Term 3 - Week 1 - 25 July 2025

Dear Parents and Carers, Staff and Students,

Welcome back to Term 3! Our first newsletter for the term is full of information. I encourage you to read through the various sections of the newsletter to stay updated and involved in the College.

Senior Students' New Zealand Snow Trip

I had the privilege of attending this year's Snow trip to New Zealand with 40 senior students and 4 staff in the second week of the school holidays. Congratulations to all students on their behaviour and effort made across so many areas. A highlight of the trip was to see the development of skills, perseverance, resilience when days were tough (especially at the beginning of the week) and success. Thank you to James Hand, Damian Humphries, Stuart Tait and Nikita Robinson who gave up time with their families to make this trip successful.

Staff Development Day - 15th August - Postponed

Unfortunately, due to a clash of dates the Staff Development Day scheduled for August 15th has had to be postponed. A new date is being determined and will be communicated to you as soon as possible. Therefore, Friday, August 15th, will be a regular school day. Please note that Monday, 18 August, will proceed as planned as a pupil-free day to allow for staff professional development. We appreciate your understanding and continued support.

Years 7 - 11 Parent Teacher Student Interviews - Tuesday 5th August 

Our Parent Teacher interviews will be held in the College Hall between 3:40 and 7:00 pm. Thank you to all parents who have already made interview bookings via the COMPASS online booking system. If you require assistance, please call the College office. Here are some suggestions for questions you could ask your child’s teacher, and these will also be available on the night:

• What is my child learning?
• How is she or he doing?
• How do you know how he or she is doing?
• How can she or he improve?
• What supports can I provide and can you provide if she or he is struggling? When can we check in again?

(Clarity - What Matters Most in Learning, Teaching, and Leading by Lyn Sharratt, 2019)

Semester 1 Awards at Week 2 Assembly - Thursday 31st July at 12:15 pm

At our Week 2 Assembly, we will acknowledge students in Years 7 - 11 who achieved at an outstanding level across the College's Expectations and academically. Parents and carers of students receiving a certificate have been invited to attend this event, and we look forward to having you here for the Assembly and special morning tea. 

Uniform - Transition to the new uniform ends this year.

The two year transition period for the new uniform will come to an end this year. This means that all students are to be wearing the new uniform in 2026. Many families have moved to the new uniform items, so this is just a timely reminder to help families prepare for this change, and as such, to order their uniform items over the next semester.  

Trial HSC Exams - Weeks 3 & 4

Finally, I wish all our Year 12 students the very best in their Trial HSC exams, which will be conducted over Weeks 3 and 4. It is important that Year 12 students use these assessments to help them prepare for their HSC and complete the school assessment process.

All the best for the fortnight ahead.

Kate

Kate Thomson
Principal

“We should be shining lamps, giving light to all around us.”

Catherine McAuley

Literacy Resources Launch at McAuley Catholic College

At McAuley Catholic College, we recognise literacy's critical role in student success across all subjects. To support this, we have developed a suite of literacy resources for our Stage 4 students (Years 7 and 8). These resources focus on boosting vocabulary, reading fluency, phonological awareness, and writing skills.

This initiative reflects our whole-school commitment to developing strong reading and writing abilities as essential academic and vocational achievement foundations. Our teachers will also use the resource to support reading and writing within lessons across all Key Learning Areas, and we hope that parents will use the resource to help their children's written communication and reading comprehension. Students are encouraged to produce neat, well-organised work with correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. We expect them to draft, edit, and seek feedback to improve their writing.

In Semester 2, all formal written assessments in Years 7 and 8 will have sentence-level punctuation as a part of the marking criteria to support a consistent approach to these punctuation expectations. We will be guiding students to work on the following areas:  

• Capital letters and full stops
• Simple punctuation such as commas, question marks, and exclamation marks
• Capital letters for proper nouns

We invite parents to download the resources (hard copies will be available at the Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences; if you cannot attend and would like a hard copy, please email the school). The Literacy Coach, Librarian, and Assistant Principal Learning and Teaching will also be available at the Conferences to answer any questions.

Together, we are building confident, capable communicators ready to succeed in every area of learning.

The Trial HSC exams will take place from Monday, August 4th, to Friday, August 15th. These exams play a vital role in preparing Year 12 students for their final HSC, offering a realistic experience of the exam conditions and an opportunity to identify areas for further improvement.

By now, our Year 12 students should be actively preparing, including organising comprehensive study notes, reviewing past assessments to pinpoint where their marks can be improved, and revisiting previous tasks with feedback. Completing past exam papers and seeking teacher input is a highly effective way to enhance exam readiness. Students must manage their study time effectively to ensure they are well-prepared for the Trial HSC and the final HSC exams.

