Hennessy Catholic College - Young eNewsletter

Welcome to Week 4. There has been a real sense of positivity influenced by the lovely autumn weather we have been experiencing. This was very evident at our athletics carnival last Friday held at Gus Smith. Students were very well behaved and there was one of the highest levels of participation on record - well done to all, especially Mr Croese and his team for organising this excellent event.

Each student at Hennessy has the opportunity for a retreat experience to assist them in developing their faith and spirituality. Yesterday it was Year 9’s turn to attend a retreat run by the Canberra Youth Ministry team. Students in Year 10 are given the option to be part of the Catholic Schools Youth Ministry program as part of their Religious Education studies. We have 20 Year 10 students doing this training. Last Monday they trained in how to run a student retreat and on Thursday practised their new skills by presenting a retreat to student from St Mary’s Young and St Joseph’s Grenfell. A big acknowledgment to those Year 10 students who are so actively living out their faith and also to Mrs Wright and Miss Buchanan for their hard work in organising this program.

Last Thursday we celebrated our mothers, grandmothers and mother figures at the 8:00 am mass and a breakfast barbeque. It is so good to be able to invite visitors back into our community, post Covid regulations, and the high attendance at this event was a very positive sign. We plan to do similar events for Father’s Day and Gandparent’s Day so watch this space for more details.

Yesterday was Hennessy Day where we recognise the College’s namesake, Monsignor Jerome Hennessy. Monsignor Hennessy is a wonderful role model for everyone because of his generosity and humility - he was a man who truly ‘walked the walk as well as talking the talk’. Each House organised stalls, all students attended a liturgy, and PC competitions occurred throughout the afternoon. It was great to see students (and teachers) so competitive and enthusiastic in trying to win the PC prizes!

The College is currently advertising for two staff positions - Principal’s Assistant (full-time/permanent) and Classroom Support Assistant (full-time/temporary). If you or anyone you know is interested in these positions please go to the Catholic Education Employment site https://careers.cg.catholic.edu.au/cw/en/listing/ or contact me for further details kathy.holding@cg.catholic.edu.au .

Walking Together in 2023

Kathy Holding
Principal

Year 10

Students will be completing their HSC Minimum Standards testing over the next few weeks. Students need reading, writing and numeracy for everyday life after school. This is why students in NSW are being supported to meet a minimum standard of literacy and numeracy to receive the HSC. To show they meet the HSC minimum standard, students need to achieve Level 3 or 4 in short online reading, writing and numeracy tests of skills for everyday life. If students do not make the minimum standard in any of the tests they will be given more opportunities to take the tests and any support needed to ensure success.

Year 12

The Trial HSC Timetable will be available Thursday this week - these exams will be in Weeks 4 and 5 of Term 3. Students will only be required to be at school for their examinations but may access the library at other times.

In these busy times students need to ensure that they are looking after their wellbeing. Some advice is:

Take the time to plan - this is really important if students have outside commitments that are causing additional time constraints
Look after yourself - build in some downtime and ensure you’re not hungry when studying
Rest when you need to - don’t study more than 40-50 minutes with a short break and try and get plenty of sleep
Stay focussed - it’s OK to say no to social events if you are studying - many more will come along. Turn off distractions too.
Ask for help - do this earlier rather than later - contact your teacher if you need some assistance
Be prepared - rehearse the conditions of the task such as practising writing out answers (if an exam) or practice speeches in front of a mirror.

Remember your classroom teacher is the first and best point of contact for any questions or issues you may have with your subjects

Andrew Morton
Assistant Principal - Teaching and Learning

It has been an amazing two weeks at Hennessy with so many ways to celebrate our families, students and teachers in our community.

Last week we celebrated a beautiful mass for our Mother’s, Grandmother’s, Aunts, and special ladies in our community. We feel so blessed to be able to celebrate with everyone and to recognise the inspirational women in our lives. We are looking forward to celebrating in a similar way for Father’s Day and Grandparent’s day.

Our Year 10 students have had the opportunity to put their CSYMA training in action running the Journey with Jesus Retreat with the Year 5 students from Grenfell and the Year 6 students from St Mary’s. We love having our Catholic feeder schools with us for days that are so important for their spiritual development as well as our own. This week our Year 9 cohort also experienced the Catch the Wave Retreat and now have the opportunity to be a part of the CSYMA team for the remainder of the year.

