Dear Year 7 2022 Families,

Welcome to the Term 4 2021 Edition of Aspire, our newsletter for future MSM families that highlights successes, activities and events that have occurred recently at Mt St Michael’s College.  Most importantly included in this edition of Aspire is some important information regarding the commencement of the 2022 school year.   

It was such a joy to welcome our Year 7 2022 students at the Orientation Day in Term 3.  I hope that the students enjoyed their introduction to life at MSM. We were impressed with their enthusiasm, and we are looking forward to formally welcoming them at assembly on Tuesday 25 January.  

One of the exciting things that will happen on the first day of school is the distribution of the laptops.  Please note the date claimer for the Year 7 Parent Information and Laptop distribution which will occur on Tuesday 25 January at 3.30pm in the Sophia Centre.  Further details will be provided in the new year.  

As always, I encourage you to take the time to share this news with your daughter, helping her familiarise herself with our College.  

Wishing you and your family health, happiness and peace this Christmas and in the coming New Year. 

In Faith and Love

Ms Sharon Volp
Principal 
College Fees Raffle - 2021 Term 4 Winner
Congratulations to the winner of our Term 4, 2021 College Fees Raffle. Incoming Year 7 parent, Matt is excited for his daughter, Madelyn to start school at MSM with no fees to pay in Term 1, 2022! Thank you to the MSM College community for contributing to our raffle in support of the Sisters of Charity Scholarship Fund.  
Your 2022 Starters Pack!
2022 is just around the corner, and we are ready to help you hit the ground running with a few important links to bookmark.

Please also download the Mt St Michael's College App (MSMC App) to get notifications about MSM activities and events.
Message from Year 7 Pastoral Leader

Dear 2022 Year 7 Parents and Caregivers,

I hope that your daughters enjoy the upcoming rites of passage that the completion of Year 6 brings. Term 4 will be filled with a range of emotions for the whole family – disbelief that your daughter is already moving to secondary school; sadness at leaving friends and familiarity; fear of the unknown and hopefully excitement about what is to come.

It was truly wonderful to see your daughter at our Orientation Morning and Testing Day. I would like to congratulate the girls on the courage and resilience they showed on both days, it was lovely to watch the group begin to form bonds with each other that will only strengthen over the next six years. I hope that they enjoyed their experiences and are looking forward to starting with us in January.

I will be in contact before your daughter’s first day with details about the beginning of Term 1, however, I would like to share some key information to assist her on her first day on Tuesday 25th January 2022.  
 
  • School commences at 8.35 am.  Please aim to arrive at school by 8.15 am.
  • Assemble in the courtyard in front of M Block (behind Grantuly).
  • Wear your full-day uniform including College hat.
  • Bring your Mt St Michael’s College tote bag, a water bottle, a note pad and a pencil case.
  • The Kaf will be open for morning tea and lunch, or alternatively, you can bring your own.
  • You will be issued with your 2022 Diary and College Calendar, your student timetable, a lock for your locker and a lanyard.
  • Information regarding the distribution of student laptops will be provided in the week before the College year commences.
I look forward to seeing you in January and I hope that you enjoy the final weeks at primary school and your graduation activities.

Alison Correia
Year 7 Pastoral Leader
Meet our College Captains of 2022
Introducing our 2022 College Student Leadership Team. 

College Captains: Eden Jones and Georgina O’Keeffe 
Mission Captains: Millie Trims and Imogen Buckley 
Academic Captains: Lucy Tighe and Cate Gaskell 
Cultural Captains: Eleanor Brown and Sarah Tanwan 
Sports Captains: Claudia Legge and Holly O’Flaherty 
House Captains: Aikenhead - Charlie Gibson, Grantuly - Amelia Lathwell,
Rush - Lucy Ferris, and Stewart - Charlize Cooley

Year 7 2022 Orientation Day

It was lovely to welcome our newest members of the MSM community for the Year 7, 2022 Orientation Day. We hope your daughter enjoyed a day of enrichment and orientation, experiencing a taste of life at MSM. Students actively immersed themselves in a variety of activities exposing them to our core values at MSM in the areas of Mission, Curriculum, Wellbeing and Co-curricular.    