We sincerely thank our Curriculum Coordinator, Mrs Lee, for her dedication to communicating detailed exam information to parents and students. Mrs Lee has also met with students to clearly outline exam expectations and the support available, including the extended library hours organised in collaboration with Mrs Gleeson and Mrs Nicholls. These provide students with additional study opportunities during this critical period.

NESA has released the HSC Study Guide, which is online now and packed with everything HSC students need to kick their exam goals! There’s also practical mental health and wellbeing advice from the experts at ReachOut – with tailored tips for parents and carers on supporting their children in the lead up to exams.

While the focused study is critical, we also encourage students to maintain a healthy balance by taking breaks, spending quality time with family, and engaging in activities that help them relax and recharge. This balance is key to sustaining motivation and well-being throughout the exam season.

7-11 Parent-Teacher-Student Conference (Interviews)

Remember that the conferences are scheduled for Tuesday, August 5th. If parents cannot secure an appointment but want to speak to their child's subject teacher, please contact the school for a phone conference.

Year 10 News – Future Pathways

Our Year 10 students preparing for the 2027 HSC at McAuley have been actively engaged in their future subject planning. Last term, many parents attended the Curriculum Evening, where they received valuable information about the subjects available to their children. Following this, students were allowed to select their preferred subjects by the end of Week 1 this term. The school is reviewing these selections and creating subject lines based on what can be offered and will publish the 2027 HSC lines before the Future Pathways meeting.  

Year 10 students and their parents are asked to save the date for Tuesday, 12th August, when meetings will be held to discuss study patterns and post-school pathways. These meetings will provide an excellent opportunity for parents, students, and senior staff members to collaborate on course choices and future options. Further details regarding these essential meetings will be given to families at the start of Week 3.

Grin & Tonic

Our English classes have recently enjoyed live performances by "Grin & Tonic", a theatre troupe well respected for its high standard of work in the education system throughout Australia and Asia.  Performances included Romeo & Juliet, Othello and Macbeth.

Year 7 Food Technology

Year 7 created these amazing taco burgers this week .... Yummmmm!  Can you find your child's creation??

Write a Book in a Day

Australia has a unique writing competition and McAuley Catholic College is joining in.

For the second year, the school is joining in the Write a Book in a Day competition, and students from all years are invited to participate.

The competition will be held on Wednesday, September 3rd, and while the competition allows students to participate for a full 12 hours, we will be running the competition from 9am - 6pm in the Library.

The day is a lot of fun! Students work together in teams with at least five students and cooperate to brainstorm ideas, write an engaging and often hilarious children’s story, and create a series of pictures to illustrate the main ideas. Students with multiple talents are encouraged to join the creative teams to complete the book while the clock keeps ticking. Each completed book will be given to a child undergoing cancer treatment.

In 2024, the school had six teams participate in the competition, and the numbers for 2025 look equally promising. 

The Write a Book in a Day competition is a fundraiser for the Kids’ Cancer Project. All funds raised will go towards research to help get students out of hospital and back in the classroom sooner.

For more information, go to the Write a Book in a Day website or watch the video Write a Book in a Day.

Meanwhile, watch out for more activities coming soon to the Library, including Book Week (see below) and a visit from YA author Hayley Lawrence.

Librarian & History Teacher

The world of Careers has been busy as usual. Here is a rundown of what is happening.

Year 11 

Year 11 will be attending a post careers workshop in Week 2 which will be at the Coffs Harbour Education Campus. This is an excellent opportunity for students to research career pathways and make contacts for work opportunities.

The exhibition has over fifty presenters and includes presentations from a plethora of universities including: The University of Sydney, University of Queensland, University of Canberra, University of Tasmania, University of Newcastle, University of New England, Griffith University and Southern Cross University. There are a whole host of TAFE courses, businesses and industries present as well including: Essential Energy, the Coffs Harbour Bypass, Serco, Costa and Faircloth & Reynolds.

The students will spend the morning researching different career opportunities at the various presentation stands and will be able to talk directly to the presenters to find out key facts and requisites for career choices. They can access information about courses, apprenticeships, job opportunities and scholarships. 

Some Year 12 students will also be attending this event.

Year 12

Many of the students are finalising their university applications. Some early entry  offer university dates for the first round of offers have already elapsed. However,  for  the University of Newcastle the date is 29th August and for Southern Cross University the date is 30th September. For the University Admissions Centre (UAC) the forms must be submitted by 5th September. All students should apply for the schools recommendation scheme.

