Welcome to Week 6. We formally farewelled the Year 12 Class of 2023 on Friday evening. The evening began with a beautiful mass celebrated by Father Jiss. The mass was filled with much symbolism, ranging from lanterns for each student to a liturgy of light, to a meaningful offertory procession, to mark this important occasion. The mass was organised by Mr Phil Mitchell and Mrs Mary Wright and Mrs Riordan organised the wonderful music. A big thank you to all those involved.

We then moved to the Young Services Club where each student was recognised by their House Leader and awards were presented as follows;

Students, parents, carers and staff then enjoyed dinner and dancing. The evening was truly a memorable one. A big thank you to Mrs McInerney, Mrs Hardy and Ms Inwood for their hard work in making this such a successful evening.

Some of the Class of 24 have already begun new jobs, apprenticeships or gap years while others anxiously await the HSC and ATAR results on December 14. Many of our students have been offered both conditional and unconditional early entry offers to a wide range of universities. We are very proud of this impressive group of young men and women!

We hosted Year 6 students on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Students from St Mary’s, Trinity, St Joseph’s Boorowa, Young Public, Young North, Murringo Public, Wallendbeen Public and Boorowa Central schools will make up the Year 7 2024 cohort of 71 students. They thoroughly enjoyed their two days at Hennessy, trying out a variety of subjects and new experiences and getting to know each other. They participated in their new House groups and with their new Peer Support Leaders.

Catholic Education has announced the following term dates for 2024 for Hennessy:

Term 1    First day for Years 7, 11 and 12 - Friday, Feb 2
               First day for Years 8, 9 and 10 - Monday, Feb 5

Term 2    Students return - Tuesday, April 30
               Last day for students - Thursday, July 4

Term 3    Students return - Tuesday, July 23
               Last day for students - Thursday, July 4

Term 4    Students return - Tuesday, October 15
               Last day for students - Wednesday, December 18

Details of 2024 school fees will be released via Compass tomorrow.

As we approach Christmas, please continue to pray for peace in our world.

YEAR 12 2023
Save the date: HSC results and ATARs are released on Thursday 14th December.
In keeping with tradition, we will have a morning tea on that day to celebrate with our HSC students.
HSC RESULTS - MORNING TEA ☕
TIME: 11:00am - 11:45am
DATE: Thursday 14 December
VENUE: Hospo Room

YEAR 12 2024
Our new Year 12 students are working hard and most subjects have their first assessment task due in the coming weeks before the end of term. It’s important students get into an effective study routine and allocate time to keep up with classwork as well as tackle assessment tasks. As students have study lessons they may not get as much class time as previous to work on assessments so should be using studies wisely and use your time effectively.

NSW Virtual Learning Collaborative
Link to 2024 Handbook

I have attached a link to the 2024 virtual learning handbook again in case people missed it last newsletter. Virtual learning is a new initiative from the Canberra / Goulburn diocese. It allows students who do not get the subject they want for year 11 and 12 to enrol externally and be taught online. Look through the handbook and If anyone needs more information you can contact me at the College.

Andrew Morton
Assistant Principal - Teaching and Learning

Term 4 is an exciting time as we draw closer to the big summer holidays that await in a few weeks. It is an important time to remember that high expectations remain for both academic, social and personal standards and this should be reflected in our application in class, our positive communication with each other and our respect for our environment.

Over the last fortnight we have seen so many activities that our students have had the opportunity to be involved in. A very big congratulations to the Student Leadership Team and Mrs McInerney who ran the Melbourne Cup events fundraising for the St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal.

As a Catholic school we are required to support the mission of the church through various fundraisers. In Term 1, our focus is Caritas and particularly Project Compassion, Term 2 is the St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal, Term 3 is Catholic Mission through Soctober and Term 4 is the St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal.

These initiatives are important parts of who we are as a College and encourage our students to participate in active contribution to the world that we live in.

There are only a few more weeks for our students to achieve Awards for the House system for the 2023 year. Students are encouraged to participate in our mission statement of Learn Dynamically, Live Spiritually and Act Justly. Students are allocated points for achieving to a high level in these domains, and with certain levels can achieve House Awards, Bronze Awards, Silver Awards and Gold Awards. In particular we have many students who are only a few points away from receiving a Silver Award which includes a canteen voucher.

On Tuesday next week the Year 9 and 10 students will be joining with St Mary’s Primary school to celebrate Presentation Sisters Mass. Both of our schools recognise Venerable Nano Nagle as our charism and honour her life and commitment to improving educational outcomes for those in need as a high priority in our College community.

Welcome back to the 2024 Leadership Team’s third instalment of the Leaders Lounge. This week’s edition will be brought to you by the McAuley House Leaders, Sarah and Oli. 

We are already half way through the final term of 2023 and Hennessy has already had such a busy 6 weeks! To start off, Hennessy joined St Mary’s church in helping celebrate our Parish Mass, which gave students the opportunity to get involved within the wider community, as well as connecting them to their spiritual faith. Several students offered their time to help with either the music, altar serving, reading or just coming down to help support - Mrs Wright and parishioners all greatly appreciated the effort and congratulate the students!