MSM Foundation Year 7 Father-Daughter Breakfast

On Friday 5 November we welcomed our current Year 7 students and their fathers for the annual MSM Foundation Year 7 Father-Daughter Breakfast. Thank you to our special guest speaker, award-winning journalist, author and mother of two daughters, Madonna King for sharing her valuable insight, advice and anecdotes with our guests. It was great to have members of the MSM community join us, including, newly appointed Foundation Chair, Dr Sarah Pollock. A wonderful morning was had by all. 

We will look forward to welcoming our 2022 Year 7 students and their fathers to this very special event to be hosted by the MSM Foundation in February.

Year 7 Christmas Tree Contest

The Year 7 Christmas Tree Decorating Competition becomes bigger each year! This year the girls were challenged to decorate their trees to reflect: the Mary Aikenhead 2021 theme of Hope; the values of Mt St Michael’s and the Sisters of Charity and, of course, the messages within the story of Advent. Whilst the competition is naturally a bit of festive fun for the girls it is also an opportunity for them to put their character strengths into action using teamwork, fairness and leadership to ensure the decorations are a truly collaborative effort. Each homeroom presents their tree and decorations to Ms Volp who is tasked with the hard decision of choosing a winning tree across a range of categories. A great end to a year of big change and hard work for our Year 7 cohort.        

Year 7 Pos-Ed Christmas Baubles

Year 7 students Alessandra and Josie approached their Pastoral Leader with an idea of injecting some Christmas spirit on the M Block courtyard tree. They asked each homeroom to decorate a bauble which demonstrated how homerooms looked after their wellbeing during assessment. The girls then arranged for the baubles to be distributed, laminated and hung on the tree. Homerooms have risen to the challenge and it is great to see how our homerooms work together with a range of tips and positive affirmations to support each other in an often pressurised time. Year 7 Pastoral Leader, Mrs Correia, is exceptionally proud of Alessandra and Josie who have both demonstrated what it means to be a Mt St Michael’s student - definite leaders of the future!

Positive Education at MSM - Coaching Programs

This year Mt St Michael's College celebrates ten years as a Positive Education school with our first program introduced in 2011. Our approach to wellbeing and the Positive Education program has continued to evolve since this inception.  Here's what our students have to say about our MSM Transition Buddy Program, including Year 6 student Elise who is looking forward to the journey that awaits her as a Year 7 student of MSM in 2022.
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MSM Transition Buddy Program
Click the image below to learn more about this Program
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Coaching Buddy Program
Click the image below to learn more about this Program
Around the College
We hope that you enjoy our snapshot of life at MSM during Terms 3 and 4!
MSM Celebrates
In Term 4 we held our Annual MSM Celebrates - an evening that recognises the outstanding achievements and excellence of students from Years 7 - 12 in all facets of our College life including, academic, sporting, cultural and community action. The evening was a wonderful celebration with our students taking centre stage, leading the ceremony, receiving awards and demonstrating their talents with performances across the Arts.
MSM MusicFest 2 - Songs of Revolution
MusicFest2 “Songs of Revolution” concert delighted a live audience, showcasing Co-curricular music at MSM. Due to the concert date falling on Remembrance Day, students and staff wore a black and red colour-scheme, with commemorative poppies. The performance repertoire explored themes such as conflict, peace, people power, protest music, and the history of people bringing about political and social change. Congratulations to the students for their commitment and enthusiasm and thank you to Music Captain Isobel - compere extraordinaire. In the words of Karen Elliott, the Brisbane composer of “A Perfect World”, sung by Senior Vocal Ensemble, “In a perfect world, there is no war, … but until that day, we salute the brave who brought us peace on earth”.
Mary Aikenhead Day
During Term 3 we celebrated Mary Aikenhead Day. The central element of our celebration of our Foundress and our charism was our Mary Aikenhead Day Mass. There was unbounded joy in the Sophia Centre as we celebrated our faith and our membership of this community. We thank Fr Gerry Kalinowski for celebrating the Eucharist with us. 
Year 7 Japanese students in the Olympic Spirit
Our Year 7 Japanese class enjoyed learning about the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic mascots during the excitement of the Olympics. #Miraitowa is the blue mascot – mirai means “future” and towa means “eternity.” 
Amazing Student Achievements at QCMF
We Congratulated our MSM students who performed online for the Queensland Catholic Schools' and Colleges' Music Festival. Outstanding results were awarded with 5 Gold Awards to our College Choir, Year 7-8 Choir, Guitar Ensemble, Senior Vocal Ensemble and String Orchestra and 8 Silver Awards to Concert Band, Wind Chamber Ensemble, Intermediate Vocal Ensemble, Percussion Ensemble, Senior Percussion Ensemble, Senior Strings, String Ensemble and Brass Chamber Ensemble. Great work by all our wonderful music staff and students in maintaining their performance focus despite the lack of live audience and doing their best to represent the College in this online environment.
Year 7 Students Celebrated National Science Week
A week of science fun during National Science Week culminated with our Year 7 students performing the ’Big Watermelon Experiment’ determining how many rubber bands it takes to implode a watermelon. Before the experiment, students made predictions on the outcome based on scientific principles outlined in the learning material. The results were recorded, and it took 220 rubber bands to make this visually spectacular explosion. Well done, Year 7 science! 