UAC INFORMATION TALK - unpacking the university admissions process 

The University Admissions Centre (UAC) will be presenting an online information session at the College on Tuesday, 19th August. Representatives from the centre will be there to give key pieces of information or respond to questions from students or any interested staff. This is mainly aimed at Year 12 but any interested Year 11 students may attend too.  This will be for 40 minutes at lunchtime.

Year 10 and 11

Unserious Careers Roadshow - Presenter  Alana Killmartin 

Alana Killmartin will be presenting a careers talk for Years 10 and 11. She is touring Australia and presenting an engaging perspective on career mapping. The topics she will cover include: 

• Removing the pressure to figure out your entire career by the time you leave school. 
• Why you can't fail at your career in the first five years (aka the Casual Jog Years).
• Building a strong Career Support Team.
• Everyone has at least one Career Superpower: which one is yours?
• Your career is only one part of your life. What other goals would you like to kick after school?

Year 10 Work Experience

All students should be organising a place to complete work experience work for Term 4, Week 8 (1st-5th December). This is a great opportunity to experience the real world and test different career options or working environments. All students are completing a short course to prepare for work experience in class. There will be a lot of  preparation and paperwork required for this process and this will take a period of time to get organised.

All of the required documentation can be found on the Career Tools website which the students have access to but I am putting screenshots of this below.

STAGES FOR WORK EXPERIENCE

STAGE 1 - Students complete a work readiness course in class.

The first stage is to find an employer and get them to fill out the first piece of paperwork which is basically listing the business on paper for the school. This initial letter should be returned by Week 4 of this term.

Here is the application form, which students must return to the Office and put in the box at the Office.

STAGE 2

A. In this stage the students will have more paperwork to return by Week 7 of this term. This paperwork is more detailed and requires parents and the host workplace to sign.

Return this paperwork to the Office and put this in the box at the Office.

B. They will issue the workplace with the information for employers documents, found on Career Tools website - see below.

C. The school will check all of the paperwork.

STAGE 3

A. Contact the workplace two weeks before placement to check that everything is finalised.Issue the workplace journal to the employer

B. Final check with the school that everything is organised.

STAGE 4

Attend work experience and fill out the workplace journal with the employer each day. A school representative will check in with the employer and student early in their work placement. If there are any concerns contact me immediately.

STAGE 5

Return to school, reflect on the experience and fill out the evaluation documentation, send a thank you letter to the employee, add the work experience to their resume.

Below is a screen shot showing where to find all of the paperwork on the Compass website.

Working with animals as a part of your work experience or moving interstate or away from home for your work experience? 

Those who are involved in either of the above need to fill out extra paperwork which must be signed by the Principal. Attached are these forms.

Finally, this is obviously quite an involved process but it is very worthwhile. Please contact me for any help with this.

Mrs Maria Rouse

Careers

During the recent school holidays, a group of 40 students from Year 11 and 12, along with 5 teachers, made their way to New Zealand for the school ski trip. We landed in Christchurch at the bright and early time of 12:00 am on Sunday morning, before making our way by bus for the next hour to the small but cozy town of Methven.

During this week, we experienced a wide variety of activities, including the Discovery Jet Boat (which took us through the Rakaia Gorge), the town of Methven, and Christchurch. We also explored the different types of shops in New Zealand compared to those in Australia, and, of course, the highlight of the trip was Mt. Hutt. 

Waking up every morning at 6:30 am for a 7:30 am leave, we spent five consecutive days up on the mountain, skiing or snowboarding, in a 2-hour lesson and free time. For some, the lesson helped them and utilised the experience they were gaining, and for others, they found the lesson as a nuisance and chose to do their own thing. But all was well as every single person gave it their best shot, some picking it up fast, others not so fast, and deciding to swap to the other choice to see if it worked better for them. But by the end of the trip, everyone had gone down at least one green run and could say that they thoroughly enjoyed it. Some even had enough guts to brace a black run (a really hard one) and props to them - Mr Hand, Grace Stackman, Ash Zimmerman, and even Will Tait, who had never boarded in his life before this trip!

By the end of the week, and for some it was the middle, there were bruises in every place, places that you didn’t think could be sore, were sore. But it was overall 100% worth it, and some have gained some interest in doing some snow season work after leaving school. 

The biggest congratulations and thanks to the teachers who made this trip possible, especially Mr Hand and Mr Humphries, but also Mr Tait, Mrs Robinson and of course KT (Ms Thomson). These amazing teachers ensured that we students had a great time and definitely made this trip one to remember and cherish for long after we leave. 

Last but not least, just one more celebration! While over in NZ, we were extremely lucky to celebrate two birthdays, Mr Hand and Lucie Holt, so Happy Birthday to them!

Thank you!

Contributed by Alicia Boehme, Ruby Iredale and Amelia Fels (Year 12)

Book here via Eventbrite.