Next weekend is the Hennessy hosted Parish mass followed by the first Parish Youth Group of the Year. It would be wonderful to see as many students and their families joining with us to celebrate. Afterwards, Youth Group will be held in the Hennessy Hall where we will play games and share Pizza together. Please feel free to join with us and RSVP for youth group here https://forms.gle/sybdCnm3MaJ15PnR7

Our year Level Captains have been busy preparing for our first Year level Student Wellbeing Sessions for the year. The Year Level Captains meet three times a term to discuss issues and activities for their Year Level. This term they will lead the Year Level Assembly in Week 5 as a starting point.

Our next big event for the term in the Pastoral Care Program is the Cyber Safety Project. Students from Years 7 to 11 will participate in a one hour session with the Cyber Safety Project on appropriate use of the internet and technology. Parents are also invited to attend the parent session on the 20th of June from 6.30 to 7.30pm at the College. We encourage all parents to join with us to be aware of the trends and the education to walk with their children in navigating the digital world. A light supper will be provided. Please contact the front office to RSVP.

Mary Wright

Assistant Principal - Mission & Ministry

Welcome back to the Leaders Lounge! Hope you are all settling well into the term and balancing life with school back on. Quite a few events have already passed this term and the Leadership Team couldn’t be happier with the student participation and school spirit.

The College’s Athletics Carnival was held last Friday and we were thrilled with the outcome! Most students, no matter what house, participated in various events and high spirits were all around. Students were positively encouraging others and prompting people to get involved to support their house and get points. The highlight as always was the house rivalry with the result from the day still to come.

The Mother’s Day Mass took place last week celebrating the hardworking and loving mothers, nans, aunts of the community. A lovely breakfast was supplied as well as flowers provided by Billie-Lou Floral Studio. We thank all the beautiful, tough and amazing mothers of the Hennessy community that came early for this special celebration.

Hennessy Day was held yesterday. The theme was to dress up as something that starts with the first letter of your name! Students were creative and had fun as the Year 12 cohort and the Leadership team prepared some great PC games. There was also lolly, BBQ, drink and activity stalls

To support the project of building two houses in Cambodia, the students part of the immersion program put on a Movie Night at the Cinema last Thursday 11th of May. Thank you to all who came in support of the students' efforts. Look out for more fundraising opportunities provided by the Cambodia programme. Currently there are Wood Raffle tickets being sold by students, don’t miss out!

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

Have a great week and stay positive,

Lily Boda
Rice Vice House Captain

Yr 7.2 are studying Forces at the moment. They are looking into balanced and unbalanced forces and what results in an object staying still or moving. Here they had to work out how to balance a falling robot on their finger using x2 5 cent pieces. If they put these pieces at the bottom of the robots arms the robot would balance. If anywhere else the robot would fall.

From Februrary this year, students have been competing in the first Hennessy Chess Championship since 2017.

After 5 highly competitive rounds, Year 12's Ryan Blake won the intense Grand Final to take out the Championship!

A massive congratulations to Ryan and all competitors!!

Jorja O'Brien
College Chess Captain

Term Two has got off to a flying start with so many activities and house points on offer. Students have gained points from a variety of areas such as involvement in CSYMA leadership, attending the Mothers Day Mass, refereeing at the soccer gala day, application in class, colour run participation as well as many more activities. Over one-hundred HOUSE AWARDS have been issued over the past two weeks for Living Spiritually, Learning Dynamically and Acting Justly. Also, over the past two weeks, Bronze Awards have been earned by Olivia Wark, Izabelle Cartwright, Emily Pratt, Azalea Sullivan, Esnia Brits, Sybella Murphy, Joshua Cameron, Hugo Davidson and Isabella Harrison. Nagle House have held onto their lead in the House Cup, although with the Cross Country and Athletics Carnival results yet to be announced and over six weeks of this term remaining, the Term Two House Cup is still within reach for all Houses.

On Tuesday Hennessy had 5 teams participate in the annual Canberra Goulburn Soccer Gala day held in Canberra. All teams had fun and displayed great enthusisasm. The Junior boys just missed out on taking out the 7 to 10 boys trophy going down in a penalty shoot out, while the open girls were runner up on a countback to Lumen Christi. Well done to all teams.

Recently we have had some Hennessy studnet competing at the Snowy Mountains Interschools Equestrian Competition (SMIEC). Congratulations to Sarah Miller, Ella Powderly and Pheobe Apps for amazing results and sportsmanship.

Congratulations also to Ava Sabidussi who competed at the Equestrian NSW State Interschool Championships held at the Sydney International Equestrian Centre, Horsley Park. Ava represented the College with her horse Marbuck Tuqiriand and had impressive results securing 3 places in different events and 5th place overall in the Intermediate Championship.