Dear parents, friends, staff and students,

The responsorial psalm (Ps 24:4) from this Sunday begins with the verse:

Lord, make me know your ways.

Lord, teach me your paths.

Make me walk in your truth, and teach me:

For you are God my saviour.

As we finish term 3, we say farewell to our Year 12 students. Each year at graduation, I remind the students of what it means to be a graduand of Mount Carmel Catholic College. I emphasise the four areas of importance which revolve around faith, integrity, learning and community and I conclude my speech (and every newsletter) with the phrase Ite Inveritate – walk in truth. The psalm this week includes the phrase; “Make me walk in truth”. It is prefaced and followed by the values that we use for our graduating students. The ideals that we aim for when a student enters Year 7 at the start of their journey. To walk in the way of Jesus and to learn God’s ways. It is beneficial to remind ourselves of these goals regularly through our journey.

On Wednesday evening we held our Year 12, 2020 farewell ceremony. Unfortunately, under current COVID directives, we were unable to hold a graduation in its usual form or with parents or guests in attendance. It was decided in consultation with some parents and students to run an evening event which was live streamed. The purpose of this was to enable a majority of parents and family members to watch this live without the need to take time off work or school. After a significant amount of planning and preparation from our teaching, support and technical staff, we were able to deliver a first class live stream of a wonderful event. At one point in the evening, we had over 400 devices logged in watching and since then have had over 2200 views. This has been a testament to the professional way that the event was run and the ease with which it was accessed by parents. A huge thank you to all staff involved in this and to the students who attended with the highest levels of involvement possible in the circumstances. A huge congratulations to all students on receiving their portfolios and especially to our major award winners. These are included a little further on in this newsletter.

On Tuesday, we had the pleasure of announcing our student leadership team for 2021. The SRC underwent an intense leadership day and from this, students were allocated to portfolios of responsibility. Our student College Leaders for 2021 are:

Congratulations to each of these students.

In the lead up to the HSC we have been informed that Hiruni Peirera has been nominated for Encore. This is the performance showcase of the best students from the Music Higher School Certificate candidates. It is a great honour to be nominated and we are very proud of Hiruni especially given the difficulties of studying in 2020. We hope that this will be the first of many honours for our HSC students.

Over the past few months, Bishop Brian had been celebrating Sunday Mass and livestreaming it. These Masses each Sunday and can be accessed here.

Finally, this term has been draining on many within our community as a result of the extra demands from COVID directives. I encourage all students and staff to take the opportunity to relax and rejuvenate over the next two weeks. Within this, I also encourage students to give your parents a break by helping out where you can so they might also have a chance at rejuvenation.

Please have a happy and safe term 3 break.

Mr Steve Lo Cascio