Aspire - 2020 Edition 1 - Mt St Michael's College

Welcome to Edition 1 2020 of ASPIRE, a snapshot of recent College activities, highlighting successes, activities and events that have occurred this year to date at Mt St Michael’s College. We trust that your families have remained well during these uncertain times.

It has been a most unusual and somewhat trialling time for educators and students in recent weeks with COVID-19 changing the landscape of teaching to online. I have been immensely proud of our students and staff with the creative and innovative ways that they adapted to this change. It is my pleasure to share our students’ successes with you and hope that you enjoy reading our stories.

Wishing you a safe and restful school holiday break.

In Faith and Love

Ms Sharon Volp
Principal

Year 12 Theme Launch 2020

Earlier in the year the Year 12s successfully and enthusiastically launched their 2020 theme at assembly. The theme is 2020: Mission Possible…Sisters on a Mission and encourages students to get involved in all that MSM has to offer and do this with courage, confidence, and compassion. On an individual level, students are encouraged to set goals and participate in the various aspects of the College, whether it is sport, academia, mission, or culture. As a collective mission, the Year 12s hope to increase the sense of community and hope to encourage and inspire all MSM girls to be sisters on a mission.

MSM Swimming Camp 2020

In January, 42 members of the MSM 2020 Swim Team embarked on the annual MSM Swim Training Camp.

This year, the team ventured to Hervey Bay and the Fraser Coast for a weekend of hard work, fun, and a focus on fostering the “team” in this very individual sport!

Year 7 Visual Art Self-Portraits

Year 7 Visual Art students have completed their colourful self-portrait paintings as part of the elective rotation.

This project required students to stylise their self-portraits using wire and then transfer ideas from their wire sculptures onto canvas using acrylic paints and posca markers. Using monochromatic colours, students examined the relationship between warm and cool colours with an irregular and regular pattern.

2020 Music Camp

180 girls from Years 7-12 had a very productive, yet social time at Music Camp 2020. New friends were made, ensembles welcomed new members, new music was learned, and much talent was shared at Camp Idol!

Many thanks to the Music staff, the accompanists, the teaching staff who were night supervisors, parent volunteers, and Ms Townsley for making the camp a memorable success.

QUEST National Challenge Success

Earlier in Term 1, MSM celebrated the success of Ella Patterson and Elora Brady of Year 11 and Cate Gaskell of Year 10 at The QUEST National Challenge for Gifted and Talented students. As Queensland Champions, they competed in December 2019 in the National Challenge placing an impressive 1st in Humanities, 3rd in Mathematics, and overall 2nd place in Australia. Outstanding! They were presented with QUEST badges to symbolise this achievement.

Gratitude - MSM Positive Education Program

Gratitude is one of the MSM Positive Education program constructs. Students are given many opportunities to engage in gratitude activities throughout the College.

Year 9 students are creating a ‘Gratitude Wall’ in which they will continue to add to and reflect on throughout the year.

Ash Wednesday Liturgy

The season of Lent commenced on Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of the forty days of Lent. At MSM, we celebrated this through our Ash Wednesday Liturgy.

All members of our community were marked with a cross of ashes on their forehead as a reminder of the promise of new life which comes from living the mission of Jesus in today’s world.

MSM Writers' Club

The MSM Writers' Club hosted a global writing project, 'Postcards from the Edge' in conjunction with the Asia-Europe Foundation.

Sixteen schools across 12 countries participated. The MSM project 'Postcards from the Edge' (1 of 50), was one of six projects nominated for recognition at the ASEF ClassNet15 Conference in Tokyo.

Communities Environment Program

The MSM Environment Group was excited to announce they have been awarded a grant of $7500 under the Federal Government’s Communities Environment Program. This grant is to be used to set up a school-wide composting program in 2020. We are grateful to The Hon. Trevor Evans MP for selecting our project for this grant.

Pay It Forward Markets for Caritas

Year 11 students demonstrated their leadership skills by hosting the ‘Pay It Forward Markets’, for Caritas.

With the support of our compassionate MSM community, students came together and hosted a sausage sizzle, chicken nuggets on a skewer, lolly and jelly cups, soft drinks, and teacher pie face stalls. They achieved their Mission: Possible.

CAN Formation Afternoon

The College Mission Captains and Executive Members of CAN groups met to reflect upon their role as Mission Leaders at MSM. They discussed a range of significant matters: practical ways to support those Australians affected by the Bushfires; plans for their first CAN ExtravaCANza for 2020 and the plans for each CAN group this year.

Year 7 Visual Art

Year 7 Visual Art students have been working on creating a self-portrait using wire.
The class was a hive of activity as the students develop their knowledge and understanding of WHS practices as well as developing a contour drawing using wire techniques.