Next was Hennessy's Melbourne Cup Day! Everyone looked fantastic in their ‘Movie’ inspired costumes - special shout out to all that received ‘Fashions on the Field’ awards and we have to say, this year was one of the best years of student participation - so congratulations to all that dressed up! During the breaks, our food/drink stalls were also very successful - with McAuley’s chocolate coated strawberries being the biggest hit of the day! And lastly, we finished the day off with our minute-to-win-it activities and viewing of the Melbourne Cup race. 

Friday, Week 5 was definitely a big day for everyone at Hennessy as both the Cootamundra touch, Remembrance Day liturgy and Graduation Mass all happened on the same day! Despite the heat, Hennessy had over 100 students attend the Coota touch (over one third of the school!) - ranging across all year levels. 

Also, a special thank you to Mr Mitchell, the cadets and all those who were involved who put together such a beautiful liturgy in commemoration of Remembrance Day!

We also said farewell to the graduating class of 2023 at the Graduation Mass! Thank you to everyone who was involved and who made this day so special for the Year 12’s. Congratulations to all and we wish you the best for your future! Throughout Week 6, Hennessy also had another busy week in ‘spreading the wings’ of our new Year 7 students who are joining us in 2024. Hennessy and our Leadership team organised the Orientation Day for current Year 6 students - where they enjoyed a two day experience at our school, experiencing activities such as agriculture, virtual reality, sport, music and much more!

We encourage everyone to keep getting involved during PC and House events and as for our fellow ‘McAuleans’, try your best to involve yourself through PC/House activities because we’ve still got quite a few points to catch up to our opponents, Nagle and Gallagher! Thank you to everyone who has contributed to all the events which Hennessy has held over this past term, keep up the great work!

Thank you for reading this week's edition of The Leaders Lounge!

Until next time,
Sarah McDonald and Oliver Baker
Mcauley House Captains

Congratulations to Elisabeth Hall who received a Gold Award at the Year 12 Graduation on Friday night. This award is the highest level of the College Awards Program and is presented to students who attain 50 or more house points and demonstrate all attributes of the College mission and vision to - “Live Spiritually, Learn Dynamically and Act Justly - Inspiring futures of hope”.  Elisabeth has displayed exceptional leadership skills, dedication to living spiritually and a willingness to go above and beyond in all aspects of the College. 

Congratulations to Emily Pratt for receiving a Silver Award, by attaining more than 30 House Points, with at least 3 in each area. Emily has consistently demonstrated her commitment to Act Justly by her involvement in events such as Dine and Donate, Parish Masses, College Liturgies and Masses and Open Day. Other highlights for Emily include outstanding participation in Swimming, Athletics and Netball, as well as volunteering to help out in various events, such as the Cambodia Immersion Program, Colour Run, Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea, Father’s Day BBQ, Netball umpiring and the Science and Engineering Challenge.

We're ecstatic to share the incredible success of Cafe Jerome's grand opening. Your overwhelming support truly made our day! We're grateful for everyone who joined us, making it not only memorable, but also a genuine learning experience for our hospitality students. 

We apologise to those who couldn't snag a spot, but fear not! Cafe Jerome will be back next Monday (week 7 and 9), ready to serve up another round of deliciousness. 

Want to secure your spot? Reserve your table for you and your friends via the Google Form on Compass and be part of our upcoming culinary experience which has taken inspiration from the traditional Aussie Smoko menu.

Thank you for making our opening day so special. We can't wait to welcome you back for more yummy treats!

This week was National Ag Week. To help mark the occasion Hennessy students and staff have been participating in Kahoots and guessing competitions online throughout the week.

Today during break time students participated in a Farmers Challenge and cherry seed spitting contest. 

As you can see a great time was had by all who entered!

A huge thank you to Delta Agribusiness, Nutrien Young, South West Tractors Young, Carruthers Machinery Co Young and BackCreek Orchards for their generous donations.

“Don’t leave 16 million tabs open!” Willem

“Close unused tabs to save memory” - Kirby

“Make sure your computer has shut down properly before putting it back in its case.” - Louis

“Use keyboard shortcuts such as ctrl/cmd+w or ctrl/cmd+t to close and open tabs” - kirby

“In Google Docs, you can use ctrl/cmd + shift + C to view the word count.” Willem

“Uninstall apps you don’t need.” - Louis

“If you smell or see smoke from the computer, step back and report it to a teacher.” - Louis

The Catholic Education Office are reclaiming all student (cgstudents) emails for system use for Apple ID.
If you use your school email for an Apple device, you will need to change this to a personal email address.
This would include Mac computers, iPads, iPhones, etc.
All cgstudents emails will stop working for Apple ID’s at the end of this term.
Please see below for further information.

Students do not need to take any action if their Apple ID is no longer required.

If the Apple ID is still used:
• Students will need to change their email address for their Apple ID. This can be any personal email address that has not previously been used for their Apple ID. Students can follow the guide from Apple available here: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202667
• The process will not result in any purchases or data being lost that is currently stored on the Apple ID.
• Students will receive an email notifying them that they need to change their Apple ID email address. If a student wishes to continue to use their Apple ID, then they should follow the instructions in the email. They will have 60 days from receiving the email to change their Apple ID email address.
• If a student does not change the email within 60 days, the account will be automatically renamed by Apple.
• If the renaming has been performed automatically, the student will be emailed describing opportunities to change their email and continue to use the account.