39
Dr Maree Herrett
