At Santa Sabina our Catholic Dominican identity is expressed and celebrated in a myriad of ways. This month, October, we are expressing this through observing the month of the Holy Rosary. Every day the students in Del Monte have been praying the Rosary in class. The Liturgy Leaders are also leading the Rosary for the community at 8:30am in the Primary Years Chapel.

Despite not being well this week, news of all happenings on campus has reached me and I look forward to being back on my feet with you all soon.

Mr Carr, Primary Years Coordinator, and several Del Monte families travelled to Melbourne for the presentation of the National Maths awards. Congratulations to the two Santa Sabina College winning teams from Year 1 and Year 4.

“Tallong comes to Del Monte” is an annual event for students in Years 2 and 3. On Wednesday this week the students enjoyed outdoor team building events with the Tallong staff. As a special treat the Tallong chef, Geoff, also travelled to Del Monte and created a memorable barbecue lunch for the boys and girls.

Tonight Santa Sabina will participate in the Combined Catholic Schools Choral Festival at St Mary’s Cathedral in the city. The choirs are spending the day at the Cathedral rehearsing for this wonderful musical event.

Del Monte is welcoming grandparents and “grandfriends” this Friday, 26 October, for Grandparents Day. We look forward to welcoming the many grandparents and grandfriends who play a valuable part in the lives of our students. They will be entertained by the students and will share a lovely morning tea with them. The Middle Years and Senior Years students will celebrate their own Grandparents Day in November.

There has been exciting news from the NSW Educational Standards Authority (NESA, formerly the Board of Studies). Three of our HSC Music students – Angela Kim (a Year 11 accelerant), Cecilia Su and Lauren Wu – have been nominated for possible inclusion in ENCORE, the showcase concert of the best performances and compositions from across NSW.

Three of our Middle Years students have been very successful in their enrichment activities. Preethika Mathan of Year 7 has been recognised by the University of NSW as the best student science writer in Australia in 2018. Sienna Ters of Year 8 was named runner-up in the same competition – the UNSW Bragg Student Prize for Science Writing open to students from Years 7 to 10. All entrants were required to write on “Technology and Tomorrow”. Preethika and Sienna will be presented with significant prizes at the launch of The Best Australian Science Writing 2018 event at UNSW in November. You can read more about these achievements on our website where there is also a link to the prizewinning essays. An additional part of this story is the talk given to all students involved by a Santa Sabina parent who is a science writer and journalist. We greatly appreciate her dissemination to the girls on the value of science writing.

Bella Merlino of Year 8 has made it to the Grand Final of this year’s United Nations Youth NSW Voice Public Speaking Competition. Bella will speak in the junior division on “How can the Australian Court System provide better justice” at NSW Parliament House on 13 November. We wish Bella the very best for her appearance at Parliament House next month.

Next week, on Friday 2 November, I am looking forward to our inaugural MY8 exhibition. On display will be the products and outcomes of the students’ learning in our unique Middle Years program developed by Director of Middle Years, Holistic Learning, Mrs Santina Gambrill. There will be musical performances as well. This is a great event for anyone interested in how we teach the students of Years 6, 7 and 8 as well as the family and friends of our Year 8s.

Finally, we are gearing up for our 125th anniversary in 2019. We are planning celebrations and thanksgiving occasions and we will invite the entire Santa Sabina College community to get involved. To start things off, we are ordering commemorative jerseys for anyone who would like one. You can order one online or in person at the Uniform Shop. Students will be able to wear the 125 jerseys at school, but not while travelling to and from school. We also are inviting ex-students and other members of the College community to share their stories of their time at Santa. If you have a story, or know of someone who does, please use our online form to let us know about it.

Dr Maree Herrett