Newsroom

It has been a bumper Book Week this year, with plenty of activities and inspiring displays for students in the College’s two Library locations.

The Primary Library has added a splash of colour and magic with some giant hand-painted ‘book spines’ just in time for Book Week, thanks to our team of ‘Awesome Artists’ from Years 4-6.

This group of students, who have been meeting after school each week with Gifted and Talented Coordinator, Mrs Catherine Christie, were commissioned to brighten up the beige compactors located in the Primary library last term, by the College’s Teacher Librarian, Kerry Muste.

Year 6 students completed their preparation for Confirmation last Friday with a Retreat Day at the OLB Community Hall. Students together explored the symbols and meaning behind the oil, flame and dove in the sacrament of Confirmation, and created prayer rocks following a discussion about the gifts and fruits of the Spirit.

On Tuesday 20 August, Eastwinds blew into St Joseph's Hall with their unique brand of fusion music for our Primary students. This group of four musicians are part of the Musica Viva initiative whose cultural backgrounds and instruments hailed from all around the world: Australia, Japan, Estonia and Iran.

On Friday 23 August, the Year 11 cohort enjoyed a night with the Hollywood Stars as they celebrated their Spring Fling in style. The ladies looked stunning and the gentlemen looked sharp as they made their way down the red carpet and into the glamorously decorated venue for a night of dancing and socializing.

The 2019 SunSmart WA School Surfing Titles took place at Huzza’s Surf Break in Gracetown on Thursday 15 August. After a successful trial competition for the College the previous week, there was plenty of depth to the St Mary MacKillop College team chosen to compete against Margaret River Senior High School and Cape Naturaliste College.

Our senior surfers – Jake Robinson-Ellis, Tom Broadbent, Curren Boyes and Eddy Rodda – started the day off with strong performances, followed by some high scoring rides from our junior surfers: Ashley Spencer, Ryder Vernon, Bede Chandler and Lajon McDonald. Ashley and Ryder made it through to the second round against some highly talented Margaret River surfers.

An unusual design leapt ahead of the pack to win the lucrative prize purse in this year’s Science Week competition, after seven teams followed through to enter a working balloon-powered vehicle in Monday’s race.

Lunchtimes during Science Week were spent enthusiastically building and testing a number of prototype vehicles, where they soon discovered that the weight of the racer was an important consideration. After trialling various wheel types and propulsion systems, most teams opted to propel their racer using the air inside the balloon.

Forty students and four teachers set off for Canberra in the early hours of Saturday 10 August. The students were undertaking an educational tour of the National Capital. Whilst on the tour, they participated in a variety of educational programs focused on Australian history, culture, heritage and democracy.

St Mary MacKillop College entered a team of boys from Years 8 and 9 in this year’s Busselton Pedal Prix, which was held on the Busselton foreshore as the fifth in a six race Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) series on Sunday 18 August 2019.

The race consisted of riding a purpose-built tricycle continuously around a set course over a six-hour period. The winning vehicle is the one that completes the most laps in the time. Finn Breeze, Hiroki Rule, Nicholas Pavlinovich, Riley Bridgham and Denham Stewart all worked very hard on the day, rotating shifts averaging 20 minutes each around the 1.2km course.

Congratulations to Year 12 student Alastair Bruce on his selection as a finalist in this year’s Cinesnaps student film competition, which is run as part of CinefestOz.

Aspiring film makers aged between 15-18 years were invited to create a 3-5 minute original short film based on the 2019 theme: ‘The Watch’. Alastair was selected as one of seven finalists from schools around the South West Region for his short film entitled ‘One in a Billion’, which is set in the ‘perfect’ city of Arcadia and explores the question: is everything I see and hear on the news true? “I wanted to follow the idea of the series Black Mirror,” he said, “exploring the idea of how the media might ensure specific values and beliefs are held within society”.

Alastair will attend a glamorous red-carpet Finale event on Thursday 29 August, where the finalists will receive feedback from the jury panel of high-profile Australian film industry professionals, before the winner and runner-up teams are announced.

On Thursday 1 August, a Year 9 Girls and Senior Boys Netball teams headed to Perth to play in an Elimination Day against metropolitan schools, after getting through the first round of South West High School Netball Cup last term.

It was a long day for the students, playing six games in one day, but both teams came with high spirits and played some awesome netball.