Welcome to Term 4. It is a delight to have the girls back on campus ready to embrace all that this final term will offer. I trust that students had time to relax and enjoy a different pace of life over the holidays, albeit a number of our Year 12 students were undertaking their mock examinations. I wish everyone a wonderful term and look forward to seeing the fruits of the girls’ efforts as the teachers and students bring the year of learning and growth to a close.
Thank you for your support of Mercy Day on the last day of Term 3. We raised over $21,000 for Mercy Works. It was a high-spirited, fun and community day of prayer, celebration, participation and farewell to our Year 12 students. Watch the video here to experience the sense of success and palpable sisterhood present on day.
Staffing News
Our new Head of Year 7 from 2025 will be Mrs Amy Webb. Mrs Webb will be joining our community from Lasalle College, where she has spent the last six years in pastoral care leadership and student leadership development prior to this. Mrs Webb’s passion is student relationships and wellbeing, and her teaching background is in The Arts and English. Congratulations to Mrs Webb, we look forward to welcoming you into our Mercedes community.
The College opened a recruitment drive for two additional middle leadership positions for next year in Staff Professional Growth and Student Leadership Development. I am pleased to share that Mr Jamie Clark will be joining our community as the Head of Professional Growth from 2025. Mr Clark is a learning and innovation leader and English teacher and has vast experience in evidence-based teaching practice, learning technologies, innovation, and digital integration. Mr Clark is the author of Teaching One Pagers: Evidence-informed summaries for busy educational professionals and is looking forward to working with our Deputy Principal Teaching and Learning and alongside our wonderful staff on their individual and collective pursuits for continuous improvement in our craft.
We identified targeted, sequenced, and strategic student leadership development as an area for growth in our community. It gives me great pleasure to inform you that Mrs Liz Morgan will be stepping into the Student Leadership Coordinator Year 7 to 12 role from 2025. Mrs Morgan plans to inspire and teach the students how to grow in their leadership skills individually in the early years, within our community collectively in the middle years, so that they can effectively co-lead in a networked manner in their senior years and beyond, in line with our vision for our girls: Aspire. Excel. Lead. We are looking forward to Mrs Morgan joining the Pastoral Team from 2025, and working closely with our Heads of Year and the Deputy Principal Pastoral Care.
Congratulations to Mrs Penny Power who will be taking on the House Teacher Leader role for the McAuley House next year as Mrs Patterson moves on from the community, and to Miss Gemma Sharp who will take up House Teacher Leader for McDonald House as Mrs Morgan takes up her new role in student leadership development. Mrs Nat Munro will move into the Sports Coordinator position in 2025 as Mr Brock Fleay returns to his substantive position of Serisier House Teacher Leader.
Next year, we will be welcoming additional Science Teachers Mr Michael Leaning and Miss Amy Gubbins, and Mathematics teacher Mr Justin Pavlinovich into our community. Ms Joanna Kagi will be leaving the community to pursue new opportunities in 2025. We thank Ms Kagi for her significant contributions to this community and we will be able to celebrate her at the farewell at the end of this year.
Prof. Carmelina Grassi came to see me yesterday and has decided that it is time to retire from teaching at the end of this year. We will be able to celebrate Prof. Grassi’s contributions to the community later this year.
Our Marketing Coordinator Ms Lisa Rossi will be moving on at the end of the year to pursue her passion in fundraising and advocacy. Ms Rossi has made a significant contribution to this community over her 2 years in the role and as an Alumni of the College, she will stay connected as an integral member of the Alumni Association. Congratulations our Marketing Officer Ms Emma Hart, who has been promoted to our Head of Marketing and Communications role from 2025. You can see aspects of Ms Hart’s work over the last year through her creativity on our socials. We are excited for this new chapter. The Director of Community Engagement (advertised this week) will join Ms Hart in Marketing and Mrs Kirk in Enrolments to form our Advancement Team.
Congratulations to Mrs Esmari Marais who has accepted the role of Risk and Compliance Officer at the College. Mrs Marais has vast experience in policy harmonising, risk and compliance, managing code of conduct disputes, corporate services, work health and safety and human resources functions. Mrs Marais will be joining the community in November from the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science, and Innovation, and will form our People and Culture Team, alongside Ms Joleen Asquith in Human Resources.
Dr Lucie McCrory
PRINCIPAL
Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD)
All Australian governments implement an annual national data collection on school students with disability. This data collection does not apply just to students with an identified disability, but for all students in the College community that receive learning adjustments. Please click here for detailed information on NCCD.
Parent Code of Conduct
Our Parent Code of Conduct helps us identify how we interact and engage in partnership whilst keeping the best interests of students at the centre of our decision-making and care. Details of which can be found by clicking HERE.