CAN ExtravaCANza

Staff and students of the Community Action Network organised the CAN ExtravaCANza during lunchtime last term, raising an impressive $505 for Caritas’ Project Compassion. There was a wonderful community atmosphere on the Convent Lawn with everyone joining in on a range of activities from table tennis to painting.

MSM Mother Daughter High Tea - 10th Anniversary

The Mt St Michael’s College Foundation would like to express its sincere thanks to the MSM community for supporting the 10th Anniversary Mother Daughter High Tea. The Sophia Centre was beautifully prepared for 680 guests who were treated to the talents of our Senior String Quartet, amazing food, and a commemorative 10th Anniversary gift cup.
The global theme for 2020 is Generation Equality. Each year we ask a past student of Mt St Michael’s College to be our guest speaker, and this year Rebecca Treston QC reminded us of the long struggles women have had in our journey for parity and equality. Rebecca is the first female President of the Bar Association of Queensland in its 115-year history – a significant step towards equality!

Clean Up Australia Day

In March, students from Mt St Michael’s College and Marist College Ashgrove teamed up to clean our local creek system as part of 'Clean Up Australia Day'.

Students made an outstanding impact to our local community, removing the following items from our waterways and surrounding areas: 10 bags of general waste; 2 bags of recycling (bottles, cans, etc.); 1 giant tyre; 2 shopping trolleys; 1 big piece of fencing; old pipping; 6 chairs; 3 traffic cones; 1 licence plate; 31 golf balls; various miscellaneous treasures.

Year 10 Valentine's Day Fundraiser

On 14 February, Mt St Michael’s College community was thrusted into a world of love. Inspired by the Mary Aikenhead Education Colleges’ Theme for 2020: Compassion, Year 10 students with the branding #LoveIsCompassion, showered the College in a range of Valentine’s Day Fundraising market stalls, with all proceeds going to Caritas.

Interact Conference

MSM Interact Executive and one of our Mission Captains attended the District 9600 Interact and Earlyact Conference at St Columban's College, Caboolture. The Conference is an opportunity for the students to network with likeminded people, share their local, national, and international service projects, and discover new ideas.

Dance Excursion to The Happy Prince

Year 9 - 12 dance students were fortunate to attend the world premiere of ‘The Happy Prince’ at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC. This visually spectacular dance by The Australian Ballet was created by esteemed choreographer Graeme Murphy. The girls had a fantastic time and had much to discuss and analyse in their classes.

Year 11 French Dinner

Our Year 11 French language students joined more than 100 French students from schools around Brisbane to savour some French cuisine at the annual Senior French dinner held at Marist College. During the evening, they tried out their French conversation skills, tested their knowledge in a French trivia quiz and had fun in a French photo booth!

Dance Workshop with Jared Mifsud

Year 10 Dance students recently participated in a Guest Artist lead workshop exploring Commercial Jazz. In this workshop, students investigated women in commercial dance, particularly the representation of women in social media. This piece, choreographed by Jared Mifsud, focuses on strong women. “Raining Diamonds” by Ricki Lee, a strong Australian female artist, has challenged the students to engage in complex movements that demonstrates the strength and power that our young ladies embody.

Music Soiree 1, 2020

An appreciative audience was delighted by very strong solo performances from Year 10, 11, and 12 Music students at Music Soiree 1.

MSM Swim Team - CaSSSA Cup

On Thursday 12 March, MSM Swimmers competed in the CaSSSA Cup Swimming Carnival. After an extensive training period, commencing in Term 4 2019, our students represented MSM with grace, impeccable sports'woman'ship, and loads of determination. They made the College and the broader community very proud.
Unfortunately, the MSM swimmers missed out on bringing home the Percentage Cup this year by 1 point.

Our Year 11 Visual Arts in Practice students have installed and photographed their final products for the FIA Sustainable Design Module. These students have developed their skills in assemblage, weaving, and binding from reusable/recyclable materials. This unit has provided an insightful learning experience: demonstrating the importance of sustainability and making connections to businesses contributing to sustainable transparency.

Year 10 Visual Art

Year 10 Visual Art students have designed and rendered an acrylic figurative painting throughout Term 1 and 2, informed by the artist Anne Wallace. These complex compositions communicated a context or narrative, imbued with ambiguity and concern. The novel circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic necessitated the completion of these paintings in the home environment, highlighting our students’ resilience.

Year 7 Students Rise Up to the Challenge

Year 7 Home Rooms were set a challenge to like the morning prayer posts for a week. The winning homerooms with 100% success rate were 7B and 7E, who won a socially distant homeroom party with Ms Correia, Ms Palmer and Mr Koning.

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