Check out the Video footage - Click here
Sister Empowering Sisters Share the Dignity
Throughout August, Sisters Empowering Sisters collected period products for Share the Dignity. The annual Dignity Drives that Share the Dignity coordinates are a vital way for the charity to resource period products to distribute to the many people in Australia who are facing period poverty. Sisters Empowering Sisters members, as well as many of our Mt St Michael’s staff and students, showed their compassion, conscience and commitment by bringing in pads, tampons and liners to pass onto Share the Dignity. We hope our relationship with Share the Dignity can flourish and we can continue to support their mission of providing dignity to those who need it most.   
MSM Buddy Program
A key part of the formation for our junior and senior students, the MSM Buddy Program has been a highlight for Year 7 and 11 students this year. Through the program our Year 11 students have become leaders and role models and our Year 7 students confident of their place within the MSM community. After their initial meeting in Term 1 the buddies have developed strengthening relationships with each other through a range of activities, including end of term challenges, protecting the environment through the container for change scheme and enthusiastically participating in peer coaching. Term 4 brought more opportunities for the students to come together, support each other and see out the year. Our current Year 10 students are eagerly preparing and awaiting the chance to get to know their buddies for 2022!
Environment Group Award Winners
Environment Group Presidents Isabelle (2021) and Alice (2022) were honoured to represent MSM at the WasteSmart Brisbane awards ceremony at City Hall. MSM was selected as finalists in the School’s category in recognition of our successful Waste Hub program, launched in January 2021. Not only did the judging panel select us as winners of the school’s category, but we also won the People’s Choice award! The People’s Choice award considered all finalists from all categories, and was selected by public vote. The People’s Choice award is particularly meaningful for the Environment Group as it shows that the wider MSM community supports and appreciates the work we are doing to improve environmental sustainability at MSM. Thank you to everyone who voted and congratulations Environment Group!
CAN Markets - Supporting 'Days for Girls'
The College held its final CAN Market Day to raise funds in support of the work done by the non profit organisation “Days for Girls”.  A big thank you to all members of the five Community Action Network groups who participated in making and selling a wide variety of handmade goods. Well done to the Year 9 cohort who also sold soft drinks and chips on the day. It was a fabulous way to end the school year through selfless outreach to others.  
Make sure to check out our Instagram and Facebook social media accounts during the School Holidays for more fun and exciting news.
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MSM Experience - Stay connected with us!
We are so proud of our College. Enjoy this video bringing to life our vibrant campus. Hear from our College Principal, Ms Sharon Volp, our students and our Alumni and discover how we embrace our vision for the MSM graduate.
Mt St Michael’s College is pleased to bring to you the MSM Business Directory. Accessed through our website and APP, this online portal, profiles businesses and provides opportunities to connect with the wider MSM community to promote your services, sales and special offers. 

Many business owners profiled in the MSM Business Directory are long-term friends of the College. They include current and past parents, local businesses and alumni who, together show a commitment to Mt St Michael’s College and support for MSM events, fundraisers and initiatives. 

If you would like to be included in the online MSM Business Directory, simply email msmnews@msm.qld.edu.au. 

For more information please click here
Keep in Touch

Are you an Alumni of MSM with a daughter enrolled to attend the College? We’d love to hear from you. 

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Mt St Michael's College - MSM News

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